The Hated (Sleeping With Monsters Book 3) (18 page)

Railan reached into a pocket of his robe and pulled out a jar, unscrewing its lid, to dip in his fingers. He slicked something on Zaan’s cock, and then pressed his hand to my dark place, greasing me there. I gasped as he leaned forward. “My final kindness to you, my unwedded Queen.” He waved his other hand and the song started up again, as he walked back out of sight.

Servants on either side started rowing the throne forward, as others spun more wheels, all the better to align my pussy with Zaan’s cock. As much as I wanted him to be alive again, I didn’t want it like this – with singing servants on either side, and all of the council waiting at my back. I closed my eyes and bit my lip and tried not to gasp as his coldness pressed in.

His name was on my lips but I managed not to say it. I tilted myself as the servants rowed me fractionally back and forth, my dark place taking more of his cock in each time. He was so hard now it hurt, but that didn’t matter – what mattered was getting him inside me, so that together our magic would flow out.

“My King,” I said, as the servants pushed me forward again, and I winced. “My love –“ I whispered, only for him, on their next thrust.

With a final push, we sealed, his chill cock settled inside and I squeezed it tight with my dark place, just as I’d told him I would.

“Live, my King,” I commanded, and let my magic burst out.

Color returned to Zaan in an instant, and he sagged forward against my throne. They’d aligned that part perfectly, his mouth fell against my neck, and I felt the heat of his warm breath. “Is it you?” I felt more than heard him say.

“It is,” I answered just as low.

He bit down then, and I gasped, pulling at him inside of me. He leaned on the throne and took two more thrusts, while filling himself with my blood. I could almost hear the councilmen waiting for the moment of my death, imagining them leaning forward in their seats – as Zaan raked his hands through the chains at my side, freeing me.

“Let’s show them how we will rule, my Queen,” he said, pulling back and out of me, lips stained with my blood in a cruel smile, before turning into smoke.

Chapter Seventeen

I heard the sounds of the battle begin behind me before I could turn. I leaned forward to undo the chains at my ankles, as the heads of servants rolled on the ground – I could see the metal inside, just like Zaan said there’d be – and he’d already winnowed half the first row of councilmen -- soon the heads of Jallisan, Oinan, and Bronan rolled on the ground beside their slaves.

I leapt down from the throne, turned towards the room, and Railan’s power buffeted me like a wall. “You were supposed to die, girl!”

The force of it stunned me and I staggered back until I hit the pedestal where Zaan had been. Feeling its cold stone behind me reminded me of all he’d done to others of my kind – I unleashed a torrent of rage at him. It twinkled in the air between us like fire.

“I hate you!” I screamed.

His surprise was evident on his face as he tried to stand against my onslaught. Zaan’s mercilessness continued, disappearing and reappearing to crush skulls and break necks.

“My people are through, Ilylle! Shield them!” Yzin shouted. Others of his kind realized his deception and fell on him as he stepped back.

I sought out Zaan’s marker with my mind, until I saw a group of men and women surrounded by waist-high zoomers, the size that’d moved Zaan’s statue. Their paws opened up and instead of dusters and sewing implements, weaponry came out, and they began lashing bullets at them.

I screamed in horror – and flung a hand out. In an instant, they were covered in a bubble of safety, though I could feel every time the bullets hit my wall.

“Ilylle!” Zaan said, reforming near me.

“Keep fighting!” I commanded, and he disappeared again.

Railan lifted his hands to the ceiling. “I’m not losing twenty-thousand years of life to you –“ he shouted, and it started raining fire.

I threw a shield out to protect myself, feeling divided – it was like one of my eyes watched the growing chaos around me as the councilmen fought against Zaan, while the other watched Yzin’s people struggle against the zoomers. Their progress was slow – the zoomers were relentless, as was Railan’s onslaught – without thinking about it, I pulled them
here
.

They reformed in the middle of the chamber, their own weapons out, still under the protection of my shield. In seconds, bullets ricocheted around the room.

Up until that moment, the council hadn’t realized they were fighting for their lives. Surprised by the change of events and weakened from waiting for my power, they’d responded slowly – but now I felt them attacking me. A wall of wind rushed through the room and put Railan’s fires out, but took all the air with it, trying to choke me – I fought back and forced the room to breathe. Intolerable heat welled up from the ground, and set the throne on fire, but I changed my shield to keep Yzin’s fighters cool, as decapitated servant bodies melted on the ground.

Everything slowed. All I could manage was defense as tidal waves of magic buffeted the room. I wasn’t fast enough once and a soldier’s arm vaporized outside my protection – she screamed, as I screamed at seeing it – and all my walls wavered.

“Keep going!” Yzin ordered from his corner of the room, where two councilmen beset him. They were pressing in and –

“No!” I shouted as one of them sheathed a knife in Yzin’s stomach. “No! No! No!”

The room became electrified around me. The bodies that remained all flew up, as did the councilmen and soldiers, everyone that was left inside the chamber. “No!” I shouted, putting an end to anyone’s magic still inside the room. Everyone, everything, dropped. The soldiers recovered before the few remaining councilmen did, and fell on them. The sounds of gunshot echoed in the chamber and rang down all the Feather Palace’s halls, as I ran to Yzin’s side. “Let me heal you –“ I fell to kneeling and reached for his wound.

Zaan reformed beside me in a moment, placing his hand on my shoulder.

Yzin grunted. “Don’t worry. I remember my promise, Zaibann. I wouldn’t have gone through with this if I wasn’t prepared to die.”

“But – it’s not fair –“ I began.

“It is. No one should live as long as I have.” Yzin looked past me. “Elissa!”

The soldier whose arm had been vaporized stepped up – her other arm still held a metal gun. So many things I had only read about, only to now see them all. “The men taking Railan’s compound haven’t checked in yet, Sir.”

Yzin made another groaning sound, this time in anger. “Is he dead?” I looked around the carnage of the room, the pools of metal, blood, and ash. I couldn’t tell what was what anymore, but I felt inside my bones that he was not among their number.

“No. I marked him while we were fighting,” Zaan said, before I could voice my concern. “I can feel him moving –“

Yzin’s face went whiter. “Both of you, go after him now – I’m sure he has backup plans – if he wakes and kills another clone, it just might be enough –“

Zaan stepped back, half of him twisting to smoke. “I can’t take you my way.”

I put my hand out for Zaan’s and caught it before he changed. “But I can take you mine. Show me where to go.”

My King looked from my hand to me and then I felt the knowledge of his marker wash in.

Chapter Eighteen

We reappeared together inside a metal hall. Zaan went to smoke in an instant and I whirled to look at our surroundings.

The walls were lined with what looked like human-sized jars. And in each of them was a different version of me. Some of them were half-formed, others floating groups of organs held together by tenuous tissue, and still others looked ready to breathe.

I spun, surrounded by horrors.

“Do you grasp your true nature now, my Queen?” Railan taunted, his voice piped in overhead. I couldn’t feel his marker anymore, I didn’t know where he was. “And you thought you could trace me, Zaibann? Please. I have not forgotten your skills since the time I saw you last.”

Zaan reformed beside me, his expression dark. “You need to get out of here, Ilylle. Go back.”

“Not until everything inside this room is destroyed.” I threw my power against the nearest glass jar. It cracked, and a lifeless girl who looked like me slid out in a rush of foul smelling liquid.

“How will you control Aranda, Ilylle?” Railan taunted. His voice traveled now, as though he were walking the perimeter of the room. “You’re just a concept, a name. No one’s ever seen you – there’s even a religion that posits that you don’t exist. That’s how little you matter to them.”

“I will rule better than you have!” I shattered another glass, and organs unspooled onto the floor.

“How do you know? Because Yzin told you so? That ignorant fool?”

“Come out and fight me, Railan!” Zaan yelled.

“Why should I, when I don’t have to?” Railan said, and around us, machinery thrummed. The same sound I heard-felt when I stepped into the dream-cradle, just as it turned on. “How do you think I keep them all docile and waiting?”

“Ilylle!” Zaan warned, before turning to smoke.

“No!” I surged my power out and shook the walls, and the vats around me broke with the force of it, gallons of fluid and tissues souping the floor. But past that, the cradle-apparatus ate my power up, and kept draining. My anger created a vast power inside of me, but it wasn’t endless. “Zaan –“ I turned, looking for him to regather, but he was still gone. “Zaan?”

The door in front of me opened, revealing Railan standing inside. “My disruptor ate your Zaibann – and you won’t be far behind.”

It felt like it was cutting the parts of me that were most
me
out with a hot blade – or maybe that was just the loss of Zaan. “How will you live forever without me – without them?” I gestured to the remnants of all the other clones on the floor.

“I can make a few other girls easily enough. Harvest them young, now that I’m only feeding myself,” he said with a shrug. He made a gesture, the thrumming got louder, and I fell to my knees in the gory slush.

“And Aranda?” I asked, trying to hold parts of
myself
in.

“We’ll use old images of you. No one need ever know the truth, not for another hundred years.”

“Someone will find out the truth. Someone will stop you.”

“Once you’re gone, my Queen, no one will know.” He made another gesture and the disruptor’s onslaught doubled. I fell face down in the sloshing liquid, utterly bereft of strength. I closed my eyes, exhaled my last breath and inhaled wetly, fully expecting to drown.

Instead, I found that I could breathe. I floated in the waters, buoyed up just as my stillborn sisters had been, suspended inside all of their jars. I wondered what this strange liquid surrounding me was – blood, birthing fluid, tears? Whatever it was sheltered me now, holding me safe and protected like a hand.

I’d taken my own life for granted for three hundred years – and then I’d complained and fought against it. My sisters here had never had that chance, half-formed, stunted, trapped by Railan. But I could feel them striving as they wrapped around me, trying to
become
.

I was enveloped in a slow moving consciousness that was abundantly me. Everything around me a part of myself -- and I was a piece of all of it. I gave myself over to it, and together we were more powerful than Railan could have ever imagined.

“Sisters, come,” I willed into the water, and they answered me. Arms and legs, livers and hearts, a slurry of everything that could have been Airelle or Ilylle, and everything that never was – skin and tissue and bone pressing together, joining.

I would have thought that it would hurt, but instead it felt like coming home.

Welcome
.

Welcome
.

Welcome
.

Things sparked. Hearts beat. Muscles moved. Blood flowed.

We formed into something absolutely other that was still precisely who we were – possessed of one wide body, six arms, eight legs, and twenty beating hearts. We rose from the murk as one as Railan sank back in horror.

“Railan, you have eons of evil to answer for,” three voices spoke from three separate heads, and I didn’t know or care which one was mine.

“How can you – what are you –“ His voice rose in panic. The thrumming of the disruptor increased, I felt it buffeting the outer layers of our skin, but we were too much for it. With all our powers combined we were the endless well that would never be drained – and before he could close the door, we crawled up the stairs to drag him down to our level.

The disruptor’s full force hit him and he screamed, dwindling before our eyes. “Off! Off!” he shouted, and his hidden machinery obeyed.

“We are Airelle,” we told him as one.

“No -- you’re dead – you all should be dead!” he said, thrashing inside our six-armed grasp.

“The one who should be dead is you,” we said, and started to pull.

“Ilylle!” Zaan reformed beside us as he shouted our name.

We hesitated and looked down, and I saw Zaan through six different eyes. “You live,” I said, and my single heart thrilled to see him.

“I do,” he said, looking up at what I currently was, mystified. “Because of your blood in me. The disruptor tried to pull me apart, but I knew where I belonged. You were my anchor.”

“She’s a monster now, Zaibann, surely you can see that! The thing you love has become the creature I feared!” Railan shouted, as he struggled in our grasp.

“You are what we have feared, for twenty-thousand years,” we said, and began to squeeze again.

“No,” Zaan shook his head, putting his hand on my nearest arm. “Not like this. Killing him is too easy. You know what we need to do.” He gave me a knowing look, and I remembered Airelle, my progenitor, myself.

“Yes,” we answered, with three separate mouths. We wheeled the bulk of our body back and crawled up through the door into the next room with Railan still in our arms. Halfway up he gathered our intent.

“No – do not -- I beg of you –“ He twisted his head back. “Zaibann, this is not all of them – I kept a pure cell line, I’ve been holding it in reserve, should the copies degenerate. I could make the very image of your Airelle – she’d be the most perfect copy I’ve ever done – like your love in word, in thought, in deed! If you kill me, she dies as well, forgotten anew!” His voice rose and broke as he pleaded, and beside us Zaan stiffened. “All you have to do is kill the monster!” Railan shrieked.