Page 23 of Queen
Sterling sprang to his feet and threw Bishop up against the wall, his hand around Bishop’s throat before he could blink. Bishop stared at him, expecting it. He was surprised he wasn't dead already.
"You betrayed her," Sterling snarled, a growl rumbling in his throat as well. Bishop could see the lion behind his gaze. "Is this another trap? Are we supposed to believe you really just let her go?”
"My mother is unconscious in the ritual chamber, if you don't believe me," Bishop answered. "You can stay here and kill me if you want, but I think your time would be better spent finding Ella before someone else does."
There was hesitation in Sterling’s gaze, and Bishop could feel just how close his lion was to coming to the surface and tearing his throat out. At length, he released Bishop with a snarl and snatched the keys from his hands to free Axel. Bishop wasn't surprised when Axel shifted into his tiger form as soon as the chains hit the floor, and the giant cat had him cornered with a furious roar.
"Axel," Sterling snapped from the door. "Later. We have to find Ella."
The tiger's eyes narrowed, and his lips curled back. Bishop knew what he was thinking. It would only take a second to snap Bishop's neck, but that wasn't enough. Axel wanted to make him suffer. He finally turned to follow the other tom out of the room.
Bishop left a second later to search on his own and stopped in the hallway outside the ritual room. When he glanced in, he felt a surge of apprehension when he realized there were only three bodies in the room.
Natalia was gone.
Chapter 13
Ella
Ella had been running on instinct and borrowed energy from the moment she had first shifted into her feral form. Even before that, something else seemed to have taken over, giving her the power she needed to escape.
The problem was, now that she had, she couldn’t turn it off. The feral was still in the pilot’s seat, and she didn’t even know where she was going, just that it was headed for the water.
The closer she drew to the bridge over the river, the stronger her sense of deja vu became. It was a struggle to stay conscious when something kept tugging at strange threads of her past.
They were her memories, or at least they felt like it. She was far younger, riding in the back of a car. She could see the woman in the front seat looking back at her. As blurry as her face was, Ella could tell it was beautiful and kind, just like her voice as she spoke.
“Everything will be just fine, sweetheart. They don’t understand how special you are, but Mommy and Daddy won’t let anything happen to you.”
Those were the last words Ella heard before everything went black. When she could see again, her world was upside down and underwater. She could hear the river rushing, and struggled frantically to get her little head above waver. She only managed to take in a brief gasp of air before the water knocked her out again.
The next scene her memory played in her mind’s eye was waking up on the sharp rocks of the river bank. She had paws instead of feet, and every part of her ached. Nothing made any sense, and when she looked around, she was all alone.
She would remain that way for a long time.
Ella finally came to and found herself on the edge of the same river she had almost drowned in so many years ago. Now she remembered. Everything her young mind had suppressed. The accident. The loss. The isolation.
She turned around, snarling fiercely as she sensed someone approaching. It didn’t matter that she recognized the three toms before her, two of them in their feline forms. The part of her that recognized them was buried, and the beast that knew only grief and rage had risen to the surface.
The tiger approached first, and she swiped out with her razor sharp claws, letting out a yowl of warning. He didn’t seem fazed, until she backed toward the water. Then, he stopped, but before she could get past him, the lion came up on her other side, leaving only Bishop in his human form behind them.
The sight of him hurt in ways she didn’t fully understand. Ways she didn’t want to. She just knew she was cornered, and protecting the cub inside her was the only instinct dominating her thoughts and actions.
The lion gave a gentle, rumbling growl, but she couldn’t understand him. Her mind was too much chaos, even though she could make out the nonthreatening intonations. It had her on edge all the same, and if he took one step closer…
“Ella.”
A familiar voice cut through the fog, and Ella looked up to find herself staring into Bishop’s gaze, as cold and shrewd as ever. There was something different in it, but even in her current state, she knew better than to believe it. She’d bought that lie enough times, and it had almost killed her and her baby.
“Please. Come to us. No one is going to hurt you.”
Another snarl of fury tore from her throat. She’d let him go in that room, but now he was standing before her again, weak and human. She crept closer as the other cats studied him in confusion. He held his hands up, walking toward her despite the overt threat of her body language.
“It’s okay. Just focus on me. I hurt you. I betrayed you. You want to kill me more than you want to run, don’t you?”
She growled low, watching him in confusion. Her tail lashed as she crept even closer, away from the water’s edge, her body coiling tight to pounce on him. She was waiting for him to make one move, and when he did, she leaped to close the distance between them and landed on his chest with another snarl, pinning him to the ground.
He didn’t shift, or even try to defend himself. He just stared up at her, resignation in his gaze alongside something else she didn’t even want to think about.
