Page 39 of The Princesses of Ruin
He clenches his jaw and looks around the room. “You test my hunger.”
“Oh?” I ask, sliding my hand from his knee to his inner thigh. “What hunger?”
“My hunger for a hot meal…” He grabs the back of my neck and I suck in a sharp breath. “Maybe I should take the one between your thighs.”
“There may be limited opportunities to do so,” I say with a teasing lilt.
“Then I will have two dinners tonight.”
A barmaid brings our stew and bread, giving me an unsteady once-over that lingers on my eyepatch. She sets the tray down and Zane pushes a copper coin across the table. I’m too hungry for any more playful sex talk, and it seems Zane is too.
We tuck into the bowls of food and tough bread. It’s far from the worst meal I’ve ever eaten, but everything needs more salt. I realize it’s because Fynren’s been buying it all up to cure meat and pickle vegetables for the long, hard winter ahead and the multitude of mouths we need to feed.
When the meal is done, we retire to a washcloth bath and grayed bedsheets. We make love again, slowly and deliberately. It breaks my heart, but I let the thoughts drift away on every moan. Tonight, and every night we have left, I will think only of him.
Zephrom is scratching deep furrows into my skull and pouring black inside. Ashai sews puppet strings into my hands and legs. I wield sharp, poisoned blades that cut down the ones I love.
Lily screams as I gut her and vomit black into her stomach. Strings thread through her body and make her the queen’s doll. I hand her a blade and we advance on Alyse. She puts up a golden shield around her, but I dissolve it with a flick of my wrist, absorbing her magic.
Lily cuts into Alyse’s throat before she can speak, then pours the same darkness into her. I march on to a blue halo projecting from the sky that calls me forward. My golden little sister hovers in the air, a child one moment and a scarred adult the next.
She opens her eyes. She’s confused, but then her gaze flicks to the blade in my hand and settles back on my face. I take a step forward,but the blue halo burns and slows my movement. I fall back and circle her.
“You’ve come to kill me?” she asks, turning in midair to follow my movement.
You were supposed tobeme.My voice sounds like Ashai’s and I want to rip it out of my throat. I want to scream, do anything. But I’m powerless. I’m back in the Dark Room, strung up by her magic and helpless. I can only watch as she destroys what I love.
Reina lifts her chin. “You can’t have me. I’d rather die.”
I don’t want to kill my baby sister. I don’t want to hurt my little sunshine.
There is no stopping this. You aremine.I made you.
“You don’t own me!”
I feel my fangs growing with her defiance. I can bite back. I cantake.
The light burns my skin as I push forward. Ashai loses her grip and I thrust the blade into my own stomach. Pain lances my chest and I gasp for air as I fall to the ground in this empty void.
Reina drops from the blue halo of light and steps up to my side. “She’s in you, isn’t she?”
I nod as the salty tang of life fills my mouth.
“You’re going to die, aren’t you?”
“Me? Never,” I gurgle through blood bubbles.
Reina kneels. “Just don’t die before we’re done.”
I grit my teeth through the unending pain of Ashai’s dominance, of her desire to be free of the prison of her own making. A tear slides down my face, burning a path that’s icy cold in its absence.
“We will win.”
Reina reachesfor my face—
Consciousness grips me with a gasp. My heart beats so violently I think it might be trying to depart my chest. I wouldn’t blame it. I swallow hard and breathe the stale air of the inn. My chest is covered in sweat. I’m too cold and too hot at the same time.
Zane fidgets on the straw mattress beside me, still sleeping.
