AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Well, I can’t see shit from this window,” Nicolette reported, spinning away from it in a huff. She was the only one who’d actually been trying to watch the battle. “And if I can’t see Brentley, Caulder, Soren, or Urban from here, then I’m not staying.”
“I’m with you,” Allera agreed, flashing forward to take Nicolette’s hand. “Let’s you and I watch the fight from the East Salon.”
But again, Yasmin spoke with biting authority. “No. We all stay in here.”
Her tone brooked no room for argument, which of course, set both Allera and Nicolette in with arguing.
“But that’s insane!” Nicolette cried. “Why do we have to stay with you?”
Allera exchanged a suspicious frown with me before she slowly turned back to the queen. “If we’re perfectly safe, as you insist, then yes, Nicolette has a brilliant point. Why must we stay together?”
“Because…” Yasmin started, only to scowl at us with no ready excuse to back her decision. Then she muttered, “I wish to stay in here. And I want the company.” She waved a servant forward to pour her a cup of tea. “Everyone sit and drink with me.”
“Vienne can stay to keep you company,” Nicolette offered.
I shot the young princess an aggravated scowl.
Like I wanted to be stuck in here alone with Yasmin to suffer through one of her vain little moods as she went on and on about how inconvenienced this dreadfully dull war was making her day.
“Everyone stays,” Yasmin insisted again.
But she’d no sooner spoken the proclamation than a commotion rose from the main entrance of the room, where the guard stationed there was being set upon by two bare-chested ruffians, one wielding a spear while the other swung a battle axe.
At first, I could only blink because it was such a peculiar sight to behold. The Donnelly man, garbed in full metal armor with a stately crest of all black with a diagonal blue line striped through the center, looked quite civilized and cultured next to the men who wore nothing but leather skirts and sandals. It didn’t seem to matter how they dressed, however, when it was one sword against a savage spear and battle axe.
Before the other two Donnelly guards who’d been stationed at the other doorways could reach their comrade, he’d been cut down and killed, which left all three doorways free for two more savages to stream inside.
Nicolette screamed and surged toward me, clutching my arm for safety, while Allera appeared at my other side, backing into me as she faced out, as if she were trying to protect me.
“Excuse me!” Yasmin cried in outrage, surging to her feet from her chair to demand, “What the devil is the meaning of this?”
Meanwhile, the four primitive-looking intruders finished off the last two Donnelly guards in short order. Thinking fast, I thrust Anniston into Allera’s arms, making the babe squawk out her displeasure.
“Take her,” I begged desperately, peering into the eyes of Urban’s sister. “Treat her as if she were your own.”
“What…?” Realizing what I intended, she immediately shook her head. “Vienne, no!” she begged. “You can’t. Urban…”
“The queen can’t fall,” I said in a steady voice I didn’t feel. Inside, everything shook with absolute terror. “If the queen falls, then the king isn’t far behind. And if the king falls…”
“Checkmate,” she whispered, her eyes filling with understanding tears.
Holding my gaze, she pulled Anniston’s forehead up to her mouth so she could kiss the babe, her way of telling me she’d take over mothering my child if I no longer could.
I nodded my thanks. “And tell him I love him,” I whispered before spinning away to rush to my sister.
When I ripped her tiara off without preamble and shoved it onto my own head, she cried out her shock. “Vienne! What’re you—”
“Shh,” I hissed, pushing her toward Allera, Nicolette, and a single cowering maid servant. Then I took her place, standing in front of the throne chair. “I’m saving your life. Trust me.”
The four intruders turned their attention my way.
One man grinned a golden-toothed smile and advanced slowly as he swept his gaze over me and then toward Yasmin, the maid, Allera, and then Nicolette. “Well, look at all these lovely, young skirts we got in here. What pretty little titties you each must have, but alas, I don’t got the time to go sampling. We’re only here for the queen.”
I lifted my chin and stepped forward. “How did you get in?”
Proud of how queenly regal I sounded and that my voice didn’t shake, I narrowed my eyes on the men, demanding answers with my cold, hard stare as I hoped to stall them until I could think up a plan to save us all.
Gold-tooth merely grinned. “Same way my friends who took that baby got in.” He tipped his head toward Anniston who was crying fitfully. “Though it looks as though they failed their task since the brat’s still alive.”
