Page 68 of Brimstone

The whole palace was in chaos, and Algat was baying for blood. Guru had escaped.

Not for the first time in the past hour, I thought the old female was about to try to put me over her knee to spank my hide like my mother had. “He is anindoorcat,Your Highness,” she spat viciously. “He’s never stepped foot outside of this library.”

I almost laughed. Guru was a shadow, and a shadow would go wherever it pleased, regardless of a closed door or a rulethat couldn’t be enforced. Guru had probably explored the entire palace from top to bottom, and if Algat didn’t know that, then she was an idiot.

She jabbed a book at me across the reading table. “There are far worse things out there than Guru. Far bigger predators that would inhale him without a second thought.”

“He’s going to be fine, Algat. He’s probably just sitting up on the roof, watching everyone freaking out in the courtyard.”

“He doesn’t like the wind,” the crone said sourly. “It scatters him when he’s transitioning from one form to the other.”

“Mmmfffmf mmmhhhnnn.”

Algat’s eyes widened, overflowing with annoyance. She jabbed the book at the vampire asshole with the gold-plated teeth. “And what the hell have you done tohim?” she demanded.

“Nothing he didn’t deserve. He attacked me. Ergo, he gets tied up in chains and lashed to a chair.” I had used the length of silver that Fisher had given to me before my coronation—the one he had tied around my waist to act as a belt.

Algat let out a stiff laugh. “Well, I can’t wait for you to explain that one to your sire, child, I really can’t. He’s going to get a kick out ofthis.”

My hand throbbed like crazy. Before, when the runes had blazed through my skin, my hands had healed themselves instantly once the episode was over. This time, I hadn’t been so lucky. My fingertips were split open, the skin charred and black from where the magic had discharged from my hand. Blood dripped from deep slices on my palms, and my runes were still raw and blistered, as if someone had just pressed a burning brand to my skin. It was healing, I could feel that it was, but it was taking way longer than I would have liked. It fuckinghurt.

“Tal won’t have anything to say about me defending myself, Algat. I’m the queen of this court. By rights, this crazy bastard should be dead already.”

A calculating look flashed in Algat’s eyes. “Oh,Iagree. Assaulting the monarch of the Blood Court is high treason, after all. So whyisn’the dead?”

Shit. I kind of walked myself into that one. I could have ended the stranger. I’d had the window and the opportunity. I could have fired the overflow of my power athiminstead of the wall and left nothing behind but a black scorch mark on the rug. But killing someone was always a last resort. Ithadto be. Even if they were technically already dead. “I’m not just going to kill him without questioning him first,” I said in a bored tone. “How will I know who sent him otherwise?”

Disappointment flickered briefly in Algat’s cloudy eyes. “Then you’d better take that fabric out of his mouth, hadn’t you? What did you stuff in there? Wait.Are those my velvet gloves?”

The gloves were the first thing I found when I’d been searching for something to quiet the angry vampire. He’d been yelling at me in Old Fae; I hadn’t understood what he was saying, but I could tell from the sneer on his face and the acid in his tone that he hadn’t been paying me any compliments.

Algat scurried around the reading table and ripped the balled-up gloves out of the vampire’s mouth. She held them up in the air, scowling at me. “These were expensive!”

“My apologies. I’ll buy you some new ones.”

“Be sure that you do!”

“I will.”

“Swear it.” The old female set her jaw.

“I swear it! Gods!”

“You should be careful, making flippant promises like that,” a male voice said. The vampire on the chair wasn’t pulling against his silver restraints anymore. He was sweating, his head resting against the back of his chair, as if he’d given up and had resigned himself to his fate.

Quiet, you,” Algat snapped.

The vampire laughed breathlessly, rolling his head along the wood to smirk arrogantly at the female. “What, you don’t like it when people interfere with your groundwork, hag?”

Her shoulders hunched up around her ears. She looked ready to climb onto the table and claw at his face. “I should cut out your tongue—”

“Go on, then. Why not. You’ve done it before.” The vampire closed his eyes, swallowing hard. “It only grows back again,” he added wearily.

I stood before the stranger, folding my arms over my chest. He looked like he was in his early thirties, perhaps. He was considerably older, of course. It was going to take some time for me to shift the way I thought about how people aged here.

His hair was dark and shorn close to his scalp. The strands were unevenly cut and messy. His eyes were pale blue with a bright golden starburst around his pupil, which . . . oh. Wow. His pupil was vertical, like a snake’s.

I hadn’t registered that he had turned back to me. I hadn’t registered the hatred on his face, either. Not until he bared his teeth, flashing those sharp, golden canines at me again. “Please. Feel free to stare,” he snarled. “You might as well kill me now, unless you want to be looking over your shoulder for the rest of your life. I won’t stop coming for you. Not until I’ve cleaved that pretty head from your shoulders.”