The Dawn of the Cursed Queen (Gods & Monsters, #3)

by Amber V. Nicole

She is my everything.

my Ig’Morruthen

she quite literally blew me.

This shouldn’t be as funny as it is, given the situation…but I giggled anyway

Her eyes flashed, and my pulse quickened. One look, and gods above, mean or not, I was fucking putty.

Now I knew why she’d pressed me against the tree. It was the only form of stability I’d have while she tortured me into oblivion.

My Dianna

She was my living flame.

When she looked at me, touched me, and spoke to me with admiration and determination, I truly believed I was more than enough.

I smiled, knowing that even though we played and joked about her rewarding me, I already had the biggest reward life could have offered me. It was her. It was always her.

“Mm-hmm, how else would you prefer I say it?” I asked, trying to keep that part of me that was so damn possessive of her at bay. “You two have been very secretive lately. The small conversations that cease when I am around. I don’t like it.” “Careful, big guy.” She snickered. “You sound jealous.” “I am not jealous. That would assume Roccurem is better than me, which he isn’t.” She barked a small laugh. “There’s that cocky god we all adore.” I rolled my shoulders. “I’m mildly annoyed at best.” “Okay.” She snorted. “Whatever you say.”

My body kept trying to heal itself, yet something was blocking its ability.

Aren't the Jade people poisoning him??

There was something she was not sharing with me, but I didn’t want to pry it out of her. I wished for her to trust me, to love me enough to tell me everything, to share her thoughts and dreams with me. I was just so damned scared to ask for it. If it wasn’t freely given, was it truly love?

Oh Sami🥺

My Dianna

It’s just the mark has not formed. There is no binding letting everyone know you are truly mine.”

Well… about that…

I still ached for the one that should have burned into my flesh, the one that would never heal, never disappear.

My strong, beautiful girl.

I did not tell her I remembered telling her I loved her or that she did not say it back. That part I kept to myself, fear a heavy, dreadful thing that told me no matter what we did or shared, she did not love me.

How ironic was it that I had slayed beasts larger and deadlier than me and spoke to gods and deities who bowed to me, yet with her, I was utterly and completely terrified?

“I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“It was all a part of my plan. To have you on top of me.” “You do not need us to train for that.” I laughed again. This was better than any meditation.

I wondered what it was like to love, to be loved. I never saw it here, not like that.

I only wished to help. I only wanted a friend.

they weren’t making those grunting noises upstairs.

I didn’t hesitate, afraid she would change her mind or, worse, kill me with a spoon.

Xio whistled softly, and I felt that overwhelming power behind me. “Oh, naughty, naughty. We have a little thief.”

If he was the sun, by the old gods, she was the moon.

“Does it think we are poisoned?”

uh yuh, Sami is

akrai.

akrai,

You, Dianna, my dark-haired, fiery vixen, are and will always be enough for me. No shape or form or thing you bend to will ever make any part of me swell, as you put it, like you. Understand?”

Perhaps it was truly a funny thing not to realize how broken or damaged you were until someone came along and picked up every single fractured piece and showed you how just being you was enough.

Sami. Please. Do you really think I am not satisfied?” “I don’t know.” He scratched his brow. “It’s stupid. Forget I said anything.” “It’s not stupid,” I reassured him.

But nothing compared to this powerful, beautiful, handsome god king shoving his heart toward me and praying I did not hurt it. He was by far the most shocking and wondrous thing I had ever experienced.

I gave up something down there in the cold when death visited. I gave up something valuable so he could live, and I didn’t know how to tell him. He would be mad at me for lying and then mad at me for what I did.

“It’s also time for your treatments.” My eyes narrowed at the word treatments. Treatments, my ass. I was starting to think they weren’t helping at all. I had noticed the small purple and red lines forming around the edges of his scar,

“What have you seen?” I asked, realizing what had instigated his sudden spark of anger. His eyes met mine. “I saw Jade City ablaze.” He didn’t lower his gaze. “I saw it crumble and fall to the waiting sea below.”

I grabbed the edges of my gown and bowed. “Hello, Reggie.” “Ugh, please don’t ever bow to him. I can only handle one ego at a time.”

But I think my favorite thing about him was how he never seemed to want to leave Xio’s side. He looked at her as if she hung the stars.

my Cedaar?”

and two, do you really think I need someone to protect me?” Cedaar made a face. “Yes. Have you met you?”

“And then I’ll be back to give you dessert.” Cedaar’s eyes widened a fraction, and I wondered what the word dessert meant. “What’s dessert?” I asked Reggie. He only shook his head. “Some things are better left unknown.”

“Especially since I’ve been slipping a tiny bit of poison into your food every day for the last few weeks. In your drinks, too, even the water you bathed in. It was such a small amount that even your blood drinker did not detect it. It will work on her, too, since you share so much.”

You’ve got to be fricking kidding me!!!

Securing our one true king’s power.”

“If you touch me, she will burn you and your precious city alive.”

My last thought was and always would be her. I feared for the world and what they’d unleashed.

All I know is that I can’t lose him. I wouldn’t survive it. The pain I felt in that tunnel was as if every molecule in my body split and fractured. It was worse than any stab or punch. I thought I was broken before, but… my soul cleaved in two, Reggie. I felt it. A part of me died when Gabby did, and whatever part was left, whatever he helped heal, died down there with him, too.”

You brought a god back from death, Dianna.

“We were followed,” I snarled. “Not followed,” Reggie said. “A trap.”

“Don’t.” I spun, my hand whipping out to point a finger at him. “I am teetering on a fucking edge right now, Roccurem. So don’t tell me what I need to do. I will not lose him a second time. I can’t.” Not like I lost her, but those words never left my lips.

“You know, you don’t even know who he is.” She bit at her bottom lip. “Samkiel would have helped you, saved you and your people. He would have bent over backward to offer you peace. Unlike the old gods, he is kind and caring.” Her eyes darkened to a brutal crimson as she raised her hand. “Everything I am not.”