The Cursed Kingdom

THIRTY

~ ANOTHER ATTACK ~

I clutched my hair, feeling the strands that were in need of a good brushing entangle themselves around each finger. My nails dug into my scalp, the small hurt grounding me and distracting me from the nausea that threatened to spew up the plethora of macaroons I regretted eating and my cold, clammy palms felt slightly soothing against my burning forehead. But it wasn't enough.

The air around me felt so thin and my chest felt like it was caving in, pressing right against my racing heart that threatened to burst from under the pressure at any given time.

I'm a queen now, I thought to myself as if I'd just found out the fact—as if fifty-two lords' bloods weren't still slithering through my system and digging me deeper into the mess I created by saying one word a few weeks prior.

It'd been hours since we mated and after a couple more rounds of lovemaking, I'd woken up in a sweat, my mother's voice and my friends' sobs echoing in my ears. My head was so dizzy that I was surprised I'd managed to walk at all, practically stumbling into the dark bathroom, groping around for the sink counter, where I slid down to the floor and leaned my back against its cabinets. 

Images of blood kept flashing throughout my brain, splattering on trees, dropping into a chalice, staining the snow, and gushing out from Taylium's neck.

Now that I was acquainted with its taste, my thoughts forced me to imagine how my friends' blood must've tasted and felt on the Rogues' tongues, when their teeth were lodged through their flesh and crunching their bones. The image made me physically ill and I bit my tongue to keep in all the sobs bubbling in my lungs, forcing my nails deeper into my skin and wishing for just a moment that the whole world could disappear.

An image of a severed arm in the snow had me shuddering, on the verge of heaving, and I wrapped my arms around my knees, the bathroom floor feeling hard and unforgiving underneath my sweating and very naked body.

I forced myself to try to think of something else—anything—even if it was just the alphabet or a song I'd heard long ago. But my mind seemed to be its own independent force and would not allow me to do anything else but relive my nightmares over and over again.

My mother's sobs and warnings.

The twins' mangled bodies.

Oriana's scream.

The sound of lungs gurgling.

Everything came back in one blow and the only thing I could do was watch and listen as the phantoms of my past screeched their terrible songs directly into my heart, scratching and tearing down whatever confidence I thought I possessed.

I felt stupid and weak, like a little girl trying hide from her reality. The thoughts of me ever escaping felt so ridiculous, especially now that I was connected to this land and its people just as much as a blade of grass was to the soil. How had I ever considered saving myself when I couldn't even save my friends? How could I escape an entire kingdom full of wolf-shifting beings when I couldn't even escape the monsters in my own head?

Oriana would've found a way out within the first week, perhaps even in an hour of waking. She'd always been so much smarter than me and kinder and everything else that a person who deserved to survive should be.

You should've been the first to die. That thought wrapped itself around my mind and squeezed until it was agonizing, causing my thoughts to drift back to the window latch and to the winter snow. Everything would've been so much easier if I would've died with my friends. So much more peaceful. No guilt. No confusion. No hate. You should've been the first.