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I rolled my eyes. “You wish, asshole. Let’s make this quick, Gogs. My queen promised to blast me to queendom come once I finish you off.”

His face twisted into a vicious scowl. He cocked the staff higher, letting me see the business end of the mace. Weighted with iron spikes, it’d do some damage. If I was stupid enough to stand in one spot and let him hit me with it. He lumbered straight at me. No subterfuge. No tactics. Just slow, dumb advance. His face screwed tighter with effort, and he began to swing the mace at my head.

I stepped aside and smoothly brought my sword down on his right arm. Cleaving his arm at the elbow. It took him a full three steps to realize he no longer had his arm or his weapon. He stared at the bloody floor for a moment.

I could only laugh. “Gogs, you’re thinking so hard I see smoke coming out of your ears. What’re you going to do now?”

With a stoic shrug, he stooped down and picked up the mace with his other hand. But before he could straighten, I hacked that arm off too. “Damn, Gogs. You’re shit out of luck now.”

“I shift. Bring roof down. Kill little woman with stones.”

I pretended to go along with his ponderous train of thought. “But won’t that kill your queen too?”

He frowned, turning to look at his queen.

“Do something,” Lisa retorted, her cheeks beet red. “Shift if you must. I’d rather die in the rubble than let those fucking animals tear me apart.”

Closing his eyes, he tipped his head back. His skin rippled. Muscles swelled. Bones cracked. And he started to grow.

Oh fuck. Maybe he would be big enough to do some damage to the roof. I wasn’t going to wait to find out. I darted forward and leaped into the air, letting Smoak burn just enough to soar up to the growing giant’s shoulders so I could swipe both swords at his thickening neck. Letting them act as giant scissors to take his head. I landed lightly and swirled back to face him, swords ready in case he had some last-ditch surprise boobytrap.

His headless body stood like a giant tree, fountaining blood all over the ceiling and floor. I looked for his head, and found him staring at me, eyes open, mouth moving. Still trying to talk.

I’d seen enough of Guillaume’s shenanigans to not fuck around even with a headless corpse. “Yo, sphinxes, clean up on aisle three.”

Another one of Lisa’s Blood charged at me, swinging his sword. Faster than the alpha, for sure, but no match for my speed. I burned a dancing path of death through her guards. Surrounding her with bodies. While she stood there crying, furious but also terrified. A trickle of blood at her lip warned me she’d tapped her power. Though what she hoped to do against Shara fucking Isador, I had no idea.

Gina called out, “Let it be noted for the Triune courts that House Isador’s champion, Vivian Helios Isador, is victorious against House Adrienne’s formal challenge. You may proceed with final judgment, Vivian.”

I raised my right hand, and Lisa shoved power at me, countering my blade with a glowing white spear of magic. Though it cost her. Sweat glistened on her forehead, and blood dripped down her chin. Her arm wavered, her strength fading quickly.

Because my left-hand sword was buried in her abdomen. I withdrew both swords and she staggered though didn’t fall to the floor. It wasn’t a killing blow. Not for a queen.

“I think I’ll let the fucking animals finish you off.”

“No,” she gasped. “Please.”

I turned my back on her. “Have fun, Isesi.”

I honestly wasn’t sure which sphinx pounced past me to tackle the shrieking queen to the floor. I didn’t fucking care. I wiped my blades on my pants and sheathed them as I strode back to my queen. Smoak throbbed around me, a burning need that could never be quenched. I threw myself on my knees at Shara’s feet, and she jammed those glorious fangs into my throat.

Shuddering, I came in a burst of sparks and smoke. I made sure to be loud, groaning and arching against her. Clutching her close while she drank. And drank. And drank. Pulling me down into a hazy post-coital bliss that left my head on her lap. Her hands in my hair. While I nuzzled my face against her abdomen, wishing I could taste her through the long white skirt.

In her velvety, husky voice, Shara asked, “Who’s next, Harvey?”

21

SHARA

As we worked through to the smaller houses, more of the queens were innocent. Their “insignificant” houses hadn’t been important enough for Rosalind or the Dauphine to pull into their schemes. I drank deeply through ten queens in a row, making them siblings to stand with Sorcha. None of them pinged in my head as anything special or remarkable.

Until Harvey called out, “Mairead Beira, daughter of the Cailleach.”

Dressed in a simple, unadorned black dress like something from the Victorian era, Mairead looked like a prim-and-proper governess with her dark hair slicked back from her face in a tight bun. But she moved with a ballerina’s innate grace, her slender neck, arms and limbs flowing like a swan.

“Your Majesty.” She curtsied at the edge of the dais, elegant and confident. She met my gaze evenly, because she had nothing to hide. Nothing to fear. Though I didn’t miss the furtive glance she cast to my left where the other Parisian queens stood. “I am honored to swear to House Isador.”

I held out my non-bleeding hand, and she slipped her fingers into mine, stepping up onto the dais and then gliding down to her knees. I pressed my lips to the small cut Daire made on her throat, and the first taste of winter filled my mouth. Crystals of snow and ice, fresh, spotless white. So cold and pure it made me shiver with delight.