Page 68 of Shadows and Flames
“Calm your Vyrkos, Tana.”
The witch was beside her, and her glare at Fenix intensified, almost matching the depth Meline could access without a second thought. “Go away, Fenix.”
“Not until you tell me what the fuck is going on.”
“Oh, for Thryx’s sake, letmekill him. Please.”
To his credit, the Vyrkos did not back down. He jutted a finger and dropped his fangs, energy seeming to feed off of his anger toward—who exactly was he upset with? I had heard my queen and her cousin when they told him to leave. His decisionto stay had been his own stupidity. If he kept on, I had no issue with relieving him of his head, too.
“No, I don’t think I’m going anywhere.”
Tana threw up her hands while Meline stopped. The rest of us followed suit, and I swept my senses around. The road was quiet, this far out of the city, and the yellow moon was nearly full overhead. The lights from Vharas were still too close to give a full visual of the stars, but their blanket was more visible here. Where the grass was long, and the road was little more than a beaten path from years of carriages and people walking. There was a thin forest in the distance, some mature trees and bushes swaying in the remnants of sea air, but little else.
Where were we going?
“Where are we going?” Fenix asked.
My queen snickered, but before she could answer, Tomás spoke up. “I’d…like to know as well, actually.” If my brother was wary of Meline before, he was most definitely so, now.
She eyed them both, barely holding back a sneer. “We,” she emphasized by waving a hand between she and Tana, “are going to our employer and trying to rectify this fuck-up.” I grumbled, and she huffed. “You lot can come if you want while I decide just how angry I am with you both, butyou,” she pointed at Fenix, “will most certainlynotbe coming with us. I could give a fuck about some piece of shit Vharan guards. You think I won’t slaughter every one of them? Kill you like I should have done on that fucking ship and leave your twice-dead corpse to the buzzards?” Her voice rose with every word, and those black veins were creeping up her neck, around the curve of her ears. “We have been trying to find Francie foryears, and I will bedamnedif some self-importantchildstands in the way of that. Thinking he’s owed answers when we. Owe. You.Nothing.”
If my anger was scorching, Meline’s was cold, so devouring that it threatened to consume all of us and her. The gold in hereyes flashed, and the veins beneath them deepened from faintly blue-green to purple, then black.
I felt my brother take a few steps back, something I had seen him so rarely do but now had witnessed more than once around my queen. Fenix finally seemed to understand the danger he was in, swallowing and raising his palms helplessly while retreating a few paces.
I waited, watching Meline’s head twitch to the side, her eyes narrowing with predatory focus. Tana moved slowly, as if wanting to reach for her cousin but uncertain if her touch would be welcome.
“I…I just wanted?—”
Meline’s response was another step. She let the bag containing Von Herron’s head fall to the ground. My cock stirred.
“Are you fucking jesting with me?”My brother whispered in Zonoran, urgently and under his breath. But my queen was not attacking. Yet. She was watching, stalking.
I somehow tore my eyes away from her to glance at Tom who was going back and forth between me and Meline. “Dosomething,” he urged.
I redirected my attention to Meline, to her cousin who was still hesitating and the Vyrkos who was now cowering. If my queen truly intended to kill him, she would have done so already. This was her…watching. Seeing what he would do. Maybe giving him a chance before she let her Death truly take over.
My mouth watered with interest, to see what she would do as well.
“You would just let her—use whatever she does to k-kill me?” The Vyrkos looked again to Tana, as if she would get between him and her cousin.
“Yes,” I said.
It was the first I had spoken since leaving Von Herron’s apartment, and the sound of my voice, of that one word, stopped Meline’s slow progress toward the Vyrkos. Her face twitched my way, gaze narrowing to thin slits, but after a moment, of deciding what to do with me, they widened to half-mast. Her crouched posture straightened some, and I tasted the swing from anger to lust.
That sort of need, I understood. After that bloodshed and the wrath that needed space to rage, it was common for a Shadow or other mercenary to find someone to satisfy the lust. The jittery, electric feeling that tightened skin over muscle over bone.
But, now was not the time. I had not missed my queen speaking of Francie. Of their quest to find her. Though I’d known this search was in the forefront of her journey, she had not divulged it was tied to the contract for Von Herron.
Without words, I returned the voraciousness directed my way, calling my Flames to the surface, letting her know that I was happy to be devoured by her.
But, not now.
I slowly licked at my bottom lip, and Meline homed in on the movement. “Kill him later, Your Highness.” I ignored the gasp from the one who did not matter. “Now, we must find Francie.”
She sucked in a breath, smoke swirling. Deciding whether to stay or go. She opened her mouth, tongue touching fang as she made a blatant perusal of my body once again. The darkness continued to retreat, no longer winding around her freckles. “Later,” she agreed and demanded at once. That she would not waste any more time on Fenix and wanted me to help her expel what coursed within.
“Later,” I agreed.
