Queen Yavara: Chapter 34 free porn video

ADRIANNA

I immediately locked down my thoughts, shutting Yavara out from even the most banal of my musings. She pouted her lips.

“I was only trying to see what you were dreaming about.” Though I was groggy with alcohol, I could smell the wine fresh on her breath. She’d already been drinking, and it wasn’t even eight in the morning.

“How did you get in here?!” I snapped, my breath tight in my chest.

“Last I checked, this is my castle.” Yavara tittered. “And if you must know, I used the portal to get in. I figured you’d be in the royal bedroom, and here you are. I love what you’ve done with the place, by the way,” she gestured to the fur and weapon décor, “it’s very… ranger-ish. But I think it’s missing something; where is Furia? Did you two not work out after all? I hope that whole thing with Trenok didn’t strain your relationship. He told me all about it, you know. And I understand you’re expecting! How exciting! We should throw a baby shower!”

I just stared at her. She grinned toothily back.

“Hmm. You’re not much of a morning person, are you?” She sniggered as she looked at my state, “No, you’re clearly a night owl. I wondered how long you’d keep up that stoic ranger act; guess it wasn’t too long, huh? I took a peek beneath the covers, and you look like a crime scene. Do you think we should wash these bedsheets, or just burn them?”

“These are fine silk.” I mumbled stupidly, as if the bedsheets were of foremost concern. I felt like a sheep that been dropped into the lion’s cage.

“Hey, when did you get that tattoo? It’s so pretty. Who is it? A girl you met? Maybe I should get a tattoo, what do you think? A tramp-stamp? Or maybe something on the thigh? I once ate out an Ardeni girl and she had one around her butthole! I think that would be apropos for me.” She giggled, “You’ll have to tell me all the sexy things you’ve done! I want to hear every grimy little detail of your descent into depravity, and don’t skimp on the adjectives!”

“I’ve had sex a few times, I guess.” I muttered, finally gaining my bearings, but not dropping my guard even a little.

Yavara’s tooth-cracking grin turned into a relaxed smile. “I came on a little strong, didn’t I? It’s just… we have so much to catch up on! I haven’t seen you or any of the others for… gosh, what has it been? Over two weeks? It’s like a lifetime happened since then.”

“I understand the feeling.”

“Well,” she brought her hands together, “you get washed up and get some coffee in you, and then we’ll catch up, OK?”

“Why are you here?”

“Do I need a reason?”

“Yes.” I said flatly.

She giggled at that. “Still so authoritative. Well, Head-ranger, if you must know, I am here to celebrate our victory on the battlefield.”

I felt the color drain from my face. “A total victory?” I asked.

She tilted her head, studying my expression. “A decisive victory. A rogue elven regiment saved the army, and the rest retreated across the marshes and pulled their bog bridges behind them. It’ll be at least ten days before the horde crosses the marshlands, and by then I’m sure the entire rift will be entrenched. We’ll dig in, set up supply lines, and wait for Leveria to come negotiate.”

I couldn’t help but show my relief. Yavara laughed.

“You thought I’d march a horde of raping, murdering beasts into my homeland? You think so little of me, Adrianna. Now,” she peeled the sheets off my body, and grinned at the evidence crusted over my flesh, “go get yourself cleaned up, Governess.”

I was in the bath for a long time. I could hear Yavara shuffling through my things in the next room, musing aloud at what she found as though to broach my conversation through the door. I didn’t know why, but I’d begun to think of her as more of a force than a person, like a waterfall in the river of my life that I would have to tumble over no matter what, and all I could do was hope to survive it. The luxuriant bathroom felt like a prison cell, and the hangman’s noose was waiting just outside. Her strange friendly demeanor didn’t put me at ease; if anything, it put me more on edge. What game was she playing with me? When would the trapdoor close? I scrubbed my flesh nearly to rawness with worry, then washed out my hair, and toweled off. Before I dawned my white robe, I reached behind the sink, and grabbed the dagger there. I strapped it to my thigh, made sure the robe was loose enough to conceal it, then walked back into the bedroom.

“That’s a cute outfit.” Yavara said, lounging in a chair. She’d pulled out the toys Furia and I used on each other, and had clearly tested some of them while I was in the bathroom.

“This is a robe of state. All hybrids wear them to official functions.”

“I like it. It’s elegant, but just slutty enough.” She smiled, indicating the slit in the robe that ran to my pelvis, “What’s the occasion? Wait, don’t tell me. I’ve been like a princess on her birthday waiting to open her present, and I can’t wait any longer!” She got up and walked toward me, and I wondered for a moment if she thought I was the present to be unwrapped. I prepared myself, feeling my nethers awaken with excitement even if my heart thrummed with fear, but she walked past me, and headed instead toward the western window.

“Trenok told me a few details, but you know orcs; they could see the face of god, and their only de***********ion would be, ‘she was hot.’” Yavara chuckled, then stopped a few paces from the window, and turned around, “Haven’t you ever given a girl a surprise before, Adrianna? Cover my eyes.”

I stepped behind Yavara, reached around her, and laid my hands over her eyes. As I guided her to the western window, I contemplated the dagger beneath my robes. I could do it now. Who even knew she was here? Those in the Tundra did, but they wouldn’t be coming through the portal any time soon. A knife to the base of the skull would kill her instantly, and I could book passage on a ship for Hektinar that afternoon. Instead, I walked her forward three steps, then pulled my hands from her eyes.

She just stood there for a moment. I could only see the back of her head, and her posture didn’t emote anything. She was still for nearly a minute before she spoke.

“How?” She whispered, turning around. Her eyes were puffy, and her cheeks were wet, “How did you do this?”

“I had help.”

“It’s greater than anything I’d ever dreamed of!” She cried, spinning on her heel to gaze out at the sprawling metropolis. “There’s a downtown, and a shopping district, and a market, and a stadium! There’s statues, and streets, and bridges, and… oh my god, is that a fountain?!” She wheeled on me, and pulled me into a crushing embrace. “Thank you!” She blubbered in my ear, “Thank you so much, Adrianna! It’s the best gift anyone’s ever given me.”

I patted her back, trying not to tremble in her arms.

FALTIA

I had woken up before the crack of dawn to help Brianna direct foot-traffic, and it had been a shitshow. Getting orcs to move in any kind of order was like herding cats. Once we finally got them all moving in the right direction, suddenly they started to turn around! Soon, the stadium that I had worked so hard to get filled was emptying, everyone moving toward the urban strip. Brianna and I looked disbelievingly at each other.

“What the fuck is going on?!” I yelled to one of my captains. He just shrugged back. It was then that two messenger doves descended upon Brianna and me. We extracted the letters, looked at each other, then sprinted to the castle.

Ten minutes later, I was peeling off my sweaty leather skirt and top, and hurriedly donning my ceremonial robe. When we reached the moat, we quickly adjusted each other’s hair, and burst into the castle atrium.

We were the only ones there.

“What… the… fuck…” Brianna wheezed, catching her breath, “Was this all some bullshit drill Adrianna set up? Can that woman ever stop being a ranger?!”

“Funny, I asked her the same thing.” Came a familiar voice from above. Yavara Alkandi was floating around the rafters, examining the masonry of the windows. I immediately dropped to one knee. Brianna took her time doing it.

“Rise.” Yavara said, floating down to us. She had on black leather boots and a tight black dress, and I could see that she wasn’t wearing anything beneath it. She landed before me, and examined me with a curious eye.

“Watch Commander Dafian, you’ve customized yourself.” She mused, looking at my tattoos, “There’s a sword, and skull, and a… what is that?” She asked, looking at the illustration that disappeared beneath my robe. She gently slid her hands in the folds of my neckline, and looked up at me. “May I?”

“Of course, my queen. I didn’t get them to hide them.”

She pulled my robe over my shoulders, and let it fall to my ankles, exposing my nakedness. I stood proudly before her as she examined each piece of art, crouching to examine the floral patterns on my lower petals.

“Beautiful.” She muttered, “And you even got your clit pierced. So, you became the badass chick, huh? I guess you have to be to be watch commander. Let me see your hands.” She looked at my battered and bruised knuckles, and nodded approvingly. “As you were.”

BRIANNA

Yavara stepped before me next, and smiled. “Populations Director Brianna Dedaclia, I have to know what dress you have on beneath that robe.”

“It’s a Geroni custom.” I said boastfully, letting the robe fall to reveal the deep red dress beneath, its neckline as risqué as the robe’s. Yavara gawked at it.

“Brianna, where the hell did you get a Geroni custom?”

“Her wardrobe is worth more than our nation’s GDP.” Faltia mumbled.

“You can’t buy a Geroni custom. Only royal Ardeni women get them.” Yavara said.

“Well,” I smiled, “it turns out that the Ardeni ambassador is somewhat of a queen. He let me borrow his.”

“Prince Mathew? He’s gay?” Yavara dropped her voice, “That kind of ruins my plan for negotiating a better trade deal.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that, Your Highness.” Eva chuckled as she strutted into the room with Soraya following, “We negotiated it for you.”

EVA

I knew within in one second of looking at Yavara that I was going to fuck her, and I knew within the next second how she would want it. Anal, bareback, hogtied and humiliated as she screamed around a gag-ball.

And I thought I was the one who could read minds. Her voice snickered in my head as she stepped up to me.

“Outreach Director Eva Alecia, what are you hiding beneath that robe?” She asked, and pulled my robe off, revealing the crisscrossing leather dress I wore so well, and the mural of debauchery I had on my flesh. “Oh,” she purred, “you’re trouble.”

“The worst.” I smirked, actively imagining all the things I wanted to do to her.

She gave me an appraising smile. “Alright, Domina. Let’s keep it in your head… for now.”

SORAYA

I was still kneeling when Yavara stepped up to me. “You may rise, First-Scribe Soraya Poneria. Eva didn’t even bother kneeling, so I don’t know why you should.”

I got to my feet with false trepidation, waiting excitedly for her to disrobe me. She gently slid my robe off my shoulders, and gasped when she saw the gold-chain dress that covered my inscribed flesh.

“Beautiful.” She whispered, “Like a prisoner of her own lust. Is this a dog collar you have around your neck?”

“Yes, Mistress.”

“Mistress, hmm?” She chuckled, gently grasping the chained leash, “I like it.”

ALEXA

I hustled into the atrium with Kiera running behind me, and we skidded to a halt before the Dark Queen. I hastily got to one knee, then rose when she bid me.

“What is this?” She asked, brushing the dust off my forearms.

“Masonry debris, Your Highness.” I gasped, catching my breath. She looked down at my work boots, then smiled up at me.

“Are those the only things you have on beneath that robe?”

“Yes.”

“Well, let’s see what two weeks of swinging a hammer has done for you.”

I shook off my robe, and Queen Yavara unapologetically eye-fucked me.

“Why do you keep your breasts and belly untattooed?” She mused.

“So that I can better see the suction marks.”

She nodded, enjoying that answer. “Faltia chose you well, I think.”

KIERA

I’d already taken off my robe before Yavara even got to me. She looked me over, her eyes running over each narcotic flower inked upon my flesh.

“Are you a botanist?” She asked.

“More of an herbalist.”

My cock twitched a little when her orange eyes rested on it.

“Full bush, huh?” She mused.

“All natural.”

“So you’re the free spirit of the bunch. Is that why you were so eager to get out of your robe?” She procured my robe from my arm, and outturned it, “Or is it because you have twenty different hidden pockets in it?”

“All that stuff is legal here.”

“Drugs will turn your brain to mush.” Yavara admonished.

“Yeah, that’s kind of the point.”

She giggled at that. “You’ve never rolled until you’ve been on pixie plasma.”

“Pixie plasma?” I crinkled my nose incredulously, “For what, a blood transfusion?”

“It’s a specialty drug.” Yavara winked, and her eyes were suddenly blood red, and her incisors were fangs. Before I even had a chance to feel the terror, her face was back to normal.

Hit me up if you want a real experience, Kiera. She thought to me as she folded my robe back into my arm.

FURIA

I didn’t care if Yavara had arrived, I wasn’t going to rush the graduation ceremony. For each student, I gave a diploma, a sigil that she would have tattooed upon her face, and a passionate kiss. I addressed them with a tearful farewell speech, then officially graduated them.

Ten minutes later, I was in the atrium. Yavara was in conversation with Kiera, but her orange eyes fell on me the moment I stepped into the room.

“And there’s Magistrate Furia Augustinia.” She grinned, and walked over to me. I knelt, and she bid me to rise. “What does this tattoo on your face mean?”

“You apparently don’t know your own history, my queen.”

She raised her brows. “Would you care to enlighten me.”

“Where is Adrianna?” I asked instead.

“I threw her out of the tower window.”

She stopped my knife an inch from her eye, and laughed. “Still Furious Furia, huh? A magistrate with a lethal temper is a volatile mix.” She grasped my frozen wrist, and guided it to my side, “It was a distasteful jest. Adrianna is currently coordinating things with Certiok. She should be down in a moment.” She cocked her head inquiringly, “Why were you so ready to believe that I would do that?”

“Maybe you felt threatened by her.” I said, purposefully filling my mind with nonsensical thoughts. It was a trick Adrianna had made me learn after she’d told me the truth of Elena. Don’t try to not think of something; that will only lead a mind-reader to their destination. Think of a million things at once, and she’ll be lost in your head. I could feel her probing, but it was only with a benign curiosity that she did, lingering on my thoughts of sex and the flashes of desire I felt when my eyes lingered on her breasts.

“I don’t feel threatened by Adrianna, nor any of you.” She said, guiding my knife back into its scabbard, and smirked up at me, “I would prefer that the next time you try to stab me, you use a different weapon.” She rested her hand over the bulge in my cloak, and gave me a peck on the lips. It was a closed-mouth kiss, but the mere touch of her was enough to make me achingly hard. She left me with a knowing glint her eyes, and turned to reveal Adrianna standing behind her, watching us.

“They are ready to see you, Your Highness.” Adrianna said, bowing her head.

“Your Highness, my queen, my lady,” Yavara made a disgusted noise, “when it’s just us friends, call me ‘Yavara.’”

“Friends?” I mouthed to Adrianna as Yavara walked to the atrium’s entrance. Adrianna just shook her head.

We followed Yavara across the drawbridge and into the light of day. A sound like I’d never heard in all my life swelled from the city, and when Yavara stopped at the top of stairs, the sound exploded. The people were packed between the towers, covering the boulevard, stretching back all the way past the Knife River bridge and onto the imperial highway. They roiled like sea, waving thousands of banners, roaring like the wind until the sounded gained rhythm. “Ya-va-ra, Ya-va-ra, Ya-va-ra…” Yavara basked in it at the top of the steps, holding her arms outstretched as if to embrace the entire city. Then she raised one open hand, and a silence washed over them.

“My people,” she shouted, “I have come to bring you news of victory!”

And if the sound before was ear-splitting, this was deafening. It seemed to hit us like something physical, vibrating in our chest, ringing between our temples. Yavara kept her fist clenched high in the air, standing like a statue of triumph. Then she opened her hand again, and the crowd quieted.

“The imperials have been driven from our homeland, and now flee for their lives across the marshlands. They think we will not pursue them, but we will chase them to the end of the earth!” They roared back their agreement, their pitch high with the fervency of bloodlust. I exchanged a look with the other hybrids.

Yavara calmed the crowd once more. “With this victory, we have secured our place in this world for all time, but the victory on the battlefield pales in comparison to the victory achieved here. It is by your blood and sweat alone that Alkandra has been built, and by your hearts alone that it beats with life.”

I glanced at Adrianna and the others again.

“But let us not dwell on platitudes.” Yavara called to her people, “Let us celebrate this victory in the way only Alkandrans can! To the arena!” The crowd cheered flooded back into the shanty town, moving like water through the streets toward the arena in the distance. Yavara planted her feet into the rock, then leapt into the air, and soared over everyone.

I held Adrianna’s hand. “She could’ve at least mentioned you. None of this would’ve happened if it weren’t for you!”

“It was always going to be a thankless job, Furia.” Adrianna smiled ruefully, “There are no statues of us in this city, though we were the ones who built it. It was not built for us, or even the people who live in it.” I nodded to Yavara as she flew in circles over her sprawling gift, “It was built for her.”

“Things are going to change around here, aren’t they?”

She nodded gravely. “Yavara isn’t interested in governing. Yavara is interesting in ruling.”

ARBOR

I connected minds with Yavara as she soared over her city, and I quickly exchanged the necessary information. I wasn’t very interested in talking to her. I turned my attention back to the girl in my arms, my little Rose, my most favorite daughter. I brushed her blonde hair from her pale face, and looked adoringly upon her freckles, her pointed nose, her pouty lips parted to yield sleeping breaths. We had spent our last night together. I had let her do abhorrent things to me, then I had done those things to her, as she had begged me to. She wanted me to be cruel and to debase her, to shame her for the incest, to make her dirty. I had urinated on her, my own daughter, because she had writhed on the ground with mud all over her body, and pleaded for me to do it. It had aroused the succubus spirit within me, the part that desired the heinous and wrong simply because it was heinous and wrong, and I had shared in the darkness with Rose. Covered in my steaming piss, I’d ridden her face, grabbing her by the horns and making her taste my womanhood and anus, and she did so with relish, sucking upon my anal ring, slurping my petals, dragging her tongue along the space between to torture me so deliciously. I had forked my tail once more, and invaded the deepest reaches of her, holding her arms behind her back so that I could taste her breasts with lips, tongue, and teeth. We danced like devils in the moonlight, and she only found sleep after I’d used her until her holes would not close.

“Mother.” She muttered, cracking open her eyes. They were tinged violet on the edges of her emeralds.

“Rose.” I whispered back, running my fingers through her hair. Her ivory ram horns were flaking away, making room for what was growing beneath. Too late. The moment she had seen Elena, it had been too late.

She blinked into the sunlight. “I can’t hear the forest anymore.”

“But you still know me.” I smiled, my tears splashing on her face.

“Yes.” She smiled back, caressing my cheek. “Mother?”

“Yes, Rose?” I sniffed.

“Where did Crystal learn those songs? Those ones she sang to the seed.”

“I taught her them when she was Tulip.”

Rose’s eyes were wet. “Will you teach them to me?”

“Why do you ask this of me?” I sniffed, “Are you trying to hurt me?”

“No.” Rose smiled, “She remembered them, even if she didn’t remember you. Maybe I’ll remember them if you teach them to me.”

ADRIANNA

The stadium was filled, and those who hadn’t gotten a seat within it lined the surrounding rooftops and climbed the statues. Sand had been brought in from the nearby shore to cover the arena floor, where she-orcs and succubi danced to the heavy rhythm of tribal drums, their lascivious motions working the crowd into a frenzy. Yavara, Prince Mathew, and the hybrids all sat int the box overlooking the stadium, though Eva, who was the director of today’s events, was in the dugout coordinating things from below.

“I can feel you staring at me.” Yavara said beside me. She looked at me from the corner of her eye, “Is it about the speech?”

“Chase them to the end of the earth.”

“Hyperbole. I needed to prepare my citizens for the possibility of years of warfare. Telling them we’re doggedly pursuing the fleeing imperials is much more palatable than saying we’re stuck in a stalemate, and the only victory we can achieve is through financial attrition.”

“Uh-huh.”

She smirked crookedly at me. “You really want to think I’m a monster.”

“I don’t need any more proof than I already have.”

“I like to think I’m quite benevolent, actually.”

“What did you do with elven prisoners of war?”

“I had their hands chopped off and sent them on their way.” Yavara giggled at my appalled expression, “Orcs don’t take prisoners of war, Adrianna; they take torture toys. I had to appeal to their brutal nature if I wanted to spare the Highland captives a horrific end. They took their severed hands with them. When they get back to the front, their mages can reattach them.”

I looked side-eyed at her. “You truly are merciful.”

A serving girl demurely set a pitcher of wine before us, then retreated. Yavara poured herself a glass, then poured me one.

“I’m pregnant.” I said with a shake of my head.

“It didn’t seem to stop you last night.”

“So I should just keep making mistakes?”

“I’ll heal whatever damage is done to the fetus.”

“That doesn’t change the fact that it’s nine in the morning.”

“It would be poor form to make your sovereign drink alone.” She smirked with a twinkle in her eye.

“Are you ordering me to drink?”

“I’d greatly appreciate it.”

I sighed, and took my glass. I still had a hangover that was splitting my skull, and nothing cured a hangover like more booze. Yavara ordered more pitchers for everyone else in the box, and we all nursed our glasses as Eva directed the show below.

EVA

I ordered the dancers off the sand, and briskly made my way to the dugout. Lutok Protaki was sharpening his sword with grim exactness, his face set.

“You ready, old man?” I asked him.

He regarded his sword instead of me. “I’ve been ready for a decade. No warrior should ever have to suffer growing old.”

“Remember: I need you to bleed a lot before you die.”

He snorted, “Don’t worry, Eva. I intend to bask in my final glory.” He looked up at me, “I’ll show them my guts.”

I grinned, took his massive head in my hands, and consumed his mouth. He pulled me roughly against him, drinking in my kiss with the avarice of a condemned man. I was left breathless when it ended, my lips still yearning for his even as he walked away without looking back. I had to gather my bearings before rushing out onto the sands after him. I stepped before the churning stands that rose a hundred feet on all sides, and placed the astral gemstone against my throat to project my voice.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” I announced to roaring crowd, “I give you, Lutok Prooooooooooootaki! Champion of Alkandra!”

BRIANNA

“What’s this?” Yavara asked.

“Gladiators.” I said, “Eva picked old tribe warriors and offered them a chance to die well.” I sighed as I watched old Lutok raise his fists before the crowd, “I’ll miss that old fucker.”

“Gladiators?!” Yavara turned to Adrianna, “You surprise me.”

“I’ve been around orcs a lot longer than you, Your Highness.” Adrianna replied.

“I told you to call me ‘Yavara’ when it’s just us.”

“Is that an order?”

Before Yavara could respond, the gong sounded from the arena floor, and Lutok’s challengers appeared. There were seven of them, all non-warrior males of fighting age from the Ten. They had been disgraced by being denied a chance to fight in the horde, and so they sought honor in the only avenue they could. They circled Lutok like wolves around a buffalo, and indeed, he stood at least a foot taller than the lot of them, and outweighed each by a hundred pounds. He was still as they closed in on him, not even attempting to get into a guarded stance. I could see that the challengers were nervous. They had never faced the end of a sword before, and now they stared up at a grizzled killer who was determined to kill as many as he could before he died. In that moment, I imagined they questioned their need for honor, but it was too late to back out now. The gates had been shut behind them. There was only one way out.

One of them shouted an order to charge, but only three obeyed. They came at Lutok in a disjointed hurtle, and his sword flashed out. A head toppled from a pair of green shoulders, an arm was chopped off at the shoulder, a stomach was opened up to spill guts onto the sand. There were screams, but they were drowned out by the roar of the crowd, now heavy with the satiation of its bloodlust. The one with the missing arm stumbled back, the one with the missing head flopped to the ground, and the poor disemboweled fool dropped to his knees, trying to hold himself in. The other four rushed Lutok in a charge of pure terror, screaming war-cries that did not belong to them. Lutok dodged a spear thrust, caved in a skull with his pummel, crushed a chest with a brutal kick, ducked a sword strike, and impaled the assailant. Two more bodies dropped to the sands. The surviving two looked at each other, then ran away. They attempted to scramble up the wall, reaching desperately for someone to hoist them up. But even their own mothers wouldn’t have saved them then. Lutok yanked one off the wall, and broke his neck over his knee. The other begged Lutok, and Lutok showed him mercy with a painless splitting of his skull.

The crowd cheered, and Lutok raised his bloodied fist. Eva strutted to the center of the arena in all her leather-clad glory, and announced the next round of challengers.

FURIA

These challengers were condemned men, those who had fallen into a situation where a trial by combat would prove their innocence. Three of them had been found innocent by the jury, and I had found them guilty, while the fourth was the opposite case. In all four cases, I’d been certain of my decision. Orcs were easily swayed by bravado, and so the charismatic guilty men coaxed mercy from the jury, but Joe Alkandra, the former Ardeni dockworker, had no tribal charisma, and the fact that he was an immigrant made the jury hard on him. I hated that it was that way, but it was the fairest system I could implement. All I could hope for was that gentle Joe found some of that tribal fury that lay dormant in his veins.

“Oh, this is absolutely fantastic!” Prince Mathew exclaimed excitedly beside me, “We have nothing like this in Ardeni!”

“I’m glad you’re enjoying the show, my lord.” I replied. I forgot when exactly my hand had ended up in his pants, but I’d been kneading his buttocks for a while. “My lord,” I said, “there’s a secret passageway from here to the dugout. If you want, you can watch the fights with Eva from the sands themselves.”

“I can?!” He shouted delightedly, then lowered his voice. “I’d love to, Furia, but I’m afraid I would be a poor diplomat to leave my charge when she has so graciously invited me to sit with her.”

“Go, Prince Mathew,” Yavara offered him a charming smile, “enjoy yourself.”

The Lowlands prince practically sprinted out of the box. Alexa watched him go with a rueful smile. “Well, there goes my lunch.”

“I’ve got something for you to eat.” Faltia giggled, her arm wrapped around her lover.

Yavara watched them from the corner of her eye, and I wondered if I saw jealousy in her expression. Then the gong dinged, and the fight began. The three tribesmen charged Lutok with practiced ferocity. He parried one man, blocked another’s blade on his gauntlet, but could only angle his shoulder against the third, and took the spear high on his back. The crowd roared to see his blood drawn, and he roared with them, yanking his body around to wrench his assailant’s hands from the imbedded weapon, using his lacerated muscle tissue to disarm him. He grabbed the orc by the jaw, and tore it clean off. Another one of the tribesmen used the opportunity to slash at Lutok’s side, and the blade went deep. Lutok reared on him, and with a mighty downward thrust, he split the orc’s blocking sword in half, and split the orc beneath it as well. But the third tribesman was behind him, and put his spear through Lutok’s back. It came out of Lutok’s chest, bringing the old orc to his knees. Before the tribesman could tear the weapon out, Lutok had his hand around the head, and yanked it forward. The orc was sent sprawling over the top of Lutok’s head, and Lutok grabbed him, and eviscerated him. Then, with the blood of his enemies and the blood of himself drenching his flesh, Lutok stood on his own two feet one last time, and I pointed his sword at Joe. The stands erupted. Even Yavara leapt to her feet and fervently applauded.

“Stay back, Joe.” I muttered, gripping the arms of my chair, “Just let him bleed out. Don’t do anything stupid.” But the crowd compelled the Ardeni dockworker toward his doom, his own insecurities moving his feet.

Adrianna put her hand over mine, and gave me a solemn smile. Brianna wiped tears from her eyes, though she was beaming as she watched Lutok position himself for a final kill. Joe brandished his sword, and held it shakenly before him. Lutok reared back, and Joe charged. There was a flash of metal, a clang, and Joe’s sword was flung across the arena. Before he could even turn around, Lutok’s foot was on his chest, and Joe was lying on his back, mouthing for breath. Lutok raised his sword high in victory, then angled it for the kill, and fell backward, dead. A silence fell over the crowd, then all heads turned toward the box.

Adrianna looked at me. “What’s your ruling, magistrate?”

“By the rules of trial-by-combat, Joe won.” I said.

Yavara guffawed. “He was disarmed and pinned! How can you say he won?”

“Because the other man died.”

There were boos being sounded from the crowd, peppered by the occasional angry shout and jeer. Soon, the entire stadium was sounding its displeasure as Joe dusted himself off, and the gates opened for him. Yavara stood up.

“Shut the gates!” She shouted.

“My queen, he won!” I hissed.

“I said shut the gates!” She shouted louder, and this time, the command was heeded. The crowd roared its approval, and Yavara cracked a smile.

“My queen, he is innocent!” I insisted, grabbing at her dress, “He was the victim of prejudice, and trial by combat was the only way I could give him a chance at justice! Let him live!”

Yavara looked from me, to the crowd, then back to me, then back to the crowd. She held up a hand, and the stadium went silent.

“If this man desires to proclaim his innocence, then let him prove it in truth! I present to you, your new champion!” And the crowd burst into laughter and applause. Yavara sat down with a satisfied smile, and upended her glass of wine.

“You killed him all the same.” I muttered.

Yavara looked hurt that I said that. “I gave him a chance, Furia.”

“This isn’t justice.”

“But it is the queen’s justice.” Adrianna said.

Yavara chewed on her lip without looking at us, then poured herself another glass.

ALEXA

I didn’t much care for the gladiator fights, and watching poor Joe get zealously cut down by a bunch of Kraklari orcs didn’t make them anymore entertaining to me.

“Where are you going?” Faltia asked as I stood up.

“Just for a walk.”

Yavara looked over her shoulder at me. “Won’t you stay a while longer?”

“If you insist, my queen.”

She frowned. “I told you to call me ‘Yavara.’ Why don’t you have another drink?”

“I’m not thirsty.”

Yavara furrowed her brow. “I’m not comfortable with you walking around on your own.”

“I’ll go with her.” Faltia said quickly, taking my arm, “No one would dare touch her with the watch commander at her side.” And she guided me hastily from the box. When we were out of earshot, I looked inquiringly at her.

“No one would dare touch me regardless, Watch Commander.”

“I was looking for any reason to get out of that box.” Faltia confessed, “Being around her feels like I’m walking on a knife’s edge.”

SORAYA

Though Alexa had designed the stadium, she apparently wasn’t too familiar with its acoustics, because her and Faltia’s voices carried from the tunnel right into the box. I watched Yavara nervously, but she only tipped back her fourth glass of wine, pretending not to have heard. The box was silent for an agonizingly long time before I finally mustered up my excuse to leave.

“I got to get ready.” I said with an apologetic smile as I pointed to the program, “My act is coming up, and I… I need to prepare, you know. I’d rather not make a mess in front of the whole city.”

Yavara just waved her hand, and I tiptoed out of the room, and down the tunnel to the dugout. Eva was there, directing the next group of gladiators onto the sands from behind her desk.

“Pet, what are you doing down here so early?” She asked, shuffling her papers, “You’re not on for another hour.”

“You could cut the awkwardness in that box with a knife. Yavara’s been drinking wine like water, and I worry about her temper.” I shuddered, “Maybe you should go up there and see if you can’t break the ice. You seemed to get along with her well.”

“I’d rather not.”

“Huh?”

Eva looked over her shoulder at me. “A drunk and angry Yavara isn’t someone I want to be anywhere near.”

“You’re afraid of her! You?!”

“Of course I’m afraid of her. The first time we met her she gave us an ultimatum of join her or die, and that was after she’d killed the entire company. And let’s not get started on the things she did to the commander. Call me a sadist all you want, but I would never actually torture someone.”

“No, you’re just a big sweetheart under all that leather.” I giggled endearingly, and kissed the top of her head.

“Yeah, well don’t tell anyone.” She chuckled, and grabbed hold of my leash. I was guided around her and beneath her desk, and I dutifully took my place between her legs.

I shouldered away the person already there. “Move over, Prince Mathew!” I hissed, “This is my spot!”

KIERA

Brianna had gone to “estimate the attendance,” leaving three empty chairs between me and Yavara. She was on her sixth wine glass, and hadn’t relaxed in the least. Her jaw was clenched so tight I thought she might crack teeth, and she was blinking too often; watching the show, but only seeing her thoughts. I shuffled over three chairs, and pulled out my pipe.

“Hey, Yavara,” I whispered, “wanna smoke some weed?”

She eyed the bottom of her glass. “I’ve never done it before, but I’d heard from my old noble friends that it doesn’t mix well with alcohol. What was it that Britta Ternias used to say?” She mused aloud to herself, “‘Weed first, then liquor tasted; other way around, and the weed’s been wasted.’”

“I guess there’s truth to that.” I said, packing the bowl for myself.

She eyed the pipe. “Did Rose make that for you?”

“Have you ever seen Rose do woodwork before?”

“No.”

“Then that was too good a guess to be coincidental. Maybe don’t read my thoughts if you want to have a conversation.”

She smiled apologetically. “I don’t mean to pry.” She watched disinterestedly as Eva strapped Soraya to an apparatus in the middle of the arena. “Experience has made me very untrusting. You remind me of someone, you know.”

“Who?”

“My blood-daughter, Patricia.” Yavara smiled ruefully, “She was a lot like you in a way.”

“How so?”

“In spirit, mostly. I loved her like a mother, but I barely got a chance to know her.”

“And you fucked her.”

“As any good mother would.” Yavara giggled. Then her smile slowly faded. “Rose and her mother are having problems, huh?”

“Didn’t I just tell you—”

“I talked to Arbor while I was flying over the city. We saw each other, our minds connected.” Yavara poured herself another glass, “She doesn’t much like me. She doesn’t understand my ambition, and she doesn’t recognize my power. Why should she? She’ll outlast us all. To her, I’m just a tool to ensure the Highlanders don’t come here and cut her forest down for lumber.” She chewed on her lip, “To Zander, I’m just a promise he made to a dead woman. To Brock, I’m just a symbol to put on a flag. I miss those first days I had with them, before I’d learned any of my powers. They treated me like a friend then.” She brought the wine to her lips, “Go to Rose, Kiera. You don’t have to make an excuse for me.”

ROSE

My flesh felt like it was on fire, but it was not unpleasant. Mother’s hands moved down my shoulders as I gyrated sensually in her lap, my back resting against her pillowing breasts, her forked tail gently violating my holes. I stretched splendidly from her, arching my back to groan my satisfaction, feeling her invasion so deep within me, her pliant tails squishing the delicate division of my channels, moving in alternating thrusts to grind against each other.

“Squeeze my tits.” I moaned, and she did, tenderly cupping and squeezing until the mammary fat protruded from her digits.

“Call me a whore.” I groaned, squishing my ass into her lap.

“You are a whore, Rose.” She whispered in my ear, but it wasn’t demeaning. It was with the most love that she said it, then drew a hand up my neck, and turned my face to taste her kiss.

Mother broke our locked lips. “She is coming.”

“I told you she would.” I smiled, “She can’t resist my innocence.”

“If you have any—”

“I don’t, Mother.” I said, putting her fingers over her lips, “I thought about it all night, and I don’t have any doubts. This is my destiny now, and you will be here with me to realize it. Now, fuck my mouth.”

Her tail sprouted a third appendage, and it slithered between my splayed legs, rubbing against my clit, sliding up my belly, between my breasts, wrapping once around my neck, and filling my mouth. I hummed a moan around it as it gently burrowed down my throat, pushing back and forth to sensually tickle my esophagus. I needed to be filled. My holes, every single one of them, they longed to pleasure and feel pleasure. My mouth was but a tool to say words that would coerce someone to silence me, my anus was but the forbidden orifice to inflict filthy felicity, and my pussy salivated ceaselessly for its meal. I wriggled in the delight of my incestual captivity, moving like no nymph should, reacting to new instincts that called seductively for me.

There was a rustling in the hedges, and Kiera appeared in the arboretum. She stopped, and stared.

“She is ready for you, Kiera.” Mother said from behind me. She extended me from her body by her tail, wrapping me in the tendrils of the appendage, and presenting me to Kiera. I undulated in the air, running my hands down the enticing curves of my body, looking at her with beckoning eyes. My blonde hair was tangled in my horns, my freckled complexion was marred with red pressure points, and my nethers oozed viscous nectar down Mother’s writhing appendage, lubricating the stretching of my tight holes. Kiera took it all in, the front of her robe tenting with her arousal. She looked behind me.

“Arbor, are you sure about this?”

“It is not my decision to make.” Mother said sadly, “Rose has chosen her own path.” Mother’s tail sprouted three more tendrils, and they extended to Kiera, and disrobed her. I had seen the beautiful hermaphrodite naked many times, but now that she would be mine, I thought she was the most beautiful thing alive. Her platinum hair hung in dreads, her angular features portraited her big blue eyes, her curvaceous tattooed body framed her rising cock. The tendril of tail vacated my mouth, and I sounded a needful moan.

“Kiera, please do this for me.”

She took a trepid step forward, then another, then another. She looked from Mother, to me, and her steps became bolder. There was no question of morality for her, for she had already been transformed into something wicked. It was a small leap for her to do the same to me. Her beautifully-depraved mind broached no arguments when flesh was freely given, and she had sought mine ever since we’d locked eyes.

“Lie down.” I commanded softly, and she did. I crawled up her legs, mother’s wriggling tendrils still moving through me, providing me with deep pleasure, stealing all fear and apprehension from me. She laid beside us, and watched with anticipatory eyes as I climbed Kiera’s legs, and brought my lips down to her cock.

“Rose—” the unsure objection finally bubbled from Kiera, and it was cutoff the moment my tongue came out. I tasted what frothed from her apex, and my changing body became electrified with it. My heart beat slow and heavy, my mind melted, and my vision veiled violet, focusing only on her. My eyes drew up her flat belly, her breasts heaving with slow breaths, her lips parted to expire, and finally connected with those beautiful bright orbs, gazing fixedly down at me as I swirled her head so, so gently with my tongue. When I could take it no longer, I wrapped my lips around her crease, and took every inch into my mouth.

Her brow knitted in astonishment when she breached my coiled throat. It was painful, I’d never taken anyone so big, and so I gagged and around her invasion, my eyes watering. The pained contraction of my gullet did not expel her, but sucked her further down my neck. My lips smooshed her furry base, and I focused on my breathing, letting my heart drop, relaxing my throat, accepting her. It took a minute, but that was all. My hands moved beneath her and gripped her supple ass, and I pulled her against my face, opening my eyes to gaze into hers. She stared adoringly down at me, and ran her hand through my hair. Oh, how I loved her touch. More than any of my brothers’; more even than my mother’s. For though it was gentle, it was not the maternal kindness that promised me safety in lust, but an unpredictable brand of carnality, something dangerous, something wild. Something that could take me.

I fed upon her shaft for minutes, sensually drawing my mouth along her, forming a seal so tight that my cheeks became hollow and my lips slurped. My tongue lathered her, moving back and forth with my oral passes to taste all that it could, turning her static rod into a pulsing, throbbing piece of meat. When I finally relinquished her member, it was swollen and red.

“No,” Mother said when I made to climb atop Kiera.

I flashed her a dangerous look, and she lowered her face to Kiera’s lap. “We will share in this together.” She said, and parted her purple lips. Her bright pink tongue slithered forth, and divided into ten long tendrils. Like wet pink tentacles, they wrapped around Kiera’s cock, encasing the entire organ in pulsating moist flesh. Kiera stared wide-eyed at what was being done to her, then the sensations overtook her mind, and her head fell back with a whimper. What Mother did to the hermaphrodite when she brought her tongue back into her mouth, I could not know. She sealed her lips around the base, and kept Kiera’s organ inside, only the shifting motions of her gullet giving evidence to what she was doing. Kiera balled her fists in her own hair, unable to contend with the pleasure, and she cried out, her voice high and desperate. I dipped my head between her legs, and soothed her with my tongue, circling her puckered anus, traversing the hairless division of her taint, then tasting her femininity at the source, and repeating. There was squelching sound above me, and Kiera let out a sigh of relief.

“She is ready for you, Rose.” Mother said, and divided her tail once more. Two slithering appendages moved beneath me to penetrate the holes I’d prepared, and Kiera’s back arched from the ground. The tendril in her ass pumped with stronger oscillations, stretching her tight anal ring, rubbing against her prostate, and with every tremor, Kiera’s cock pulsed and bubbled at the tip, turning purple with arousal. The tail in my pussy left, and moved alongside the one in my ass, easily sliding inside my clinging rectum with the grease of my sex. I squatted over Kiera, took her cock in my hands, and with a deep breath, I guided it inside me.

“Rose!” She called.

“Kiera!” I whined back. Oh, it was so good! Every delicious inch of her split my soft pussy, pushing through my resistances, breaking them, owning me. I became more her slut with every degree I descended, my eyes fluttering when I felt her press against my bottom. I stayed there for a moment, trapped in the static worship of her, feeling her heat burning so pleasantly into my most precious depths. Then, she began to thrust. I groaned, then moaned, then whimpered. She held my hips, and guided me. I’d never needed guidance with my brothers, for I was dominant, but I was left helpless for her, and all I could do, was whatever she wanted! I rode her like the stallion she was, undulating the way she wanted, fucking myself, ruining myself, stretching my tight hole until it was molded just for her. Every time I cried out, it sounded like I was sobbing, but if I was weeping it was for joy. Mother silenced Kiera’s whines with her crotch, straddling her face. Her tail lifted behind her to show me Kiera’s chin moving with the motions of her lips as she ate Mother’s pussy. Mother let her salt and pepper hair cascade back with the tilting of her head, her mane running between a set of black nymph horns and a set of black succubus horns, possessed of a dichotomy that I now balanced precariously upon, but it was not stable for me. Every thrust pushed me further into darkness, and the oscillations of my hips no longer needed Kiera’s guidance.

We moved together for minutes, then hours. I lost track of time. Mother’s wonderful tail divided again and again, and soon Kiera and I were wrapped together within it, our bodies trapped in the pulsating binds as the invading tendrils worked ever deeper into our holes. We would’ve kissed each other, but Mother’s bottom was in the way, and so we touched tongues along the division of her ass and pussy, me tasting her fertile hole, and Kiera enjoying the vile delights of Mother’s sinful side. Then she switched, and I savored the decadent tang of her rectum, and the way her great mauve cheeks pillowed against my face, suffocating me so sweetly. Her indulgent tones sounded above us as Kiera thrusted, and I rode her lap, our bodies merged, our minds melded, moving and thinking as one. Then, it happened.

Kiera surged into me with a final thrust, and exploded into my starving depths. What I felt then was more than an orgasm. It was my transformation. The sensation boiled within me, hot, searing and unbearable, an ecstasy the likes of which I’d never known. It coursed through my veins like a river, turning my muscles to molasses, my bones to jelly, my mind to mush. My flesh came alive with foreign sensations, my insides churned and moved, and though it should’ve been agony, it was only a terrible pleasure, a mutilation no one should ever revel in, but God, this hell was such paradise! The horns that I’d had all my life crumbled like ash, in their place, I felt new horns rising. My spine arched, and from its end, a tail sprouted.

Mother felt it in me, and dismounted our faces. She held my head in her hands as I sputtered and blubbered, foam coming from my mouth, tears of ecstasy streaming down my cheeks.

“Rose.” She whispered. She was violet. The world was violet.

“Mother.” I whimpered back, and kissed her. She did not give me a hedonistic kiss, but one with closed lips, a mother’s kiss, one last time.

When she pulled back to look down upon me, I did not know who she was anymore.

ARBOR

The creature did not yet have a name to call herself. I had released her from Kiera’s enslavement the moment she changed, and now she stood at the mouth of the arboretum, disinterestedly examining the flowers she once tended with such care. The violet had left those eyes now that she was sated with sperm, but they had not returned to emerald. They were amber now, almost golden, and the green veins that once branched beneath her flesh were gone. Two ebony horns curved demonically from her head, a smooth thin tail had sprouted from her tailbone, and every motion she made was seeped in seduction.

“If she is kept in civilization, she will relearn language quickly.” I said to Kiera, my voice hollow, “Once the hunger comes to her, she will be compelled to hunt, enslave, and feast until her victim is dead. She is a creature of instinct now, and so she must be domesticated. There are brothels in Alkandra, many with true-born succubi who can teach her how to control herself. You will take her to one of those places.”

“Brianna knows all the brothel owners.” Kiera said, “She’ll make sure that she’s brought to the best place with the best people.”

“I do not want any of your kind to touch her. Her mind should stay free.”

“Of course.”

“Thank you.” I muttered, watching the creature pluck the petals of a flower nonchalantly. A nymph would never kill a plant so carelessly. She turned around, and I averted my eyes. I would not look upon her face again, and see that unrecognizing stare.

“Will you be alright?” Kiera asked, putting a hand on my shoulder.

“No. Not for some time.” I looked at my hands, and noticed that they were trembling. “Grief is brutal with my mortal form. I cannot escape it like I could when I was bodiless. It is interesting. In all my life as a sprit, I always thought suicide was the most idiotic thing a person could do. Now I understand.”

“Arbor, you’re not going to—”

“No.” I looked up at her pleadingly, “But I do not know how to cope with this pain. She was my everything, Kiera.”

Kiera crouched so that we were eye-level. “Do you know why I started doing drugs? I watched my dad get trampled by a moose. He looked fine after the fact, except for the hoofprint in his head that went all the way through like a tunnel. I saw it all, and I didn’t know how the fuck to deal with it. A friend of mine came up to me after the funeral, offered to smoke a blunt. I did, and I still felt the pain, but I could deal with it. I could separate it from myself for a little while, and look at it like it was someone else’s.”

“So, what you are saying, is that I should… get fucked up.”

Kiera tried to keep her face compassionate and understanding, but it broke into a laugh. “Yes, Arbor,” she sighed, “you should get really fucked up.”

I nodded, taking that instruction to heart. “I do not know how to get fucked up. Will you get fucked up with me?”

“You know, getting fucked up doesn’t sound too bad right now.” She stood up, “Let me find her a place in town, then you and I are going to get fucked up.”

CERTIOK

Yavara was alone in the royal box when I went up to it. She had just made the closing speech to the ceremony, and the bodies of wargs, orcs, centaurs and ogres were being dragged from the sand. There had been death, there had been torture, and there had been sex; it was all the people of Alkandra could have hoped for, and yet, I thought that Yavara’s speech to end it all had been flat and uninspired, something that was wholly wrong coming from her.

“Your Highness?” I asked her.

She tipped back her glass, and finished her wine. “Your Highness…” she answered with a hiss, “When did everyone become so formal?”

“I’ve always treated you with respect.”

She hoisted the empty pitcher into her hand, and with a flick of her wrist, she launched it across the stadium. “No one told me my tolerance would go through the roof once I transformed. It took me a liter of rye to get saucy at Prestira’s bar, and I’ve been training my liver ever since. At this rate, half our GDP will go to my habit.”

“Has it become a habit?”

“Are you my mother?” She smirked over her shoulder at me, then sighed. “There’s not much to do in a military camp but fight, fuck and drink. Zander’s a great guy, but you know him, he’s… stern. I’d go out at night to the barracks to have a good time with the boys. They’d show me a good time too, do the things I wanted them to do, but uh… I don’t know. They treated me like a god. Even when they had their cocks ten inches up my ass and I was licking jizz off the ground, they still treated me like a god. It gets tiring.” She picked up a jug beside her, and examined the scant remnant of wine as she swirled it, “Maybe I drank until I could pretend that they were treating me like one of the boys.” She pulled the cork out and downed the contents, then threw the jug over the railing. It crashed onto the arena, the glass shards twinkling in the setting sunlight. “Have you ever had insomnia, Certiok?”

“No.”

“Arbor gave me a tincture for it before I left for the Tundra, but the supply ran out. I’ll be exhausted when my head hits the pillow, but then my thoughts start waking up. I asked Zander one night to put me under with a spell. It was a mistake. My thoughts don’t sleep if I do, but trapped in my own mind, I’m a slave to them. They didn’t used to be so… cruel.” She snorted derisively, “Now I gotta be so fucked up that there’s nothing in my head when I shut my eyes.”

“Your Highness?” I asked.

She closed her eyes, and breathed through her nose. “Please don’t call me that, Certiok. Not you. I can take it from Brock since he’s gone full general on me, but you have no excuse.”

“Ok… Yavara.”

She snorted. “Could that have sounded more awkward? What changed since that night we shared in Brock’s hut?”

“Everything.”

Yavara took that in silence for a moment. I wished I hadn’t said it. She nodded. “Yes. Yes, it all did. You know, sometimes I wish I could talk to Alkandi. I met her once before the beginning.”

“What would you ask her?”

“Nothing. I’d just… talk. Just talk with someone who understands me.” She tapped her temple, “But now she’s part of me, and now there’s no one who understands. Well, that’s not entirely true.” She hoisted another jug into her lap, and popped the cork, “Your enemies understand you very well. Leveria, she understands me. Adrianna, she understands me.”

“Adrianna is not your enemy.”

“But I kind of wish she still was. We were closer then.” She chugged the wine, then threw it onto the arena. “Why did you come here, Certiok?”

I stepped toward her, and showed her what I’d had hidden behind my back. It was a black crown, encrusted with orange gems and horned with sultry outlines of women.

“You looked strange addressing your people without one. I had the best smiths of the Ten working on it for a week.”

“It’s beautiful.” She whispered, holding it to the sunlight to examine all the intricate details. She beamed at me. “Thank you, Certiok.”

“You’re welcome, Your Highn—Yavara.”

Her smile faded. “If you don’t mind, Certiok. I’d like to be alone for a while.”

ADRIANNA

Alkandra was beautiful at night. From our vantage point on the castle steps, the city was laid out before us like a carpet of flame, the millions of little fires shining from the windows, the streets, the rooftops where revelers cheered to those processing below. Drums and horns sounded through the constant drone of celebration, and the occasional firework was launched into the sky. There was no use trying to police the city when it was like this, so Faltia had taken the night off. Her men would observe the anarchy, and only intervene if someone was an unwilling participant in the chaos. There would be dozens of dead to clean from the streets the next morning, but there would be hundreds given new life this very night. It was a celebration the likes of which we’d never seen before, but we were not a part of it.

“Can you see her?” Furia asked, her head on my shoulder.

“No.” I said, “But you can bet she’s in the thick of it.”

“They worship her.” Alexa muttered, Faltia in her arms, “They don’t even know her. What has she done for them?”

“Do I hear jealousy, Sergeant?” Faltia smiled, looking up at Alexa.

“I designed this whole city, and no one once thanked me for it. She comes in, and they act like she brought the sunrise with her.”

“I put on today’s games, and she didn’t even mention me in the speech.” Eva said with an irreverent wave, petting her Pet with the other hand.

Brianna snorted. “Who gives a shit about credit? You want a plaque? What about a banner? Your deeds are inked on your flesh, bro. When you walk through the streets, you can see it in their eyes that they know.”

“She could’ve at least thanked me.”

“Do you want validation from her?” Soraya asked Eva.

“No. Maybe. I don’t know!” She sighed, “Before, it felt like our city. Now, it just feels like hers, but she didn’t do anything for it. We made this whole thing, we did the impossible, and it feels like…”

“Like she stole it from us?” I asked with raised brows, “Remember who your queen is, Eva.”

“It would be easier if she acted like a queen.” Furia mumbled, “She’s not a responsible person, Adrianna. She doesn’t know how to govern. She just goes by the will of the mob. That doesn’t bode well for peace.”

“For an evil bitch, she sure cares a lot about what people think of her.” Eva snickered.

“Sh