Happily Ever Bitten

by Lexi C. Foss

  I’d wanted him to kiss me.

  I still wanted him to.

  Would he be tender like he was in my dreams? Or all dominant male? A mixture of both? I wondered if I’d ever know the answer to those questions.

  I collapsed onto a couch in his sitting room and stared at the door he’d departed through a few minutes ago. He’d subdued me with a few words. Had chastised me to the point of regret. Yet I’d sensed the darkness in Yakariah’s soul.

  It wasn’t black like that of the human I’d killed a few weeks ago, just gray with hints of murky spots. Something about it had drawn me to him, then I’d recognized his scent and pulled out the knife Grigory had gifted me earlier.

  Not the brightest move—something I could admit now—but at the time, I’d failed to understand or comprehend reason. I’d wanted to slaughter him. To hurt him the way he had hurt me.

  Except Grigory changed everything I thought I knew about that night.

  Yakariah had helped me.

  And I’d nearly returned the favor by slicing his throat.

  In front of a roomful of demons.

  “Good job, Zaya,” I told myself. “Brilliant work.”

  I fisted my hands against my eyes and swallowed the urge to scream. Grigory had gone into my head to compel me to cooperate. He’d never done that to me before. I hadn’t even truly known he could do that. And now that I’d felt it, I never wanted to experience it again.

  It terrified me how easily he’d taken control and forced me into action.

  I knew Grigory was powerful, but the ease with which he’d persuaded me escalated that knowledge to a new level.

  He was the future King of Noxia. And tonight, he’d shown me why.

  In over a year of knowing him, he’d never used his gifts on me in that manner, something I had never truly appreciated until now. He could have forced me to be easy to work with, turned me into a shell of myself, yet instead he constantly exuded patience in his teachings.

  I frowned. All this time, I thought I knew him. Tonight, he’d opened my eyes to a brand-new side of him—the side that could so easily force me to my knees but chose not to.

  The marks of a true leader.

  My respect increased for him with each passing second. I should have hated what he’d done to me—the violation of breaking my mind—yet I understood the need for it. He was right. I’m not ready.

  I blew out a breath and shoved away from his couch to start pacing his rooms.

  How could I attack Yakariah like that? I had my list of three names, and he wasn’t on it. I knew that. Yet I’d reacted without thinking, his scent driving me into a frantic need to destroy.

  I paused before a mirror decorating one of Grigory’s walls and stared at the woman before me. Short blue hair. Gleaming gaze. Toned arms. Svelte midsection. Curvy hips.

  Who am I? I wondered, seeing the vixen beneath my dress.

  My Graystall heritage required me to wear black—Graystall demons hated colorful garments. Yet I stood here in a vibrant sapphire gown with sequins that blinked beneath Grigory’s lights.

  The woman I knew before had broken. Shattered. Become a shell of a female who once fancied the prospect of a happily ever after. I nearly laughed at that woman. How naïve she’d been.

  The person standing before me now had heart. Strength. A resolve to kill. But what happened after my revenge? Did I become yet another new demon? Continue to evolve into some sort of revolutionary? Live a life alone with a blade as my only companion?

  I heaved a sigh and shook my head, uncertain of my path.

  One day at a time, I told myself, refocusing on my dress. And I can start by changing out of this gown.

  Grigory told me to stay here, but surely he wouldn’t mind me popping into my room to grab a pair of pants. It was next door and technically within his quarters.

  Rather than overthink it, I walked into the hallway and paused upon finding two guards waiting for me. “Erm, hello.” I guessed Grigory put them there. Because of course he didn’t trust me to stay put.

  I held back a sigh, disappointed. We’d discuss his distrust later. Although, it was warranted after my behavior of late.

  “You’re not allowed to leave,” one of the guards said. His name began with a C. Cyprus, maybe? I really did need to start paying attention when Grigory made introductions.

  “I’m just going to my room to change,” I informed the bald male. His shoulders were seriously twice the width of mine. Giant summarized his form nicely. “It’s still part of Grigory’s wing and literally next to his room.” I pointed to the door nearly five feet to his left and arched a brow as if to say, See?

  The two guards shared a look, then glanced back at me.

  “You’re welcome to escort me and wait in my sitting room while I change,” I offered.

  Sax, or whatever the other’s name was, nodded slowly at Cyprus. “I’ll watch the hallway.”

  “Okay.” Cyprus gestured for me to lead the way, then trailed behind me on too-silent feet.

  I glanced back just to make sure he was there before entering my room. “I’ll be right back,” I told him, walking toward the adjoining bedroom and into my closet.

  Jeans seemed appropriate.

  Socks.

  And a sweater.

  I swapped out my wardrobe, checked my appearance in the mirror of my bathroom, and started toward the sitting area, when a thud echoed through my rooms. “Cyprus?” I called out, uncertain.

  Silence.

  Well, that couldn’t be good, unless I’d used the wrong name. I returned to my closet to retrieve a pair of throwing knives. Palming both blades, I turned just as something pricked the back of my neck.

  I spun toward the source, my vision blurring with the movement.

  Green.

  That was all I saw right before my world turned black.

  I forced a grin as the last of the guests wished me good night near the grand hall exit. Napia had retired thirty minutes ago, claiming exhaustion. I suspected she intended to find her consort for a nightcap, though I hadn’t seen him in a while. Perhaps he’d grown tired of watching her hang all over my arm for hours on end. Lucifer knew I was tired of it.

  The door whispered to a close, leaving me alone with Adrik, Valora, and my mother. She’d insisted on staying until the bitter end, her queenly smile carefully in place. But I caught the glimmer of disapproval in her dark eyes.

  I was in for a lecture.

  Again.

  “I already handled Yakariah,” I told her before she could begin. “He helped Zaya that night, and she remembered him incorrectly. He said he won’t make an issue out of it and that he understood.”

  “What about Zaya?” she asked, arching that perfectly sculpted brow of hers.

  “She’s waiting in my room.” Or I hoped she was, anyway. As I hadn’t received any updates from my guards, I assumed she was still there.

  “How do you intend to punish her?” my mother pressed.

  “I think she’s been punished enough for a lifetime, don’t you?” I countered.

  Her eyes narrowed. “She attacked a guest of our court, son. We can’t allow that to go unpunished.”

  “I suppose I should have expected that reply,” I drawled, my exhaustion getting the best of me. “What with your parenting methods and all.”

  “Excuse me? And what do you mean by that?”

  “You gave away your daughter and allowed her to marry a monster. Now you’re trying to force me to marry one. Although, for the life of me, I’m not sure what either of us did to earn such a punishment from you. So it stands to reason that you’d like me to inflict pain on Zaya as well. Shall I rape her in front of the court? Or, no, maybe I’ll let Yakariah do it.”

  Her palm cracked across my face, stirring a ringing inside my head that did little to quell my growing anger.

  For years, I’d put up with this bullshit. All the agreements, the requests, the demands on my life. And she had the gall to command more from me? “I
won’t do it,” I seethed. “Zaya has been through enough. She doesn’t need your bullshit on top of it.”

  My mother gasped, her hand lifting again. But this time I dodged it.

  “How dare you speak to me like that,” she said, sounding breathless.

  “Can you blame me?” I countered. “All you do is orchestrate from behind the scenes, using all our lives as pawns. Do I need to reiterate the part about what you did to your own daughter? Necros could have killed her. He damn near—”

  “Grigory,” Valora interjected on a whisper, reminding me that she and Adrik stood just behind me. “Please.”

  “Please what?” I asked, rounding on her. “You want me to stop berating our mother for what she’s done to you? What she’s trying to do to me? Does no one else see how insane all of this is? She gave you up to a monster, Valora. And she intends to do the same to me. The only difference is, I can protect myself against Napia. You had to grow into your powers to defeat your betrothed, and what did that cost you?”

  “The cost was heavy,” she agreed softly. “But I won in the end. I wouldn’t change a second of what happened to me, knowing it would have risked the future I achieved.”

  “There had to have been another way,” I replied.

  “There’s always another way,” my mother put in, walking around me to stand beside a glowering Adrik.

  His ire wasn’t meant for me but for the female flaring with regal power beside him. Valora might have forgiven my mother; however, he hadn’t. And if I were being honest with myself, neither had I.

  “I’ve told you to provide me with another candidate for consideration,” my mother added, sounding as haughty as ever. “You haven’t. Therefore, the engagement to Napia stands.”

  “Why do I need a bride to ascend?” I demanded. “Oh, right, because my power requires balance. Yet you’ve somehow handled the mantle on your own. Or is Lucifer helping from the shadows?” He was Valora’s father, after all.

  My mother’s consort was the literal devil.

  The strongest being in all the kingdoms.

  At least he wasn’t my father.

  My dad had died when I was only two years old, so I never really knew him. The circumstances of his death were suspicious at best, causing many to believe my mother killed him. Given what I knew of her methods, I believed the accusation. She wouldn’t have killed him directly, just via an orchestrated accident brought on by one of her many mindfucks.

  “You clearly need a more mature counterpart in your life as well,” my mother retorted.

  I snorted. “Yeah. Napia is certainly that, isn’t she?”

  “You’ve barely given her a chance.”

  I just stared at the woman who created me. If she couldn’t see Napia’s venomous exterior, then I had nothing left to say on the matter.

  She sighed. “Grigory, I—”

  A bellow from the hallway cut her off, followed by the doors flying open to crash against the walls as three guards spilled into the room. I frowned at them, surprised by their crude interruption, until I spotted the black blood all over Oliver’s uniform.

  “What’s happened?” I asked, falling into my role as future leader in a breath.

  “Yakariah,” Oliver breathed, his chest heaving and falling in a manner that told me he’d run here. “He’s dead.”

  I gaped at him. “What?”

  “Show us,” my mother demanded. “Now.”

  I shared a look with Adrik before following Oliver and the other guards through the palace toward the guest quarters. We moved in silence but were met by additional security along the way, all of their expressions grim.

  “This isn’t good,” Adrik muttered to me.

  “No. It’s not.” Because Zaya would be the prime suspect.

  I really hoped she’d remained in my quarters.

  And all hope of that died upon finding her at the scene on her knees, hands behind her back in a pair of iron handcuffs. “Grigory, I swear—”

  “Quiet,” I snapped, not even wanting to hear it. She was covered in blood, and a very dead Yakariah lay slain a few feet away. Apparently, she hadn’t believed me when I told her he wasn’t involved that night. “Fuck, Zay,” I muttered, rubbing my hand over my face.

  My mother glanced at me, her gaze expectant.

  Because she wanted me to handle this mess.

  “What happened?” I asked, looking pointedly at the security team and not Zaya. “Did anyone see the attack?”

  “I did,” Saxton said, stepping forward. His presence here told me what he was about to say. Because he was one of the two guards I’d given the order to back at my rooms, and he was currently sporting a broken nose. “She knocked out Cyprus back at the rooms and nearly did the same to me. But I came to faster and tracked her here, where I found her standing over Yakariah’s body with a bloody knife in her hand.”

  “And I saw the attack on camera,” another of the guards added. “The entire thing was recorded by the hallway monitors.”

  I fought the urge to pinch the bridge of my nose.

  How many times have I told her to check her surroundings?

  What the fuck was she thinking?

  But that was precisely the problem. She hadn’t been thinking. She’d acted instead.

  “All right,” I said.

  “Grigory, I—”

  “I didn’t ask you to speak, Zaya.” I gave her a look, imploring her to stay quiet. This was already bad enough without her arguing. I needed to see the footage. To review what the hell she’d done. And I needed to question my men thoroughly, too.

  Because how the hell did she get the jump on Cyprus?

  I shook my head. “All right. Take her to holding while I evaluate the situation.”

  “Yes, sir,” Byron said, grabbing her handcuffs and hauling her to her feet.

  “Grigory,” Valora whispered.

  I shook my head. “Not here.”

  “He’s right,” Adrik whispered. “This is his kingdom, his rules, and she just killed one of our guards.”

  “I didn’t!” Zaya shouted, startling me. “I didn’t do it!”

  “Quiet.” Byron shook her, like that would do the trick.

  I narrowed my gaze at her but didn’t acknowledge her comment. At least, not out loud. Inside, I was confused.

  Why would she deny it in the face of so much evidence? I expected her to justify the kill, not outright claim her innocence.

  Byron disappeared with her around a corner before I could clarify it. Not that I would in front of all these demons. Several of our guests had entered the hallway, their faces all displaying shock and dismay at the findings. A few were even whispering amongst themselves.

  Zaya had really dug a hole for herself this time. It put all her other antics to shame.

  “I want to see the footage,” I told the guards, then turned to address everyone else. “Show’s over, everyone. Go back to your rooms.”

  “And what of Zaya?” my mother asked, putting me on the spot.

  “I’ll decide her fate once I’ve reviewed the evidence,” I replied.

  Rather than argue with me, she merely nodded. “Then this situation seems to be in the right hands. If you need me, I’ll be in my rooms.”

  She turned with a flourish, her skirts whirling across the ground before she strutted down the hallway on her too-high heels.

  “Why would Zaya do this?” Valora whispered, drawing me back to her and Adrik. They both stood frozen beside me, their focus on the dead body a few feet away. “She’s not… Well, she’s never been very violent.”

  “She’s not the woman you knew a year and a half ago,” I replied. That would have been a compliment under every other circumstance, except this. “She thought he was one of the men who attacked her that night,” I added in a low voice meant for their ears alone, but a few of the surrounding guards definitely heard me.

  “He helped her,” Adrik said, frowning.

  “Yes, I told her that, but she clearly didn’t be
lieve me.” I looked at Yakariah and sighed. “Fuck.” It seemed to be my new favorite curse lately. “What a fucking mess.”

  “Do you wish for us to dispose of the body, sir?” Saxton asked.

  “Take him to the burial yards,” I said. “Have him prepared for a proper ceremony.” Because there was no point in doing a full investigation of his body when the entire murder was caught on tape. Besides, I could see plainly that he’d died from having his heart cut out.

  Such a bizarre way to kill. Zaya seemed fond of slitting throats. That was always what she practiced when we sparred and also how she murdered that human a few weeks back.

  My lips curled downward. No, something wasn’t right. “I really need to see those tapes,” I said, repeating my earlier request.

  “Of course, Your Highness.” The male who mentioned the recording bowed his head. “If you’ll follow me.”

  “I’m coming,” Adrik informed me. “And so is Valora.”

  I just nodded in agreement. As the Queen and King of Nova Kingdom, they had every right to review the evidence of the death of one of their own.

  Oh, Zaya.

  What the fuck did you do?

  “I didn’t do it,” I kept saying every step of the way down the stone stairs.

  “Shut up.”

  “But I didn’t do it!”

  “I said, shut up!” The guard shoved me forward, causing me to trip down the last few stairs and land on the concrete floor of the dungeon below.

  “Dude!” another guard snapped. “The prisoner’s marked by Grigory. Careful how you handle that.”

  “Whatever,” my guard grumbled.

  I whimpered as he grabbed the chains binding my wrists together and yanked me upward to stand once more. No one believed me. Not even Grigory. He wouldn’t let me say a word. Wouldn’t hear me. But I didn’t do this.

  The last thing I remembered was walking into my closet to change out of my dress. Everything went fuzzy after that. Then I woke up covered in another man’s blood and surrounded by angry guards.

  A tear trickled down my cheek, the treacherous droplet causing my heart to ache with fear. What would become of me down here?