The Hated (Sleeping With Monsters Book 3) Read online

  “Because I am a Queen, and every Queen has a King chosen for her. There’s supposed to be a ceremony. A choir.” Like mentioning it now would change what had happened. “And then, because of my magic, you wake up.”

  “Awakened by the magic of your pussy?” He sounded incredulous, and I looked down. The word he used for my dark place was strange, but I knew what he meant when I heard it.

  “Yes. That.”

  He snorted and walked faster, as if he knew the path – then stopped at the next warren of halls. I noticed him looking around, at the caged lilans, the unfamiliar sculptures and portraits, and could almost sense the otherness radiating off of him.

  And I wasn’t the only one. A zoomer walked up – and he kicked it aside. It landed on its back, all eight mechanical legs futiley swimming through the air.

  “Don’t!” I shouted as he went to step on it.

  “It’s Rix-made!” Zaan seemed to flicker in front of me as he shouted.

  I put myself in his path again, pressing an earnest hand to my chest. “It’s only a zoomer. It cleans the halls here.”

  “It’s Rixan,” he snarled.

  “No one even knows what Rix is anymore. Or where it is. Or if it ever was. I only know because of the book.”

  The zoomer flipped itself right and crawled back over. Dusting implements unfolded from its feet and it began combing over nearby tiles, coming closer before turning to crawl down a different hall.

  He watched it and then looked around, taking everything in, me, the palace, my servants, the lilans, and shuddered. “This – this place – everything about here – is wrong.”

  “I know it is all different for you, and I’m sorry,” I said, nodding deeply before gesturing. “Come this way, my King – we are close to the door.”

  When we reached the council chamber, I took him inside. Stalactites pulsed overhead, going from cheerful yellow to a golden green, while the screens lining the far wall showed a pleasant picture of the Arandan countryside. Zaan stopped, looked around warily, and then walked over to them.

  “Windows?” he asked, trying to push his hand through the nearest one. The image flickered, becoming fertile crops on rolling hills, and he jumped back. “What magic is this?”

  “It isn’t. These are screens. They show my people and my lands.” This, I was proud to show him at least – he ruled them too, didn’t he? “See the mountains of Nestri? The port of Isoto? The palace, from the outside, when the sessest are in bloom --” I named the images as Yzin had taught me until they repeated themselves and Zaan watched them with a furrowed brow.

  For one sharp moment I felt like this must be what it was like to have a King at my side. Then he stepped back, shaking his head. “Where is the door?”

  I pointed. It was set into the chamber’s far wall, as tall as the ceiling and inset with jewels. He ran over to it, searching for a handle with his hands, then finally throwing himself into it bodily, but it didn’t move.

  “What kind of joke is this?” He whirled on me, his braid whipping behind him.

  I shook my head. “It isn’t a joke. That is the door.” It was the only way I had seen anyone enter or leave the Feather Palace for my three hundred years – and suddenly I understood his problem. “It only opens from the other side.”

  He made a strangled sound, then hit the door with both his hands. When he left the room this time, I did not chase after him.

  Chapter Five

  Twenty-thousand years.

  I had never heard anything so absurd, not even in the stories the varjans told me as a child. Who was that woman, and why did she look so much like Airelle?

  My footsteps echoed in the empty hallways that seemed to never end. Would I have to count out twenty-thousand steps before I found an escape from this accursed place?

  There had to be a way.

  I stalked down halls, looking for doors or windows, waiting to feel a swirl of fresh air. Any window I did see was an accursed Rix-made screen – I took great pleasure pulling these off of walls, but there were no windows hiding behind them, either.

  What hell was this that I was trapped in? And how could I get out?

  I found a place where animals were all in cages. Some of them I recognized – the number of feet were the same, though the markings on hides and feathers different – but there were others I’d never seen. I stood outside the cage for one of these. It had fangs as long as my hand and a body that wove sinuously through the brush of its habitat. I paced outside its range, a double series of bars keeping me from it and likewise, and felt it stalking me as I tried to think.

  That girl who called herself a Queen – hardly. She had none of Airelle’s fire or strength. I had watched Airelle tame and ride a raguin in one afternoon, without magic. If that girl saw a raguin, she would faint, and then the raguin would eat her.

  The stone was supposed to be for a season, or at most, a year. Until our spies had figured out how to make Rix-machines work for us. It was never meant to be an eternity.

  I put a hand to my mouth, where that strange girl’s blood was still on my lips. No matter how quickly I’d tried to spit it out, I’d swallowed some of it.

  She did wake me. And now I was bound by her blood, not the blood of my beloved.

  I whirled and beat my hands on the nearest bars. “Airelle!”

  The creature inside the cage took its chance, flinging itself at me claws out, mouth open, and rebounded off the cage the same as I did.

  “Airelle!” I shouted again, as if shouting could erase the passage of time and bring her back.

  The growling of the beast inside the cage was the only thing that answered.

  #

  I returned with Joshan and Beza to my chambers. Beza looked up at my neck. “May I bathe you, my Queen?”

  I touched my neck and flaked off drying blood. “Please.”

  Together, we walked to the pool. Usually, baths were a time for silliness and merriment and kisses on wet skin. Today, however, I was in no mood. I settled into the water and swam back and forth.

  I would have to call and tell the council – I already knew Railan would be upset, and Yzin, and all the other councilmembers, and even unknown, unmet celestitians. I’d ruined everything. I supposed the only thing left to figure out is if things could be fixed.

  I rose out of the water and let Beza towel me off, then sat down so that she could stroke a comb through my long hair. Her comb stuttered, so unlike her that I looked up. “What are you thinking?”

  “I am afraid if he lays down to sleep, the zoomers will get to him, my Queen.”

  I snorted. “After twenty-thousand years, I don’t think he’ll be sleeping for a very long time.”

  Some Queen I’d become, maddening my King and losing him in the palace. I touched the spot on my neck where he had bitten me – wild with anger, surely. It was healing – the few times I had ever been injured, those injuries never lasted long – but the wound to my pride remained.

  Beza was closing the fastens on a fresh new dress, when Joshan came in. “The King has returned.”

  “He has?” Perhaps he had found his patience displayed in a case in an unexplored hallway.

  Joshan nodded. “Yes, my Queen. And he states he is hungry.”

  I watched my lips twist to one side in the mirror, as Beza tugged my wet hair up and set it with jeweled combs. “Hopefully he doesn’t want to eat me, again. Set us a table – and I will join him shortly.”

  I walked into the dining room with Beza by my side. We only used it for ceremonies, the rare times when the council came and ate with me inside the palace, but it felt right to use it now with him.

  “My King,” I said and bowed.

  His eyes flickered over me and there was something in his face like surprise. “Impostor,” he acknowledged me. I stood quietly, chin up.

  “Are you going to bite me again?”

  One eyebrow arched and the corner of his lips pulled up into a sneer, showing the sharp tip of one fang. “No.
”

  “Good,” I said, and took my seat right by his side.

  Joshan brought out the first course and I noticed Zaan watching to make sure I ate things first.

  “Nothing is poisoned.”

  His eyes narrowed. “How would a caged creature like you know of poisons?”

  “I’ve read stories,” I said, thanking Yzin for every screen he’d ever brought me.

  Zaan grunted. “I shouldn’t be worried about dying anyhow. Clearly I’m already in Draugulos.” He looked at me for a response and when I gave none, he continued. “A place of eternal torment for Zaibann who have lost their way.”

  I nodded. I’d never heard of it before – but I’d known what it was when he’d said it. My magic was still at my side. “There is nothing that can torment you here. The Feather Palace is designed only for pleasure.”

  He looked at me with great sorrow in his eyes. “Do you know what would please me?”

  I shook my head and held my breath in foolish hope.

  “The return of my past, my people, and twenty-thousand years.”

  “I am sorry.” I stared into my soup. “Does that mean you believe me now?”

  He ignored my question. “I want to see the book.”

  I looked over to Joshan, waiting in the doorway. “Please, Joshan, retrieve it.”

  Beza brought our next course out and we ate in silence until Joshan’s return. He handed the book over and I passed it to Zaan. He took it from me without question and began to read.

  “Rkatrayzin. I would recognize his handwriting anywhere. The historian, eh? More like the man who was merely there.”

  He started reading faster, skipping pages, until he got to the end and our dinner was cold. “There are no answers here,” he said, throwing it across the table.

  “I never said there were.”

  He shook his head again, as though he could negate the ages. “I cannot believe that so much time has passed – not until I see it for myself. Take me outside, immediately.”

  “It…is not allowed.”

  The look he gave me then – I wished that I had sat across the table from him, or in another room entirely. “What kind of Queen hides inside her palace?” he asked me.

  “The lives of all Aranda depend on me,” I said – the same answer Railan had always given me. I wonder if it tasted as bitter on his tongue as it did mine.

  “Airelle would never let herself be caged.”

  “She let you be caged, didn’t she?” I said. Zaan’s face flushed and I instantly regretted it. “I’m sorry –“

  His hand lunged over and grabbed my wrist tight. Joshan started toward us but I shook my head. “Show me your powers, girl. Show me some lick of her strength.”

  I tried to wrestle my hand back from him – only getting it when he let go, and he laughed cruelly.

  “You have nothing. You are nothing, compared to her.”

  “Don’t you think I know that? I read everything --” I rubbed my wrist with my other hand. “But I want to be like her -- and you’re the only link I have.”

  “Then show me your powers,” he challenged again.

  I looked down at my wrist where his fingerprints showed. “I can read ancient things.”

  “A librarian. How quaint.” He pushed his chair back from the table. “Anything else? Anything more?”

  I swallowed and inhaled. “When – I released you. That’s when I have powers.”

  There was silence while he stared at me. “You mean fucking, girl? You’re only magical when you fuck?” He made a gesture in front of me, and I knew what it was – a dark place being pierced by a cock.

  “Yes. I am magical when I…fuck,” I said, trying out the strange word. “It worked with you, didn’t it?”

  “Don’t expect me to thank you, waking me up to the loss of my love and the betrayal of my entire kind.”

  “Look – just –“ I pulled my chair next to his. “If you want to see what I can do,” I put my hand over into his lap, wondering if he’d grab at me again, finding the folds in his clothing that would let my hand in. “Let me show you.”

  His eyes lowered and his jaw clenched – but inside the circle of my fingers, I felt his cock stir.

  Chapter Six

  My head ached from the impossibility of it – and because every time I looked away from her, she looked like her, my Airelle. It was as though someone had painted Airelle, and someone had then painted that painting, and then again and again – I knew it wasn’t her, and yet if my eyes were half-closed or she were only seen out of the corner of my eye, I hoped.

  We were bloodbound, she was beautiful, and I hated her.

  And then she pushed her slender pale hand beneath the black leather of my armor and took hold of my soft cock.

  “You hope to enspell me?”

  She smiled placatingly. “You wanted to see my magic – and I wanted to show you.”

  She stroked me as any temple whore could have done – was she as innocent as she seemed? How could anyone be so naive? If it had been anyone else doing what she did to me now – I would have cut their hand off and fed it to them.

  But I didn’t stop her because she did look like Airelle. My Airelle never would have spoken so quietly or put up with my bursts of anger, but her fingers wrapped me and my body answered. She wasn’t her, but she smelled the same, and if I closed my eyes --

  “See?” she said, as I stiffened in her hand.

  “You ruin it when you speak,” I growled, and she shut up – but her hand didn’t slow.

  She played up and down me, her hand like Airelle’s, skillful, deft. But Airelle would have had her other hand in my hair, wound tight, making me beg her for release, praying for a drop of blood. At the memories of so many nights lost with her, exchanging pain for pleasure, my cock swelled, and the hand stroking it pulled faster in response.

  I took hold of the edge of the table and came with a groan, imagining Airelle at my side, my Queen the temptress, always taunting, teasing, driving me mad – and I inhaled deeply, praying that by the time I exhaled circumstances would have changed.

  But no, when I opened my eyes I saw her there, staring at the lacy wetness of my seed in her palm.

  “What happened? Have I hurt you?” She showed her hand to me.

  The spell – such as it was – was broken, and I was disgusted with myself for my hope.

  “You have made me come, my Queen.” Another thing to hate her for.

  “But Joshan –“ she looked to her male servant and then again to me. “He doesn’t leak.”

  I looked to the man in the doorway. He was as tall as I was, all muscle bound, watching what happened without comment – without jealousy. “You’ve fucked him? And he’s never spilled seed inside you before?”

  She shook her head.

  More Rix-sorcery.

  I took my head and put it in between my hands, elbows on the table. I really was in Draugulos. I must have dishonored myself somehow. I started laughing harshly. “They’re not real.”

  The girl looked from me to her servant. “What are you saying?”

  “They’re not real! None of this is!” I stood, throwing the table across the room, foodstuffs sloshing onto the ground. “You, thing, come with me.” I grabbed hold of the servant girl’s waist and hauled her aloft. “I don’t know what kind of demon puppet you are, but I intend to find out.”

  #

  This wasn’t how I thought things would go at all.

  “Stop that! Come back here at once!” I shouted at my King – and he completely ignored me.

  No one had ever done that before.

  I stood still for a second, befuddled, and then chased after him so quickly my seat tipped back and fell over. “What are you going to do with her? Where are you going?” He’d slung Beza over one shoulder, her hair dragging along the ground behind her like a trail of blood.

  “If what you say is true, I have twenty-thousand years to catch up on. I’ll be starting with her. And if I am i
n Draugulos, my actions have no consequence, for I am already doomed.”

  I ran around to stand in front of him. “You are my King! I demand you act like one!”

  His eyes narrowed. “I’ve never met a King before. How ought I to act?”

  And my children’s tales betrayed me. “I – I – I don’t know.”

  Zaan sidestepped me and kept walking, and stopped when we reached a chamber with a wide couch. He threw Beza down on it and she bounced on the cushions.

  “She’s not real. None of this is real.”

  “She is too real. You are – aren’t you Beza?”

  Beza looked up at me. “I am real, my Queen,” she answered, without any fear in her voice.

  If I were in Beza’s position, I would be horrified. A gnawing fear started in my stomach and I put my hands there, wiping Zaan’s seed off on my dress. If he was right – what did that mean for me? For everything I ever knew?

  Zaan stood in front of her, unbuckling his armor. He pulled his chest piece off, and took off the robe beneath it, revealing a broad, muscular, scar-covered back.

  Who had ever whipped a King? I put my hand to my mouth to hold back a gasp – and then ran around to put myself in front of Beza. “I don’t care. She’s real to me. I won’t let you hurt her.”

  He set his folded robe on the ground near his armor and then looked at me, his braid trailing over one shoulder now.

  “I thought you would be different. The stories say we’re King and Queen of Aranda and we live happily ever after.”

  He snorted in disgust. “Are all the books you read child’s tales?”

  “No.” I quickly shook my head. Some of the books Yzin had been bringing me lately were quite grim – though not as frightening as unleashing my own angry Zaibann. “But the ones that ones that mention you and me are,” I said. “So I’m sorry that I don’t know how you ought to be – but I know that you shouldn’t do this.”

  He stood in front of me, breathing deeply. Zaan was everything I thought he’d be from reading the book, but a hundred times more frightening than I could have ever fathomed. He looked down at Beza again, still prone on the couch where he’d dropped her – she hadn’t even tried to run away.