Page 93 of Their Blood Queen

But my eyes are on the female watching them. Alina seems frustrated, like she doesn’t know what to do with herself.

And her power is fluctuating all over the place. She might as well be a beacon for the monster she’s calling.

I grow weary of the announcer as he joins the countdown with Monster City’s voice, echoing each number as the screen loses the female who has darted into a nearby hallway.

Three!

Two!

One!

Everything goes black, including the viewing bar as the crowd goes silent.

Then the air rips with screams.

After a moment, I realize the screams aren’t coming from the Monsters Night feed.

They’re coming from me.

CHAPTER 24

CAIN

A few moments earlier…

Two compatible monsters.

They’re here.

I stare at the blood diamond that glows with a pattern of two steady pulses. It reminds me of a heartbeat.

“Helia,” I whisper, immediately trying to summon her because I’m going to need her help with this. She doesn’t answer, but I imagine she’s busy since the portals just opened. I’m not the kind of monster who needs an appointment, but in retrospect, I should have warned her I might need her.

Because I actually fucking found them.

Every time I’ve ever performed this location spell, it has always broken the blood diamond and turned it black. Thousands of years of seeking have taught me that there aren’t any monsters, or humans, compatible with me.

Yet now I’ve found not one but three beings who are.

I know it’s no coincidence. Scarlett herself likely called them here. She’s a beacon of light in the darkness.

As Earl Rinhold aptly said, she’s the key to everything.

But these monsters… they are like me.

They are dangerous, depraved, and hungry.

Now, it bleeds with literal blood, sending the thick red liquid oozing over my fingers onto the table and dripping onto the floor.

My head shoots up when a scream rips through the dream plane, interrupting my stunned fascination.

Scarlett.

I know her screams well, even if they have usually been screams of pleasure in my presence. I’ve left her be since I crossed a line.

Since my beast took her with his tongue, nourished by the memory of what he did to her.

What we did to her.

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