Page 4 of Kingly Bitten

My fingers curled into fists.

Lilith had taken everything from me—my freedoms, my choices, mylife. I’d obeyed her to the best of my ability. But could I do it again now? Did I even want to?

Another buzz.Thirty-four hours, thirty minutes.

Then it became thirty-four hours.

Thirty-three.

Thirty-two.

I half expected Lilith to barge through my door at any minute and punish me for failing her test. Except she never came.

If Lilith’s truly dead, then what do I have to lose?I found myself wondering. That musing grew into a myriad of ideas as the minutes passed. Because nothing happened. No Vigil arrived to escort me out for an execution—something Lilith had threatened me with on countless occasions throughout my long life.

“Do you know what it’s like to die and come back?”It’d been a softly spoken question, one she’d followed with an action by dragging a blade across my throat.

I’d drowned in a pool of my own blood.

Only to awaken an undetermined amount of time later with the memory firmly etched into my thoughts.

It hurt to die.

It hurt even more to come back.

That incident had just been her own musings, not a true punishment.

Oh, I’d endured many of her choice reprimands over the century, too. All of them had included death and rebirth. Each one a subtle lesson in her superiority, always meant to remind me of my place.

Sometimes she killed me just to prove she could.

Sometimes she killed me as a way of testing my immortality.

And sometimes she pretended to love me, just to break my mind.

The latter never worked. It was something she claimed to like about me.

“You’re beautifully resilient, Calina. My perfect creation. I hope you never change.”

Staring at the screen now, I wondered if that was the point of all this—to destroy everything I’d built just to see if I could mentally withstand it.

Lilith loved her mind games.

I rarely ever played.

What happens if I defy you now, my queen?

She would undoubtedly kill me again. But would it be for good?

No.

She couldn’t afford to lose me and all the knowledge I possessed.

But what if it’s real?

I couldn’t quiet the part of my mind that kept musing over the possibility that she truly was dead. That this wasn’t just a test, but actually happening.

Several more minutes passed.