The Hated (Sleeping With Monsters Book 3) Read online

  Beza stepped into my line of sight, looking up. “My Queen?” she said, with a note of concern.

  “I’m fine, Beza,” I told her, but my hands were still clenched into fists as I paced along the front-most row.

  There was a gap in it, at the end. I could tell where Kings had been taken, to be married off to prior Queens. I pursed my lips – the stories I’d been given about ruling after my wedding ceremony were always so vague. I was told we’d go off and rule side-by-side in a new palace, even better than this one, but where that was or why we had to move or how we’d rule jointly, all of that was hidden from me. And any time I did ask, I was told that we would discover how to rule together, that I shouldn’t be constrained by rules from a prior time – the discovery of my future was made to sound like a gift that it would be a shame to open early.

  Truth be told, it had been a long time since I’d asked the councilmembers because I knew they wouldn’t tell me, and I hated feeling just like this.

  But – when I did have my King – things would change. We would change them together. I was sure of it.

  And I knew who I wanted for my King.

  “Zaan --” I said aloud, and turned, as though one of the statues would answer me. I flipped to the page in the book and reread it – there was no indication of where he’d stood in line once he’d landed, only that he was among their number. “Zaan? Zaan!”

  He was still here, surely. I gathered my will and tried to send power out, but felt nothing, just like earlier. “Joshan –“ I said, and snapped my fingers.

  “Yes, my Queen?”

  “Take me like you were taking Beza. Now.”

  He pulled his head back. “Of course, my Queen –“ and leaned forward to kiss me.

  “No. Not that.” I was too angry to wait. I just wanted power. I grabbed my skirts. “Pick me up –“ I commanded, and he did so. I wrapped my legs around him. I finished pulling up the last of the fabric separating me from him, and reached down to find his hard cock lining up. I pushed his robes apart and brought him out, fumbling in the tight space between us, until he was aligned with my darkness and I was ready to settle on top of him.

  “My Queen,” he whispered, head bowed near my ear as I pulled myself to him with my legs, pushing myself down.

  His hands cradled my ass as he slid in, rough and slow. I panted atop him, the desire for power flowing through me, replaced by actual power as he and I locked, his cock deep inside. I groaned, feeling the first wave of strength ready itself, my magic beginning to form and coil.

  He lifted me up and pulled me back down, again and again. My honey flowed freely and my voice rose as I called out for my power, Joshan taking me fiercely as I clung to him.

  “Yes – Joshan –“ I wound my hands into the fabric of his robes to hang on. He penetrated every bit of my darkness and my petals rubbed against him and – I twisted as the magic came over me, looking out at the statues, reaching toward them with one hand.

  “Zaan – Zaan – Zaan –“ I made his name into a cry while Joshan rocked me through release. I shuddered in his strong hands, my place squeezing against him all the while, taking the last of my pleasure as my power flowed out. “Zaan –“ I whispered again, sagging down in Joshan’s arms.

  He held me there, as I sometimes asked him to after my time in the dream-cradle, until I could raise my head. “My Queen?” he asked. He was still hard inside me.

  “Thank you, Joshan –“ I said, unlacing my legs. He pushed me away from himself, and set me gently on the floor. I turned back to the wall of soldiers behind me. Not a one of them had moved – or if they had, I’d missed it.

  I stood there, catching my breath, feeling realization settle. I was not Airelle. I was not even one tenth of her.

  When I could talk again, I looked to my slaves. “Let us return.”

  Beza nodded, picked up the lights, and led our way back.

  The passage back to the familiar hallways near my great chamber was a painful one. How had Airelle had so much magic? Was it like a muscle that could be built up? Or had it, over the eons, been spilled out and lost? The council said my only magic was in my dreams, and they harvested those from me at night. But that wasn’t right, I did have other ways – what if I confronted them and called them liars? What purpose would that serve, though?

  All I needed to do was wait until Tide’s Day, when the ceremony was complete. And then my King and I – but I couldn’t finish the thought, because I realized despite all the stories I’d been told, I didn’t really know. A deep weariness born of impotence and frustration settled over me – I felt as though I had emerged from the dream cradle again.

  “My Queen?” Joshan asked, slowing as I had.

  “I’m very tired, Joshan. Carry me?”

  “Of course, my Queen,” he agreed, and did so, so that I could close my eyes and try to sleep.

  When I woke, I had been bathed and placed in fresh clothing and was lying on my bed with Beza waiting nearby.

  “I’m fine, Beza,” I said, answering her worried look. “Run along.”

  She curtsied and did as she was told.

  One of them had placed the book beside me. I considered throwing it across the room. How come Airelle was so powerful when I was not? But it wasn’t the book’s fault that I couldn’t live up to history. Why had no one ever told me of her? Or told me the truth of the Zaibann? Her story was my birthright – why had it been hidden from me? I rested a hand upon the book and had a strange feeling like someone was reaching through the pages to touch me back.

  Was Zaan still below? Or had he been turned into some other Queen’s King, and I’d missed my chance?

  I quieted myself and clutched the book to my chest, and imagined everything the historian had reported of him – how the braid of his dark hair landed halfway down his back, his wise and piercing eyes, the tales of his strength in bed and in battle.

  So much history, lost to time. What would he think of powerless me, now, were I to save him? Who knew. What would my own King think of me, whoever he was? I sat up in bed, determined to go ask him, even though he wouldn’t answer.

  I walked into the Zaibann’s chamber, past the tables and benches that’d been placed there for our feast, right up to his statue.

  “I know you can’t hear me, really, but – while I am a Queen, I’m not Airelle.” My eyes searched his face for softness or understanding, but only found his stern visage. “I don’t have half the power she had – I promise if I did, I’d turn you back now. I know you’ve waited long enough.” I put a nervous hand on his strong stone arm, and remembered what the historian had written about Zaan carrying her off to bed their first night.

  I stared up into his face in a way I hadn’t dared before, trying to see who he really would be when I woke him. His chin was cleft and there was a small scar under his left eye – I reached up to stroke it with a tentative finger, and then pulled back. I’d left the book in my bedroom, but I knew what I’d read. It couldn’t be – could it? I circled him, comparing notes from memory with what I saw, and soon I knew.

  My King was Zaan.

  I said his name aloud, while gently shaking him, as if I could wake him up. “Zaan.” I rose up on my tip-toes to whisper it by his ear, “Zaan,” while feeling his cock press against my thigh. That was the only thing the historian hadn’t written about, I thought, looking down.

  Airelle’s magic was so much a part of her she never had to explain it. She beckoned and the world was set ablaze. But all my magic rose from deep inside. I wrapped a hand around his cock and felt my dark place ache.

  He would be mine in time. All I had to do was wait until Tide’s Day.

  But I’d just promised him I’d free him – and before that, Airelle had, thousands of years ago.

  I wanted to be like her, no, better than her – I wanted to be the kind of Queen who kept her promises.

  And so I knelt down.

  Chapter Four

  I took him into my mouth like I’d taken J
oshan before. The smooth stone was as cold as I knew it would be, but I pulled all of him in, wrapping my lips around his shaft. I wouldn’t have my servants’ help now, all of the magic would have to come from me –

  I sucked on him, stroking my tongue underneath his cock the way that Joshan liked. I acted as though everything were real, imagining it inside my own mind, until I could see it as it should be – my King, standing above me, thrusting, taking my mouth to pleasure himself. When the picture in my mind was perfect, I pulled back, looking up. He’d warmed up so much inside my mouth that I was disappointed to find all of him still stone.

  “Wait,” I told him, as though he might escape me. And then I scanned the room – there was a long bench with a back nearby. I ran off to pull it nearer, deafened by the sound of it dragging across the floor, until it was close enough for me to kneel on top of in front of him.

  There was no choir and it was no wedding ceremony but it would have to do. I disrobed and arranged myself in front of him, hands holding on to the back of the bench, knees spread wide, and prepared to take him in.

  His stone cock nudged against my folded flower, and I was glad for the spit I’d left behind as I pressed back. Joshan had taken me like this before, but his cock wasn’t as full or as relentlessly stiff. I slid on and off what I could take of him, slowly taking his cock deeper as my honey smoothed the path, glad my mouth had made him warm, using my whole body to ride. My nipples brushed against the back of the bench, tightening as his cock pressed in, inch by inch.

  “Please – Zaan –“ he was my King, and I would call him by name. “Please –“ I begged the stone to penetrate me, to let me cover him, and then – I found myself flush against him with a moan. I trembled, at feeling him deep inside, and with the delicious perversion of doing such an unceremonial act.

  My King, however, was unmoved – but I didn’t feel my magic flowing in me yet, either. And I wouldn’t until – I balanced one hand between my breasts on the back of the bench, and slid the other between my legs to press against my folds as I continued to rise up and down, pulling off of him and then taking him back in. In moments, my power began to gather, and I imagined myself like Airelle, strong and powerful and one with him. I thought of what it must have been like on their wedding night, if he mounted her like this – of how I would feel when he would mount me. Heat flowed out from between my legs where stone met flesh, my fingers were slick with honey at imagining him behind me, whole, his hands grasping my waist, pulling me in him with as much strength as I needed him – my darkness tightened as my magic did, both wrapping around the smooth stone, readying, taking him tight – “Zaan –“ I warned him before my release, in case stone ears could hear. “Zaan!”

  I shouted his name as my magic shook through me, making me shudder, pinned by his cock. I tried to focus it on him, into making him whole, but there was too much – I could feel it spill off of me like water over the edge of a pool. It roiled through my body and I had no control over it as it endlessly spilled out.

  “Zaan –“ I whispered his name now, feeling his stone cock still hard inside me. Whatever I’d done, whatever small powers I’d had, hadn’t been enough.

  And then strange hands grabbed my hips. “Airelle,” he moaned, and started stroking of his own accord.

  I stiffened for a moment, afraid to look back and break the spell, and as he thrust again I moaned. My King was taking my dark place, as the celestitians had ordained – and nothing had ever felt so right. I felt my magic surge again at being stoked by him, ready to release a second time, and my hands held the back of the bench tightly.

  His heat covered me from behind as he leaned over and pushed my hair away from my neck. “I see you’ve misplaced your collar,” he rumbled low.

  “Collar?” I answered, feeling my magic ready to explode.

  There was the chill of his buckles as they pressed into the naked skin of my back, the warmth of his presence, and then the heat of his breath as his mouth lowered onto my neck – yes – one kiss from him and my magic would –

  He bit me. Hard.

  “Zaan!” I jumped forward and the bench almost toppled, as I rolled away from him, holding one hand to my neck, hearing myself scream. He was behind me now – an actual Zaibann, no longer stone – and looking at me through blinking eyes, with a deepening frown, his lips colored by my blood. He took a step nearer and I kicked away from him, further down the bench.

  “Who are you?” he asked.

  “I am Queen Ilylle!” I shouted, feeling my blood seep through my fingertips.

  There was utter horror on his face at that moment – and then Joshan tackled him.

  They went to the ground together, my King and my slave. “Joshan, no!” But before I could call my servant back, Zaan had thrown him across the room. He looked to one side and spit out – saliva still tainted by my blood, I could see it on the pale stone – and then made to go after Joshan again.

  “Zaan – don’t!”

  He stopped, his hands reaching for weapons that hadn’t made it through time with him, though their scabbards were still hanging from his hips, and he whirled on me. “How do you know my name? Where is this place? Where’s Airelle?”

  I stood up, shaky and still naked. Beza rushed in, holding up my dress for modesty. I took it with a bloodstained hand. “I will answer your questions. But attack no one else.”

  “My willingness to attack depends entirely on what your answers are.”

  I swallowed and nodded, as Beza fastened my dress around me. “You are the Zaibann warrior Zaan, consort of Queen Airelle.” At my giving his name and rank he nodded subtly. “And I know that because I read of you in a book.”

  At that, his eyebrows rose and he laughed, a harsh sound, perhaps part of his throat was still stone. “I had no doubt they’d write of my exploits someday, girl, but it’s a little too soon for that.” Then he looked around the unfamiliar room again and his expression darkened. “Where is this? And where’s Airelle?”

  “This,” I said slowly, trying to placate him as though I were in the same cage as a jacar, “is the Feather Palace. It is where I am Queen – Queen Ilylle, Queen of Dreams.”

  “And Airelle?” he demanded, stepping forward.

  “Has been dead for quite some time.”

  He stood so still at that, that I would have believed him stone anew. “Impossible.”

  “I am sorry, but it is true.”

  “No –“ he looked around the room for exits. “I refuse to believe.”

  There seemed no point in fighting him.

  “This is some ploy from the Rix. They sent you to me, to bind me to you –“ he spat again, and this time his spit was clear. “Otherwise, why would I be fucking you?”

  I didn’t know the word, but I felt safe assuming what he meant. “That…was me. I needed to do it, to access my magic, to wake you.”

  “Fucking isn’t magic, girl,” he said and advanced a step. “Take me to Airelle, or risk losing your life.”

  The enormity of my mistake settled on me. How impetuous I’d been to rush into waking him, just to see if I could compare. For him, everything in the book had happened moments ago – not eons.

  “I would, if I could, but she’s dead.”

  “Who killed her?”

  I shook my head as he took another threatening step. “I don’t know.”

  “Someone killed her. Or she would have released me.”

  Beza, bless her, had been clinging to me but put herself between us, whereas Joshan, finally recovered, started to move to intercept. I flung my arm out to keep Joshan back. Zaan was my King, I couldn’t let my servants hurt him, or vice versa.

  Zaan’s breath came hard. “Who killed her?”

  “I don’t know.” How I wished the book had gone on for just a few more pages!

  “The greatest Queen Aranda has ever known did not just die.”

  I took a step free from Beza and Joshan and did quick math from my history lessons with Yzin. “It has bee
n twenty-thousand years since you were turned to stone, my King. No one lives that long, not even royalty.”

  His eyes narrowed and there was another long, stone-like, pause. “That I would even entertain your suggestion is absurd. There’s no way so much time has passed. If it had, would we be able to still understand each other?”

  “I have a gift with tongues, my King.”

  “And my brothers? Where are they?”

  “Still stone, row-upon-row. I can show them to you, if you like.”

  He paused again. Emotions crashed across his face – so much anger, fear, and pain – and the historian’s book had said nothing about how much of him you could read in his eyes. “I am sorry, my King. I wish I had thought about what it would be like for you when I woke you, I truly do.”

  “I don’t want your pity,” he said low, and jerked his chin. “Are you holding me hostage?”

  I shook my head quickly. “No, of course not.”

  “Then I am going,” he said, and stalked out.

  In all the stories I had ever read on screens, Kings always stayed with their Queens, willingly, in love forever inside their palace. I knew those stories were childish now, but I had no idea the reality would be quite so cruel. Maybe the ceremony I’d skipped was necessary to tame him? Blood seeped from the wound on my neck and a trail of it stained the edge of my dress. None of the stories had ever mentioned biting. After a moment I ran after him and found him standing in the nearest nexus, unsure which way to go.

  “You bit me –“ I told him, from a safe distance.

  “Yes, I did. Where is the door?”

  I blinked. There was only one door that I knew of, the door of the council chamber. How would that look, for me to take him there? Then everyone would know what I had done, what I’d ruined with my impatience. I clenched my hands into fists – I only had myself to blame.

  “It’s this way, my King,” I said, and started walking on the council’s path.

  He followed beside me at his own distance, Joshan and Beza close behind.

  “If twenty-thousand years have gone by, why would you still call me that? Surely I am King no more.” His voice was flat and measured, as if he knew catching me in a lie wouldn’t change the truth.