Page 32 of Degradation (The Brethren Lords #3)

Devin

“ T rust me, Paitlyn, trust me.”

I hear the words and it’s all I can do not to sneer. Does the girl really believe that woman gives a fuck about her? Sure, she may have birthed her but what sort of mother hands their child over to a man like Gunther?

I roll my eyes, adjusting my feet, making myself more comfortable as I block the doorway.

“…you have to seduce him. You have to make him want you.”

“But he hurts me.”

I try not to listen. I try to zone out, even though the Chapter Lord gave me specific instructions to ensure the two of them weren’t conspiring.

I don’t know what the mother means by ‘a plan’, but I sure as hell will not be reporting that back. Not because I’m siding with them, not because I want to help them, but the man is already paranoid and comments like that will only make him worse.

He’s had the whole Palace searched three times this week alone.

I don’t know what he thinks there could be, but it’s clear he thinks there is something.

I know he’s paranoid. I know the man is verging on the edge of insanity and if he succumbs to it, then God only knows what that means for the rest of us.

The mother is rattling on, giving suggestions, ways her daughter can appease Gunther and spare herself a beating. It’s bullshit. All of it is. Either the mother knows it, or she doesn’t care enough about her child’s life to admit it.

I glance at her again. At the girl.

I was a fool to call her malktā. A fool to speak the word out loud. It’s a measure of how little control I have, how much she’s already wormed her way into my head.

Malktā. Queen.

She is a queen. A queen of curses. A queen of damnation. A queen of whores.

But I want her all the same. I’m a fucking fool to feel it, a greater fool to acknowledge it. My hands shake, my entire body is itching to cross that room, to take a knife, to pin the little bitch down and have my way with her until she’s a quivering, bleeding mess that she’ll never recover from.

But I can’t do that.

I can’t fucking touch her.

I shut my eyes, imagining I’m doing it, that I’m holding her down, slitting her throat, fixing the problem for all of us.