Page 2 of The Queen’s Shadow

I squeezed the handles of my blades so hard I could feel my knuckles pop. There was a deep, hateful, blaze of energy that had ignited in my chest. Rage flooded every inch of my body and coated my very bones. I could barely breathe past the burning fire in my lungs. Every fiber of my being was screaming at me to kill, to destroy, to burn.

I had felt like this once before, and it had nearly cost me my life. The only reason it hadn’t was because Amon had saved me. This painful thought scored through my mind, slicing into the already gaping wound that was his absence. He wasn’t here to save me now. I knew if I let go, I would take everyone with me, and I couldn’t allow that. I had to keep it together. I had to get them back. I had to get my mate back.

I couldn’t get him back if I tore the entire planet to shreds. I crushed my eyes closed and took a deep breath in through my nose, and out through my mouth while counting to ten.

“That’s it, Kitten. Keep it together, you need to stay in control.” Rycon smirked at me once I had successfully pushed back the billowing clouds of midnight that kept threatening to overtake my vision. “It hurts more if you go slow anyways.” He said, referring to the torture we were currently inflicting on the widowmaker.

His words helped calm me, as he had known they would. Rycon knew what I needed because it was what he needed too. Our bond was wide open, and our anger bled together. We were fueling each other, while simultaneously keeping one another from losing it entirely.

“Pass me a blade.” His tone was all business as he held out a hand, his blunt nails coated in chipped black polish. I took another deep breath before handing him one of the twin blades Amon had gifted me before Ash Nevra stole him away. I watched, still forcing myself to breathe in a slow and controlled manner as the shifter lay the edge of the knife against one of the widowmaker’s forearms.

There was no risk of it injuring us. I had severed its long deadly fingers almost the moment we had entered the cell. They still danced and jerked across the ground, like headless cockroaches.

The fiend flinched and tried to pull away from Rycon, but my shadows held it in place. It tried to scream; however, its vocal cords must not have healed yet, so all that came out was a thick garbling sound.

Black, inky blood bubbled through its teeth and slid down its child-like face. Rycon laid the blade almost flat against the thing’s arm and looked up at me, his golden cat eyes flashing in the dirty light of the cell.

“Like this,” he instructed me, before sliding the sharp edge of the knife under the monster’s skin and pulling a long, white strip of flesh away from its arm as if he were merely peeling an apple. The monster’s voice box sprang back to life just in time for Rycon to toss the inky strip onto the ground with a grotesque, wet, slap.

I watched the monster twist and struggle against my shadows, a cold sickening pleasure coiling around my heart at the sight of the widowmaker’s agony. It screamed and screamed, and I felt myself smile.

Rycon’s own lips curled at the look on my face before he stood back, gesturing to the widowmaker’s prone form. “Now you try,” he said.

I glanced at him, hesitating. He nodded his head once in encouragement. “You got this, don’t let yourself lose control. Flay a piece and ask it where that bitch is keeping them.”

If I hadn’t been so filled with rage, I might have wondered how I had come to this point. How had I come to find myself standing in this disgusting dungeon, being taught how to properly torture someone for information? It wasn’t that long ago that my biggest problem was my chronic tendency to get into fights at school. Now, somehow the fate of two worlds seemed to depend on me finding a way to stop a daemon hell queen. Apparently at the cost of the moral degradation of my own soul.

What was worse, was the fact that I didn’t care. I didn’t care about the fate of any world if Amon wasn’t in it. This fucking spider was going to tell me where he was, or I would throw it into the mouth of Mount Frira and watch it melt.

I stepped forward, laying my blade against its other arm. It jerked away from me, before realizing that only moved it closer to Rycon.

It screamed again. “My mistress will punish you!” Its voice was like nails on glass, tearing against my eardrums as I pressed the edge of the blade under its skin, lifting it away from the flesh like Rycon had shown me.

“Where is your mistress?” I asked as I slowly peeled the skin back. The creature’s screams intensified, and I found myself biting back a smile as I pulled. “Tell me, and maybe I’ll stop.” I didn’t recognize my own voice. It was like ice. Cold, and unrecognizable. I felt like I was far away, and someone else was using my mouth to say the words. But it wasn’t someone else. It was me.

This was all me and I wasn’t sorry.

The widowmaker seemed to lose the ability to form words, its voice shattered around us as I tossed the bloody strip of skin on the ground. We stared at each other over the thrashing fiend and I could see a flicker of pride flash in his eyes.

“Good.” He murmured, before looking back down at the monster, his face darkening, and I felt the ice-cold sting of his own rage leak through the bond. Rycon loved violence and was normally in a relatively good mood when he had the opportunity to hurt or kill something. To see him this angry while we tortured the widowmaker spoke volumes. The memory of him crawling across the ground towards Kasha before Kieran took her away to sell her back into the sex trade ripped through my mind, and I had to close my eyes again.

Inhale. One, two, three, four, five.

Exhale. One, two, three, four, five.

When I had learned to breathe in anger management, never once did it occur to me that I would need to rely on these skills in a situation like this. Rycon waited patiently for me to finish my breathing exercises. When I was done, he laid the blade I had lent him against the widowmaker’s arm once more and gestured for me to do the same.

He made eye contact with me across the monster’s quivering form.

“Again.” He said softly, before another blood curdling scream tore from the widowmaker’s throat.

Raven

“Rayven?” Conrad’s tired voice pierced through the incessant screaming, causing me to pause my work on the widowmaker’s chest. I had run out of skin on its arm, and it wasn’t healing fast enough for me to continue. So, I had been forced to work my way up towards its neck.

It still hadn’t told us anything useful and I was beginning to lose what small shred of patience I had left. If it didn’t talk soon, I was going to cut its head off again, no matter what Rycon said. My blade paused at the sound of Conrad’s voice, but I didn’t turn around.

“You’re awake.” I said softly, relief flooding through me. I battled with myself. Do I put the knife down and make sure Conrad really was okay? Or flay another piece of skin? Would this piece be the one that made it talk? Would this strip of skin be the last straw before the creature finally broke? I imagined this must be what it would feel like to have an addiction. It was a compulsive need, an urgent voice in my head, whispering over and over again; just one more slice, just one more piece and you will have what you need.