TELL THE CROWN WE WON’T STAND FOR SAM OF WILDS!
THE PEOPLE OF VERANIA SAY NO!
JOIN US AND HELP US RID VERANIA OF THIS SCUM!
PAID FOR BY THE WHSAL FOR A SAM-FREE VERANIA
“What?” I yelped. “None of this is even remotely true!”
“To be fair,” Justin said, “You do subject me to your stupidity, you did get me kidnapped, broke up my sort-of-real relationship, and I am magnificent.”
“Gross?” Gary said, outraged. “Gross? I’ll have you know that my love for Kevin is a beautiful thing! Sure, some of the things we do can be classified as gross, but that’s between me and my future baby daddy!”
“Consent truly is important if you plan on being in a BDSM-style relationship,” Kevin agreed. “And our children will be glorious. Much better than our practice child, Sam, who I think we can all agree is an unmitigated failure.”
“And the Darks did come after y
ou in the throne room,” Randall said.
“And you did ask me when you were twelve if there was a way to curse that boy from the kitchen so he could bring you more cookies,” Morgan said.
“Your eyes are tiny,” Tiggy said. “Tiny Eyes. Capitalized. It true now.”
“And I suppose you are from the slums,” Mom said.
“Which might have made people trying to be the apprentice to Morgan of Shadows slightly angry,” Dad agreed. “Given that you were plucked from obscurity and handed this job that they all wanted and had been working for all their lives and that you did nothing for.”
“And you do illegal things all the time,” Ryan said. “Even though I tell you not to. Because they’re illegal.”
I glared at all of them.
“And this is your family,” Vadoma said. “Saying such things. For shame. You come home with Vadoma. I show you what it means to have a family.”
“Okay, first things first,” I said. “Fuck all of you. Second, Vadoma, I swear to the gods, if you are behind any of this, you’re going to see a side of me you haven’t seen before.”
She grinned. It wasn’t a very nice-looking thing. “I didn’t do this. This is something you did all on your own.”
Yeah, she could fall off a cliff and I’d be okay with it. Especially if at the bottom of said cliff, there was a bunch of hungry kelpies who would stomp her face until it was a bloody mess.
“What the hell is the WHSAL?” I muttered irritably.
“You don’t want to know,” Ryan said. “You really, really don’t want to know.”
And before I could find a way to respond to that, the chanting behind us stopped. I turned back around, thinking maybe this was over. I had other things to worry about. I didn’t have time for stupid people.
But it wasn’t over. Because of course it wasn’t.
The crowd had quieted because they were focused on a single individual.
A girl who now stood up on a wooden box in front of everyone, a bright purple megaphone in her hands. She wore an expensive white dress with little blue ribbons at the waist and on her shoulders. Her hair fell in flawless blonde ringlets. Her makeup was expertly applied. Her eyes were wide and bright. She made the perfect picture of innocence. A beautiful girl on a bright sunny morning, shimmery in her pretty dress and her bubble-gum pink lipstick and nail polish.
And I knew she was behind all of this.
It seemed just like her. She was trying to exact her revenge. And I’d fallen right into the palm of her hand. She couldn’t have planned this any better had she tried.
“That motherfucking bitch,” I yelled without thinking. “I’m going to kick her fucking ass, oh my gods, I don’t care if she’s a minor or a girl, she’s dead. You hear me! Dead.”
Which, of course, echoed across the plaza that had fallen deathly silent now that she had their attention. Bitch, bitch, bitch, echoed up one side of the plaza. Dead, dead, dead, came down the other.