The Dark Queen (The Dark Queens Book 5) by Jovee Winters Page A

looking heartily pleased with herself. “I said you’d pay me in blood. And you have, sweet girl. You have.”
    “No.” She hugged her arms to her chest, feeling a soul-sucking void of numbness begin to sweep over her consciousness. This couldn’t be real. None of this could be real. This hadn’t really happened.
    “Why did you teach me something so vile? Why?” she muttered.
    Galeta, who still smiled, was now humming cheerfully to herself as she reached into a pocket tucked into her gown and pulled out a green glass vial. Tipping it toward Fable, she winked.
    “I told you why. And now I do believe that payment can be rendered. I needed the blood of a powerful witch you see, and since they’re so selfish about giving that type of thing up, well...the end justifies the means, does it not?”
    Flitting toward the now deathly still and silent Brunhilda, Galeta reached forward and dragged the vial through the ocean of red covering the fallen witch’s chest.
    “You’re evil,” Fable whispered as she watched the little fairy practically gleam with joy as she played in the blood.
    “What’s that?” Galeta turned to her, her glacial blue eyes cold and frosty. “Evil you say. Yes, well. I might be a tad bad, Darkness, but I’ve never destroyed an entire kingdom, now have I? You were very thorough, my dear.”
    “No. I didn’t—”
    A tiny feminine gasp had Fable’s skin instantly crawling, heart pounding, and chest aching. She knew without even looking up who it was, and the minute her eyes landed on Snow’s face, she went absolutely still.
    Blue, blue eyes rimmed in red and crying large tears looked back at her. “You did this.”
    It wasn’t a question.
    “Snow, I—”
    She reached out a hand, but the child screamed, and instantly a guard snatched her up, shoving her behind him and glaring hotly at Fable as though he meant to snuff the life from her.
    But not a one of them moved. All of them were terrified; the emotion was clear in their wide and petrified gazes.
    “I didn’t mean to do this, Snow. I didn’t. I—”
    Galeta snickered. “Yeah, well, tough titties, oh evil one, cuz ya did. By the by, I’ll be seeing you around, Darkness, you can count on it.”
    The fairy vanished with her prize in a puff of glittering blue.
    The guards lifted their spears and Fable knew she would be transformed into a true monster in Snow’s eyes now.
    Shaking her head, and with giant tears rolling down her cheeks she whispered, “Lay them down.”
    But she’d unlocked her powers again, and the words were full of magick.
    Immediately the spears were flung from their hands, clacking loudly against the stonewall before dropping to the ground.
    “Go away!” She screamed, flinging them all from her sight. Careful not to toss the girl around, but needing those censorious eyes away from her.
    The moment she was alone, she looked at what she’d done. The charred, crisped bodies of the knights, curled in fantastical poses of writhing agony as they’d succumbed to their deaths.
    At their center, and closest to her side was Charles. Fable clenched her eyes shut, forcing herself to breathe in and out as suddenly her stomach heaved with the violence she’d committed.
    Numb, still in shock, she walked in a daze over to Mirror. And gasped when she viewed herself.
    She’d felt the aches and pains earlier, but had had no idea the violence that had been done to her.
    One eye was almost completely swelled shut. Blood had matted her hair to her forehead and neck. Her dark flesh was covered in oozing slits of deepest crimson and already she could see the mottled purple tones covering most of her skin.
    Fingers trembling she covered her mouth with her hands, that was how Uriah found her.
    His dear face filled the looking glass so that she no longer had to look upon herself.
    Scanning the room quickly, he then looked at her. “You had no choice, my queen. They meant to end you.”
    “But Snow White,” she gasped, starting to