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

by Amber V. Nicole

“There’s my red-eyed girl.”

He wasn’t afraid of me. The last part of my walls crumbled. He saw everything, wanted everything, and by the way he sought to push deeper into me with every thrust, I knew he craved me just as much as I craved him, claws and all.

He accepted every part of me, and I reveled in it.

This was more than just sex. This was a claiming.

“That’s it, baby. Again.”

Maybe this was what we both needed: to cross that final line between us. One where he allowed me to be my true self and reveled in it, and one where I didn’t hold back so he could unleash himself fully, as well.

“Don’t touch her! Don’t ever touch her.”

I know you always have to choose her.” I’d choose you! I wanted to say it, to scream it, but my voice wouldn’t allow it.

They sounded like she’d missed me, and no one had missed me in so long.

“I hope I won’t be gone too long. Try not to replace me.” I smiled, and she returned it. “As if I could.”

Who would love that? Love you? That’s why it really hurts, isn’t it? That, no matter what cruel thing I did, Samkiel loved me. Your family loved me. But you? We both know they will never forgive you, never love you again. So I don’t think anyone is going to miss you. What do you think?”

My knight, my savior.

“You’ve been asleep for four days, and the first thing you do when you wake is flirt with me?”

“So, I am still not used to the feeling when you take from me, and I do not wish for a group of people to storm the room when you start screaming for me.

Samkiel nodded, and I tightened my grip on him, letting him know he was not alone. Never again would I let him be alone.

“Someone who just… understands. I don’t have to say anything. You just understand.”

Here he was, offering every piece of himself, and I couldn’t cough up a fraction of myself.

He was everything I had wanted and hoped for. Someone who would be there for me, someone who wanted me and would fight for me.

So my lies and secrets built higher, cutting me off from him like a godsdamned fortress.

If it came to him and his safety, I would defy the very heavens themselves to keep him whole. More than anything, I feared that when he looked at me so lovingly, he saw the girl promised to him. She was a celestial being filled with love and hope and goodness, but she had died in a desert far away from her home world.

I hoped that when he looked at me and saw this new version of that girl, he would recognize that parts of her still existed. I hoped he cared enough to want me, and he could see that every bit of good I had salvaged from that girl was now his. These were hopes I clung to.

That brought a smile to his face that damn near made my heart stop.

“Sami, baby. You are the textbook definition of jealous.”

“Akrai,”

“Quiet, Dianna. Or I will have to put something in your mouth to make you quiet.”

Oh, my man was in a mood, and I loved it.

“Because of love. Only her sister reached that celestial part of her, and now he does. He is order. She is chaos. One cannot exist without the other, and if she were to lose that, war would be the least of our problems.”

“And she damned near destroyed the world when she lost her. Imagine what she would do for him.”

“He finds peace in her, even before he knew what she was to him. It is something he has never found with another. I watched it from above. How that heart he’d encased in ice began to slowly beat once more.”

They will come for her. If they haven’t tried to already.” “They will taste Samkiel’s steel if they even try,”

Regardless of how arrogant I was, I wouldn’t risk him.

“Dianna, everything about you is perfect.”

“You can come outside, and I can show you what the dress does for me.”

“I want to go on a date.”

akrai?”

“Take me on a date.” “Let’s get this done, and then you can have whatever you wish.”

“I’m sorry, but I’m taken.” “Damn right you are,” Samkiel grunted in my earpiece.

I wouldn’t hurt Samkiel. Besides, I’d burn anyone alive who attempted the same with him.

Ask her what she begged the stars for and what lives now. Ask her what she ripped from the very heavens. And then ask her if she cares. The old blood runs through her veins. The first Ig’Morruthen. He did not care either.”

Then Samkiel… I couldn’t lose him, too. I refused to, so I threatened to burn all the realms in those tunnels, and I meant it. I would destroy everything,

“It went away. Our mark had formed. It burned and sealed and went away. I lost us our mark. That was my price. He’s not mine anymore.”

I’ve lived with you both and heard the way he speaks about you when you aren’t even around. Gods, the way he looks at you. It’s as if you have hung the stars themselves. He’s tied to you now, Dianna. Trust me when I say that you don’t need the mark.”

“I believe I am pretty capable of taking care of her,”

I am feeling… territorial.”

Samkiel truly had no idea the lengths I would go for him and only him.

“There is nothing more important to me than you.”

“Anything you wish, akrai.”

“You’re cute when you’re homicidal.”

Samkiel wanted to do everything with me, and the knowledge healed a fraction of my cold, bruised, damaged heart.

“You know me,” he tapped my nose, “I’ll make it fit.”