Lies in Blood by A. M. Hudson Page B

Yeah,” Blade added. “I notice everything.”
    “ He’s just trying to stamp his seal, if you know what I mean.”
    “ I get that.” Blade walked over and pushed in the chair I’d left hanging out. “But he’s all high and mighty about it this week. He’s even hurt my feelings.”
    I laughed. “He’ll get over it. I’m giving him a gentle period of adjustment. Then, I’ll kick his ass if he snaps at me in public again.”
    “ Is he. . .” Blade lowered his face but looked up with his eyes. “Is he like that behind closed doors?”
    “ No,” I said, laughing the word out. “He’s still the same sweet David.”
    “ M’kay.” He nodded. “Well, I’m just lookin’ out for ya, is all.”
    “ Thanks. I appreciate that.”
    “ Any time, Sherlock.” He saluted me and grabbed the stone column beside the stairs, using it to sling his body around the corner and out of sight.
     
     
    “ Morning, My Queen.” Edgar bowed, placing a tray on the edge of my bed.
    “ Morning, Edgar.” I sat up a little to look at David. “Where’s the king?”
    “ In the crypt, Majesty.” Edgar wandered over and opened my curtains. “He’s given permission for you to dine in bed this morning.”
    “ The crypt. What’s he doing in there?”
    “ I believe he is carrying out the sentence he passed on the four men from New York this morning.”
    “ What!” I shoved the covers back. “I sentenced those men yesterday at Court. They were to be put in the cell block.”
    “ My apologies, Majesty.” Edgar bowed. “Perhaps I am mistaken.”
    “ No, you’re not, Edgar.” I slipped my robe on and tied the belt around my waist. “David’s gone behind my back.”
    I charged forward, ignoring Falcon’s line of questions as my feet moved over carpet then tiles then stone steps, following my memory down through the cell tunnels and the dark, chilly corridors that led to the crypt below the manor.
    Row upon of row of caskets lined the walls like bars of gold in a vault, each one containing an ancient skeleton of loved ones passed, or victims of Lilith’s hunger in the days she was alive. I’d been down to the crypt only once—walked into the open cavern of the Main Tomb, and my blood had run cold. It reminded me of a great underground cave, the walls rising high into the air above, almost blue-grey, turning black where the cave went too deep to see. But you couldn’t walk through it. The cave went on forever behind a small brick wall placed as a partition between the floor and an endless drop into nothing—the same endless drop they lowered prisoners into when Drake ruled.
    My steps slowed slightly as I reached the end of the tunnel, seeing the orange glow of firelight flicker across the dirt floor, while a hammering sound echoed off the drop. And right where Edgar said he’d be, my husband was fastening the last nail into a coffin—the other prisoners nowhere to be seen.
    “ David.” I reached down and grabbed his arm. “What are you doing?”
    “ What needs to be done.”
    “ No.” I placed my hand over a soldier’s as he and another lifted the coffin. “I made a ruling. I sentenced these men to twenty years in The First Order’s cells, away from their homes, friends, everything.”
    “ Take him away.” David waved a hand, standing up, and the soldiers shrugged me off, hooking chains under the casket.
    “ How could you go against me like this?” I stood back.
    “ Ara?” David drew a long breath, pinching his brow. “This is my ruling, and when you sit in that Court, day after day, and see no more cases like this, you’ll thank me.”
    The men hitched the chained coffin to the hook hanging over the depths of the sixty-foot hole it was destined for. I watched on, holding my breath, until David walked toward the crank that lowers the chain. “David, stop.”
    He paused, his shoulders high and stiff. “Ara, please don’t make this any harder than it has to be.”
    “ Hard? Hard for who?” I