Page 21 of Ruthless Monsters

Still, I don’t let myself celebrate. Not when there could be something else stalking me. I think about how the guards had talked about rats in the palace.Please, please don’t let there be any rats here.I imagine a family of the huge rodents living their best life in these tunnels, and just waiting for me to walk into their territory. My thoughts start spiralling, and I force myself to take a breath.Quit it, Shade. There aren’t any rats. Okay, so the dead end the prisoner talked about should be right around…Oof!I walk beak first into a rocky wall and topple down. I’ve definitely bruised something, but I’m back on my feet shortly after.Crap. It definitely would be better if I was an owl.

According to the stranger in the prison, this is actually a secret entrance to the rebel camp. I feel around, pecking the rock until I find a small opening on the bottom right. The hole is just large enough for me to wiggle my feathered butt through, and I slither past the rock, emerging on the other side.

There’s more rocky walls and stone underneath my feet over here, but a white glow emanates from somewhere up ahead. The further I walk, the more light bleeds into the space. I follow the twisting tunnel as it curves around, and…

“What the fuck is that?” someone comments as I bump into something hard. Before I have time to register what I’ve walked into, large, sweaty hands clamp onto me, lifting me into the air.

Ahhhh! You’ll never take me aliveeee!I panic, pecking my attacker’s hand furiously like a chicken with an adrenaline rush.

“Ouch! Stop! It’s a fucking bird!” That same deep masculine voice says, squashing me even more.

Come on, Shade. Deep breaths. He’s not going to drop dead from a few pecks, so just take a breath, will you?

The male stops tightening his hold on me when I stop pecking him, and my chest heaves as I force myself to maintain a ceasefire.

“Well, don’t kill it,” a feminine voice reprimands. “Hold it like that and you’re going to squeeze it to death. Show me.”

The hands around me loosen even more and open enough that I look up to see a female with a freckled face peering down at me.

“It’s a crow,” she says in surprise. “I didn’t know Celzar saved any of those?”

“It’s a bad omen, that’s what it is,” the male holding me says with a frown. Weapons are strapped to a leather belt across his chest, and my face blanches at the small throwing knives I can only just make out. “What are the odds that soon after we hear the news about the king’s upcoming weddin’, that a black crow finds its way to our camp.”

I sigh internally. It doesn’t matter if it’s humans, demons, or now apparently these rebels, crows always seem to get a bad rap. I want to point out that since I’ve been around, Blake’s luck has actually improved, but then I think of her dysfunctional mates and the fact that she’s currently locked up by a foreign king, and I start to doubt myself.

“We’ll take it to, Eliza. She can decide what to do with it,” the female says.

The male holding me grumbles, and for a moment I think he’s going to crush me anyway, but then he starts lumbering on, jostling me about in his large hands as he walks.

By the time I hear voices again, I’m almost convinced he’s given me a concussion, but I quickly manage to pull myself together when I hear, “Where is it?” This female’s voice is sure and commanding, and when the male opens his hands this time, I’m about ready to wing it out of there.

Or I would, if I wasn’t frozen to the spot as the male removes his top hand and stretches his bottom palm flat, exposing me to three more individuals who gawk at me. Two more males and one female stare straight at me, their gazes shrewd and hard, but it’s the new female with long dark braids and piercing black eyes who moves in close. I’m still frozen to the spot when she reaches over and…strokes my feathers. Her fingers glide down my back, and despite her serious expression, her touch is kind. Warmth seeps out from her fingertips, soothing my anxiety, and I can’t tell if I’m imagining it or not.

“You were right to bring her to me,” the female says. “I can confirm there aren’t any crows in the city, so she must be from above.”

One of the other females steps closer. “Above?”

“And I think…” the female says, her fingers finding the strip of cloth fastened around my neck, “that a crow finding its way down here right to us in these tunnels can’t be an accident.” Her ebony gaze meets mine as she pulls off the strip of cloth, and I hope this girl can make out the squiggles and lines the prisoner splodged on there. Otherwise, I’m screwed.

Chapter

Nine

~ Princess Blake ~

Ipace the room, unable to sit still as I think about Shade in the tunnels trying to find the rebels. Our connection had cut off some time ago, and the silence is driving me crazy. It was one thing not hearing her voice when I could still see her, but now worry has me second-guessing my decision to send her out there. I scrub a hand over my face.Pull it together, Blake.She’s fine and your mates are, too.

My body warms at the thought of the four males in the prison. Shade had said they were okay, and I relax a little even though everything in me is telling me to go to them. I’m clearing the destroyed bed just to give myself a distraction when Sassia enters my room. I pivot toward her, and she takes one look at my innocent smile and peers at Shade’s empty cage. I don’t give her an explanation, and thankfully, she doesn’t ask for one.

I’m aware she could alert the guards to Shade’s escape but considering her plea for me to kill their king, I’m hopeful she’ll keep it to herself.

“The servants are talking about what happened at the party,” she tells me, turning from the empty cage like it’s of no consequence.

“Yeah? And what are they saying?”

She purses her lips, and my expression flattens.

“That good, huh?” I ask her.

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