Free Web NovelChapter 142: 142. Court III
Maisie
There was a little bit of silence from the dais before the Queen spoke again. "You must think me a fool, nephew, if you think I do not smell his blood on that wench behind you."
Soren remained stiff as a board. "We had a bit of pork on the way here. Rare. Unless Adrian has begun to smell like a gutted pig, then you are mistaken, aunt."
He was lying out of his teeth so easily, I might have been impressed if I didn’t have seat pouring down my back. There was such raw violence in the air, I kept waiting for it to erupt.
The Lycan Queen hissed. "I felt him die, you scoundrel, in the same way I feel every one of my people die. You do not fool me with your useless act. You will confess to your crime or there will be nothing left of you four torn bury when I tear you to pieces."
Soren stared at her, and without blinking, he said, "Have you checked the whorehouses in Ashbourne, maybe?"
The hall sucked in a sharp breath, waiting.
And it came down, like an anvil. "Come forward, girl. I hear your transition is completed. Let me have a look at you." freewebnøvel.coɱ
Soren’s shoulder tensed. Jericho’s fingers curled. Quinlan inhaled abruptly and Mercer stiffened.
"Well?" she said snappily.
Mercer’s fingers tightened on mine. It was clear they didn’t want me taking the step forward, but out of the corner of my eyes, I noticed the guards lining the walls, the doors, every corner of the hall.
If they continued to disregard her orders, someone was going to get hurt.
I pulled my hand out of Mercer’s, and I heard Soren down the line of the bond, "Do not look in her eyes. Do not speak, no matter what questions she deems to ask you. We’ll take care of this."
I swallowed, slipping past the protective wall they’d formed around me to stand in front of them.
They brushed up closer behind me, their heats warming my back, letting me know they were there, and while I appreciated it, it did nothing to save me from the piercing stare of the Queen.
She appraised me like I was a commodity for purchase at a local market.
"Hmm." Her mouth curved. "Adequate."
My nails bit into my palms.
"It is as I was told," she continued, pleased with her own cruelty. "Fecund enough. Strong enough. If you had not already been bonded, you might have made a serviceable breeder. Shame."
I swallowed the rage. The yearning to smash her teeth in. But I knew she was only goading me and—
"Tell me, little girl," she smiled wider. "Was it your scent, or that new body of yours? Or might it be that false innocence and pretty face you used to lure Adrian in, just so you could commit treason?"
"What?"
The accusation was so jarring and out of place that in my shock, I forgot Soren’s warning, and made the mistake of glancing up.
The Queen’s black eyes slammed into mine, and the world around me was consumed by their darkness.
Those eyes were everywhere. In my mind. Around me, as she cocked her head in an almost serpentine movement. The presence in my mind was sentient and cruel, scraping down against my mental walls like claws to skin, searching.
It rebounded against an even older wall I hadn’t realized I had, and the result had my head splitting with such raw pain, I screamed.
I felt the Queen’s frustration at being unable to get into my head, and then she began striking harder, haphazardly, no longer trying to get in but to shatter it. To shatter my mind.
My Lycan was a heavy presence in my mind, shielding against the attack I didn’t understand. I tasted blood in my mouth. I felt it pour down my nose, my eyes, my ears.
Someone was screaming. It sounded like me. There was a roaring sound scraping off the walls, and I heard Soren yell, "Enough!"
At once, the attack halted. I was on the floor, curled in on myself, my hands over my ears, and Jericho’s arms around me, Mercer cradling my head.
"This has gone too far," Soren snarled, the only sound in the hall that of my clattering teeth.
The Queen’s stare remained on me for a moment too long. Then her red mouth curved into a slash of a dark smile. "Koen."
Mercer went rigid as she extended her jeweled fingers, the precious stones glinting on them, matching the ever changing color of her eyes. "Won’t you come kiss your mother? I am grieving, after all."
Mercer’s side of the bond cracked, and I felt terror pouring out of him. His knuckles were white and his hands shook where they touched me. He hesitated but a cruel hiss of displeasure rippled through the air, making it impossible to breathe.
Mercer tore his hands from me, and like a golem being controlled, he broke out of the protective circle they’d formed around me, and strode for the front of the hall.
I felt my stomach turn over as he knelt at her feet, took her fingers in his hands and kissed her knuckles.
Like a loving mother, she took his chin between her fingers and lifted his head to look in his eyes. And Mercer became still as marble. And I knew she was in his head, rummaging through, and there was nothing quite as horrifying or intimately devastating as a person having their thoughts pillaged like spoils from a war.
"Who was it?" she asked.
"Chastain," he answered without missing a beat.
"How did he die?" she murmured, stroking his cheek gently.
"He ripped out his heart."
Soren strained forward. "He was forcing himself on her. By every law, we had the right. If every man who touched a woman against her will got away with it, there would be no order, no respect or honor amongst us. You know this."
The Lycan Queen cocked her head, considering. "And I assume there were no witnesses to back this crime Adrian supposedly committed except you five?" When silence fell over the hall, she smirked. "How convenient."
"But it is true," I butted in, though my voice shook.
She pulled her wrist back from Mercer’s face and he exhaled, blinking rapidly, and I didn’t miss the way the others looked to him with utter betrayal.
"What were you wearing?" the Queen asked. "Where were you? Am I to assume he found you in the comfort of your home and tried to rape you?"
I blinked rapidly, uncoiling to my feet on shaky legs. "What I wore and where I was had nothing to do with the disgusting state of your chosen’s mind—"
"My reports tell me you were seen dressed like a cheap whore, serving drinks with your body on display for all the men to see." She tilted her head to the hall. "This is to be your future queen? An opportunist who sells her body to the highest bidder? And how, pray tell, might it have been Adrian’s fault if he wished to give you what you were practically begging for?"
I recoiled. I was going to puke.
Quinlan lunged forward, but the guard’s closed in around us swiftly, blocking off his path to the queen, weapons drawn. His fangs were bared and his veins were seconds away from popping out of his neck and I suspected if Jericho wasn’t holding him back, he might have spilled more blood.
"For someone who’s been in the same place as her, you disgust me," he spat.
The bored expression on the Queen’s face disappeared and in less than a second, she appeared in front of Quinlan.
And then, she struck him.
The force of the backhand would’ve been enough to send someone else sprawling across the hall, but blood splattered across the marble as Quinlan held his stance.
The only sign of her anger was the twitch in her left eye. "Insolent fool."
Helpless rage rose in my chest, turning everything red, but I couldn’t move, not as she moved on to Soren. "I took the liberty of learning a few things about your bride. It was only fair. She is my daughter-in-law, after all."
She stood toe to toe with Soren, running a cursory glance over me, before returning her attention to him. There was something triumphant about her smile. "You know how flimsy the loyalty of those wolves are. You hurt them and they find ways to hurt you back. I was beyond surprised when Hayes came to me with the most absurd story I’d heard in my life in exchange for freeing his son from a bond that was killing him."
Oh god.
The Queen inched closer. "My nephew, has apparently, been colluding with traitors. In fact, he’s gone so far as to marry one."
