The Passionate Queen (Dark Queens Book 2) by Jovee Winters Page B

chilling words. “Spread your thighs for me, whore.”
    I could try to run away, but I wouldn’t have gotten far.
    The king wore a ring on his hand, one that made others do whatever he willed of them.
    Even as my body shook violently, I couldn’t stop from lying down on the bed and spreading my thighs wide, exposing every inch of my most private parts to him.
    Slamming the door shut behind him, he dropped his robe, and I couldn’t stop the tears from flowing as I saw his thick member curve ever upward.
    “We will only ever do this once.” He chuckled, crawling over to me on the bed. “But then, it’s not like you will care once I’m through with you.”
    He slapped me then. I’d done nothing wrong, but the way he smirked, I knew he was the type that delighted in inflicting pain. I knew this, because I’d seen that same look in Zerelda’s eyes before.
    I gave no indication that I felt a thing, even though my cheek throbbed.
    His eyes thinned. “Didn’t hurt enough I see?”
    So he punched me. In the corner of my jaw, splitting my lip open so that I tasted blood. I moaned and he smiled.
    I felt nothing when he took me. No joy. No desire. I closed my eyes and brought Ragoth’s beautiful face to my mind, waiting for the moment I lost every trace of what it meant to be me.
    There were two quick grunts, and then I felt something hot splash through my channel.
    I was dead inside. What little goodness had remained snapped in me. Kindness. Life. It was gone. I was cold and I was dead. I was nothing now.
    Panting and covered in sweat, Charles’ lips tipped into a full grin. “Now morphling, tell me whose you are?”
    My heart pounded in my chest so violently it was like the beating of a drum. I waited for the loss of my will, waited for the desire to please him in all ways to suck me under. I waited. And I waited.
    And then I felt a flush of warmth begin to wind through me. Starting first at my toes, then moving up my legs, across my chest, down my arms, and finally spreading through my skull.
    It was the kiss of magic. The legacy of my kind raged through me and with it the ancient knowledge of truth.
    A morphling would blossom beneath her first lover’s hand, taking on the best attributes of that male, but there was a secret truth revealed to me only now. A chanting I heard whisper through my life’s blood.
    Not only had I taken on the strength of Charles’ ring as my own, but I was stronger than him. Stronger and in possession of my own mind.
    This then was the real truth of the morphling. A secret all of my kind kept hidden; should any male know the real truth of the morphling, none would take us. Would make us their own.
    Smiling, I trailed a finger down his cheek and whispered to him, “Touch me again, and I will cut your head off.”
    Blue eyes widened first with shock then with panic. Jumping off me, he raced for the bell pull, no doubt to call in a servant and have me taken away.
    I sat up. “Stop right there!”
    The moment I spoke the words, I felt the flow of power ripple through the room like hottest flame, engulfing him completely. The whites of his eyes grew, all color leeched from his face as the veracity of who I really was hammered home.
    He stopped, drinking in giant, gulps of air that caused his chest to rise and fall rapidly.
    “Turn around.”
    He did. Patting my shift back down into place around my ankles, I reached for the bowl of fruit sitting on the stand beside the bed and popped a green grape into my mouth.
    “How dare you!” he roared. “I’ll see you hung for this. I’ll see you—”
    I held up a silencing hand. “From now on, until the day you die, you may never speak of this. No one can know who I really am. You will never talk to me of this or any other or you shall suffer unbearable agony.”
    “Why not just burn the memory from me, bitch!”
    I smiled, but it was cold and meant nothing. “Because I want you to suffer, Charles. I want you to know what it’s like to lose