Page 94 of Of Brides Of Queens

Yet there would be kingly consequences to such a lie.

I glanced at the exquisite female monster fully. “Good evening, Princess.”

“More like dawn,” she said, and her tone suggested that they had been busy indeed. “As to your interruption—this meeting was clearly planned by yourself and See.”

She saw through our fabrication. This princess was far more ancient than other princesses and princes. I should adjust my thinking to see her more as a queen, though that stung at my vanity somewhat.

The princess appeared much as her king. Raisined, gray-skinned, and black in curved nails. Black smudged around her eyes, too, and I fathomed in high emotion this darkness would spread out in a mask as it did on her king’s face. Blackness ran in her veins, too, and I regarded the pattern of her veins up her revealed thigh. She wore a smaller version of her king’s top hat, and where he wore feathers around his neck, feathers splayed over her shoulders instead. “I have wished to meet you, Princess Take.”

“I would think the opposite.”

“’Tis better not to suppose what queens think,” I replied.

Her gaze snapped to See. “Will you enjoy this, darling?”

“Very much so” was his rumbling answer. “And I am not your darling.”

I glanced at him. And then and there, I decided to cease treating See as I treated other kings.

Princess Take slipped off the small bar, and her tight and bejeweled gown did not do her magnificence justice.

“You are truly magnificent,” I said. “As the princes of your king told me.”

She was an undulating creature, wrinkled in skin and yet full-lipped and delicate as a work of art. In the strokes of her painting was a hidden message that whispered to grip her neckand give her everything. Her allure pulled, and the gulping force was startling indeed. “Goodness, but I see the appeal. No wonder kings have fought over you.”

King See’s focus burned into my cheek, and Princess Take narrowed her gaze at my compliment, perhaps suspecting subterfuge.

“You seek to lower my guard,” she decided.

I lifted a shoulder, then ventured closer. Slowly. She was more ancient, and I could not be sure how this monster could harm me. “I speak as I feel.” I tilted my head this way and that to view her angles. “Brilliantly crafted by ancients. I cannot find that you are anything other than transcendent and perfectly designed in every way.”

She scoffed and returned to the small bar.

The princess had expected to purr and crow over my flashing envy, yet I could find none in me. All monsters stunned me with their wondrous exteriors, and she was no different.

King See was silent. Perhaps intrigued. He might have anticipated a queen staking her claim, especially when she had arrived in his uniform, but my curiosity enamored him more.

I followed the princess, trying to see more.

She whirled from the bar. “Why do you follow me like a child? Would you like to hear how his cock tastes? You that cannot even see him?”

“No,” I replied. “I would not like that. I would like to know how you came to empty yourself for another king.”

Her lips curved. “How amusing, but do you pity me?”

“I have not formed an opinion. I am greatly intrigued.”

Her smirk faded. “But I think you are.” Her focus shifted over my shoulder. “What is wrong with her? Why does she behave so?”

King See answered, “There is naught wrong with her, Princess Take, and an unworldly deal about her to marvel over, as you resist doing.”

“That is not what she inspires in me” was the chilling reply. To me, she said, “I emptied myself because I wished to. The reason is none of your business.Your Highness.”

She walked around the lounge, and I followed.

“He wanted you above all others,” I mused. “Yet he required that you give up your purposeandyourself, when princessdom had only demanded one of those things.”

The princess lowered into the armchair opposite See’s, and I perched on the armrest of the neighboring couch. Quite close.

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