Filed to story: When the Moon Hatched Book
I offer him a faux smile. “Strangest thing.”
A beat of silence before he continues, so smooth and soft it chills me to the bone. “Who are you protecting, Moonbeam?”
My frail, suffocating vengeance, flailing as it is.
Perhaps my skewed vision is making me see things, but he has a look about him. Like if I tell him who really punched me in the face, the kill will no longer be mine, and I’m holding on to that promise of hope until I’m masticated by a dragon’s maw or sliced from throat to navel.
“That’s not my name. And I don’t need you to fight my battles any more than I need your presence in this cell.”
He steals a single step back, snapping the lid shut on his weald, sealing the flame back into the runed metal vial. “Prove it.”
I frown. “Excuse me?”
“Turn around, lift your tunic, and show me your back. If a stone can cause such damage to your face, I’m very interested to see just what it’s done to pack this cell with the smell of so much blood.”
My heart plops into my gut. “I …
No.”
“Always so stubborn,” he bites out, cradling the words like he fucking knows me.
He reaches forward—
Somebody sprints down the hall, cloaked in another white Runi robe akin to the one this male wears—an obvious ruse, given his weald and affinity with Ignos. Unless he’s multitalented, I guess.
The approaching Runi slows by my cell, peering into the shadowed depths. “Sire?” he whisper-hisses, the word pinching me. His eyes are wide with panic, stare bouncing between us both. “Guards are coming. Lots of them.”
My brows pull together, gaze cutting back to the male standing before me—unmoving.
Unblinking.
Sire.
Fucking
Sire.
Realization washes over me like a dunk of icy water, whipping all the warmth from my body. “You’re a …
king.”
“As I said.” There’s a brief pause as he flicks up his hood, casting his face back in a shroud of shadow, though his eyes still glimmer like a crush of embers caught in the orbs. “Is that a problem, Moonbeam?”
A swell of fiery rage packs my chest and mouth so full it’s impossible to speak. To tell him yes, that’s a problem.
The Shade, The Fade, and The Burn are each ruled by a different Vaegor brother, each cut from the same vile cloth.
I’ve seen King Fade from a distance—Cadok Vaegor. This male is not him. Meaning he either rules The Shade or The Burn.
The Shade is said to be even more rotten than this kingdom, if rumors are anything to go by, the cold, shadowed expanse governed by King Tyroth Vaegor. A cruel king with a heart said to fester from the loss of his queen.
The Burn … well.
Few who venture deep into the sunny part of the world return to tell the tale, though it’s said King Kaan is savage and bloodlusting. That Rygun—his ancient Sabersythe—was too big to fit in any of the city hutches the last time he came to Gore. That he lets the beast hunt freely across his kingdom, firing cities with his blazing breath and feasting on his folk whom he cares little about.
I’m not sure which option is worse. Who I’d least prefer to be sharing this cell with right now, breathing the same filthy air.
One thing’s for sure—I wouldn’t bow to any of them, even if a sword was notched at my neck.
A stampede of booted steps echoes down the corridor while I hold his stare, the racket coming to a halt before my cell. In my peripheral, I note the shadowed silhouettes of heavily armored guards.
“Runi,” one of them bellows, “what are you doing in cell seventy-three?”
The King doesn’t break my stare as he says, “I’m the resident healer. I was instructed to inspect this prisoner’s wounds.”
I give him an incredulous look.
“Impossible. Everyone is under strict instruction not to enter that cell. She is our most dangerous captive.”
I would be flattered, but there’s no room for it beside the bubbling well of undiluted rage piling up my throat like a dragon about to wield its first flame.
“I must order you to exit her cell. She’s expected at trial before the Guild of Nobles. We’re to escort her straight there.”
Music to my ears. I don’t want to spend another second in this monster’s presence.
“Yes, resident healer,” I say, serving him a sour smile, “kindly step out of my chambers. I have no need of your assistance—now or ever.”
The air between us becomes impossibly tight, and he grunts, stepping back.
The guards flood my cell in a spill of bloodred armor and the smell of polished leather. A male grips me by my wounded shoulder and jostles me forward, a wince hissing past my clenched teeth.
“She’s been pinned,” the King proclaims, his voice a veiled death threat I want to scrunch up and stuff back down his throat.
I don’t want him whipping out his imperial cock for me. Certainly not when he doesn’t bother to whip it out for his own folk.
He eyes the guard like he wants to rip out the male’s trachea. “Why?”
“Because she speaks with Clode and Bulder.” I’m held in place while another guard unlocks the metal pole connecting my chains. “The very reason this cell was off limits.”
“How do you know?” the King queries as I’m attached to an iron leash I consider using to strangle them all—until I see the red elemental bead hanging from the lobe of one of the guards.
Perhaps not.
“She took out an entire unit in the Undercity. Collapsed the lungs of seven soldiers before she even began tossing her blades. She slaughtered another twelve in ways that would make your insides wither, forged a cleft in the ground that took another six, then bit off the finger of a prestigious bounty hunter employed by The Crown.”
Well.
Good for me. I’d pat myself on the back if my skin wasn’t flayed.
“Wanna tussle?” I ask the King, flashing him a complimentary grin he can take to my grave, wondering why he doesn’t look anywhere near as outraged by my large body count as I expected him to be. “If I win, you purchase my sentence, and I go back to killing vile males with small cocks and enough ego to justify their sick behavior. And you get to go back to … well, hunting moonshards.”
I feel the guard’s beady-eyed stare bouncing between myself and the Incognito King, the latter stepping so close to me that barely an inch of space separates us.
The world around us fades into oblivion as he looks upon me with such a fierce intensity I almost forget how to breathe. “Not much point anymore, since I’ve found the most important piece.”
The air between us grows so tight I’m certain one small tap will make it shatter.
The next breath I pull crushes my breasts against his solid, muscular chest. “Well, off you go,” I rasp. “Collect your prize.”
“Hard,” he rumbles. “It’s in a problematic position. Difficult to reach.”
I snort.
Please.
“I’m sure you have the resources to work it out,” I mutter, lifting my chin, flicking a look at the soldier behind him. “Let’s get this over with.”
“So eager?” the King asks, and I release a mirthless laugh.
“Yeah, sure. I’m just itching to get drawn and quartered or served to the Moltenmaws on a stick.”
Said nobody ever.
I’m led from the cell, down the hall, taking shuffled steps past caged folk clinging to their bars.