Page 52 of Red Queen

Eleanna pants between strikes, her blade slicing through the air. “This is strangely exhilarating.”

I grin in response, my focus unwavering. It really shouldn’t be. I’ve lived through countless missions and battles, planned many attacks and fought even greater odds. But she’s right. It’s fucking exhilarating with her at my side. I take out another monstrous vampire as he aims to skewer my fallen one. “Victory will be ours, my Queen. Just stay close.”

“I can hold my own.”

One comes on her right but she handles it, and I cut a swathe through others advancing on me at my front. Something catches my eye.

With a swift movement, I parry a strike meant for Eleanna, my muscles straining with effort. “Keep your guard up!”

Finally, the last guardian falls with a shriek, disintegrating into a pile of dust under the blood moon. We don’t waste a second, kneeling to gather the ash into a pouch.

“We mustn’t dally,” Eleanna whispers. “Sunrise is near.”

With a final glance around the carnage, we make our escape into the frozen night air and mount our waiting steeds. Snow crunches beneath the hooves of our horses as we race away from the Spilled Blood Citadel, adrenaline pumping through my veins.

We ride toward our next quest, the sun peeking over the horizon, staining the sky bright red.

Our conversation replays in my mind, the way her voice trembled when she’d called my name. I’ve always thought of her as untouchable, but now with her words in the bedroom last time we lay together...

I dismiss the thought and refocus.

Just as the adrenaline fades, replaced by a cold determination, I realize that this is only one battle in a war we have no choice but to win.

“My Queen,” I say, choosing words carefully. “There’s no doubt you can hold your own. You’re skilled, far more skilled than someone of your standing usually is, even without my training. But you’re new to the battle with the sword.”

I pause because it’s going to sound like criticism. Nothing moves as we ride, but I scan the area, anyway. It’s safer than looking at Eleanna.

“Go on.”

“The exhilaration, I felt it, too, which is something I left centuries ago.” At least at the level that raced through me. “It can get in the way. You’re new at this, high on it, and?—”

“Alexandru?”

“Yes?”

“Are you trying to tell me I am vibrant green and to be careful?” She lets out an audible breath, nailing where I was heading. “Noted, my liege. And I…appreciate all you have done for me. I appreciate your wise words.”

I turn in my saddle, heart squeezing tight. “My job is to watch out for you, guide you.”

“These aren’t flippant or angry words,” she says, those bright blue eyes hitting mine. In the low light she’s spectacular, her flame hair, alabaster skin, eyes of the fire that sits in the center of jewels. “I mean them.”

For a moment I stare at her. When we first met, when we parted ways, I’d never imagine an Eleanna who could bend like this. Is she changing?

The woman I know would have tried to cut me down for suggesting she needed to curb her enjoyment of battle. The know she’s green at warfare in the field.

“Battle is at times…enjoyable, but that can cloud judgement. That’s all.”

“I have you to guide me.” Then a small smile appears. “Whether I like it or not.”

With that, we fall into companiable silence as we ride. But things start to change. A prickle against the skin, a drop in temperature. A wading-like feeling, as if a current is pushing back against me.

“We’re getting close,” she says.

I nod.

The icy wind howls, whispering secrets of the long dead as we approach the Witching Vale. Snowflakes pirouette like specters in the moonlight, and the skeletal branches of barren trees reach out to us as though warning us to turn back.

“Feels like the dead themselves are watching,” Eleanna remarks, her breath a cloud of mist in the frigid air.

---