Page 3 of Princess (Marinah and the Apocalypse #5)

Things had been peaceful lately. No, strike that.

Lesley Barnes, the woman we had kidnapped, made our lives hell and frayed everyone’s nerves.

How could I even think "peaceful"? She was President Barnes’ wife, and he was our sworn enemy. She’d been festering inside our walls for three months, dripping venom into every interaction.

Just being near her made everyone’s hands twitch toward their weapons.

I wasn’t immune to it, but I had refrained from breaking her other leg.

The first one I broke for information. It hadn’t worked.

Now, she hobbled around with a cane, though most of the time, her limp was exaggerated for sympathy.

The biggest problem wasn’t the injury; it was her ceaseless complaining.

We had kidnapped her from the new U.S. government, known as the Federation, as leverage to force their hand and uncover the truth behind their future plans.

But President Barnes had done nothing since we took his wife.

No ransom demands. No desperate negotiations.

Not even a token plea for his wife’s return.

If I had to guess, he was relieved to have her off his hands.

Lesley, sensing that her husband wasn’t coming for her, had switched tactics. Her burning hatred for Shadow Warriors had been impossible to hide at first, but now? Now she played the role of the misunderstood victim, the poor, abused wife of the President, trapped in a war she never asked for.

It was the worst kind of bullshit.

But today, this would end.

I was putting my plan into action.

The wise thing to do was execute her, and I’d given it serious thought. Cold, rational, logical thought, but unfortunately, it wasn’t going to happen. Killing to defend my people was one thing. Cold-blooded murder, another.

I hoped, reverently, that she would say the wrong thing while I was in Beast form, something that would flip the switch and strip away the thin reluctance holding me back. If wishes were reality, I’d be scraping her guts off the floor right now.

With that pleasant thought lingering in my mind, I opened the door.

King sat at the table we used for meals, his broad frame relaxed, but his sharp blue eyes locked onto me the second I stepped into the room. A full breakfast waited, the scent of eggs, fresh bread, and sizzling meat wrapping around me like a warm, taunting embrace. My stomach clenched in betrayal.

"I have five minutes to waddle to Mrs. Barnacle’s cell," I muttered, trying not to inhale too deeply.

King picked up his fork and took a bite, savoring it, the jerk.

"You have thirty minutes, starting now. I sent a message that you’d be late.

" He stabbed another piece of meat and popped it into his mouth.

"You’re not leaving this room until you eat.

" It was said casually after he chewed and swallowed.

The glow in his eyes made it clear. This was not a battle I was going to win.

I scowled, shifting my weight, but my body had already chosen sides. Ms. Beast purred, a deep, satisfied hum vibrating through my chest, sealing my fate.

Traitor.

With a resigned huff, I shuffled toward the table and collapsed into the chair across from King.

Our room was one of the larger ones. It had a table with chairs for quiet meals along with a couch that we could relax on.

We’d removed the couch, and a baby’s crib sat in its place.

King had offered to have a wall removed to give us more room, but I didn’t want more room.

We had a real home on the other part of the island that we rarely visited.

I wanted that to change, and making our quarters at the citadel more pleasing wouldn’t help.

The second my ass hit the seat, my restraint over the food evaporated. There was no decorum, and no pretense. I tore into my meal like I hadn’t eaten in days. I consumed double the calories now than I ever had before.

King watched me with an amused smirk, shoveling his own food into his mouth at a more civilized pace.

Axel, our Shadow Warrior doctor, was playing this whole pregnancy thing by ear. Shadow Warriors hadn’t mated with each other for over two hundred years, and as far as he knew, it had never happened on Earth before now. My entire pregnancy was an experiment.

Missy was human, which meant her child was half-human, half-Warrior, and not a good comparison. From what Axel had seen, human females carrying a Warrior’s child had a gestation period of about six months. The babies grew fast, much larger than human newborns, averaging fifteen pounds at birth.

Going by those standards, my child would arrive within the next six weeks.

I glanced down at my belly, which was already stretched beyond the limits of reason, and scowled. The good doctor didn’t seem concerned. He sympathized, sure, but that was it.

I had asked him what would happen if I had a twenty-pound baby. He’d laughed and without a drip of concern in his voice, he told me I was Shadow Warrior and could handle it.

I grumbled inside my head as I stuffed another bite of food into my mouth.

I really wish men carried the babies.

The entire human race would have gone extinct centuries ago, and that thought made me smile.