AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Because of him, she almost died. Because of him, she lost her throne.
Briar
“One impertinent slut down.” Summer’s digits trenched into my throat. “One more to go—”
My skull slammed against his, the impact shattering his cranium. As the king staggered backward with a shriek, he released my throat, and my reflexes exploded into motion.
I was on him before he could squeak out another sound. In a dizzying sequence, I twisted and lashed out. My limbs moved so quickly, it disorientated Rhys, my arms and legs whipping into the air. Within seconds, I jabbed his temple with my elbow, then pivoted to catch his own neck in a vise grip, at which point my heel snagged around his calf, and I windmilled him off the ground. A guttural screech vaulted from Rhys’s throat as he smacked into the earth, his head crashing against the grass, inches from the dancing flames.
Blood spattered his face, though hardly up to my standards. I wanted him disfigured, maimed beyond recognition to his own kingdom. Yet it wasn’t my attack or the bone-crunching landing that made him shriek.
Nay, it was the blisters frothing across his arms. A chunk of his mantle had disintegrated and split open at the chest, revealing the mess of skin beneath. Tendrils of smoke curled from his flesh, the surface bubbling. The fire had gotten him after all, incinerating Rhys from navel to nipple.
Not enough. Not nearly enough to satisfy me.
The pissant roared and lurched upright, his fingers whisking out a knife. With a lazy kick, I knocked the weapon from his grasp, the motion so rudimentary I felt insulted. Truly, he should have known better than to test a jester’s reflexes, if I could remotely call that paltry attempt a test.
Squatting above him, I slipped a dagger from the harness at my ankle. Like liquid satin, I trailed the blade’s tip slowly and gently along the pink, foaming surface of his torso, the motions akin to a tease. I scarcely made impact on the raw and sensitive flesh, yet Rhys bleated as if being eaten alive.
My eyelids hooded.That’s right, sweeting. Shout for me.
Do it for her.
Whilst he cried out, I murmured a soft rhyme. “Summer can’t burn, you say? It doesn’t look that way.” Sweat poured down the king’s neck, which shuddered under my ministrations. “Someone should have taught you. Jesters have many talents, including how to juggle the most fatal of weapons.” Then my voice narrowed to a hiss, “You created fire, but jesters swallow it.”
My fingers choked the dagger’s hilt, the way he’d tried to choke me. Lightly, I inched the tip into one of the blisters. A high-pitched wail bolted from Rhys’s mouth, then another as I sliced the dagger another inch.
I would be as patient as a lover while paring the burned skin from his skeleton. For I had plenty of experience with foreplay. By the end, he would beg for it to be over. Then he would never say her name again.
Leaning over, I let my silken voice purr into his ear. “You ruined her. So now I get to ruin you.”
I locked my muscles, primed to retaliate, ready to shear him clean. Yet as the bonfire snapped and popped, the flying embers reminded me of freckles. And those freckles brought the princess’s face to the surface again.
As a figure stepped into the pasture, my head snapped up, and my ribs constricted. I felt her like my breath, like my blood, like my pulse. Briar stood there, backlit against the burning maple. A black gown hugged her body, yet no crown sat upon her head. Still, her chin leveled high, poised and regal. Fuck, but she looked marvelous whilst standing among the flames, with her feet bare, her braid unraveled, and firelight brushing her lips.
The world evaporated, engulfed by her presence. Across the distance, her gray eyes clung to mine, imploring something.
To end Rhys? To spare him?
Hardly the latter. But mayhap not the former either.
She opened her mouth to explain, to tell me what she needed, and my heart stalled in anticipation. Just then, chaos broke through the pasture. A set of hands grappled my shoulders and hauled me off Rhys’s flailing body.
“Stop!” a woman’s voice commanded. “Poet, stop!”
I blinked, and the princess evanesced, vanishing like a hallucination. It hadn’t been real. But the fingers shackling me were certainly no figment.
In a flash, I tore free. Executing a few choice motions, I ripped from the female’s grasp, veered to face her whilst flipping the dagger in my fingers, and halted.
Shit.
Queen Avalea wavered from the impact of my movements. Beneath a jacquard robe, her chest rose and fell in rapid pants. I must have looked murderous because she lifted her palms in a placating gesture. “It’s me. Poet, it’s me.” Her throat bobbed, and though she spoke calmly, panic strained beneath her words.
I clenched the dagger, frenzied breaths piping from my lungs. Had I not been distracted by a fantasy, I would have heard Briar’s mother coming. To that end, I would have been swift to evade her grip.
Behind us, Rhys’s shouts thinned to tortured grunts. Even in torment, he sounded offended, livid as if his title should have rendered him immune to pain. In this fucker’s mind, only lower beings knew anguish.
The queen’s frantic gaze darted to the lump of coal behind me, then leveled on my glare. “What have you done?” she whispered.
