Chapter Thirty-Six
Stassi
T he golden queen was flustered, something I hadn’t seen from her yet. She spoke quickly, moved in jerky spurts, and even forgot to order around her many male hounds. Even more interesting was her black clothing. Never had I seen her in anything other than gold before. This was new, and I so loved new.
When she lifted her fingers to her mouth and began nibbling on the ends, I knew something exciting was happening. From around the corner, I watched as the dimpled king approached her from behind. So startled was she when he appeared at her side that she audibly yelped.
“Wow, I have not seen you this jumpy in centuries, Mia.” Her scowl could have obliterated him in that moment. Perhaps a weaker male would have perished, but I was slowly learning that the king had a hidden backbone. “The plan will work. I do not know why you allow yourself to wallow and stress.”
“Anyone with a modicum of intelligence would be thinking about every possible outcome, Xavier. The fact that you roam these halls right now without a care in the world tells me that you have still not learned anything after all these years.”
Brutal.
Each venom-soaked word slammed into the king, but if they truly hurt, even I couldn’t tell. All I felt within them was sin, coagulating in their chests and proclaiming itself love.
“When you bring her back, I want to be the one to speak to her.” The demand fell from clenched teeth, proving that King Xavier was far more irritated than he let show. Though his leash was short, he tugged all the same.
“You will not see her until I tell you that you can. It will be me who doles out this lesson. You have failed for two centuries!” Screaming in a hallway? Tsk tsk, golden queen.
“I have loved her and taught her and molded her into what she is. You will do well to remember that! It has always been me. You are the one who sat back and did the pretty work. I did the hard things!” His finger was in Queen Mia’s face, fire lighting his other hand aflame. Oh wonderful, perhaps they would fight to the death.
“And yet I am the one who is nothing without her!” The queen smacked her hands against her mouth, desperately trying to take back the truth that had been laid bare before them.
Despite the declaration of what sounded like devotion, sin still clouded her mind. That’s what happens, though, when one was taught not to love but to conquer. At least she recognized it for what it was.
The king laughed and was quickly met with a slap to his face. His head tilted to the right, and they momentarily stood there, both gazing at each other in disbelief as the sound of her strike reverberated through the nearly empty golden hall. Servants could be heard not far away, their feet scurrying to take them anywhere else. Before anything more riveting could happen, Queen Mia stormed the opposite direction, leaving the king dazed in the middle of the gilded hallway.
Pity.
Taking that as my cue to move, I headed for my creature, creeping down to the now familiar dungeons until I arrived at his cell. He sat, as usual, with his back to the wall.
“Of all the times you have visited me, this has to be the most exquisite you have looked.” He leaned forward, eyeing my billowing navy dress with a half-lidded gaze. If I had just met him, I would assume it was desire, but I knew now that it was his mind at work. “What is the special occasion, Spice?”
His voice was stronger today, though that wasn’t anything particularly impressive. The golden-haired prince had taken to beating my creature almost daily now. The Healer had looked as if she were close to passing out that morning when she came in to check up on him. I needed to take him as soon as possible, but the stupid princess was nowhere to be found.
Every pointless visit back home, the horribly massive scolding I received for my insolence, all of it made this adventure less and less fun. But if I could bring my creature home with me, that would make it all worth it.
“Well, this is the last time I’ll be visiting until it’s time for us to go. Of course, me freeing you is contingent on one thing.” I leaned forward, eyeing him with untamed desire. Oh, it would be sweet, winning after so long of playing the game.
Hopefully he lived up to my increasingly high expectations.
For his part, my creature simply laughed, resting his elbow on a raised knee and leaning back against the filthy wall. “Of course, there are rules. Do tell me, glorious goddess of death, what must I do for my freedom?”
Normally, I hated the gods narrative, because how absurd was the idea of such a thing? But the mere suggestion of it from his lips sounded erotic.
I was in trouble indeed.
“You agree to be mine.” There was a nonchalance to my voice that did not quite match my racing heart. Before he could let the request go to his head, I added, “A pet of sorts.”
“Spice, if you told me to bark, I would do it.”
I laughed, my head falling back and soaking in the humor of such easily given devotion. My creature didn’t respond in kind. Instead, he smiled at me, the soft lift of his pout a reminder of the fun we would have soon. “Did you know that a Multiple has, on average, about an hour to remain in any shifted form? Then they need to recuperate, though that varies in length.”
More facts. Perhaps I could train that out of him. Well, Iniko would get a kick out of it if not. Actually, I would bet he might even try to steal this toy from me.
Would my creature accept such an advance? Did he even like males?
“Very interesting, creature. Anyways, tell me, have you ever been with a male?” My arms crossed as I leaned against the adjoining wall, eager to hear his answer but unwilling to let him know that. Raising his brows, he took me in with a perplexed expression, as if something I had done confused him.
“You can call me by name, you know.” He stood then, walking to me on shaky legs. His ripped and worn clothes were still caked in grime, his hair matted and tangled. If I looked closely enough, I could see that there must have been at least a slight curl to it at some point. And was it truly brown, or was that the dirt?
Damn it all, that inquisitive nature was rubbing off on me.
“I don’t want to.”
His fingers met the bars just above where mine had been, his head leaning against them as if they were nothing more than a convenience rather than a prison. “Can I call you by name?”
Grunting, I pushed off the wall and brought my body to the bars as well, my face tilting up to look into his.
“Stassi. That’s what my companions call me. Now, focus on what’s important. Have you ever been with a male?”
“No, bossy thing, I have not. I do not have an interest in them.” A shrug, a blink, and then a smile at my baffled expression was all he offered. Bossy?
“Everyone likes both—most just don’t live long enough for their curiosity to take control. When you are immortal, truly so, then you grow too bored to not sample every dish available. And you learn quickly that all flavors are quite delicious. I would teach you if I wasn’t so possessive.” With that, I trailed my finger down a bar, watching as my magic took hold of the male beyond. “Say you’ll be mine, handsome. Give in to that sin, and I’ll come back for you.”
Without hesitating, he leaned his face between the iron bars, smiling down at me. I had the annoying impulse to close the space between us. For some reason, the dirt didn’t bother me as it normally would. How I wished that I had never met this thing.
“You wound me, Spice. You do not have to order me with that odd pink magic of yours. I will gladly be whatever you want me to be, whenever you want.” A hand reached out towards me, and instead of leaning in like I might have with anyone else, I backed away slightly, not wanting to allow him to touch me for fear of what it might feel like when he let go. Sighing, he pulled away, looking me up and down with obvious interest. “You once said that you control sin and virtue, but how does your magic even begin to determine which is which?”
A laugh bubbled in my chest, freeing itself through my lips. Too much, this was too much. I could become fixated on the taste of his presence—enamored by the sound of his curiosity. And that would be the death of me. Curiosity killed even more than I did, in my experience.
“Why do you ask so many questions?” I inquired in turn, trying and failing to stay away from him. My feet moved me back towards his aura, my shoes touching the tips of his toes through the bars.
“I like to learn.” The words were deliberate, just as the slow trail of his gaze from my eyes to my lips was. Groaning, I took my hand and shoved his face backwards, earning a deep chuckle from the male.
“Sin and virtue are subjective. My magic senses what you believe your deepest faults and merits are, the actions and thoughts that you deem good or evil. It even shows me them, giving me small insights into your whys. Then it capitalizes on that, intensifies it until you are so deeply within them that you can’t find your way out. My magic leaves you lost in a forest of your wildest dreams and worst nightmares. And, in the end, you’re left realizing that you were both the dream and the nightmare all along.”
His face pinched in concentration, thinking over my words. My declaration. Because I’d just laid before him the truth of how dangerous I could be, and this was his moment to decide if my wickedness was worth his freedom.
Before I could so much as encourage him to accept my offer, a burst of magic entered the ethers, calling to me and burning through my chest. A great quake of that place where my essence existed inside of me. I bent forward, gripping my chest and holding onto one of the bars for dear life.
“Do you feel that?” I asked him, knowing that he didn’t. Knowing that it was the call I had been waiting for.
His voice came out slightly panicked, his hands reaching for me as if he could help somehow. “No, what is it? Stassi, are you okay?”
All I could manage were two words, a gasped statement through pursed lips. “It’s her.”
And then I was gone.