Page 51 of Of Brides Of Queens

I pursed my lips, and they torsioned and told me that my true form had arrived. “Do any of my pawns know of humans?”

Fifteen blank stares. My seeing pawns chuckled at my question in their chiming way where they all chuckled at different times, then together in different combinations. My bringing pawns added their amusement, too, in the form of rumbling laughter. Goodness, but I enjoyed hearing such sounds again.

“How could a pawn or a prince know of humans?” Gangrel answered, and he erupted in raucous snorting afterward, which triggered the same from Vassal and Sanguine.

I had not really expected they would, mouthpieces of kings as they were.

What an unusual start to the evening. I gathered myself. “Stairway princes, I have a task for you this night.”

Toil slapped his blob on the cobblestones. “You share a fright with themandgive them a task?”

“Patience, Toil. A task awaits you too.”

Huckery snapped a look my way, but no task awaited him tonight, and I would not put the princes of King Change in such a dilemma anyway. I was determined on this front. They could not even bring themselves to sleep here, let alone act on my behalf against their king.

Sign, Seal, and Deliver marched closer to Mother’s grave with a definite swagger in their step. They felt favored and powerful amongst pawns. The others did not like this, and I paused to wonder whether how I felt about kings was affecting my treatment of pawns. Things were especially uneasy with Has Been, Is, and Will Be after the news of Princess Take visiting their king. A silent impasse existed between me and the werebeasts of Change. My eager blobs felt slighted, and I imagined King Bring was demanding that they be very helpful to me, but accepting their help came with invisible strings attached. Or so it felt.

“The rest of you are dismissed,” I ordered.

I had not ordered them like this before. There was surprise, and some uncertainty, but after lumbering steps and squelching and padding of pawns, only three pawns remained. I listened until the others were several blocks away. “Stairway pawns, you have a task this evening.”

“My queen, of course,” Seal said, then bowed grandly.

He was nervous. They all were.

“My heart is glad because this is not a time I must force you in a public way against your liege, though this task is not one your liege will agree with.”

Their faces fell, and I noticed that the rips in the hollows of Sign’s cheeks had not mended since the other night. He was very stressed.

“Be assured that this is only a retaliation of sorts. Your liege is already aware that he owes me a capture.”

The concerned wrinkles on Deliver’s bald head relaxed. “Oh, but my queen, we cannot capture our king unless he has drifted from his purpose. Our king has not done so for an age. Unless he drifts, the power of ancients will not fill us to correct his path.

I listened patiently. “It is not King Raise you will capture, but Princess Raise.”

They each considered that in their various way. Sign blinked his eyes that did not possess any eyelashes. Seal pursed and relaxed his lips. Deliver alternated rubbing his hands together and clenching them tight.

“This is who I order captured this night,” I declared. “Deliver Princess Raise to me before dawn.”

Sign grimaced. “You operate within the confines of your promise to King Raise. You did not state he would be the capturee, after all, but you areaware Princess Raise has been confined for three years and?—”

I waved a hand. “I am aware. That will end.”

Deliver cleared his throat. “Three years is not a long time, but not a blink. Such a capture would end an extended foreplay that our liege must wildly anticipate.”

“Yes,” I agreed, and the timeless and powerful monster in me purred at the extra sting to my capture. King Raise would suffer double a blow. One to his ego and one to his cock.

So he should for daring to capture a queen and stab her in the heart, and so pitifully too.

“You will free Princess Raise from her confinement,” I told the trio. “You will bring her to me before dawn.”

Seal stared. “If King Raise asks what we are doing, what should we say?”

“King Raise will understand everything from the other side.”

“The other side of what?”

Pawns.“The other side of what you do. I am telling you not to inform him, Seal.”