them. The Unseelie man who claims to know my mother is the last to step through, and his eyes meet mine.
I can tell he doesn’t want to leave me here, but there is no way I’m following him, not when he seems to want this cursed rune far more than he wants to help me. Why does everyone want this cursed rune?
The reapers all turn back to me, and I stand up straight, expecting to be given a chance to make up a reason why I was talking with the Unseelie when something hard hits me in the back of my head, and I drop like a rock into darkness.
Chapter 34
My arms are stinging as fingers dig into them, forcing my sore body to sit up onto my knees, which press into cold stone. I feel like someone has punched and kicked me at least a dozen times, and I bet it was Catherine. The bitch. I taste my own blood in my mouth as I open my eyes, recognizing the throne room steps right in front of me, reminding me of my time with Seb on them, but the room isn’t full of laughter and alcohol anymore.
The still and cold tension is so thick I can almost taste it too as I lift my head and meet the queen’s angry stare. She sits on her throne in a white dress that doesn’t make her look a tiny bit innocent, and her fake nails tap repeatedly in a rhythm on the arms of the throne. At her side is Sebastian, still as a plank of wood, and he doesn’t look at me.
That on its own tells me something is fucking wrong.
“You dare to come into my realm and pretend to be pure?” the queen sneers at me, her beautiful face turning uglier than I thought possible. “Your blood is a disgrace, and your lies have been found out. If it wasn’t for Catherine overhearing your conversation and making the smart move to knock you out, you might have gotten away with it.”
A cold feeling passes through me. “I acted alone.”
Her laugh makes me nervous. I don’t mind dying, I’ve accepted that death is a possibility a long time ago, but now I have people I care about. I don’t want Poppy or my guys to be dragged down with me, as strange as that thought is to me.
“You did no such thing,” the queen laughs and clicks her fingers. A body is dragged into the room, and I swallow down the scream when Poppy is dropped in front of me, looking dead and covered in blood and bruises. When I see her chest rise and fall, I let out the breath I was holding and anger burns through me.
“What the fuck is wrong with you!” I scream at the queen...and Seb. Seeing him standing there, doing nothing, cuts deeper than any knife could do.
“The Riverlite family have deceived me, and they will pay with a slow death for each of them,” she replies with a careless wave of her hand. “As for you two, the ones who betrayed my son and me, someone else has claimed the right to punish you.”
“Who?” I ask, my voice quiet.
“Mother, we agreed—” Seb tries to say something, and she turns her gaze on him.
“Remember your choice, Sebastian,” she coldly warns him. Seb’s eyes drift to me, and I see nothing but sorrow in them before he looks down.
“You’re a coward, prince,” I sneer, pushing down my feelings for him, and I look to the queen. “And you are a monster.”
“Then what does that make me?” A voice of nightmares speaks behind me, and I feel like I can’t move, I can’t breathe. The man from my nightmares, that voice, just spoke. Part of me still wishes he wasn’t real, and I don’t dare look back as I hear his footsteps. I suck in a breath as a hand grabs the back of my neck and pulls my head back.
The Seelie Fae King himself looms over me, a sneer on his lips and clear joy of getting what he wants in his eyes.
The Seelie Fae King has been the one trying to kill me in my dreams?
“Why the fuck have you been messing with me?” I demand, and he roughly lets my neck go, no doubt leaving bruises with how hard he held me. The king walks around to stop in front of me. I cry out when he suddenly slams a knife into my