Page 85 of Bound to the Shadow Queen
“Let’s not forget the interim where you were apparently so happy and free that you’d like to return,” I reminded her, stepping closer on instinct.
Frustration rolled off of her in waves.
She pushed a lock of hair out of her face, inadvertently exposing her chest again. I kept my eyes glued to her face. She and the many feelings radiating from her were distraction enough without her assets on display.
“I don’t have some deep, nefarious plan, Draven,” she gritted out. “I just need to get something from my house.”
No. Deep, nefarious plans weren’t exactly her style, but quietly hiding one motive in another was.
“Spoken like someone who doesn’t remember that she’s an untrusted captive for a reason.”
She dropped her arms “It’s foryourpeople, you frost twat, and you can stay by my side the whole time.”
It wasn’t the first time she had called them my people, but it was the first time I put together the reason: that even if they were technically halfherpeople, that wasn’t what she had been raised to think of them as.
Still, the words prickled along my chest, an uncomfortable reminder that she was not, and would never be, the queen she had vowed to be.
“What could you possibly need for my people at your estate?”
Her cheeks flushed again. “A compendium, on monsters.”
“There is no comprehensive compendium on monsters.” I would know, I had looked for one when they first began to overrun my kingdom.
She looked away. “Yes, I’m aware. Which is why I was trying to piece one together. I know that I’ve read something about monsters and wards, and if I’ve read it, it should be in there.”
For days, I had been getting random glimpses of pages turning with increasing frustration.
“Why would you work so hard to helpmy peopleif you don’t claim them?”
“My sister is here, too. And it’s not like there’s anything else I can do.”
Whether she meant because she was locked up or because she had no mana, a brief flicker of hurt flared to life around her.
A short, bitter breath escaped her. “For all that you say you’re willing to do whatever it takes, up to torturing and killing and maiming and running yourself ragged all the shards-damned-hells over your kingdom, I can’t imagine why you would balk at a five minute trip to my house.”
Because the last time I agreed to take you anywhere, you hurled yourself directly into danger.
But she wasn’t wrong. We needed all of the information we could get. I had hunted this thing every spare moment for days and it evaded me at every turn.
I took a breath, already knowing that I would agree. But this wouldn’t be like the estate.
I was prepared, and I would damn well make sure no one took her anywhere this time.
Draven
The estate was too quiet.
Deja vu clamped tight in my chest, sharp as the first icy breath I’d drawn at her sister’s manor weeks ago, when we’d walked into ruin and blood. The memory still clawed at me. Screams muffled by splintering wood, the scent of blood belonging to both fae and frostbeast.
But the silence here was different.
It wasn’t the abrupt lack of sound that came from death. This was older. A sense of abandonment.
She took a step forward, but I reached out for her arm. She stopped, confusion crinkling her nose. Whatever she saw in my expression had her glancing back and forth between me and the main house.
“Oh,” she said, worrying her lower lip. “I mean, this is not… unusual.”
I let go of her arm, my head tilting slightly as if that might help me to better understand what she had just said.
