FULL NOVELXO Queens and Monsters: Chapter 28
I shifted back and climbed straight into the shower, feeling physically amazing, but also mentally hopeful. I didn’t know a lot, but now I had a path forward. Sure a curse was bad, but at least I knew what the stakes were. All in all, I was looking forward to a great night of sleep.
I was wrong.
When I emerged from the bathroom in my nightgown and freshly dried hair, two sets of hands grabbed me. I was so surprised it didn’t even occur to me to shift. And by the time I did, they’d slapped some sort of cuffs onto my hands that bound me where I was. They pushed me onto the bed and that’s when I finally caught sight of the intruders.
Mary and Helena.
“Where have you been?” Mary asked. I wasn’t sure I’d ever heard her say more than hello and goodbye, so her sharp tone surprised me.
“Out.”
“Specifically.”
I chose silence.
“You’re so new I can’t imagine you can shift far. Antyne said she walked to the office the first day,” Helena laughed at me. “So perhaps she’s having an affair with a Dreg?”
“Or maybe she’s snooping around. Seeing things she shouldn’t?” Mary asked.
I tried to shift over and over, but these cuffs were strong stuff. I felt anchored to this exact spot, both in the world and in the Plane.
“Oh, it doesn’t matter,” Mary said as she climbed onto the bed. “Whatever she’s done is irrelevant now.” Then she cut her wrist with a knife and held it to my mouth. “Drink.”
The cuffs must have done something to my mind too, because my body followed her command even as my mind screamed for it to stop. The taste of her blood overloaded my mind and activated my instinct to drink. My teeth sank into her skin. Draught after draught, I took her poisoned, ashy blood into my body, only stopping to gag and cough.
My stomach cramped and twisted, the ashy texture turning to acid in my mouth. Somehow they knew I was cursed and that their blood would hurt me.
“My turn,” Helena climbed up on my other side, doing exactly what her sister had just done, forcing me to drink.
The poison filled my veins, caused my muscles to begin jerking, my vision to cloud. They were killing me.
If I couldn’t find a way to shift, I would die in this bed.
Dray! Dray!
I tried calling out, but everything was blocked. Survival instincts kicked in, overriding the blood instincts they activated. I bit through her wrist.
Helena reared back, howling in pain as blood gushed from her open veins. Mary leapt over me screaming.
In the chaos I used every ounce of power I had left in me, which wasn’t saying a lot since the poison had already managed to reach my organs. But the desire to live was a strong one and I channeled everything I had into breaking free of the cuffs. With a roar I didn’t realize was my own at first, the cuffs disintegrated into dust.
The next thing I did was vomit blood all over the floor.
And then, just before the darkness took over, I shifted away. Where? I didn’t know. Just away. The last thing I felt before unconsciousness won over was warmth. The kind I felt when Dray was wrapped around me, but different. I wretched up more blood.
“Oh my god!”
I knew that voice, didn’t I? Yes. Maybe. And then everything went black.