Page 70 of Of Monsters Of Kings

Huckery, the suspicious prince, hunched his shoulders. “No, it’s not, and she’s not.”

My, he certainly had some preconceived ideas of me.

Huckery swung the door between me and the other princes shut, and I glanced around upon noticing the bars. I was in a cage. A large and very clean cage that I could stand in. “I haven’t been in a cage before.”

I gripped the nearest vertical bar, glad to find my fractured wrist already healed.

“Get used to it,” Huckery sneered. “You’ll be in there until our liege decides what to do with you.”

That reminded me. “Drat, I didn’t get a chance to grab the letter I wrote. I don’t suppose one of you could nip back to get it?”

The remaining prince lisped, “I could do?—”

“No,” snapped Huckery. “We aren’t her lackeys, Unguis. Remember yourself against her dark witchery.”

My brows shot up. Dark witchery. “You believe so? I’d thought witchery was the business of King Bring with his curses and charm and cauldrons.”

Huckery scowled in response.

I sat cross-legged on the metal floor of the cage, glad for its sparkling cleanliness that wouldn’t mark my white dress. “What is King Change’s business then? I’ve heard he’d like to destroy the world. Is that so?”

“You’ve been speaking to Bring’s foolish princes,” Unguis said, frowning.

And here I’d been passing judgments about preconceived ideas. I blushed, and the prince gaped through the bars. Were my cheeks inky? My monstrous form must be near.

“I apologize,” I told them. “I should let you explain, for the three of you would know better than anyone what King Change’s business is.”

Huckery slammed his palm on the cage, warping a bar near to snapping point. “His business is his business. Cease your incessant gibber jabber.” He said to the others, “You know what we’re to do.”

Loup pulled a face. “It seems a shame, doesn’t it? I’ve never seen a midnight blush, and I would like to make her blush all night to see it over and over.”

My skin started to itch, and I sighed, scratching at my forearms to no avail. “What are you meant to do?”

“Make you a little insane, Lady Patch,” Loup replied. “King Change would like to ruin you for others and any possibilities that don’t align with his path.”

“Goodness,” I replied after a beat. “How will he do that?”

Huckery narrowed his gaze. “Our liege won’t lift a finger. We will do it for him.”

The itching of my skin heightened, but the sickening wet pops, abrasive cracks, and horror-filled screams from the three princes distracted me tonight.

I watched as they turned into beasts of matted fur and yellowed claw, of frothing mouth and patched mange. They snapped jagged fangs at the cage, buckling and bending the bars inward. The three princes, werebeast monsters for lack of a better description, circled my prison.

Change. I could gather what their king’s kingdom was about. “Does everyone change into werebeasts in his kingdom, then?”

The beasts halted their circling, and one went so far as to sit back on his horned haunches. Another tilted his head much like the other princes I’d met.

I was sorry to have to disappoint them. “I’m afraid the sight of princes doesn’t squeeze my mind and make me insane. I had another one-month slumber, you see.”

The princes yipped and snarled at each other, and I could see that they spoke a language I didn’t understand.

Huckery lunged at the cage after, snapping his jaws.

“The strings of your saliva are most impressive,” I complimented. They really were exceptional. Where Bring’s princes blobbed, and See’s princes ghouled, Change’s princes savaged.

I couldn’t help but add, “You give yourself over to your true forms with abandon. My breath is taken.”

Despite my pure intentions, Huckery didn’t ruffle his mange-patched fur with pride as the other two did. Instead, he snarled and yipped until the others returned to the task at hand.

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