Standing there. Just standing there. One hand bandaged and the other closed around a huge shiny butcher knife.
“What…what…?” Only the one word falls from my mouth. I’m too disturbed to construct the rest of the question, too afraid I already know the answer.
Kirk waves at me with his bandaged hand, a big goofy grin on his face.
He was so angry and resentful at my coronation. I never would have guessed he’d have a smile like that hidden underneath. But his bright smile makes what happens next that much more horrifying.
After waving, he raises the knife in his arm parallel to the ground.
“No, don’t!” I scream. At Kirk. At Damianos.
But neither of them listens, and in the next moment, it becomes too late for pleas. Kirk slashes the knife across his throat, still smiling.
No…No….
Remember, Ola, they’re all our subjects, even the ones we don’t like. We have to figure out what each and every one of them needs. Figure out how to help them. That’s what real kings and queens do.
I bang on the window and scream as Kirk’s body slumps to the ground, Uncle Kyle’s words ringing in my ears.
“Do not defy me. Do not attempt to escape,” Damianos says beside me, his voice low and ominous. “If you cross me again, I assure you the next punishment will be much, much worse.”
Chapter Thirteen
DAMIANOS
At my words, the North Dakota Queen falls to her knees and screams for a rather long time.
As I watch her lament upon the ground, a delicious power crackles inside my flame. After so much torment, I finally have the daughter of my father’s murderers in my possession. And it would seem I have already succeeded in breaking her.
I’d been a bit worried that the gatekeeper’s death wouldn’t fully drive home my point. But apparently, my she-wolf overvalues the lives of her fellow wolf mutations. Even the enemy I saw spit at her feet through the eyes of Akwasi, one of my many thralls. ‘Tis a silly, if not surprising reaction.
They can be soft-hearted, these upright primates, not to mention overly emotional. Why I’ve seen them fall into dramatic fits of disbelief when they see one of their kind die, even if the one dying is merely a fictional character in a story.
The recriminations will come next if experience holds out. Many “how could yous” and “I can’t believes.”
“How could you fucking do that?” my she-wolf demands as if having been given a cue. “You had no right. No right!”
I roll my eyes—a useless but amusing habit I learned from the cattle. Then I settle in for the inevitable next phase: piteous wailing.
Often I snap the outraged party’s neck, just so I won’t have to hear them carry on. Or I god speak them to simply forget what they saw and go away.
It is unfortunate I haven’t been able to god speak my captive. It would make this unexpected business between us so much more palatable if she would simply do my bidding.
Despite my many previous failures, I once again attempt to compel her.
“You will cease your caterwauling and return to the bed. You will wait there until it is time to do your mately duty, and there will be no more attempts to escape.”
She stiffens, then stands up straight. Then looks me directly in the eye.
Did it work? For the first time since I discovered that I could not god speak this female, my chest fills with hope.
But then she growls, “Stop trying to get into my head! Is this how you get off? What you call fun?”
She shoves at me. I don’t move of course. But still…the shock of it. Why is she not crying? Or quivering before me and begging for her own life?
“You’re pissed at my dads—who by the way, were defending their village when they killed your dad, you big-ass hypocrite. But life means so little to you, you don’t think anything about taking it from innocents, people who have nothing to do with your beef!” she yells at me. “Well, fuck you, you big-ass arrogant bitch. From now on, I’m not doing anything you say! Kill me. I don’t care. I’m done being your victim!” she declares.
Then she hauls back her right arm and punches me. In the throat!
“Ow, ow, ow!” she says directly afterward, shaking out her hand.
Her punch does not hurt me as it does her. Her strength is nothing compared to mine. But it is a rather irritating sensation. And I find myself rather peeved when despite her pain from the first punch, she draws her arm back to strike me again.
This time I catch her fist mid-strike with one hand and capture her jaw in the other.
From there it is but an easy thing to bring her body close to mine so that I might speak directly into her ear. “You are not done doing everything I command until I say you are. In fact, by the time our business is finished, I will hear you beg.”