Page 3 of A Kingdom of Monsters

I looked up and realized I hadn’t been paying any attention to where we were going. It took me a moment to recognize the corridor, and realize we were still a floor above where I’d intended. I set off again, this time in the right direction toward the servants' stairs. “I’m going to check Bael’s old room.” I explained. “If he’s not himself at the moment, that would be the first place he’d go.”

“Ah,” Ambrose nodded. “I’d better leave you here, then.”

“There’s no need to be afraid.” I rolled my eyes. “Bael wouldn’t hurt you in front of me, even in his other form.”

“I don’t know about that. I wouldn’t want to test the lion’s patience. Especially if he thinks I’m encroaching on his territory.”

“What, like his room?” I asked flippantly. “I think he’s probably over that, given that he has an entire kingdom to call his territory.”

Ambrose stopped, turning to face me in the dimly lit corridor, and reached out to push a lock of my hair behind my ear. “Not what I meant, love.”

He didn’t lower his hand, holding it there tangled in my hair. My breath caught and my heartbeat picked up, pounding loudly enough that we could both hear it clearly in the quiet corridor. I looked up slowly, half dreading the moment when our eyes would meet.

Abruptly, Ambrose pulled back and stepped away, brushing his hands on his jacket as if wiping away dust. He cleared his throat. “Right. Well, I’ll just go then.”

I merely swayed on the spot feeling a bit drunk. “Okay.”

Without another word, he turned on his heel leaving me alone in the dark hallway.

Barely a few minutes later,I found myself in front of Bael’s door. Though he wasn’t using the room regularly anymore, the door and the surrounding walls had been repaired. All the soot and debris from the fire had been cleaned up, and there were no more blood stains on the stone floor. Still, I could practically see the bodies that had once lain in the doorway as I knocked and pushed the door open without waiting for a response.

I stepped inside, and immediately knew Bael was there.

“Hello,” I crooned, in the same voice I might use to speak to a house cat.

Bael raised his enormous lion head to look at me, and blinked once in greeting. He’d once told me that he couldn’t exactly understand my words while in this form, but he knew who I was. Not all that long ago, even that much control over his lion form would have seemed impossible. For many years, he’d been trapped in a constant cycle of bloodlust, but since defeating his father to take the crown of Underneath Bael had been rapidly gaining more and more awareness

Now, his huge yellow eyes tracked me as I closed the door behind me and strode across the room toward the cage. It wasn’t locked, I noticed, so I had no difficulty swinging the door open and stepping inside.

Bael growled at me, in what I assumed was a low warning.

I rolled my eyes. “Oh, shut up.”

I closed the bars of the cage behind me and then sat on the floor beside the enormous lion, curling into his side and resting my head against his powerfully muscled shoulder. He yawned in response, and put his head back down on his paws, closing his eyes in surrender.

Bael purred, sending rumble through my entire body. I sighed in contentment, and closed my own eyes thinking vaguely I might be able to steal a few more hours of sleep before rising for the day.

As my breathing grew steady and I drifted off again, my thoughts turned back to Ambrose. I wondered suddenly where he’d been going so early when we ran into each other, and then if perhaps he hadn’t been going anywhere at all–perhaps he’d simply wanted to see me.

I wasn’t sure if I wanted that to be true or not.

Especially, given that I had not one but two mates already.

What was wrong with me, that I couldn’t seem to stay away from the Everlast males?

2

LONNIE

THE OBSIDIAN PALACE, EVERLAST CITY

Only a few hours later, the sun was high in the sky and I found myself out on the castle lawn practicing magic.

Several days ago, we’d set up targets—as if for archery practice, and now I furrowed my brows in concentration as I attempted to direct balls of fire toward them. Thus far, I’d managed to burn a large patch of brown grass in the manicured lawn, but the targets stood untouched.

I spread my feet wider apart and relaxed my shoulders, then took a deep breath and conjured another flaming sphere in the palm of my hand. In a single movement, I tossed the ball in the direction of the target. I held my breath for half a second before the flames spun wildly off course. They flickered and died mid air, but not before managing to catch a nearby rose bush on fire. I screamed in frustration.

“Careful screaming like that, Rebel.” Scion extinguished the bush with a lazy flick of his wrist. “What few servants we have left will think you’re being tortured and abandon us before lunch.”

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