Page 30 of The Broken Queen

He carefully lifted me off the ground so I wouldn’t hurt myself more, and my chest rubbed against his. All of my painvanished for a moment and was replaced with another feeling.Want.

I frowned. “Am I dead?”

A deep rooted laugh emanated from his chest. He shook his head. “You haven’t changed one bit, still have that weird sense of humor.”

Something was wrong. White spots invaded my vision as I tried to figure out every scenario possible. I had to be dead. It was the only thing that made sense.

Slade would never be laughing and joking like this in my company. I ruined him. I took away his smile, his laugh, and every possible reason for him to love me. He hated me, while I loved everything about him.

This had to be some form of Heaven if he were giving me the time of day again. But what about my wound? Aren’t wounds and pain nonexistent in Heaven?

I took a steady breath and tried to push away from him. He didn’t release my hands. “Where are you trying to go?”

I nodded towards the bathroom because I was a coward and couldn’t talk to him like a normal adult. This was what he did to me. Hecrippledme.

Suddenly, his hands let go of mine, and he leaned down, picked me up, and carried me to the bathroom. I wasfloored.

What was this? Some type of game? Was he trying to show me he still cared, or was he faking it? What the hell was going on?

“I’m not broken.” I said with a firm voice. He wouldn’t turn me into a weakling like Father did.

A chuckle escaped his lips, “I know.” He set me down and his face grew serious. Something was on his mind, but I couldn’t figure it out. He was always hard to read.

I didn’t feel so good. I was hallucinating. Maybe I was going insane...maybe Father would finally send me to the nut houseto get rid of me once and for all. He backed away from me, but I kept my hold on him. There was this feeling that I was going back to the day he left...the day my world once again crashed around me.

“Raven...” there it was again... his voice. There was something so haunting about it. So magnetic. Anything could happen, a fucking war could ensue and all I could do is think about being with him...near him.

I wanted him. Just one more kiss, one more touch. One more night full of passion under him with the darkness surrounding us like a warm blanket. I squeezed my eyes shut. “You’re not here. I’m hallucinating. This is a dream. Just some fucked up nightmare. Another twisted game I’m forced to play.”

My skin itched. It started to itch like it was on fire. Burn like I was on fire. I had to stop the itching. I had to stop the burn. Fuck, what the hell was wrong with me?

My eyes popped open. I didn’t dare look around the room. I couldn’t look in his direction. Instead, my focus was on that tiny little weapon on my bathroom sink. My hands released his arms, and I turned away, placing my hands on the counter.

Black spots invaded my vision, a dizzy spell getting ready to take over my body. Without another thought, I grabbed the knife. My eyes met his in the mirror. His gaze was wide, and his mouth was open as if he didn’t know what I had planned.

“Raven...what the fuck..”

I didn’t hear anything else as I sliced through the skin on my wrist. I took a deep breath. This pain...the pain of wanting, needing to feel normal, was back. The dream was fading, and reality was setting in. Blood trickled down my arm and onto the marble floor. Quick, like a bandaid. The pain slowly faded into a numbness that gave me a euphoria. Soon I would be so high that nothing could hurt me anymore. Even the pain of losing him.

Before I could blink, the knife was thrown across the floor and two ice cold eyes stared back at me.

“What the fuck did you do, Raven? God fucking dammit!”

My eyes flickered closed as I whispered, “Gave you exactly what you wanted.”

Chapter Sixteen

Slade

I was going to murder her. If she fucking survived this, I was going to slice her throat open myself.

What the fuck was she thinking? Who in their right mind would do something like this? How could she do this to our daughter?Panic seized my chest. There was so much happening, Ineededher here. She couldn’t leave us,not yet.Not until the King got what he deserved.

Raven wasn’t in her right mind. There was something gnawing at her, tearing her apart from the inside out.

She’s fucking insane.

At some point she had fallen against the counter, her head resting on the sink. I grabbed the nearest rag and placed it over her wound briefly, as I picked her up and took her to the bed. Once there, I dropped her on it, not caring how she was placed and put my hand over the rag to contain the bleeding. Her arm dangled over the side and blood trailed down her fingers.

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