Page 80 of Regal Queen

Shock coiled through me, and my memories slammed into me.

Ivan, his rough voice and careful fingers as he bandaged my feet. Him gripping the side of the window, hanging on as he bled out so that I could escape.

The rows and rows of people whom Dimitri tortured. They were practically frozen, and he gave them no comforts, and only enough food to keep them alive in their miserable lives. They existed as skeletons with wide eyes and crushed souls.

The saws, the knives slicing, the men and women begging for their lives.

All these people this sadistic bastard had hurt, and he was going to bring Aster into that world?

The girl with the crazy hair and the bright smile. When she laughed, it rolled through you like the sun was beaming down on you.

She was happiness and light, and the very thought that Dimitri wanted to taint that made me boil with rage.

I saw red, and Dimitri's face was the only thing in my line of sight.

I narrowed my eyes in on him. "Who wants her dead?"

He grinned. "I lied, and you fell for the bait."

“Well, guess what?” My finger snapped and the gun went off. A bullet spit from the barrel, straight into Dimitri's head. He fell back, a smile frozen on his dead face for the briefest of seconds before it went slack. "I lied too."

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