Page 30 of Reigning
“I forgot how good you taste, Low,” he whispers. He presses his lips to mine one more time before standing.
The four men leave me sitting alone on the floor, and I imagine I look even more pathetic there on the grimy stones when I peer up like small child to the Solstice Queen glaring down on me.
“Our plans in Minden did not go as I had expected.” Her cold gaze slides to Kain, and the shifter remains standing impassively as she scrutinizes him closely. “When our work is not finished, when it is done incorrectly, when orders are blatantly unfollowed, punishments will ensue.”
It’s then that I stand. I stand at the front of the cell like I’m guarding innocent puppies rather than four destructive men.
“Ithink,” I let that word carry with too much aggression but I can’t stop it, “you should calm down, my queen. Reevaluating is what we need if things do not go our way.”
Not a fucking royal tantrum.
“Move, Arlow.” She grinds those two words out, her gaze cutting right into me.
I grip my fingers around the cold metal bars, but it doesn’t stop her from jerking the door open. Long fingers fist into my hair with a sharp pain stinging through my roots. I claw my nails down her arm before she throws me off of her and strides into the cell.
My back hits the floor, and I stumble to stand.
“Kain, come with me.”
I push off fully from the floor and watch with big eyes as Kain strides out. She turns swiftly, and he follows, his attention darting to me for a single second before he disappears into the staircase.
“Rime, lock the door. No one leaves the dungeon today. Possibly tomorrow. I’ll have to…reevaluatesome things.”
The echoes of their footsteps dissolve into nothingness. The door upstairs closes with a heavy thud, and I don’t know why I listen so intently after that. I listen like I’m waiting for someone to die.
Either Kain or Ellise, I’m not even sure.
But not another sound is made.
“Fuck this, we’re not waiting down here while she punishes him like a dog.” Rime takes a single hostile step as Chaos pushes his hand against his shoulder, stopping the ice shifter in his tracks.
“We need to wait.”
“That’s an absolutely terrible idea,” Sinister whispers.
The three of them glance to me all at once, and I didn’t really realize how in charge I am of everything until I now have a small army of vicious shifters waiting for me to make the call on what’s right or wrong in this moment.
I’m not going to lie, I feel a little bit of pressure. Just a bit.
“I think we should wait.”
Rime’s jaw tics, but the other two nod.
“Wait for what?” Before Rime can open his mouth again with all the rage that’s shaking through him, I cross the room to them, studying them one by one and knowing fully that they’re capable of anything we’re about to go through.
“Kain’s strong. We can’t show our cards. We just need to wait until we have our plan.”
I started all of this with a half-cocked plan to match the queen’s power. The four of us alone aren’t a match.
We just have to buy us a little time.
Twelve
The Worst Torture
It really isthe most awful torture to simply do nothing.
She won’t kill Kain. I’m not really sold on the idea that she’ll harm him. She needs him and she needs him in the immediate future. She won’t hurt him.
