Page 14 of Midnight Queen

“As you can imagine, I’m on a bit of a deadline here. The clock is ticking for all of us. Ticktock, ticktock.” Gideon grabs under my arms and I’m dumped onto the metal surface on my back. My fight-or-flight instincts kick in and I instantly try to swing my legs off the table in a desperate attempt to run. The hand that had momentarily left my hair returns, this time, my head is roughly yanked back to the table. The back of my skull collides with the metal surface. Pain radiates through my head and for a minute, my vision blurs, and my world tilts.

Taking advantage of my dizzy and disoriented state, Gideon makes work of chaining my hands and feet back in place. “That’s better,” he mumbles to himself as if he’s proud of his handiwork. “You look good in chains, Quincey. Our viewers agree,” he offers over his shoulder while he repositions the camera closer to the table.

“Beg Silas to save you,” he goads me, the smile that I hate stretching across his face. “Beg him to find you and make all of this stop.”

Locking eyes with the man, I shake my head. “No.”

He stares me down for a minute like he’s waiting for me to give in and look away, but when I continue to hold his stare, his lips flatten into an unamused line. “You can pretend to be strong, but eventually I will make you cry for him. You will break and you will beg for him to come in here like your knight in shining armor.”

“Silas isn’t a knight,” I snarl. “He’s a fucking king.”

One second, Gideon is standing at the end of the table, the next he’s so close to my face I can feel his breath across my cheek as he snarls, “He made himself king, but he’s not God.” This close to my face, I can make out just how unwell this man is. In his eyes, the exhaustion and sorrow he feels are reflected. They’re the only proof I have that this man feels anything at all. “I was his ally—hisconfidant. I helped him maintain his power, but how does he repay me for my service? Bykillingher. He could have turned a blind eye and let us leave, but no. He’s always lacked mercy.”

The way Gideon talks about Margret’s death, it’s as if in his head, he views Silas’s actions as rash and unfair, but I know Silas. Silas doesn’t work impulsively. Every step he takes and every choice he makes are carefully thought out. It takes a lot for him to deviate from that path. “You keep saying he killed her, but you’ve never said why,” I argue. I know Silas’s history is painted red, but I know he’d never kill a woman without cause.

Gideon jerks back like I’ve slapped him.

“You’re filming this because you want your story to be known, but you’re leaving out a crucial part, aren’t you?”

He doesn’t answer, his face remains like a piece of marble.

Not giving up, I continue to push, “Why did he kill her? He had to have a reason—”

“Stop talking,” Gideon warns, voice darkening.

Even though I know angering the vampire who appears to be experiencing a psychological break isn’t a wise idea, I don’t heed his warning. If he wants to make Silas the monster in his tale, that’s fine, but he better tell the whole fucking story. “What happened, Gideon? You said before Margret was punished for something that wasn’t her fault—”

There’s a flash of silver and the same knife he used to cut my hip reappears. The shiny serrated blade is pushed to my throat by a surprisingly shaky hand for a vampire. “Don’t say her name.”

For a moment I forget how to breathe and every single one of my muscles freeze in place, the fear of being cut momentarily taking me over. Slowly, I force myself to relax. Letting out a long breath, I lift my chin, giving him even better access to my jugular. “If it wasn’t her fault, was it yours? Is it your fault that Margaret is dead, Gideon?”

For the first time since I woke up in this room with him, varying emotions cross his face. His marble mask shatters, exposing the man underneath. First, it’s like he’s in physical pain from my words, but the pain quickly morphs into visible anger.

“I warned you!” he roars, his voice bouncing off the stone walls. “I told you not to use her name!”

Wonderfully and recklessly fearless,that’s what Silas once called me.

In this moment, I’m not fearless. With every breath I take and each beat of my heart, fear works its way through my body. What’s keeping me strong is my anger. Anger for what’s happened to Ira and anger that someone would use me to hurt Silas.

Despite the nerves and alarm bells going off in my head, I ask a question I know he’s not expecting to come out of my mouth. “Did she say your name when Silas took her life?”

I feel the blade slide shallowly into my neck when he presses it harder against my flesh. “No,” Gideon grits out. “Silas didn’t give her the opportunity. He acted too fast.” The knife trails down my throat before stopping right under my collarbone, directly over my heart. “But I will. I’ll give you ample opportunity to say his name, Quincey.”

I feel nothing at first, just pressure, but then white-hot pain comes. My mouth opens in a silent gasp, air getting caught in my constricting throat and my back arches off the metal table in a poor attempt to escape the agony as the blade slices into my chest.

Blinded by the pain, I forget the promise I’d made to myself; don’t let him see you break. My weak and shaking hands ball into fists at my sides, my nails digging into my palms. Forcing my mouth shut, my teeth grind together as I force myself to remain silent and still, but I’m unable to stop the hot tears that fall from the corners of my eyes.

Pausing in his task, granting me a small reprieve, Gideon looks down at me. “Say his name,” he taunts.

Swallowing the ball of emotion trapped in my throat, I choke out a hoarse, “No.”

And then the pain returns.

When I was in denial of my affections toward Quincey, I’d watch the security camera feeds from the estate so I could feed the addiction that had started to form.

Most of the time they were just clips of her talking with Della in the kitchen while the housekeeper cooked. Her eyes watched everything Della did with keen interest. Other times, she’d be sitting in the courtyard reading a book to Ira by the roses she’d insisted I’d plant for the dying man.

I observed everything she did, from the way her lips lifted in soft smiles when she listened to Ira tell stories or how her head would fall back as she laughed during her banter with Duke.

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