What Lurks Between the Fates (Of Flesh & Bone, #3)(64)

Estrella moved toward me, sliding her legs clad only in a silken night dress around the stool she sat on. She walked with quiet, nimble feet, approaching me as I held out the mass of tongue and heart held within my grasp.

I didn’t speak a word as I handed them to her. Her delicate fingers wrapped around the bloodied organs, studying them intently as the thick fluid ran down her hand and onto her wrists.

She looked up at me through dark lashes, her lips tipping into the hint of a smile so wicked it nearly brought tears to my eyes.

This was the mate I’d waited centuries for. A queen of death and carnage.

I smiled, watching as she tipped her head back as a silent laugh shook her chest. She lifted onto her toes, pressing her lips to mine as I summoned the shadows to return me to my room.

Her love surged down the bond, warming me as I returned to the empty rooms that missed her presence.

Soon.

***

My door crashed against the wall when it flew open the next morning.

“Have you lost your mind?” Mab demanded, stepping over the threshold to enter my room.

Holding up a single finger, I finished reading the sentence in my book, lifted the metal bookmark off the dining table, then slid it between the pages carefully.

I set it down, standing slowly to face the incredulous, outraged face of the Queen of Air and Darkness as she seethed. My leather tunic was open at my chest, the buckles undone in the privacy of my room. I gave Mab a lazy, unenthusiastic smile as I grasped the lowest buckle, hiding the lowest of my abdominal muscles and pulling the two sides together tightly.

“Nice to see you as always, my Queen,” I said, my sarcasm evident in my tone.

Her eyes dropped to my chest, sending a ripple of disgust through me as my fingers moved a bit faster to hide my skin. I turned toward the mirror leaning against the wall, the ornate silver detailing of it an ample distraction from the stepmother who would ogle an ogre if he were pretty enough.

“Don’t play games with me,” she hissed.

She raised her hand high, dropping the heart and tongue she held clasped within it onto the table. The heart rolled lopsidedly over the surface, coming to a stop against the weathered pages of my book in a way that made me sigh in frustration.

“Whose is it?”

The demand washed over me, lacking the force that the command needed to do anything but drive my frustration higher.

“No one important,” I returned with a shrug, stepping away from the mirror once my leathers were secured. I paused at the table, flicking the heart to the side with a sneer of disgust.

My heart clenched in my chest. Her snake wound itself tighter as she squeezed her hand, black nails digging into her own flesh hard enough to bleed.

“Whose. Is. It?” she repeated, and the lack of a heartbeat made my knees buckle.

I caught myself with two palms on the table, calming my rage as Estrella’s concern pulsed down the bond. “Haakon,” I growled, my upper lip peeling back to reveal teeth.

That hand relaxed, dropping to her side as she rolled her eyes. “And what did he do to our dear Estrella?” she asked, crossing her arms over her chest.

I’d meant it when I told Haakon that his first mistake was thinking that he, a common Sidhe, meant anything to Mab. She only cared about those who could be useful to her, and his use was severely limited. He had no connections that assisted her—barely any magic to his name.

I got my legs underneath me more fully, my heart pounding as if it could make up for those moments when it hadn’t been able to so much as twitch.

“He spit on her,” I said, leveling her with a glare.

“Well, that is certainly distasteful,” she said, stepping farther into my room. She ran her talons over my favorite chair, claws digging into the leather of the cushion.

Distasteful.

As if she hadn’t ordered my mate to be skinned alive.

“Is this really how you want to spend your time? Hunting down any male who so much as looks at Estrella the wrong way?” Mab asked, approaching where I stood.

She ran a finger over the dark circle on the back of my hand, and shadows rose from within it as if she’d summoned them. They shrouded my hand, making it disappear into the darkness as if they themselves wanted to retreat from Mab’s attention.

Disgust rippled through me, my hatred for her hands on my skin making me shudder. “Yes. Yes, it is,” I said simply, pulling my hand away the moment her eyes met mine.

She pursed her lips, considering me and whatever punishment she might have for my insolence. For murdering a member of her court, regardless of if she cared if he lived or not.

Whatever she came up with, it would be worth the pain.

“If you’re not going to behave, perhaps you should join Davorin. He leaves at first light to meet our guests and help them navigate the plains safely,” she said, latching onto the only punishment that would deter me from doing something again soon. To send me away, even for a day or two, and leave Estrella behind.

“I’ll pass,” I muttered, holding her gaze. I’d take the torture. I’d take a public lashing.

But Mab only grinned. “I don’t remember asking.”





20


Estrella


My robe swished against the stone floor, the blue jarring against the sheer white of it as Malachi forcibly guided me through the halls. We passed countless numbers of those statues, the faces I couldn’t unsee staring back at me now that I knew what they were.