Page 103 of Fae Champion

“Her bosom is prime for whatever fantasies you might have.” She squeezed the air with her hands as if this Coretta were directly in front of her, bared for her groping. “When she bears your young, perhaps you’ll enjoy filling your belly with that warm, sweet milk…”

The queen dipped her head in the other direction, studying the firm indifference frozen on his face. “No? A shame, but maybe the flirty Eliana’s more your style. Or maybe Malina. That one’s wild and fun, probably quite loose as well. If you’re interested in adding more parties to your marital bed, I’d think she’d be very open to the idea.” She chuckled. “She’s even offered to enter my bedchamber, promised me untold pleasure. Ambitious that one, too.”

“No, thank you, Your Majesty,” Rush finally answered, cutting her off, as if she’d asked him if he wanted his wine sweet or sour, cold or warm.

“No thank you, what?”

“No, thank you, to all of it.”

“That’s not anofferI’ve made you.”

“I’ll give you the rest of my life in service to you, if you’ll just let everyone, including Elowyn, go free.”

“I can’t do that.”

“And I can’t kill her.”

“That doesn’t leave you in a very good place with me, Rush.”

“I know it doesn’t, Your Majesty. Which is why you’ve left me no choice but to fight.”

“Not just you,” Ryder said. “Us too.”

“All of us,” West added as he and Xenoonce more strained against their chains. Hiroshi propped his injured arm across his waist as if preparing to battle however he could.

The queen scanned the room, blinked in disbelief, then threw her head back in more laughter, deep, booming, and wholly disconcerting coming from her blood-red lips.

“Well, I shouldn’t have lamented leaving the celebration early,” she crooned. “This will be much more fun.”

Her eyes twinkled with delight—or was that madness?

“Go ahead. Do your worst,” she announced.

Rush beckoned Larissa to stand behind him as he positioned himself partially in front of me as well, his belt with his throwing knives closest to me, I realized.

He reached across his shoulder to his baldric and emerged with his sword.

Not yet ready to reveal my access to the throwing blades—not to tip off the queen, whom I’d only get one chance at—I drew the only other weapon I had: the icepick.

The queen noted it and beamed. “Ever surprising me. I shall miss that, when this is all over.” Her mouth sliced into a rigid, unyielding line. “But not enough.”

She sat back in her throne, rubbing the dragon claws adorning the ends of the armrests, and said, “Gorko, Cambo, eat them. Ivar and Braque, well, you know what to do.”

The pygmy ogres growled in unison, loudly enoughto rattle the glass and make my eyes water with the stench of their breath.

Cambo snatched up West, Hiroshi, and Ryder’s chains and swung them around his head with far too little effort, and Gorko, dragging Xeno and Saffron behind him, lumbered our way.

29.JUST ME

If you hesitate in battle, you die, Zako had admonished enough times that I could actually hear his lilting voice in my mind, warning me, telling me tomove.Dammit, move, already.

And yet…

I couldn’t seem to help the seconds I wasted gawping at the chaos that had erupted so suddenly and so completely.

The pygmy ogres’ brute strength more than made up for their lacking intelligence. Though Ryder, West, and Hiroshi—with his mangled arm—resisted Cambo’s pull on their glowing chains, leveraging all their weight to remain standing, the ogre managed to lift all three of them at once. The drakes slid across the floor, bowling into Saffron, who cowered and whimpered at the end of the chain Gorko held. The men did their best to avoid further injuring the little dragon, but they crashed into him regardless, bounced, and then dangled fromtheir bindings—before Cambo resumed his swinging. Up and over his big, fat, round head, he circled and looped and twirled the chains, gaining momentum with each pass, until the guys flew around the large room—that wasn’t vast enough for that kind of activity.

Ryder and West knocked into a low hanging chandelier, dozens of crystals shattering and showering downward, and then on the third pass, the fixture tore loose from its supporting beam and teetered, about to come crashing down?—

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