I ignored her safe word twice already.
I won’t disrespect her wishes again. So for her, I’ll figure out how to wait weeks, months, years. Lifetimes…
Gods, please don’t let it be that long before she’s ready to talk to me.
My fingers itching to hold her, I stare at her for a while longer. Then I head for the door, open it, and slip into the hall. I turn back to look at her one last time. She sleeps soundly, peacefully, no pain on her face.
My hand tightening on the handle, I pull the door shut.
Feeling a presence behind me, I start to tell Jace we’re good to go, but two small hands grab my head and quickly wrench it sideways.
Pop.
For.
Fuck’s.
Sake.
My neck hurts like a father fucker.
But not one of those happy FILF fuckers.
More like Oedipia –who was adopted out but then ended up accidentally killing her birth mum and fucking her dad– sort of pain.
The kind that hurts fucking everywhere.
Echo, the head of my own damn Royal Guard, snapped my neck last night and left me to sleep in the…
I sit up, confused as to why I’m in a bed instead of in the latrines.
Feeling uneasy, I slowly roll to the edge of the bed.
My skin crawling, I ready myself to look under it, certain there will be an elite soldier ready to drag me off and give me the beating of a lifetime. When I trained under Echo, those sorts of things weren’t rare.
A noise comes up from below.
I freeze, half-way off the bed. Telling myself I’m not a kid anymore, I grit my teeth and look all the way under.
Jerking, I fall onto the floor as somethinghisses at me. Scrambling out on its hands and knees, it lunges for me, and I struggle not to pull out a knife.
“I’m the fucking king, you little shit,” I say as I block the punches to my face.
“Why would the king be here?” it –a feral girl– asks, not letting up in her attack. She has clearly been the victim of Echo’s ‘tests’ before, and her panic is bringing up more nightmares for me than I care to admit to having.
Grabbing one of her fists, I toss her over my shoulder.
“Attack!” A boy bolts up from underneath the covers the girl landed on. He lunges at me with a scream. Another girl jumps down from the top bunk and onto my shoulders. I yank her off as I stand. The boy scrambles for me, so I throw the girl at him, knocking him back.
Something much bigger than these little kids drops onto my back. The shock of the impact brings me to my knees. I grunt in pain as the first girl kicks me in the balls. Then yelp as the thing on my head bites my ear.
“Fuck’s sake!” Reaching over me, I yank the big bastard off before they can do any proper damage. As I start to toss them at the wall, they –Ariennalooks up at me in surprise. “Richard?”
Jerking in an attempt to stop the throw, I lose my balance and crash to the floor with my queen cradled on top of me.
“He’s down!”
“Get him!”
