Page 22 of Bitten By Chaos

I felt the queen step close behind me but didn’t dare take my eyes off the danger in front.

“Yet, I can see the blue of your psychic abilitites shining through your cold dead body. That’s all I really care about.”

“If you try to take me, you’ll end up as dead as Sirena,” I ground out from behind my extended fangs. Sirena was the other female board member who’d attacked me during the battle of the base. Julian had ripped her heart out.

Now I could do the same.

“If you touch my servant, I will rip the soul from your body and feed it to the goblins,” the queen said suddenly, stepping to my side. “She is mine now, Daria.”

I didn’t know whether it was more shocking that she knew the demon’s name or that Daria’s eyes widened in fear as she took a step back, the blue flames around us dying out.

We all stayed still for another minute, Daria clearly weighing her options as she eyed the queen. Finally, the demon sneered and dropped her arms to her sides.

“You will not stop us from accessing the fruits of our own labor,” she promised as she backed into the brush. “We will have another opportunity, and we will take it. You won’t be able to win when Grival is beside me.”

Fruits of their labor? I growled again. They thought they owned me because they’d gotten my father to inject their DNA into my system.

Daria disappeared from sight as the crashing sounds moved away from our location. I relaxed my stance and turned to the queen.

“You bluffed your way out,” I said, somewhat appreciateively. It wasn’t as though I wanted to serve her, but it was hard not to be impressed that she’d used her reputation despite being weakened by iron.

“You are welcome. Now, bring me to my home. We don’t know how long it will take her to retrieve that oaf she works with.”

Thankfully, she couldn’t see the roll of my eyes as I hoisted her over my shoulder again and took off. It wasn’t long before I spotted the area in the distance, just across the rocky pathway Julian had driven us over to visit her the first time. As soon as we reached the outside of the circle, I came to a stop and set her on the ground. I’d pictured racing back away at super speed once we’d gotten this far, but for some reason my legs stayed statue still as she adjusted her hair and clothing. Her skin had started peeling like the wood she was made of, and I wondered if the reason her glamour was glitching had more to do with the iron she ingested or her emotions. She’d held it together so well in front of the demon—maybe that had cost her.

“Now, we have some unfinished business,” she said with a pointy-toothed grin. “You hid the truth from me, hoping to steal more time with your beloved.”

I bit the inside of my cheek, mind racing to find a way out of an impossible situation.

“I admire your ability to twist the truth,” she said, surprising me. “But I can’t just go doing favors for free. And now that I know how it works thanks to Blood Bath Bitch back at that horrible mansion, I have ideas forming.”

“Please, I just want to live my life and be left alone. I didn’t ask for any of this.” The familiar sensation of hyperventilating gripped me even though I had no real need to breathe, and I grasped at my chest.

“Poor dear, you were the unwilling rat trapped in the maze. Try to look at it differently. You’re the key to everything. You are a precious treasure. You will make me the most powerful being in the universe. I just have to reverse engineer the situation.”

“I don’t understand,” I sniffed, desperate to run, but still unable to.

“If you and Elsa have everything except fae blood to reach perfection, then perhaps all I have to do is drink all of your blood.”

Ice ran down my veins. It wouldn’t kill me, hell, I had little left in my own body at this point. But it didn’t sound pleasant. And worse, what if it worked? I suddenly preferred the demons’ company to hers.

“When we finish with that, I have a job for you,” she said, running a palm over the nearest upright stone, at waist level. “You will kill my last remaining formidable enemy known as Grival and bring me his heart.”

Shit. Shit. Shit.

“He wants me just as much as you do,” I argued, but she held up a hand to silence me, and my mouth snapped shut.

“He doesn’t know he’s still missing the critical piece because he’s too stupid and self-centered to consider using fae blood. And if you fail, at least I’ll have already tested my theory, and your debt will be paid. You can rekindle your love in the next life.”

She appeared downright pleased with herself. “I think I’ll try it now to see if it can overcome the iron in my system. Sit down and open a vein for me.”

I dropped to my bottom on the grass and tore open my wrist with my own teeth. Then I held up my arm, scarlet pooling slowly over the wound as she stalked forward, licking her lips. Tears wouldn’t come, but my body mimicked the motions of sobbing all the same, trembling and gasping.

Tsking softly, the queen reached for me—and stopped cold. Her eyes widened in unmistakable fear as she slowly retreated backward, nostrils flared, and gaze locked on something behind me.

“Bring me Grival’s heart,” she whispered as her back hit the stone circle. And with a lunge, she disappeared inside the center as though she’d simply vanished.

The sound of heavy breath over my shoulder had me frozen in fear as well. If whatever was behind me had scared the queen, it may be even worse than the demon we faced in the forest. Whatever it was was as silent as a vampire, yet it required breath. I was going to have to look. Somehow, I knew that it would wait for me to turn. With a surge of as much confidence I could muster, I stood and spun around in one super swift move.

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