Page 11 of The Blood Queen

It’s echoing off the stone.

Stinging horror washes over me, prickles up and down my spine and lodges in my stomach, churning the emptiness.

I’m just as much a terror as the Red Caps around me. If I give in to my rage, I’ll black out, go on a rampage. And while I’ve feared that happening most of my life, now I’m not shying from it. I want that power, want that destruction, if I can use it to help Alyth.

But going off in a blackout around an untold number of people who can match that same power? Foolish. I need to be smart about whatever it is I do.

Not yet.

The words are numb and distant. The screaming stops, turns to muffled sobs.

Not yet.

Something to grab on to because everything else is unmooring fast.

We hit the dungeon level, a wide room lined with cells. It’s dark and dank and lit by walled sconces, flickers of orange and sickly yellow that illuminate four guards posted around the room.

There’s a table in the center.

And Alyth.

Lying on that table, arms spread out and tied down.

The High Blade stands beside her, holding a dagger dripping blood, carving lines across Alyth’s bare arms.

Alyth’s gown has been torn. The sleeves at least. Ripped right off.

Daggers like the one in the High Blade’s hand scrape and cut my throat from the inside, each swallow a lance of pain.

Alyth’s head lists to the side, sweat sheening her face, sticking her dark hair to her forehead. Her eyes land on mine, and this girl, this highland gale of a girl, she whimpers.

Now.

The anger I’ve been fighting back. The pure, terrorizing rage I’ve been packing down, down in my soul—I let it free.

I’m a Red Cap. Her Red Cap.

One deep breath in, and I unleash. Shoulders arching, hands fisting, vision whiting out. I usually fear the blackouts, but I’m past fearing for myself.

The High Blade tortured her.

Cecil turns to me, the first to note my change. He frowns. “Sam—”

I punch him in the chest, and the force of it slams him into the wall so fast he can’t go into his own Red Cap rage, can barely utter more than a startled cry. He drops to the floor. Dead? No, it wasn’t that hard a knock, and I’m not that lucky.

The guards move. Two are close, and two are behind the High Blade.

They stood here and let the High Blade hurt her and did nothing.

I’m overwhelmed by the desire to see their bodies at my feet.

They thought they could hurt her? I’ll wear their blood as proof of their weakness.

One throws a punch at me. I duck, go at his stomach with my shoulder, and anchor my arms around his hips. A twist, planting my feet and finding a base, then I lift him and toss him into the other approaching guard, sending them both crashing to the floor.

It catches up with me then.

I’m not actually blacking out.