Page 69 of Queen Takes Blood
I didn’t want to open my eyes. I didn’t want to return. No chains. No cage. Just endless beautiful blue.
“Die,” I rasped out. A plea.
“Don’t be silly, Okeanos Ketea. You’re a fine young specimen, powerful in your fury. I may have a use for a king such as you one day.”
My lungs worked again. I breathed fresh air that smelled different. Not tinged with the salt and sea. I didn’t think I would live long outside of the ocean. Perhaps I would escape in death after all.
I opened my eyes, not surprised to feel the queen’s net still cutting into my body. Head to toe, I couldn’t move a muscle beyond a shallow breath and a roll of my eyes. I stared up at the queen with all the rage and hate of a trapped monster.
She tipped her head to the side, her platinum hair shining in the sun. An amused smile curved her lips. “Do you know who I am?”
Lips tight, I refused to speak to her again. It was the one thing I could control.
“I’m Marne Ceresa.”
I closed my eyes. The Triune queen of Rome.
I was the same as dead.
She patted my cheek again. “I don’t want your death, kraken. As I said, I may have a purpose for you one day. I’ve prepared a lovely pond for you to enjoy during your stay with House Ceresa. Your mother assures me that you won’t need salt water to survive.”
She stepped back and several broad-shouldered men hefted me between them, moving me into a large metal box. Only when the bars closed, and the queen pressed her bleeding thumb to its lock, did she release the net holding me pinned.
Shaking and bleeding, I tried to sit up and take in as much of my surroundings as possible, though my body quaked with weakness. Hunger. Thirst. Worse than ever since I’d been injured. Goddess below, I needed to feed.
Horrors upon horrors. This cage reeked of man-made iron cursed with the queen’s own blood. As the box lowered into rank water thick with vegetation, I couldn’t help but welcome the kraken and test the fortitude of the iron bars, even though I knew it was futile. Even if I managed to crack open the bars or damage the metal, I still had the queen’s blood cursed into the cage to deal with. Then her many Blood, rumored to be near a hundred, all powered by one of the most powerful Triune queens. Even Undina feared the queen of Rome and kept her nest under tight security.
Tepid, swampy water filled my gills. Utterly revolting.
Fish swam in the murk around my cage. Not sleek, silver-blue flashes of wild fins and tails but the slow, lazy swirl of orange and white koi. Pet fish.
I’m a pet as well, a monstrous amusement in a cage at the bottom of the queen of Rome’s pond.
Fury crawled through me, making my tentacles undulate through the water, twitching with the need to rend and smash. I didn’t want to hurt pet fish who were as trapped as me. I stretched my longest tentacles up toward the surface, testing how deep the pond was. If I could snatch the queen if she wandered too closely.
A flash of orange flickered down through the thick water. Not a koi but the cursed cat, dangling its paw in the water. Taunting me. After I gave it a gift.
Betrayal boiled in my hearts. I snagged the wretched creature and dragged it into the pond, ignoring its yowl of fear and its pitiful claws. If I must eat pets, then let it be the queen’s cat.
Pain sheared through the tentacle wrapped around the tabby, cutting off its tip. The frantic cat swam toward the edge, presumably to its queen. Nursing the injured tentacle, I still couldn’t help but smile at the thought of stringy moss and green water smearing the queen’s fine dress.
Let her venture close enough for me to grab. I’ll rip her apart even as she slices me into pieces.
39
OKEANOS
Idreamed to pass the unending time of my captivity.
Sometimes I was back in the reef cave, still trapped but at least I could feel the ocean moving around me. The massive bird with the striking blue feathers came to see me again. It didn’t betray me like the wicked cat, even daring to hop closer to my gaping mouth. Head cocked, black eyes sharp and clever with knowledge. I sang to it, even if it couldn’t understand. Once, it even brought me a twig with a flower on the end. Blood-red petals fell off into the water like droplets of blood.
Drifting into the deep blue.
Soul-deep longing dragged me down with those petals. Oh, to be free, wrapped in the sea’s embrace. Deeper, ever deeper. It wouldn’t matter if I were alone then.
Though the water was strangely warm here. Hot, even. Steam rose into warm, thick air. Rocks dark and slick around me. I touched those rocks curiously, not bound. Not trapped. But not sure why I was here. I’d never dreamed of such a place before.
The bird’s beak opened but instead of bird sounds, it said words I could understand. “Keep singing until she hears.”
