Page 2 of Of Sockets Of Stitches
I had imagined many happinesses and loyalties in a shared immortal existence with King See. Those dreams were gone and robbed away, and a shadowed gap now lingered in my soul where they had happily fluttered. The gap begged to be filled, yet what could? What other monster could be strong enough for a queen? Who else could I love? But what queen could be strong enough or weak enough to return to a king who had betrayed her so harshly and with such calculation?
A queen should never have loved.
“I should have listened to him,” I might have said. Or might not have.
You will always have monsters. Monsters need you.
My thoughts circled painfully between love and pain and self-preservation. They circled like the creature. He was still here, stalking this way and that, snarling and snapping.
I listened to the ring of his fangs sliding over each other. How fearsome they must be. Would I appreciate the sight of them before they latched around my neck?
“Will you end me, then, great creature?” I asked wearily. Of course, there was every chance I had notspoken aloud.
The creature growled louder than ever, and I sat straighter. I must have spoken aloud. I had not asked the creature a question before. Silence had seemed better for my survival. “Why do you circle and never strike, fearsome beast?”
A vicious snarl. The creature pressed closer than ever to prowl a tighter circle about me. He did not like when I acknowledged him.
Was this My End?
Time swam by so luxuriously, but the creature did not strike.
I inspected the angles of that—yet more information and questions to add to the already deafening clamor in my head andheart. I might have pressed my hands against my ears in a desperate bid to stop the clamor. My breath might have quickened to shallow gasps.
The ringing bells of my thoughts, the clashing waves of my power… too many and too much.
“Why do ancients punish me?” I screamed in my mind.
The creature retreated, so perhaps he had heard my tortured question.
He was done for the night. Or the day. Or hour.
Did my body relax with his departure? My mind did not. His routine circling was a torture of its own. Why did he not attack? Why did he wait?
Ringing, clashing, clamor.
Such clawing and scratching in mind.
Fate or ancients had propelled me to this robbing place, whether for purpose or punishment, yet that thought came and went, too, as the boom and snap of heartbreak smashed over my shoulders.
He had said that he loved me.
Three simple words, and they had reinforced so many hopeful dreams—for only a short time when everything had made sense at last. Those dreams were gone now, voided, and I was more senseless than ever.
A queen just had to exist in the luxury of time for now.
Even though monsters needed her.
Chapter Two
The death of trust.
Weary were my thoughts when the creature returned to circle.
Back already?
His snarl heightened, so I must have spoken aloud.
I should worry about such a creature, especially because he circled closer tonight. Ishould,but such deep weariness did not allow for fear. Death did not seem so cold nor final to me as it once might have.
