Page 2 of Broken Queen
He was the only person who had shown me kindness between these walls.
Once my hands were free, Logan removed the dental gag while the Dentist—Logan’s father—removed the bindings from my legs. My jaw ached, my mouth sore, my lips chapped. Easing myself to a sitting position on the floor, I slumped my shoulders, too tired to do anything. Logan grabbed a handful of gauze and eased it into my mouth.
My two canines laid on the floor like two little chips of glass. A thick, grubby hand picked them up; the Dentist liked his souvenirs. Logan glared at him, then turned to me. He rubbed my back methodically, like it hurt him to watch me suffer.
“You’re so brave,” he said calmly. “I don’t know how you do it. You’re so incredible, babe.”
I rolled my eyes—his father was already a member; therefore, Logan would never have to be a sacrifice, unless his father wanted to prove something—but inside, I flushed with heat. Logan was praising me, like he saw how much I was capable of. And I almost believed him. I mean, I wanted to believe him. He was one of the few people who looked at me like a person and not like an object everyone had dipped their hands inside.
“When we get married, you won’t have to worry about this,” he said, repeating the same soothing words he said every time. “Everything will be perfect. We’ll be members and you will never have to submit to this cruelty again.”
I blinked my eyes, trying to imagine that fate, but after nights like this, it seemed like a fantasy that would never come true.
But I still couldn’t lose sight of it.
“By then, you can get your own revenge,” Logan said. “You can extract other people’s teeth. And it’ll be fun. Delightful. A way for us to pass the time. And this will just be a bad, bad memory.” He leaned on me. “Zira Bloom, the heiress to the Marked Blooms Syndicate, and me, your faithful husband.”
I cocked a brow at him, holding the gauze to my face.
“Revenge—” I paused, the tenderness swelling through my jaw, my tongue lisping with the loss of teeth. I swallowed, then tried again: “Revenge would be doing all of that to your father,” I said.
Logan put a finger to his lips. “Don’t even think of my father. Think of everything you can do when you have that power. When you’re in charge.”
Sometimes, I thought that if I went willingly to these sacrifices like my mother had said, my father would see that I was as dedicated as he was. But something inside of me always knew that it might not be enough. I had to do more. I had to get on the board of the Syndicate somehow. And Logan was the key.
“I’ll protect you, Zira,” Logan said, cutting through my spiraling thoughts. “I’m not like your father. I won’t force you to be my sacrifice. I know my worth, and so will the Syndicate.”
My forehead furrowed, but the pain settled on my brow, so I forced myself to relax. It almost sounded like Logan was insulting my father’s decisions. And though I may not have liked having my teeth removed, I understood why my father did it. I was the last person, still living, that he technically ‘loved.’ I was the only one he could use to prove his dedication.
I started, “If not me, then your father will use another woman?—”
He put a finger to his lips again, then delicately pressed the gauze back into my mouth, silencing me.
“It’ll be a much different secret society one day,” he murmured. “We’ll change it. Together.”
I latched onto that word: Together. Even as he held me in his arms, it seemed so foreign. Our marriage had been arranged when I was an infant and Logan was five years old. There was something off about him, but I always held onto his sweet words, like a candy-coated poison. For once, I wanted to hold on to someone who would actually fight with me.
I pulled out my blood-soaked gauze.
“To—” I stopped, the nerves in my mouth searing with tension. I closed my eyes slowly, then tried again. “Together, Logan?”
“Of course,” he said, the response flowing out of him with ease.
A woman’s scream hurled through the hallway, and I glanced behind us.
The tooth extraction had finished, so the audience had lost interest, and we were now alone. The woman screamed again, and my body tightened and my throat closed up. I hated when they screamed like that. It was like the pain was worse for me when it was other sacrifices. It always made me think of my mother.
“She doesn’t matter,” Logan said, stroking my hair. “Focus on yourself, babe.”
I pressed my lips together to keep the gauze in my mouth as I pushed myself up.
“Zira?” Logan asked.
I waved at him, silently telling him not to worry about me. Then I followed the screams down the corridor. Each room glowed in different shades of color, and that kaleidoscope shifted again, and again, like I was drifting deeper into madness. In the pink room, a woman hung from her wrists as the members took turns beating her stomach like a pinata. In the blue room, a woman was lying on a leather bench while a man took her dark hole and carved bloody designs into her back. But those women were silent.
Then the screams faded.
I ran forward, trying to find her. In the last room, my father stood with his back to the door, a sword in his hand, blood pooling on the floor. A woman lay on the ground, a gash on the side of her neck, her eyelids fluttering. I raced past my father, kneeling down and scooping her into my arms. Her blood was warm against my skin, and we were both bare and completely helpless, like most women at the Masquerades.
