Chapter 46
Chapter Forty-Six
Tuscany
Still shrouded by a cloud of lethargy, I turn weakly, desperate to help Kong.
“No!”
And oh, my, his mouth and chin are coated in the man’s blood, a gruesome sight, but the arm… I watched…
Powerless.
Forced to endure the mutilation of the man I love, helpless to stop it. He lost an arm, and I lost my fight. I can’t allow him to take any more. I know it’s his Meaningful Purpose to Guard, Defend, and Die.
I don’t care.
He is my Kong. My heart beats for him. My world shines when he is near. My peace is in his presence.
I’ll accept the treatment.
The final treatment.
This pain is too great. I want it to end now.
Is this what Paris decided? Was the perfect, flawless queen, the easy to be around Mother of The Cradle, a mere Marble Stare?
Was she a walking, talking mannequin? She seemed happy…
I want them to sever the pathways in my brain, end my suffering—I look at Kong lying unconscious—end his.
A metal table is wheeled from the back room and positioned in front of the cage. I’m trembling with fear; not sure I’ve stopped. My skin is clammy, my hair in knots of gold. I don’t know what time it is, or whether days have passed.
One man with the fist sigil on his crest places a small step beside the table, bowing at me, while another covers the table in blankets and pillows. “Only the best for our queen.”
“Are we doing it now?” I swallow, almost eager for the sorrow to end.
“Oh, no, my queen.” Cairo sits at the end of the table, pulling on gloves. “I can’t perform such a complicated surgery. No, we will do that at The Estate with the finest neurosurgeon in The Cradle.”
His eyes slide to the table and back to me, a clear message—lie down
I am not strong.
Not graceful.
“Privacy for the Queen of The Cradle,” Cairo orders. The Trade men climb the stairs beside the basement, so we are alone—the three of us.
I take two steps to sit on the edge of the bed and pivot my hips until I am lying down with my hands rested on my belly.
Not grounded.
Not marble.
“Spread your legs.”
A shuddered breath leaves me, but I don’t even fight. I part my knees and spread my legs just as I hear Kong groaning.
Hearing his voice, hearing him clawing to consciousness warms me. I am not alone.
I drop my cheek to the bed and watch him climb to his feet.
His face fills with rage. “What the fuck are you doing to her! I swear on Rome of The Strait, I will kill you! I will! Fuck!”
I whimper when I feel Cairo’s hands press my legs further apart. Watching the fury on Kong’s face build and build, but somehow, he manages to speak to me.
“Look at me, little queen.”
Fingers dip beneath my knickers.
Tears stream over the bridge of my nose and down my cheek, puddling in my ear again, seeping into the pillow I was gifted for this moment.
Kong’s voice is choked and feral. “You don’t have to be strong right now. You don’t have to listen to your pulse today.”
Cairo’s fingers circle inside me, causing little Tuscany to sob in my head, but I hold fast to tiger’s-eyes. Hold them and listen to Kong’s deep, perfect voice.
“Disappear, little queen,” he says, taking hold of the bar with one hand. “Until it is all over. I will find you. I will always find you, Tuscany.”
“You didn’t just lick the Queen of The Cradle, did you, Kong the Hot-headed?
” Cairo muses, his fingers rolling in circles inside me, making bile rise with each rotation.
I want to die. The thought cleavers through me—I want to die.
“You fucked her. Hard. You ripped through the hymen we crafted for her. You’ll be executed for this. There is no other way.”
There is no other way.
There is no other way.
If there is no other way, then… I don’t know where the inferno inside me comes from, but I lift my leg and kick Master Cairo in the face, so hard pain radiates down my shin.
There is no other way.
After decades of being carved, of splitting in two, of being made to feel like a child, it only took eight days and the love of a man to restore what they’d stolen from me.
Hope.
Cairo grunts, falling backward from his chair, his cloak tangling between his back and the hard, cold floor.
It happens fast.
I jolt to my feet. Kong is already reaching between the bars, taking a fistful of Cairo’s purple hood. He yanks him to the edge of the cage, then wraps his arm around his throat and hoists him to his feet.
Cairo shuffles in vain.
Kong is too tall, too strong. He locks Cairo’s throat to the bars.
Our pinned prey tries to shout for help, mouth open and eyes bulging, but it’s cut off beneath the pressure of Kong’s huge arm.
Cairo claws at Kong’s skin, kicks with his legs, but is no match for my Guardian’s brute strength.
I stand in front of the man I have feared since I was ten. Who has tormented me emotionally and without end. “If you weren’t so arrogant, so certain of yourself,” I say. “You would never have sent the Trade men away.”
An intense sense of finality washes over me, calming me.
Slowing down time so I can finally speak in the Trade Master’s presence without trembling.
“I know I'm marketing for The Trade,” I admit.
“I'm the spiritual element. Rome is your warlord, your bully.
You call us king and queen, but they are just titles, right?
I don't understand it. The layers of bureaucracy.
Shadows. Trade officials. But you're performing too. Just like one of us. And Rome gets to lose his temper and not play the game and still be your warlord as long as he invokes fear, but you stay so controlled. You must be exhausted.”
The air shifts.
“Do you know what makes me such a terrible queen,” I ask as his mouth opens, but only choked sounds come out. “I see secrets in smiles. You don't like that. You thought that my innocence and kindness would make me easier to carve. You were wrong.”
“The—” He rasps gutturally. “Shadows.” He gags and flails around.
I lift my gaze to meet Kong’s fierce expression over Cairo’s head. “There is no other way. You said so yourself. So, if we die, we die.”
“Do you feel strong or little?” Kong asks, barely exerting himself as he crushes the Trade Master’s neck to the bars, squeezing blood to the surface, making Cairo’s face turn redder and redder.
I look at Cairo. “Strong.”
Kong nods. “Command me.”
I inhale hard, dropping my line of sight to Cairo’s lips. No secrets today? No, there are no lies along the curves of his gaping mouth. “In the name of Tuscany of The Strait,” I announce. “The Cradle’s Queen and Mother, I sentence you to death.” I nod at Kong. “Do it.”
“As you wish, little queen.”
Kong bares his teeth and, gradually, adds pressure to the Trade Master’s throat, crushing his windpipe, causing vomit to spill from his mouth.
Cairo gasps, inhaling bile and gastric juices. His lungs begin to rattle and rasp as they fill with acid. It must be painful. All that acidic fluid, capable of dissolving his delicious Cat meat, is now scorching his lungs like fire.
Tears stream down his face.
Liquid pours from his nose.
Staring at him, I feel a smile hit my lips, despite the imminent danger.
This may be my last day alive; The Shadows will come for us, but I smile just knowing I’m the last thing Master Cairo will ever see.
His experiment, the broken queen, not so easily torn down the seams, executes the untouchable Trade Master Cairo.
His eyes widen as if he can read my thoughts in his final moments.
Lifting my chin with a single hot tear sliding down my cheek, I watch him dying, choking on his vomit. I watch him die for Rome, for Aster, for me.
His eyes become saucers, blood vessels inside them popping, creating vivid red tendrils that creep toward his dilated pupils.
Kong shifts his forearm, angling the Trade Master's neck against the unyielding metal bar. His muscles cord and bulge as he applies crushing pressure until—
A wet crack dissects the air, and Cairo's neck gives way, his head lolling at an impossible tilt, connected to his body but no longer supported by his shattered spine.
And it’s done.
I look away. Even bearing a deep hatred for him, the sight is still haunting.
Kong releases his hold, and the Trade Master hits the floor with a thud.
It’s over?
We don’t speak; words seem too trivial. We stare at each other, the weight of this moment changing the air, thickening it, altering gravity itself.
He looks like he wants to grab me, but there are bars and a dead body between us.
“I didn’t miss it,” he mutters.
I blink at him. “Didn’t miss what?”
He studies me, hard, and says, “The day you feel proud of yourself.”
I nod, overcome. “I do.”
Time stretches; we allow ourselves a breath and pause…
Then the moment is over—he bolts into action. Dropping to his haunches, he reaches between the bars and searches Cairo’s body for the key. He retrieves it, jolts up, reaches around, and unlocks the cage.
We collide the moment he is free; I wrap my arms around his middle, and he scoops me against him. It still surprises me how easily and freely I touch him, only him. His touch is never bad.
“Your arm…” I whine.
He grips my face with one hand, tilting my chin to gaze up at the battered warrior I love with every piece of me—the little and the strong.
“Listen to me,” he says. “You need to hide while I disarm the Trade men. The moment they land on the last step, I’m going to grab their rifles.
I will kick one toward you. Only then do you come out.
You don’t need to hold it, little queen.
Just move it away from us with your foot.
I will take the other rifle. Then we leave.
You stand behind me. Grip my flanks so I can feel you and use me as a shield.
I will rain bullets all over the place—”
I gasp. “The children—”
“No.” His eyes blaze. “No distractions.”
“They are innocent, Kong.”
“You are innocent!”
I shake my head from side to side. It’s unbearable.
I would rather die than watch the streets of New Whyte bleed.
“I am their queen. Their mother. I don’t want them to pay for the cruelty and deceit of men.
” My lower lip stiffens not to wobble. I want to say, ‘I command it,’ but it doesn’t seem right to demand such a thing.
Not when this is life and death. I need him to agree willingly. “Please.”
His jaw muscles pulse beneath bruised skin. “If I can avoid them, I will.”
With that, he leans down and mashes our mouths together.
I taste blood, but I don’t care. It’s not simply a kiss; it’s a declaration of our togetherness.
My hands smooth up his hard torso, over his flat, firm chest to grip the pulsing muscles of his shoulders and neck.
I push onto my tippytoes to deepen our kiss, frantically showing him exactly how much I love him, not wanting to waste this moment in case we don’t survive.
I memorise his salty tongue and the thick, demanding way it tastes me.
Memorise his powerful shoulder muscles and the way they bunch beneath my hands, so solid it’s like gripping smooth stone. Memorise his monstrous size before me.
Then, an explosion shakes the roof over our heads, dislodging loose stones and sand, raining them down on us. Next, the rattling of rifles. My eyes widen. Kong’s narrow.
They’re here…
The Shadows.