Page 11 of Courting Envy
This was my afterlife.
And yet… I didn’t feel dead. I felt like me, only… Different.
It was impossible to put the feeling into words or find a way to explain it, but I probably didn’t need to. It wasn’t like I had any friends here. No one to confide in.
Unless Kyveli could be trusted. She’d seemed to want to be my friend. Maybe more than just my friend.
I thought about the way she’d turned from shadow to solid, but even then, her features were hard to define. I had known she was beautiful though, the impression of grace, the way she’d held herself.
The way she’d reached towards me, stroked her hand down my cheek.
A tremble ran through my body at the thought of her touch. I wasn’t attracted to many women, but when I was, it was hard to deny.
I didn’t know how the denizens of Hell treated each other, though – which meant I wasn’t sure what was normal behavior here. Was it okay to love another woman? Was the debauchery that humans associated with Satan and his world true, or all fiction? I knew literally nothing.
My eyes stung, the reality of my situation crushing me again. I might not have many close friends, but the few I did have meant the world to me and now they were gone.
Or rather, I was gone. What would they think? Would my body have been discovered by the staff at the hotel? Were there headlines about my one-night stand and subsequent murder splashed all over the news?
Lucien was a prince of Hell though; he could have disposed of my body in any way he wanted. Heck, maybe this was my body and there would be rumors about a possible abduction, or worse, they might think I’d caved because of the pressure of being in the spotlight and done a disappearing act.
I couldn’t stand the thought of that, knew the smug expression that Stefanie would wear, knowing that I wouldn’t be back for another performance. She’d step in and take my place with the biggest, stupidest smile.
There was a heavy knock on the door which made me shoot to my feet and wipe my face. I’d not shed a tear, but I felt the compulsion to clean my skin, leave not even a speck of sorrow there for anyone to see.
I was the queen
Think like a queen.I had to channel that energy from day one and maybe I would be okay. I’d find a way to be okay, at least when I was around others. I could fall apart in my own time, but right now I needed to face the first of my subjects, aside from Kyveli, and I had a niggling feeling that the way she slipped through walls meant she was beholden to none.
“Enter,” I called, and then took a deep breath, steeling myself for whoever – whatever – was going to come through that door.
It swung open slowly and a moment later I heard the scrape of scales against the floor. My heart froze, my breath locked in my chest as a giant snake slithered into the room, flicking the door closed with its tail.
It was a damn side harder to channel queen energy with this thing in the room. It could swallow me whole if it wanted to.
But what had Lucien said? Reon. Reon would be my bodyguard.
“Reon?”
The snake coiled itself into a pile, its head bobbing once.
I swallowed hard.
“Do you have a more–” I struggled to find the right word. Not human, but this thing was demonic, so that wasn’t the right term either. “Do you have a form more like mine? So that we can speak.”
Yes, that would do. Communication was important, and unless this snake could speak in the same tongue as I…
What tongue was I even speaking in? It seemed ridiculous to think that everyone in Hell spoke English, and yet I’d had no problem understanding or being understood. My brain hurt. I pressed a hand to my temple, but then sucked in a breath as the serpent before me shimmered and shifted, its upper half transforming. Scales submerged into pale skin; features formed on the face. A gently sloping nose, dark eyes with pupils that still looked reptilian. His dark scales were still visible in some places, and that same inky black marred his fingers. They’d been dipped in shadows the same way mine were.
Would I one day have a form such as his?
The idea didn’t repulse me as much as I’d assumed it would.
“My Queen,” he said. His tongue flicked out of his mouth for just a moment, but I caught the split in it. Wondered if he could change all the way to mostly human looking, or whether this as far as his transformation could go. “My Lord has sent me to keep you safe. What is your will?”
He looked at me then, directly in the eye, in a way that a subordinate should not. At least, I didn’t think so. Something flashed over his gaze but I wasn’t sure whether it was desire or revulsion at my strange, half human appearance.
I must seem odd to those that resided here. It made me feel even more the outsider – no knowledge of this place, no awareness of what this magic tingling through my veins meant, and a huge hole in my heart where my former life resided.
