Page 58 of Fae Exile

She stared fixedly at my chest. “I’m a feethle. Her Majesty’s favorite feethle, no less. You can’t manhandle me like this.” She tried to yank her arms free but couldn’t. “Let. Me. Go. Or you’ll regret it.”

“What we’ll regret is not killing you—right here, right now—for being such a horrible pest,” Hiroshi snapped, with a chill thatmorphed his voice into something I scarcely recognized, and I’d known the man much of my life. “Rush is a better man,a better fae, than you could ever hope to be. And I take personal offense to you threatening him. You’re playing games you don’t grasp. I should turn you into a slug and leave you that way.”

Her head whipped toward him so fast that I sensed her feethle close to the surface. I didn’t think she could transform into her creature with me holding her, but neither was I certain. I had to hurry.

She bared her teeth at Hiroshi. “You wouldn’t dare. My queen would have your head for that. She wouldn’t even hesitate. Then she’d put it on a pike, and we’d all get to watch your pretty face get devoured.”

“Yourqueen,” West said, his voice coming from directly behind my ear, likely trying to help lure her stare to mine, “banished you to the stables. You’ve only just been allowed back at court. She won’t even notice you’re gone.”

My attention pinned on her eyes, waiting to snag them, I caught the flash of truth that registered there.

Baring her teeth again, she hissed. Without warning, I ducked and captured her stare. She gasped, but I was already in, and she wouldn’t be able to look away until I finished.

Releasing my hold on her, I pushed into her mind and erased all recent images of my brothers and me, therefore deleting her concocted theory of our sexual liaison. Before pulling away, I performed a quick search of her mind, and nearly throttled her all over again when I discovered she’d been spying on Elowyn and reporting back to the queen. It was how Millicent had gained her favor, the ruler bestowing the sniveling girl with changeling magic as her reward. No doubt it was only because she’d better serve the queen with the increased agility and ability to sneak around. I also saw the queen feeding her “favorite feethle” bowlsof warm blood, moaning in pleasure as she watched Millicent’s creature lap it up with so much hunger.

I’d obviously known the queen was depraved, but this level was new. How could she become aroused from that? Was it the knowledge of whose blood it was? That was sick.

“Hurry,” Ryder cautioned in an urgent whisper, reminding me that anyone could pass through this hallway.

So I planted beliefs into Millicent’s mind.Rush, Ryder, West, and Hiroshi are loyal servants to the queen. Whatever they do, it’s always to help the queen. Even if I don’t understand their actions, I trust their reasoning is out of allegiance to the queen.

About to retreat, I added a final suggestion.Elowyn isn’t a threat to the queen. I have no desire to ever speak of Elowyn. Wherever she is and whatever she does, it’s none of my business. I have only good things to say about her to the queen or anybody else. I never have reason to be suspicious of her, Rush, Hiroshi, West, Ryder, or Roan. They are innately trustworthy.

“Rush,” Ryder pressed.

I withdrew from Millicent’s mind, and she slumped against the wall behind her, blinking groggily.

Without a further word to her, I jerked my head at my friends. “Come on, let’s go. We need to make a quick stop before we go see if Her Majesty needs our help in the throne room.”

Then I changed directions and prowled rapidly toward Saturn’s quarters, the only place I knew we could speak openly within the palace walls. Now that the crown prince was dead, she’d have even less reason to station her spies there.

Nobody spoke until the four of us were inside Saturn’s rooms with the door firmly shut and locked behind us. Like so many others, that measure of safety was an illusion, but it still eased a fraction of the tension galloping through my body.

I spun on the others. “I don’t think I can do it anymore. I have to get the hell out of here, right the fuck now, and I have to get to Elowyn. She’s our only hope of freeing those dragons.”

And she’s the only hope for me.

As the weeks without her dragged by, it became more and more difficult to accept that I’d never see her again. It remained true that she might never forgive me for what I’d done, but I was no longer certain I could live with myself if I didn’t try to get her to understand.

Hiroshi gathered his hair behind him and tugged harshly on the lavender ends. “I’m with Rush. I don’t think I can do it anymore either.”

As one, Ryder, West, and I turned toward him. Hiro was our group’s voice of reason.

“I’m burning,burning, with the need to kill her.” Even within the relative safety of Saturn’s bedchamber, we still didn’t name her more often than necessary. The queen was like a tormentor from the Igneuslands, forever shadowing us, searching for our greatest weaknesses to then pounce. “And I want it to hurt,” he added with an emptiness I’d never heard from him before. “I want the pain to go on and on for her.”

Ryder and West exchanged loaded looks. As drakes with the responsibility of our clans upon us, we didn’t have the luxury of avoiding violence. But that didn’t mean we liked it.

“Maybe we could get the dragons to roast her alive, then force Ivar and Braque to heal her, then do it all over again, as many times as we can,” Hiro said.

“You know what?” West blurted. “I was all ready to talk you two out of it. I owe it to Ramana to see our plan through. And we’re so close,so closeto Rush winning the trials and being named crown prince. But you know what?Fuck it. Ramana’d be just fine with us watching the cunt burn and then watching the entire place burn down with her.”

Of course, it wasn’t that easy, or we would have killed the queen ages ago. So long as her power was connected to the land’s, she wouldn’t die.

That didn’t diminish the appeal of Hiro’s scenario though.

Ryder stalked back toward us from where he’d been peeking out between the closed window curtains. “Look, you guys know I’d be fighting for the right to be the one to light ‘er up, but we don’t have time to dream right now.”

The door to the bathing chamber hung ajar, and for several seconds I was there once more, with Elowyn on my lap, her naked and slick body mine for the feasting.

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