Page 139 of Tarnished Queen

Stars burst across my vision and my face burns from the heat of the slap. And one thing becomes crystal clear: I’m in a lot of trouble.

“Oh, Bellyyy?” Xena taunts in a sing-song voice. “Wake up and play.”

I pry my eyes open, squinting against the dim lights above me. I have no idea how long I’ve been unconscious or where I am. It should be terrifying, waking up with Xena looming over me like Death’s eager minion, but I can’t find the energy to really care.

“There you are!” Xena grins. “Finally. I worried I gave you too much of the sedative. It would have been no fun if you’d died in your sleep. What a waste that would be, right?”

I don’t know if she expects an answer from me, until she’s suddenly yanking on my hair, arching my body up so she can snarl into my face.

“I said, ‘Right?’” she spits.

“Dying would be preferable to ever seeing you again.” I think the words come out alright, but my mouth feels like it’s full of cotton. It could be a garbled, incoherent mess for all I know.

Xena lets go of my hair. I drop to my knees on the concrete floor.

“What’s the matter?” she asks, pacing in a circle around me. “Trouble in paradise?”

Paradise?I want to bark out a laugh, but I don’t want to give her the satisfaction. She doesn’t deserve an explanation.

“I figured you’d be begging for me to spare you and your baby.” She narrows her eyes at me, her expression turning acidic as she glances at my stomach. “I bet you didn’t know Nikolai put a target on your back when he put that baby in your womb.”

“I actually think he put a target on my back when he put his dick in me,” I snap back. “Again and again and—”

Xena rears back and strikes. I barely have a millisecond to brace before her palm cracks across my face again. The metallic tang of blood fills my mouth this time.

“You’d be a lot better off if you could keep your mouth and your legs closed,” she hisses.

I would remind her that she is the one who forced me to talk, but there’s no point. Xena sees the world the way she wants to see it. Logic and reason don’t factor in.

She bends down and snarls in my face, “You destroyed my plan. You wrecked everything. And now, I’m going to do the same to you in the most painful, agonizing way possible. If you had any idea what I have planned for you, you’d start begging.”

“Begging for what? My life?” I shrug. “You can have it.”

She pulls back, arching an eyebrow. She’s put on makeup since the hospital, I notice. The wings of her eyeliner flare out nearly to her temples. She looks more like a cartoon villain than an actual person.

“Are you trying to make me feel sorry for you? You steal my life—my fiancé, my baby—and now, it’s not good enough for you?”

I didn’t steal anything. To steal it, you have to possess it. And nothing about Nikolai has ever been mine.

Not his heart. Not his baby. Nothing.

The only thing I have left is Elise. And even she is safer without me around.

Emotion creeps up my throat, but I won’t cry in front of Xena. I won’t. She’s like a shark in the water—if she smells blood, she won’t fetch me a bandage; she’ll take a bite.

I swallow it all down. “He doesn’t love you,” I croak aloud. “He doesn’t love you at all.”

Xena’s eyes flare, and she slaps me again, harder than ever.

But she doesn’t realize I wasn’t talking to her.

40

NIKOLAI

I’m back at the warehouse Christo took me to the first time we went looking for Belle. The rusted-out shell in the center of a ring of Simatou-owned buildings.

Chasing Xena is like a game of Whack-A-Psycho. Just when you think you’ve beat her down, she pops up again.

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