The Queen's Line (Inheritance of Hunger #1) - Kathryn Moon Page 0,69

end, it was me, shouting his name with a chorus of pleas, and then Owen, groaning out mine in one long song before collapsing onto me. All the dust and grime of the room evaporated with our sighs, and left us in a shining, bright, majestic library we had just enthusiastically defiled.

On the ceiling above us, the painting was revealed to be a decadent orgy of flesh, every member of the party smiling beatifically down on Owen and I as if in congratulation.

18

Aric

I rested my head against the back of my hands, the tangy smell of coin in front of my face making me grimace. I'd had lofty dreams when I defeated my father-in-law and took the crown of King of Thieves—of stealing from the queen and righting the inequality in Kimmery. Of snatching priceless jewels off the throats of fine ladies and delivering them into my darling Charlotte's rough hands.

In reality, I was the underpaid equivalent of an accountant, constantly counting coin before passing it back into the rightful hands.

You could leave it all behind and take up in the palace as a useless Chosen. I scoffed at the stray thought, brushing away the brief glimmer in my head of green eyes and pink cheeks just as a knock echoed down the chamber. I looked up at the scraping of the turning keg, my eyes narrowing at the approaching figure.

"I should look a great deal more cheerful than you if I were surrounded by coin in that way."

I groaned and pushed myself away from my desk, back into the cushion of my armchair as Griffin pushed back the hood of her cloak just in time for a little candlelight to catch on her crimson hair.

"Not if you knew you'd never keep it," I said, and the woman hummed and shrugged her shoulder, unfastening her cloak and letting it fall from her shoulders as she took the chair across from me. I narrowed my eyes and watched her carefully.

Griffin wasn't a favorite in my court. She went to the law when it suited her, and stole from thieves when she felt they didn't deserve what they'd caught. But she paid her dues, and while I upheld the rules of my community, I appreciated Griffin's personal application of her morals. She didn't tolerate assholes or brutes, whether they were wealthy and respectable, or part of the thriving underbelly she moved through. Charlotte had adored the younger woman.

"How do you like your new position?" I asked. "Have you started?"

"I've just finished dropping off my catches," she said with a nod, her eyes traveling the room, while I kept my own in the direction of her hands. She couldn't steal from me with her eyes, and I wouldn't let her distract me while I was in the middle of preparing the thief's exchange. Our earnings mostly went to the families in most pressing need, but we took our own cuts, and I wouldn't put it past Griffin to skim from those.

"It's easy pickings in the royal woods," Griffin mused, her brow furrowing and turning back to me. "And I've never seen anything like the late-season mating of yesterday. All at once, the whole woods seemed to go mad with it."

I frowned back at her, head shaking slightly. "I know very little of that."

Griffin hummed, lips smirking. "Of course not. City boy. You should let yourself out of your cage more often. Get some fresh air. Go up and visit your princess," she said, eyes laughing and words sweetening strangely.

"She plucked me out of the line up. Nothing more," I growled, my teeth grinding.

"She declared you Chosen," Griffin parried, an eyebrow arching. "To the royal guard."

I cleared my throat and resisted the urge to scrub my hand over my eyes. The woman in front of me was far too opportunistic to be trusted that far. "Yes. That was convenient. But she knows perfectly well I am not her Chosen." Not that she has need of them, I thought, although I didn't want to say it out loud. I didn't know if it was important to Bryony that the kingdom generally still believed her to possess the Hunger, but I wasn't in the habit of giving away other people's secrets. "I may be technically eligible for the ceremony, but we both know I am not fit."

Griffin blinked, and her head turned with an avian tip, eyes landing immediately on the portrait of Charlotte in the corner. Black hair, ice blue eyes, skin a little too