The Queen of All that Lives (The Fallen World, #3)

by Laura Thalassa

Monsters will be monsters. Why I thought mine was any different, I cannot say.

I am a thing made of lace and blood. Swathed in silk and dripping with the dark deeds of men. I suppose I’m finally clothed accordingly.

“Why do you think I wanted you in the first place? Death in a dress. That’s what you were when you descended down those stairs in Geneva. I knew you’d either redeem me or you’d kill me.”

It’s not anger that’s riding me now. It’s a hurt so vast I can’t see any end to it. I could fit entire galaxies into the space it’s carved out for itself inside me.

“You don’t like having an audience when you feel weak.” My throat constricts at that. This man can be so cruel yet so considerate.

She and I are love and war. Peace and violence. I have taught her how to be a worse person, and she’s taught me how to be a better one. I fuel her hate, and she fuels my love.

A wicked man with a decent heart. That is the worst sort of combo.

“What is the name of this room?” I ask, taking it all in. “The game room.” I smile at the name. “The king and his games,” I muse, stepping inside. “I’m surprised the game room and the map room aren’t the same.”

Hand it to the king to think of the most creative way to shut me up.

“I see you’re still fluent in threats,” I say because I can’t help myself.

He corks the bottle. “That’s all life really is—an elaborate game of luck and strategy.”

distant. “When you live without someone for as long I have, love becomes this abstract concept, something you attach to a memory. And when memories are that old, they feel like dreams, and you wonder if any of it was real, or if your mind created it all.”

I know all about broken things. I came from a broken house, and a broken land full of broken people. I have a broken soul and a broken heart. This man doesn’t know it, but all his cracks align with mine.

The king throws me a lethal glare. “It’s not safe,” he says, returning his attention to Marco. “You act like you’re not married to the most dangerous one of us,” Marco says.

I pull my attention back to the matter at hand. Thirteen representatives, but only twelve identities. That’s more than a little odd. “Why don’t we know the identity of the thirteenth representative?” Montes reaches forward and hooks his hand underneath my seat. With surprisingly little effort, he drags my chair forward until I’m sitting between those splayed legs of his. My eyes are level with his crotch. “Forcing me to look at your dick is not going to help me learn who the representatives are,” I say.

“I didn’t marry you because you were a pretty thing. I married you because you were a wicked one.”

Sometimes I get so swept up in his dominance plays that I forget he’s just a broken man trying to save his broken woman.

Lying is a terrible thing, but it is better than violence, and when it has the power to end a war, it can even be admirable.

She’s war and peace and love and hate. She’s my death and my salvation,