Masked (Royally Hot 2)

“Tell me what you want,” he said. “I’m hearing lots of threats but no clear demands. What do you want from me, Patara? Do you want me to go? To abdicate? To name you as my successor?”

“Randal.” The old man beside him muttered his name as a caution, but Randal put out a hand to silence him.

“Is that what you want, Patara?”

The queen narrowed her eyes and nibbled her cheek in thought.

“No. It’s not enough. You…you have to die. I told you to abdicate when you had a chance. You didn’t listen. If you abdicate now, my reign will always be under threat.”

Randal growled, actually growled, like a wolf giving a warning before an attack. “Sounds like you don’t really know what’s best right now. Would you like to borrow my chief adviser?”

The queen laughed, but it was hysterical. “You think you’re so clever, don’t you, Randal? Letting me think you didn’t want the crown, when all along you were plotting with Lord Aaron to steal it from me. Well, it might not have all gone according to plan, but I’m about to get everything I want, and seeing the end of you and this little cunt might just bring me an ounce of pleasure today. She is your weakness. I can hardly think of any way I’d rather start my reign than with her death, you traitor.”

I had to look away. I couldn’t bear thinking about what was about to happen, that she obviously wanted me dead. As we all continued to back away, I noticed the crowd beyond the doorway beginning to grow impatient. It throbbed and pulsed, not like a group of individual people, but like a single thing—like an ocean, or a storm about to break. It seemed full of trapped energy and growing more frustrated by the moment.

“How did you turn into this, Patara? We were friends once. I saved your life. Even when Giles first approached me with this idea, the only reason I agreed to consider it was to keep the people I cared about safe. You and Iris.”

He had to raise his voice now over the noise of the crowd. Their baying was beginning to grow deafening. As it grew and grew, the queen’s body stiffened.

“You betrayed me!” she screamed. “I don’t care about you. I don’t care about this cunt. I care about me. My power. My throne.”

Though I couldn’t see her face, Randal could. He narrowed his eyes at her, starting to look smug and cocky, confident and pleased.

“Maybe we should make a democracy of this? How about we ask them which of us they prefer. Any bets?” Randal adjusted his position slightly, broadening his stance, making himself look even bigger and more imposing, and the guard at my back took another step away. “Did you ever care about me, or was it all just about the crown?”

The queen said nothing, but backed up with us, getting too close to me for comfort. I hollowed out my stomach to protect myself as best I could. I was so close to her now that I could even see her heartbeat pounding in the veins in her neck. She was terrified but doing her best to hide it.

“Care about you? The bastard child my father took in when he should have been dead? The scarred and wretched thing he kept locked in his basement to take out and cut whenever it suited him? Please.” She glanced at the crowd. “The people of this kingdom are stupid, useless sheep. They’ll do what I tell them. Just you fucking watch.”

For a long moment, it was a standoff.

Blades hovering, tension rising. It was more than I could bear.

Randal had successfully maneuvered us right to the doorway, and the queen and I were forced to step back as he advanced, out onto the terrace. The crowd was even bigger than I had been able to see. An enormous audience, watching the spectacle unfolding in front of them. The queen glanced at them with wide eyes, and the guard behind me swiveled us once again, awkward on his crippled leg, unable to decide which direction held the bigger threat.

“Cover us,” he muttered to the second man at our side, but I don’t think he heard. Or if he did, he was more concerned about his own skin.

When Randal finally stepped back out, the crowd roared with approval, as if he was about to slay some great beast.

The old man stepped out behind him, and they turned in unison to him. “Randal is our rightful king!” he cried, and from several sections a chant started up. Randal, Randal, Randal. “You all saw the sign! This woman is to be his queen, and she will bear you princes and princesses, a line to rule for years to come. Protect her at all costs. Do not let Patara take the life of your queen.”