Page 98 of Queen Takes Triune

The mighty chess grandmaster, possibly the most powerful queen in the world, though I was sure I could hold my own if we had to trade blows, was suddenly lost.

She had no idea what the next move was.

She had played to win the board, but I had simply walked away from the table. It made no sense to her. Either you played to win, or you died. You didn’t walk away. You never gave up.

I didn’t either. But she was playing chess, and I was playing hearts.Forhearts.

She didn’t believe I should love my Blood. She considered it a weakness. Something to use against me, forcing me into checkmate.

This wasmyfucking game, and I was playing to win.

Not for myself. Not for status. Not for a bigger crown or a tackier golden throne or even more power. Because I had plenty of power, thank you very much.

I played my own game for one purpose only.

To protect the ones I loved with my very life.

“Why… would I do that?” She asked slowly.

“Because I know where Jeanne Dauphine is hiding. I knowhowshe hides. And if you don’t let her know that I’ve been here, then you’ll be able to…” I shrugged, letting my lips quirk suggestively. “Do whatever you feel like you need to do. She’s been neglecting her duty for how many years now?”

Marne’s mouth fell open with shock. I’d rendered the High Queen of the Triune speechless.

It was so comical that I laughed. I couldn’t help it.

I laughed until I sagged against Rik and only his arms held me up.

She frowned. Her cheeks reddened, either with fury or embarrassment or both. But as I kept giggling, her lips finally twitched toward a smile.

A genuine smile. From one queen to another with utmost admiration and respect.

“That’s why you used the mirror. That’s why you finally reached out to me. What the fuck did she do to you that made you decide that I was the lesser evil?”

I started walking back toward the surface, my hand steady on Rik’s back as he ducked beneath the low ceiling. “She fucked with someone I love.”

30

Okeanos

In a daze, I followed the queen who’d freed me. To the grand Roman presentation temple. To the secret lair of the Great Mother. Through a hidden door that ended in a tree, in a land so foreign to me that it might as well have been Mars.

Yes, I would have followed her there too. To the ends of the universe. I would find a way.

There was so much I didn’t yet understand about my new queen, but one thing was abundantly clear to me.

This queen played for love.

And that was a game I wanted to win.

Never in my long, lonely existence had I been loved. My mother had loved me—distantly. It was one thing to love her son, but an entirely different situation when said son turned into a hideous monster. She had shielded me from hurt, from the outsiders who’d want to hurt me. So she said.

But while lying imprisoned at the bottom of Marne Ceresa’s pond, I had made an important realization.

If my mother had truly loved me, she would have fought for me.

Undina was the High Queen of Skolos. Descended from Keto, the goddess of the most dangerous seas, she could have swallowed Rome with a furious tsunami, bombarded House Ceresa with hurricane winds, and leveled the ancient city unless and until I was freed.

Yet she’d chosen to do nothing. Nothing at all.