The Wolf Queen (The Queen's Slave, Book 2)

Seventeen: Hell

"The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one's life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell."

-James 3:6

Kiss It Better By: He Is We

Elizabeth fought to keep her facial expressions neutral as she strolled through the woods with Ezekiel at her side and a party of fifty behind them. Each careless step and snap of a twig made her belly ache with worry. Her fury towards her mother was a wild thing, a roaring beast crawling its way up her throat. She wouldn't be surprised if smoke began to curl from her nostrils. Beside her Ezekiel whistled a happy tune, setting her teeth on edge at the piercing trill of it. "Will you shut up." She finally snarled, unable to stand the obnoxious sound for even a moment longer. He glanced at her, no doubt with a smug grin creeping across his mouth as he assessed his sibling's proud features and deadened gaze.

"Someone's testy today." He griped. Grinding her teeth, she sucked in a low breath, willing herself to stay calm when all she really wanted to do was turn and rip his throat out. Every step he took beside her was a nail in the coffin of the young girl she used to be. A girl whose innocence he stole. It was a disgustingly vile betrayal and one that would haunt her for the rest of her days, poisoning her mind and winding thorny bushes around her heart. Azalea had no idea just how frequently she had to cut down those thorns in order for Elizabeth to let her in. Releasing her breath, she reminded herself that his days were numbered, that Ezekiel would die by her hand and no one else's.

"We are nearly there." She replied, her footsteps light as a feather as she picked up her pace. Undeterred by her prickly attitude, he continued to run his mouth.

"Honestly you should've just given me the girl. Then we wouldn't be in this position in the first place. Not that I don't enjoy a good hunt every now and then, but I would've liked a taste of her." Her vision flashed red as he continued to speak about the atrocities he would act on Azalea when he found her. Elizabeth's demon writhed beneath her skin, a warning that she was not far from losing her shit. When he began to speak of bedding her, Elizabeth spun on her heel, fully intending to snap his neck then and there. But her garbled snarl stopped short as a very faint scream caught her ears, along with an unmistakable tug on the mate bond. Her body straightened and her head snapped around as the other side of the bond began to leech power from her in an alarming rate, the echo of that scream ringing in her ears and sending her demon spitting and snarling as it clambered it's way across the gold thread connecting them, merging it's power with Azalea's. Elizabeth's body thrummed with awareness and fatigue, her chest tightening painfully, pulling her towards her chosen as the other side of the bond roared with inescapable rage. Her fury intensified into blind panic as a horrible pain struck the middle of her back, then once more, lower.

Someone was hurting her.

"What is it?" Ezekiel stopped, throwing his fist up as an indicator for the soldiers following them to halt, his wary expression told her that he'd appeared to have not heard the anguished sound. His voice was quiet and she could almost feel his beady little eyes sliding back and forth, trying to determine what had startled her. Wiping her expression free of pain, she plastered on a lazy smile. "A bleating elk. Forgive me, I thought it was something else." Apprehension thickened the air as he scrutinized her, praying he couldn't hear the way her heart hammered like a trapped bird in her chest. A hard weight pressed on her breastbone as her instincts continued to scream at her to turn and run, to kill those who dared to touch her mate.