Page 16 of Queens Ride Horny Dragons
"Do you think she had something to do with Léas?" a female voice asked.
"She's human. They're worthless," another said.
I cracked the door open and spied the two across the hall, their feather dusters flapping over the gold wall sconces. Apparently I wasn't the only one who needed to work on stereotypes. I supposed I should’ve felt angry, or got an uppity attitude with a, "Who's worthless now, bitches?" while I strutted past them wearing a crown. I didn't, though maybe I should've. Still, hearing the shifters thoughts could be helpful since there was no lack of things for them to worry and talk about.
Especially if they didn’t know they were speaking around their queen.
After a quick glance in my closet—everything inside therescreamedqueen—I grabbed an eyeliner from the vat of makeup someone had left me on the dresser then waited until the two women flitted away with their feather dusters. Then I slipped out, wearing nothing but a robe, in search of my harem’s bedrooms. Asa’s was right next to mine, and then down at the very end of the sharply curved hallway, past the art room, were three closed doors that belonged to my harem. This single hallway and the front door entryway was the extent of my knowledge of the castle’s layout so far. Progress, I guess.
After a quick knock, the first room I slipped into—empty from the look of it—must have belonged to Calhoun judging from the nothing-but-black clothes in the closet. Perfect for blending. Hopefully he wouldn’t mind. I found a shirt and pants that swallowed me up as well as a black cap big enough to stuff my hair into. With the eyeliner, I drew on a mustache. Not the greatest disguise, but from a distance, it could work.
Quickly, I slipped out the door and headed left toward a wide staircase, passing right by the shifters with the feather dusters. Their conversation stopped and then started up again in frantic whispers. I snorted back a laugh. Now they'd think I'd added a mustached man to my harem. Oh well. I'd never cared what people said behind my back, which was likely because my heart had grown hard over the years. Very few could crack that armor and get to the squishy center. Asa, obviously, and more and more, my harem. In the little time I'd known them, they'd been nothing but loyal and fiercely protective of my back. And my front.
Come on, I had to go there.
"…the Evenza building?" another shifter was saying. He stooped down on the staircase and polished the wooden banister into a high shine.
Another worked a few steps down from him, wetting his rag with more polish.
I stopped in the hallway above them, pretending to check if a knob was firmly attached to a door.
"All dead," the second shifter said. "Every dragon shifter who came to work this morning, from the first floor to the forthieth."
My stomach dipped past my knees, and I held to the doorframe so I wouldn't tip over. That was what I was afraid of. My shifters had offered to go back there after we looked at the video to investigate Oliver and what I'd told them had happened in the security office, but I had vehemently refused.
"Send someone else," I’d told them.
They must have done so while I slept. So how many were dead? Hundreds? And most importantly, who? Who would do that? If it were the fae, wouldn't they eventually want all the shifters to know that the fae had started a war?
We needed proof, and all we had were a missing dragon goddess, weakened stovetops, and a ton of gruesome murders. It was enough to make me want to go back to bed. It was more than enough to make me want to throw back ten shots of Red-Headed Sluts and put myself to sleep for days.
"Our new 'queen' went back there early yesterday morning, you know." The first shifter spat 'queen' like it had stuck his tongue with barbs.
"I did not know that," the other said, and the lethal edge in his voice prickled the back of my neck.
“She took Calhoun with her and tried to kill him,” the first shifter said. “You saw his neck, right? She tried to slit his throat. And all the camera footage in the Vivix building is conveniently gone.”
“She needs to be watched,” the other growled. "We might yet still see Petra take the throne."
Was Petra still alive, though, since she'd been in the Vivix building? Rio?
Then a third voice filtered up the stairs. “Just wait until the coronation…”
I froze as goose bumps swept across my skin. My blood chilled. Was that a threat? I risked a look behind me but didn’t see who that third voice belonged to. They’d already moved on.
Before the two shifters could see that I was doing nothing more than holding up a door and eavesdropping, I slipped back down the hall. These were the same shifters who would be cooking my food. Well, maybe notthoseshifters, but some like them, some who trusted me less than I trusted them. They thought I was a murderer of an entire building of dragon shifters. A worthless human. Someone who needed to be watched and could be easily discarded.
Just wait until the coronation…
This could go a lot farther than spitting in my cheeseburger. Maybe even farther than a poisoned grape like Asa had almost eaten. But they wouldn't because I planned to stay several steps in front of them.
I burst into the art room and found Asa and Tavis already at it with blue paint smears on both their cheeks.
Tavis's eyes widened when he saw me. "Why didn't anyone tell me it was Crossdressing Day?"
Asa blinked up at me and shrugged. "You’re a boy now? You do you, boo."
I cracked a smile. Of course I couldn't fool them with my super-sneaky disguise. "Tavis, could I talk to you for a second?"
