He cocks his gun and trains it on me. "Can't wait to return the favor?—"
His good eye craters as Ridge sends a bullet zinging through it.
I don't even wait for Pedro's body to hit the floor. I dart up the stairs, toward my mom. Both her hands clutch her thigh, which is slowly oozing blood. Her gaze is foggy, breath shallow as I kneel next to her.
"Get a medic!"
Colter dashes to my father, bending once to check his pulse before disappearing through the doorway into the hall, gun at the ready. I know, without a single glance shared between us, that he's on his way to find help for the queen. God, I hope he's quick.
Something wet grips my wrist, and I look down to see Mother's hand, so slicked in blood, unable to even cinch firmly around my arm. Her gasps become tighter, smaller, and a sheen coats my eyes. I set down Kylian's gun as my psychotic mate places himself in front of me, his gun spraying out a constant barrage of bullets so that I can clutch my mother's hand in both of mine.
"Only two left!" Kylian shouts with a fist pump.
He reloads as Ridge takes over cover fire.
But my focus has completely skewed away from the battle. I lean down, and words puff lightly from Mom’s lips.
"Brylee. I'm not a good mother. Not a good person. But I did try to be a good queen. You see? You see what happens when you trust…"
The light fades from her eyes.
And the queen of Hypso, a woman who's been both hero and villain, joins her king.
I'm left with my mates in a broken throne room that's become the site of a massacre to deal with the aftermath of her reign.
49
BRYLEE
Wet concrete sloshes upover my ankles. I'm standing in a deep dirt pit on a night without a moon as liquid cement pours down every angle around me, a turbulent gray waterfall, heavy and thick as it splotches and splatters down.
My heart hammers as I wade through it, desperately seeking a way out but not finding one. The thick ooze creeps rapidly upward, encasing my thighs, my stomach?—
"Brylee. Brylee, wake up!"
I startle awake, shoving up off my pillow in a panic to see Kylian's face staring at me from only four inches away. My hand flies up, pushing, and he backs away so that I can take a second to blink and catch my breath.
There's no moonlight in my nesting room, only the dim light from down the hallway, which showcases an open door, and caresses one half of Kylian's silhouette. I realize that he's not in bed with me and the other guys, who have all staked out their own section of our oversized mattress.
Unlike Colter, who's shirtless and passed out with his arms splayed beneath a pillow, Kylian's fully dressed in all black as if he just went on some reconnaissance mission.
I scrub at my eyes and yawn, simultaneously grateful that he ripped me out of that terrible stress dream and annoyed that I'm awake. The reasons for the stress dream instantly pile up on me, and they're just as heavy as that concrete felt.
My parents are dead.
My brother's in the hospital.
The truce was a sham.
Caran betrayed me.
And I have to decide the next fucking step for this war.
Any one of those realities would stab me through. Each one is sharp as a blade, but all of them combined? I'm bleeding out each moment, every breath stinging with pain, my heart fractured by the loss of all my hopes at once.
It's all I can do to drag one foot in front of the other each day as I approve funeral plans, check in with Doctor Tamara, and then sit there stiffly through droning statements about castle repair as Brylee, before hustling to change into my Teddie bodysuit and then listen to generals argue over whether or not to retaliate against the Noths.
Each decision feels like another brick building my mausoleum because I'm uncertain I'm still truly alive. Most of the time, I'm floating in the ether, in a vast abyss of despair.
