Page 71 of Of Monsters Of Kings

Night set in, and they continued to lunge and tear at the bars.

They wouldn’t succeed in squeezing my mind as intended, and I would’ve taken more pains to convince them of that if not for the perfect vantage point I had of their monsters. During this time, I came to understand something beyond their fangs and claws and powerful hind legs. In their rabid eyes lurked a pain. There, just behind the alertness. The pain was hooked in them, in all three. They shared this pain, and the depth of their torment vised my heart.

“What has caused your sorrow?” I whispered as Huckery tried to shove his snouted face through the bars.

He froze, not many inches from my face because their attempts to unhinge me had turned the cage into more of a jagged death trap. Soon the bars would stab in on me.

Huckery, still frozen, growled such a sinister sound that I almost became frightened. If not for feeling very sad on his behalf, I would have.

What was the source of their misery and hurt? “I’m very sorry for your sorrow, whatever the reason,” I told him. “I’d like to help if you’ll let me.”

Huckery sat back, and past him, I could see that Loup and Unguis were lying down and panting hard.

A sparkle stole my focus, and I studied the gleaming and pointed end of a snapped bar an inch from my eye. I didn’t relish becoming a monster kebab. I pushed at the cave roof, and with a bit of effort, the metal panel popped free. I tossed the roof aside, then jumped rather high and landed without any trouble on the dirt floor.

I hadn’t seen much past the prince’s circling forms this night, but now I could see we were in a dug-out area of sorts.

I peered around, trying to make sense of the dirt ceiling and darkness. “My, are we under the roots of a great tree?”

A panting Loup nodded.

A great tree indeed. I’d never seen one so large. Under it, I felt tiny indeed.

Huckery growled in warning but didn’t stop me as I walked across the dirt cavern and scrabbled up the crumbling bank. Breaking to the surface, I was left gaping at a wonderous sight. The haunted forest was obscenely and unnaturally sparse. The trees were as gnarled as an old man’s hands, and gigantic as well as utterly, horrifically bare of leaves. The ground was mud with no trace of lush understory, and broken tree roots extended for fifty feet or more between each scraggly, enormous excuse of a tree.

There was a uniformity to the spacing of the trees that sang of how unnatural the forest was, if the enormity of the leafless trees wasn’t already a blaring sign of monster. The sparsity really was hideous and hostile to a lovely degree. For a second time, my breath was taken.

A haunted howl took up the air and choked my throat. I fell back, rolling head over heels down into the werebeasts’ den under the great tree.

My head thumped against Loup’s matted stomach.

“Sorry,” I wheezed as my mind pulsed and squeezed from the haunted howl. “Was that your liege?” I asked after.

Loup made a noise that wasn’t a growl and seemed more like a yes.

“Will he come to speak to me, do you think?”

My question went unanswered, and so I remained sprawled across Loup while Unguis dozed near my feet. Huckery contented himself to remain upright and alert and tossed me the occasional growl or snarl to remind me of his suspicion.

I’d nearly fallen asleep, drawn to slumber by approaching dawn, when I noticed three conventionally handsome faces peering down from above.

“You will speak to our liege this evening,” Loup said. “Before the true change comes over you. He wants you ruined, but not broken, you understand?”

I understood perfectly. “Will he be irritated that I’m not ruined as he wanted?”

Unguis swallowed. “I’d expect so, Lady Patch. I shouldn’t think he’ll release you until you are so.”

Goodness. How would he achieve that? “It’s just that I had a meeting arranged with King See that I never arrived for. Do you suppose I could send a note to explain the situation?”

“I don’t see why not,” Loup replied.

Huckery shoved him. “She can’t do that. We don’t want See in our forest. He claimed her for a while. He might not be content to remain impartial as he always has.”

Unguis observed me. “I wonder what she did to make him change his mind. I can’t help but think I wouldn’t take back a claim on her.”

His comment touched a nerve after the unresolved bodysuit affair. “I’ll have you know that I turned down his claim.”

The three stared.

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