Page 109 of A Court of Hearts and Hunger
She drags her nails down his torso, splitting his flesh. “A worthy answer, Beastie.”
She turns back to me, stroking one claw along my cheek. “Pretty thing. Perhaps I should keep you awhile, to play with.”
No, no, no… she can’t. I’m not certain how long the charmed water inside me will remain potent, but I suspect the window of opportunity is narrow.
The Queen sweeps her hand along my leg, up to my hip. She smooths her palm across my lower stomach, then cups my breast.
I’m shaking. My jaws are clamped tight as I wait, as I inwardly plead for her to do it, to finish it.
“Take a good look, Elowen,” the Queen says, her voice raised. She’s speaking to Clara, who sits on a stool a few paces away, with an easel before her. “I shall want you to paint this girl once I’ve taken her heart. Preserve her for me on canvas.”
“I shall, my Queen,” replies Clara.
I’m not sure how the Queen expects Clara to paint me from memory after seeing me for just a few brief moments. But if our plan works, Clara won’t have to do any such thing.
The Queen lifts a few locks of my hair, inhaling. “This scent,” she moans. “So fresh and lovely. And her skin is flawless.” She swallows hard, her lips twitching back. “I want to wait—to savor this—but—” She clenches her teeth, breathing harshly through them as her claws grow even longer.
“Keep your eyes open, sweetheart,” she hisses to me, tracing one fingernail down my cheek.
And then she plunges both sets of claws into my chest.
The pain blazes through my body. My eyes flash wide and my mouth gapes as my breath is arrested—lungs pierced through. There’s a crunching squelch—a horrible tugging sensation—snaps of white-hot pain as veins rip—my heart is being wrenched free of my chest. A spray of my own blood hits my face—more blood jets from the gaping hole in my body.
I can smell my own insides. The wet, coarse, raw mortal scent of them.
I can hear the Queen’s moans of satisfaction, the slurping, gnawing sounds as she clutches my heart in glossy scarlet hands. Her face is coated with my blood.
The last sight I will see.
But I’m not dying—not exactly. Something is already knotting together in the center of my chest—a burning whirl of scarlet fire.
“I want to keep this one in my garden,” says the Queen through a mouthful of muscle. “Take her there, Beastie. Quickly, before her change completes.”
“Of course, Majesty,” says Riordan in a choked voice.
He scoops me up, sheet and all, and hurries down the back steps. My vision is clouded in places, crimson in others. I don’t know where we’re going—only that Riordan shoulders his way through a few doors and then lays me down hastily.
“I have to wait for the right moment,” he says raggedly. “Hold on, kitten, hold on. Be brave for me a little longer.”
My very gums feel as if they’re twisting in agony as my teeth elongate, altering their shape, becoming sharp as daggers. I scream as my nails crack open, as long black claws extrude from my fingertips.
In the center of my chest burns a red ball of the Queen’s magic, sustaining me, connecting my life to hers.
It didn’t work.
She’s not dying, and my consciousness is receding, yielding to the dark fire of hunger. Soon I will be gone, gone away into the void.
Riordan bends over me, his handsome face uplit by the scarlet fire inside my shattered ribs.
Suddenly the red light gutters, and I gasp.
The knot of searing magic that connects me to the Queen is fading, failing.
Joy shatters through my anguish.
“She’s dying,” I manage, half-choking on blood. “I can feel it.”
Riordan lunges to his feet and sends a handful of orbs up to the ceiling for light. He’s breathing hard, tearing open his pants.
