Twisted Metal Heart - Eve Langlais Page 0,25

soft reply.

It didn’t matter. She’d totally misled him. She wasn’t an exile or a rebel, just a spoiled princess who’d run away from the city and her “horrid” life as a wealthy citizen.

“What’s it been, ten years?” said the queen. “Give or take. I can never quite remember. It took me a while to realize you were even gone.”

“I don’t know why you’d bother to bring me back.”

“We have unfinished business, daughter.”

There was that word again. The reminder. “I will kill you both,” he spat.

“Look at that anger. It’s quite entertaining.” The queen patted his cheek. “But I don’t have time for you to posture and declare your hatred and revenge. We need to get moving. I don’t like to be away from the capital for too long.”

“You aren’t going anywhere with Riella. Unhand her.” Alfred rolled to the rescue, emerging from Burton.

Hope bloomed in Titan. With those machine guns in his legs, he would save the day.

Except Alfred didn’t fire. The queen didn’t die in a hail of bullets.

She raised her hand, and Alfred froze. “Really, Riellandria, must you keep doing this?” The queen’s tone was full of exasperation.

“Doing what? Alfred is my assistant.”

“You gave him your dead father’s face. You know how much I dislike that.” The queen snapped her fingers, and a soldier fired. The man he’d come to known as Alfred was blown to pieces, chunks of which landed close to Titan. All metal and wires but no flesh, no blood.

A clever robot. Alfred never actually existed. Another lie. So many lies. The anger burned hotly in him.

“Was anything you told me real at all?” he seethed.

But Riella never replied. The guards carrying her moved past.

The queen wasn’t done, though. “We need to get rid of him.” She pointed back at Titan. “Have the trainer send a few spiduses back to finish him.”

The queen promised the death he’d been asking for. He closed his eyes.

I don’t want to die. The voice whispered more loudly. I want to live.

The odd statements—that he would have sworn weren’t his, and yet at the same time came from within—made him ignore the skittering of the spidus legs on the floor. Doesn’t matter if I want to live. I can’t escape. I’m going to die. That sounded like Titan.

We die only if you give up.

What was this “we” thing?

Give me control.

How could he give himself control?

You are so dense. I am not you, but I could be. I’m not affected by the poison.

In that second, he had a moment of clarity. Of realization. He’d not imagined it. His bionics were talking to him.

Holy fuck of all fucks, his new metals parts were cognizant.

The horror at having something alien and parasitic inside him almost matched his panic as the first strand of rubber thread slapped his cheek and stuck. It wound around his head, the hairy and moist legs lifting him to make the job easier. Sealing him away.

He was going to become meat soup if he didn’t act.

It would be so easy to die. All he had to do was nothing. Nothing and it would end.

But then that meant his enemies would win. The queen, guilty of so many crimes, would continue her evil reign. Riella would go on lying, pretending she was something that she wasn’t and not suffer any consequences.

If he died, they won.

We are not dying.

Then how? How could they escape? His body remained frozen.

Only the meaty parts.

He managed only a gasp as his bionic arm shot out and grabbed the spidus body wrapping his face. Squeezed it in its fist. The flesh might be paralyzed, but the metal wasn’t.

Squish, the body splattered. One down. The arm shoved them to a seated position for better visual acumen and managed to thrust forward. The bionic fingers grabbed the furry critter and tossed it into another.

Even as he fought for his life, he heard the rumble of engines starting, a noise that grew softer as it left. The queen and her daughter off riding off to the city.

Leaving him to die.

They should have stuck around and made sure he did.

Because, even if he had to crawl, he’d have his revenge.

Six

Titan hated her. Riella saw it in his expression, heard it in his words.

The rapid vehemence of it stunned. Would he truly judge her on who had donated half the genes in her body? Because, no matter what she called herself, the Emerald Queen was not a mother.

But Riella didn’t have time to explain to Titan and never would. Because he