Page 1 of A Kingdom of Monsters

1

LONNIE

THE OBSIDIAN PALACE, EVERLAST CITY - TWO MONTHS SINCE ESCAPING FROM UNDERNEATH

Ijerked awake, sitting up in bed with an audible gasp.

My heart pounded double time, and I felt the gooseflesh rising on my arms as I stared into the pitch black of the darkened room.

It was only a dream—a nightmare really, yet my body didn’t seem to know that. Terror still clung to me, even as the details of whatever my mind had conjured seemed to slip away faster than I could hold on to them.

In my dream, I’d been standing in a throne room. Outside the window the sunflowers swayed in the field, shadowed by the purple mountain rising over them. There was someone laughing…

Hmmm.

It didn’t sound like a nightmare, but the details were twisted. Fuzzy. Leaving only a sense of wrongness behind.

I sighed, and tried to stand up, only to find my legs trapped beneath the blankets. This was nothing new. In fact, I nearly always woke to find myself held tightly, tangled with either Bael or Scion—often both.

I shifted my head and saw Scion peacefully asleep next to me. His chest rose and fell rhythmically, and his strong, lean legs were tangled with mine, his arm draped casually over my waist. With a slight smile, I turned over, expecting to see Bael lying on my other side.My forehead wrinkled as I noticed the space on the right side of the bed was empty. Strange.

Now more awake than ever, I carefully extracted myself from Scion’s strong embrace, my body aching as I rolled off the bed and onto the cold, wooden floor. The moonlight shone through the window, illuminating my bare feet as I tiptoed to the adjoining bathing room.

I closed the door and leaned against it for a moment, breathing heavily. My body still seemed to shake with residual tremors from my dream. I shook my head, blinking quickly to banish the rest of the haze on my mind. Whatever I’d dreamed, it didn’t matter. I’d been plagued by overly vivid dreams for some time now. Some seemed almost like visions, but this didn’t seem to be one of those. Merely my mind, creating images out of all the fear I’d felt in the last year…nothing more.

A drink of water was sure to help.

I pushed off the door, and walked blindly across the dark room toward the sink. With a wave of my hand, I lit the lamps along the walls of the circular room, making the reflections of flickering orange flames dance across the walls.

I leaned both hands on the edges of the marble sink basin, and stared up through my lashes at myself in the oversized gold-framed mirror. The face staring back at me seemed almost unfamiliar, like that of a stranger. I had the same pale skin, the same freckles, the same wide brown eyes…but something seemed different, and I couldn’t put a finger on what that might be.

I shook my head to clear it, and leaned over the sink and twisted the faucet handle, feeling the cool water run over my fingers. I greedily took a gulp of water before splashing it on my flushed cheeks. Standing straight again, I gave my reflection a final mutinous glance before extinguishing the lights and returning to the dark bedchamber.

Now feeling more awake, my attention returned to the bed. Scion's slow and steady breaths filled the silence, but there was no sign of Bael.

I squinted at the window. Outside, the dark silhouettes of towering trees were just barely visible. In the distance, a faint blue glow signaled the approach of dawn. It was unusually early for my mate to have gotten out of bed, but he was nowhere to be found. Snatching a long silk dressing gown from a nearby chair, I shrugged it on and crept out into the hall to search for him.

The castle was still asleep, and the corridors were dark and quiet as I moved silently down the hall. I felt like a wraith, haunting the empty castle, my long sink robe fanning out behind me like a trail of mist. That feeling wasn’t helped by the occasional crumbling stone or smashed door, now common in the once pristine palace.

It had been nearly two months since my mates and I returned from Underneath. To them, that was a mere blink of an eye intheir immortal lives, but for me, it felt like an eternity. We were once again residing in the obsidian palace, but almost nothing felt the same as the last time we’d been here.

For one thing, the smoothly running court was now in near disarray. Since the battle with the rebellion, the castle had been undergoing a never-ending restoration. The east tower where I’d once slept in Scion’s old room was nearly back to normal, and the entrance hall looked as splendid as it ever had. Still, not every sign of the battle had been erased and the effects of the battle still lingered in the daily running of the court. Many of the former guards and servants had either been killed or escaped. Those who remained split their loyalty between the Everlasts and the rebellion, and struggled to keep up with daily tasks while the damaged castle was stuck in a state of constant repair.

For another, the royal family was fractured. Gwydion and Thalia remained in Overcast with Raewyn, Oberon and Elfwyn. It had been confirmed that Lysander was killed during the battle, and no one had seen or heard from Aine since we’d left her in Inbetwixt. The only members of the Everlast family remaining in the capital were Bael, Scion, Scion’s mother Mairead—and oddly enough, Ambrose.

Since we’d returned from Underneath, Ambrose had thrown himself entirely into restoring the castle, to the point that I rarely saw him outside of the occasional meal, or passing in the hallways.

I’d thought—or perhaps feared—that once we returned to the mainland Ambrose would disappear again. Instead, we were all living in a state of uneasy tension. The animosity between Ambrose and the rest of his family—particularly between him and Scion—had not lessened. If not for the fact that theymaintained the common goal of ending the curse on their family, I was sure it would have come to blows.

Clearly sensing this, Ambrose had distanced himself as much as possible from Bael and Scion, and me by extension. So, while two months ago I’d thought we were something like friends, now I felt like barely more than strangers.

I reached the end of the hall and turned the corner toward the grand staircase, only to jump back in surprise as a large shape loomed toward me out of the darkness. I shrieked, raising a hand already filled with dancing blue flames.

“Careful, love.” Ambrose held his hands up, as if in surrender. “The last thing we need is another burnt corridor to clean up.”

I let out a relieved breath and lowered my hand. “What are you doing here?” I demanded.

Ambrose raised his eyebrow at me, perhaps taken aback by my accusatory tone. I couldn’t find it in myself to feel guilty for snapping at him. It felt as if my very thoughts had summoned him, and I was filled with frustration and something like embarrassment at the very idea.

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