Page 108 of Fae Champion

The bespelled dark shadows that wafted around the shackles intensified—and the bindings wrapping my wrists and ankles only tightened.

The chains allowed me but this one position. There wasn’t even enough length of chain between my wrists and ankles to allow me to stand.

The queen’s amusement was a constant trill, feminine and appropriate for courtly matters, but Braque was now guffawing.

“Is something fucking funny to you assholes?” I snarled at both of them—hell, at Ivar, too.

Their mirth dropped faster than a fist-sized stone sinking to the bottom of a river.

“Watch how you address your monarch,” the queen slithered, blue eyes blazing as if there could be no graver offense than insulting her and her precious crown.

“I’ll say whatever the fuck I want to say. I’ve got nothing to lose anymore, or have you already forgotten your little secret agreement with your pet Rush?”

Even without glimpsing his reaction, I could feel him tense. I knew he didn’t appreciate me calling him that, much less in front of the queen.

Well, I don’t like you killing me, I broadcast through a sneer and didn’t look his way.

The queen’s fingers curled and uncurled around the claws carved into the armrests of her throne. “I never forget a single thing, not one slight against me and my kingdom. It seems, however, that it is you who’s already forgotten how many … tools I have at my disposal. Perchance I should order your tongue sliced out as I did Sandor.”

Next she pinned her attention down the length of the vast room, opposite where her prisoners sat, everyone but Rush and me still slumped over their chains in sleep. Even Saffron dozed, breathing deeply and evenly, his little chest visibly rising and falling.

I didn’t understand what she was doing until one of her spy eyeballs zoomed over to me with such speed that I jerked my head back into the wall, wincing at another round of sharp pain in my cuts. It stopped and hovered a hand’s length from my nose.

Sandor’s single gray eye was blank as it stared at me, and I could only hope no part of the person survived in there. The nerves that still dangled from the eyeball had faded from the vibrant red of the last time I’d seen it to a pale, lifeless pink.

Other than me, only the queen, Braque, and Ivar studied the place where the eyeball floated.

Beyond caring what abilities I revealed when their potential advantage obviously served me fuck-all, I swatted at it—not hard enough to hit it in case some of Sandor endured. He’d been my abductor, but he’d surely already suffered enough. It zipped away, toward the other end of the room.

“You think that scares me?” I fumed, mostly because fear was building in my gut, acid rising up my throat.

“What are you talking about?” Rush asked.

“It should scare you,” the queen said, addressingonly me. “You’re new to my court, so perhaps that’s why you don’t understand exactlyhowfrightened you should be right now. Maybe a visit to the fae dungeon to witness what happens to those who defy me will give you the needed attitude adjustment.”

“Sure, why not?” I challenged evenly while discreetly swallowing the first taste of bile.

“No,” Rush interjected. “That wasn’t part of our deal.”

The queen’s glower seared the skin of my face. “I’m thinking I may have to alter our agreement. The girl needs to be taught a lesson.”

“And my death isn’t enough of one?” I asked on a disbelieving chortle.

“No. Not after the things you’ve said to me. I’m not just a person, not just a woman with needs. I represent an entire kingdom, a world as important as that of Faerie. The appearance of my authority is as important as my power itself.”

She sat back, flicked two fingers in the air.

Both Braque and Ivar stepped closer, bowing their heads.

“Take her to thefaedungeon,” she said with a frown toward Rush as if recalling his earlier “betrayal” that delivered me to the human one instead. “I want, hmm, yes, let’s have Reelo work her over. Tell him to do his worst—or his best. It’s the same thing.”

“Yes, my queen,” Braque said, rubbing his pudgy fingers together as he relished the idea. “By the time he’s finished, she’ll be beggingfor death.”

“He should flay her for how she’s spoken to you, Your Highness,” Ivar added, his lips a thin line of disapproval.

I was torn between telling them exactly what I thought of their depraved wickedness and keeping my skin right where I liked it. The latter prevailed while I acutely realized Rush had been right from the beginning: court life—and death—was a game of chess, and I’d never learned to play the game.

“Your Majesty,” Rush said, “please. Spare her from the added torment. I promise you that my … eager cooperation will be worth it.”

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