Garden of Serpents (The Demon Queen Trials #3)(68)

Three days from now.

I closed my eyes against the brutal heartbreak and leaned into Legion’s icy chest. Shai was gone. Orion had lost his fucking mind…

They all said he was too crazy to trust. The snakes had ended him…

I swallowed hard, tears stinging my eyes. It couldn’t be, though. He’d saved me too many times. He’d sacrificed himself for me at the headquarters.

Hadn’t he?

Maybe he’d just snapped. The shadows had consumed him, the chaos taken over.

In the City of Thorns, things aren’t always what they seem.

I was vibrating from rage and confusion, unable to put it all together. But all I knew was that right now, Legion was the one taking care of me.

Fleeing with me from the man I’d thought loved me to the ends of the earth.





40





ROWAN





I was on my hands and knees in an abandoned garage, my body shaking with the exquisite agony of the poison. When I looked up through blurred eyes, I saw three forms. One of them was Kas, rushing over to me with a glass of that sludgy antidote, which was exactly what I fucking needed.

He knelt by my side and helped me shift back off my knees. I leaned into the curve of his arm, and he tilted the cup to my lips. “That’s it, Rowan.”

I sniffled, covered in snot and tears—hardly regal. But as the antidote filled my throat, some of my shaking subsided, and the pain seeped out of my bones. I collapsed against Kas and let him wrap an arm around me.

My vision was filmed from tears when I looked up at the other two. With a twinge of disappointment, I realized I’d been hoping for Shai and Legion, but the third figure was Mr. Esposito, also known as Sabazios. Ginger and hot as fuck, but also very much related to me, so I needed to stop thinking of him as hot as fuck.

“Are you okay, Rowan?” Sabazios asked.

I nodded. “Physically, I’m recovering.” I shifted away from Kas and sat cross-legged on a concrete floor. “Do you all realize you’re committing treason with me right now?”

“Yes,” they answered, all at once.

Sabazios lifted a leather bag. “But at least this time, before fleeing, I was able to get my things.”

“And we’re not leaving you,” said Kas. “This was why we wanted you to rule in the first place.”

“Of course I’m not leaving you,” said Sabazios. “You and your mom were literally the only friends I’ve had in the past several centuries.”

I couldn’t stop my tears. “We have to warn the mortals. We need to evacuate…”

“Rowan,” said Legion, “you’re still the only one who can stop Ashur.”

I stared at him with the strange disorientation of feeling like the world was tilting beneath me. “Ashur?”

“Or whatever he calls himself now.” Kas scrubbed a hand over his jaw. “Orion.”

I shook my head, trying to understand what he was saying. “Ashur was someone else.” My heart started beating faster. “That was who he made a blood oath to. Ashur.”

Sabazios shook his head. “His parents named him Ashur. I remember him. They were part of our social set, and the little silver-haired boys were Molor and Ashur.” His eyes took on a haunted look. “I had no idea he’d survived. We didn’t know that anyone lived in the dungeon, or that it existed at all.”

I staggered to my feet, my blood roaring in my ears. My mouth had gone dry, and I tried to swallow. “Maybe Ashur is his dark side, then. The part that wants blood.”

Kas stood and rested his large hands on my shoulders. “It’s okay if you love him, Rowan. But we always knew he wasn’t coming back from what happened to him. And you’re the only one who can stop him from starting an apocalyptic war.”

I shook my head. “I’m not going to kill him.”

Kas breathed in deeply, his amber eyes gleaming. “Only an heir to the throne can kill a king.”

I threaded my fingers into my hair, and memories of Orion’s midnight voice whispered through my thoughts.

Because being without you was the same maddening grief of loss…I wasn’t really free of the dungeon until you brought me out.

My breath was coming too quickly, my heart beating out of control. I couldn’t explain what was happening, only that deep in my soul, I felt he didn’t need killing. He needed saving.

And in the meantime, I needed the mortals to evacuate every town around here.

“I have to go to the police,” I muttered.

I didn’t wait to hear the others’ response because I knew what they wanted from me. Something I wasn’t ready to give them—the death of a king.

I knew this town like the back of my hand, and I started sprinting for the police station, a one-woman rampage along Gallows Hill Road. My powers hadn’t quite returned to me yet after that poison, but they were slowly trickling back. With the wind in my hair, I picked up speed, hurtling up the hill. It was cold out here, the November chill biting at my skin.

But by the time I realized my destination, I was out of steam and breathless, my legs burning. I’d used up most of my energy.

I slammed through the door into the police station anyway, finding a guard working at the desk. She rose, alarmed, and put up her hands, asking me to stop. “Can I help you with something?”