Page 101 of Of Brides Of Queens

“Yet you do not question our motive for bringing you here,” he retorted, and there was anger in his beastly voice.

I continued circling the clearing in the rubble. “I have already declared that I will not place you in conflict with your king. Not when your harm is the result. I value you too much for this.”

“You do not know us,” he snarled, teeth bared in a growl.

With another pawn, I might have submitted to queenly fury at his lack of decorum. I longed for a time when I could do so with my werebeasts without fear for their hearts and souls and minds. “I know you as any monster knows another, in that you are perfectly crafted for your dusk purpose. The three of you uniquely shine with the uncommon width of your emotional lens—for you have felt that happiness cannot be forged by others, but you know they might take it away. You have felt set apart fromother monsters for an age, and in this we are joined, because twelve hundred years lapsed where most monsters existed but I did not. These are a few ways in which you are unique and wonderful to me.”

They reacted with growls and retreats and howls.

Huckery snickered low and staccato afterward. “You seek to forge our happiness despite knowing only we can do so. But we long for the trappings of convention. In monsterdom resides our wrongness. Your words rub at our wounds instead of healing them, Queen. You will not convince us of our wonder, nor of saving. Webelievein ruin, ours included.”

I had seen that they did not always believe in ruin. Of all my pawns, my werebeasts had displayed the strongest sense of right and wrong. Unlike the others, whenever these pawns chose to save, they did so in full knowledge of working against their liege. My other pawns did not need to work so hard to help me.

I would never stop convincing my werebeasts that monsterdom made them exquisite. Yet since holding a garter, quite suddenly I was a more ancient queen who saw that the warmth of my words and actions were—as Huckery had said—rubbing at their wounds. While I viewed my actions less as rubbing than scraping away infection so the wound might scar over, they were understandably in pain from my choice.

Something colder was in order. A good thing, then, that I had a garter this dawn.

Ice entered my voice. “There is the matter of the three of you abandoning me in battle to answer your liege’s call. To lead his sixth against me.”

Unguis, Loup, and Huckery sat in a row facing me. Confused, yes, but they hung on my words where they had not until now. They wondered if punishment and consequence came next, and the possibility of this held comfort for them. These wereresponses that they knew and found solace in, for the acts reinforced their warped beliefs of their unworthiness.

“We have earned your great ire,” Unguis whined, lowering to a bow.

Their submission churned my stomach. “I had thought you abandoning me on the battlefield would not bother me. I will never stand between you and your liege, but there must also be a consequence for your choices to forsake me.”

“We hate to forsake you,” Loup whispered. “We are pathetic creatures.”

Huckery’s intense focus kept me from wrinkling my nose.

I looked at him. “Each time you choose to help your liege instead of me, you will need to make payment to your queen.”

“A tithe,” mused Huckery. “I am listening.”

A tithe, yes.“Uncomfortable choices come with uncomfortable prices, so whatever drives you from my side to help King Change will also tie you to me more soundly.”

Loup panted with the need for punishment. I was grateful indeed for the new ancient chill in me.

Huckery curled back lip from fang. “What is the price for abandoning a queen in a battle to save her queendom from a king?”

I smiled. “The three of you will slumber in my queendom each day henceforth.”

The yellowed eyeballs of the werebeasts widened. Unguis covered his face with manged paws.

“Our liege will not allow it,” Loup hushed.

I lifted a shoulder. “He cannot stop it.”

“He will prevent us leaving his company,” said Huckery. “Upholding our side of this bargain would prove tricky indeed. We surely would not always succeed.” His eyes glimmered with anticipation at the prospect of failing, yet his open reply was aweakening in him that I rejoiced to see. I had never managed to find an entry point that he believed.

“There is also a payment you must make for the privilege of choice between queen and king,” I told them.

They were nervous. They were eager. Such conventional self-hatred.

Screams rose behind me as humans were ripped from their nightmares by terror of their beastly qualities. Such was the power of King Change with his subjects.

I would not linger in this kingdom, for I could feel an uncomfortable press in my mind the longer I remained.

“In payment for this ongoing choice, you are required to protect yourself from your liege in all matters of the queen,” I declared.

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