The Bastard Queen (Viciously Yours #2)

Blinking wearily, I groaned at the throbbing pain that seemed to be my whole body. With one eye swollen shut and the bones in my left shin shattered, I didn’t have the energy to lift my head. Staring down at my body, the sight and smell of my own burnt flesh was enough to twist my stomach into knots. The contents of my stomach which had been a piece of plain toast, a scoop of dry oats and half a glass of water lay splatter against the floor below me.

Fearghas had been working me over for what felt like around six hours with all the different elements. He started with earth, battering me with rock after rock before finally slamming one repeatedly against my shin. Next were animals, where I received the delightful experience of being bitten by every kind of animal he could find in the Alaskan mountains. After that was metal and then finally fire, where he turned up the heat in the room until I was dehydrated before burning me.

The one thing he hadn’t done yet was use water or wind, probably because the mother fucker wasn’t that imaginative. Or at least that’s what I liked to think because he sure as hell didn’t like it when I mentioned it. Fearghas had stormed out saying he’d be back with something special for me. Although, how much more special our time together could get? I wouldn’t know. Pictures of balloons and cake that said ‘Kill You Later’ caused me to wheeze out a low laugh.

Pain rickochet through my lungs and ribs like a ping pong ball making it harder to breathe. My arms had long since gone numb from being pulled high above my head in opposite directions. I barely twitched at the sound of the only door in the room screeching open followed by the sound of sharp clicks. With my one good eye, I tried to squint through the curtain my hair had created to see what Fearghas had brought. But my hair was too long and I was too weak to lift my head in curiosity.

The clicks got closer followed by what I now recognized as cloth dragging over stone. A pair of deep purple heels stopped inches from my vomit and the pale feet that wore them made me want to vomit all over again. My tiny exhales became visible as the temperature in the chamber dropped drastically. Chills raised the unburnt flesh of my body but the heat of my rage kept me from shivering. Wrapping my hands firmly around the chains, I took a deep breath and pushed away everything but the rage I felt.

With a new resource of energy, I lifted my head with a grin, “Queen Cunt of the Unseelie, what a pleasure.”

Hard purple eyes narrowed as she looked me over with distaste plainly on her face, “Five hundred years and you still haven’t learned any manners.”

“Spend most of your life in a prison and you find out pretty quick that aggression gets you everywhere.” I replied, forcing a casual shrug.

“I should’ve killed you the moment you took your first breath. Froze you like the little weed you are.”

Rocking forward, I whispered, “Or maybe you should’ve just kept your legs closed.”

The crack of her hand against my cheek had my head snapping in line with my left shoulder. A dull throb started up from the hit as I turned back to her with a laugh, “Divines. Put your back into. You even hit like a bitch.”

Mab’s red lips twisted into a cruel smile,“Why are you still fighting? The people hate you, your so-called subjects hate you. No one is coming to save you.”

“Then it’s a good thing I wasn’t hoping for a rescue.”

“You’re a speck in the history books. You have no loved ones.” She continued, purple eyes calculating. “Your abilities are laughable. A loveless, useless Bastard that never amounted to anything more than a punching bag.”

Feeling my heart spasm, I smirked, “Funny. You forgot how I built and became Queen of an entire Kingdom.”

Purple eyes turned harder than the ice accumulating in the corners of the room, “You were Queen of nothing. A Bastard ruling over outcasts and criminals is not a Queen or Kingdom.”

“Ooo, that hurt.” I mockingly sneered. “Or at least it would if it wasn’t coming from a murdering tyrant ruling over snobs easier to turn than a page.”

We stared each other down until her unruffled facade completely shattered and her hand snapped out to wrap around my throat. Mouth twisting into a cruel scowl, she hissed, “Why do you bother to live? Give in. Beg. And I’ll put you down like the sniveling rodent you are.”

Gazing at her through my one good eye, I couldn’t help but laugh hysterically.

Mab’s purple brows pulled together as she watched me and took her hand away from my throat. An icicle formed in her pale hand but it did nothing to stop my laughter. Not even when she drove it straight into my gut and willed the ice to spread over my bare stomach. My skin turned icy before going numb and then finally settled into a tingling burning sensation that was even more painful than one would guess.

Her icy hands gripped the sides of my face while I continued to wheeze out a laugh. I could feel the skin of my jaw cracking and tightening as it climbed higher. With a film of ice building over my damaged eye, I painfully forced my frozen lungs to work enough to say, “I...refuse...to not...outlive...your prehistoric ass..”

With my expression frozen and ice closing over my good eye, the last thing I saw were her hands coming towards me with a sharp blade of ice before my entire face felt like it was on fire.

Jerking upright with a cry, I shoved blindly at the weight holding me down and scrambled backwards. Hands pressed against my face, I pulled my knees up to my chest and panted against the pain. The skin of my palms brushed against raw muscle that burned at the slightest touch and coded my hands in blood. Shivering at the low temperature of the room, I tried to keep my tangled hair from getting stuck to my mutilated face.

“Macha, it’s Cillian. You were having a nightmare but you’re okay. You’re here with me. We’re in my tent, in your army’s camp. You are not in Slykhelm.”

Eyes staring at the way my blood splattered hands were shaking, I distantly felt the concrete underneath me shift before I started rocking.

A rasp of breath echoed around the chamber, “Can you drop your hands, Cell Bait? If you look around, you’ll see that you’re not in danger.”

Pausing at what the voice was saying, I cautiously looked through the cracks in my fingers to see black fur tangled around my ankles instead of chains. The temperature in the room rose as I turned my head the tiniest degree to the left and saw that the walls were made of fabric. Moving slowly, I raised my head from between my knees and dropped my hands a fraction to see. Cillian sat before me with a calm expression, waiting for me to fall back into reality.

Eyes widening, I looked back at my hands to find them unbloodied and shot off the bed. Breath escaping from my chest in large gusts of air, I sprinted towards the bathing area and ripped the small mirror off the privacy divider. Turning my back to the rest of the room, I held the mirror close to my face with one hand and pressed the other to my skin. Smushing my cheeks and feeling the rest of my skin securely attached to my face, I sunk to my knees in relief.

Sucking in air to catch my breath, I ran my gaze over my reflection continuously until I noticed Cillian in the top right corner. Silver eyes watched me from a few feet behind me, the features of his face were tight and hard to read. Feeling exposed, I couldn’t help my gut reaction and went rigid. Fingers tightening around the mirror, I yanked my eyes from his as the glass shattered. Tossing the broken mirror in a random direction, I got to my feet and walked right past him without a word.

Scanning the room, I stalked over to the desk and grabbed my tunic hanging off the chair. Shrugging it on, I pulled my hair free and fixed the way the tunic landed around my waist. Turning, I looked over the room again and furrowed my brows when I couldn’t see where I’d flung my pants. Huffing, I gave the room another look over but slower in case I had missed them.

“So, you’re just going to leave?”

Stepping back, I peered under the desk, “That is what I’m trying to do.”

“Why?”

“I don’t appreciate being pitied so I think it’s best if I just leave.” I replied, moving towards the right side of the bed.

“I wasn’t pitying you.”

Flipping the furs back on the bed aggressively, I snapped, “I saw your face.”

Snatching up the furs, he pulled them back over the bed from the other side, “That wasn’t pity, Cell Bait. It was frustration.”

“I’m soooo sorry my nightmares are annoying you.” I raged, finally looking at him while ripping the furs back down the bed.

His jaw clenched as his eyes narrowed, “I was frustrated because I thought I’d finally figured out how to stop your nightmares.”

“You were ex-peri-menting on me?” I demanded a twitch building beneath my eye.

Yanking the furs up towards the pillows, he placed a knee on the bed and clearly enunciated, “No. But sometimes you don’t have nightmares for a couple of nights, so I was just trying to see if it was because you slept a certain way.”

“My nightmares aren’t any of your concern, so why don’t you mind your own business.”

“Did you forget you are my business?”

Grabbing a pillow, I threw it at his annoying face, “Don’t make me like you right now, Cillian. I’m pissed off that you think I need to be fixed.”

“I never said that.”

“Well, that’s what it felt like.”

Taking a deep breath, Lilly’s hands flexed around the pillow I threw at him before saying, “I don’t care about your nightmares, Macha. I don’t care that you toss and turn because of them. And I don’t care if you attack me when I try to wake you up, I can handle all that. What I can’t handle is how they make you feel after. It obviously takes a large emotional toll on you and I can tell that you’d wish they’d stop. So that’s what I was trying to do.”

After letting his words sink in, I reluctantly relented. Sighing heavily, I flopped onto the bed with a groan and kicked my legs a little bit in annoyance.“When did you get so considerate while I’m the ungrateful bitch?”

“You’re not a-” Shooting him a look, he continued, “Okay, you are a bitch but you’re also going through a lot right now.”

Snorting, I rolled onto my side to look at him, “I’m sorry for shutting down on you but if you want to try something involving me or my sleeping patterns you need to ask.”

“That’s fair. I guess I’ve gotten a little too used to making decisions for you.” He replied, looking a little embarrassed.

Giving the silver haired giant a smile, I shrugged, “You’re more than welcome to in the bedroom, Your Highness. But just the bedroom.”

“One one condition…It’s ‘Your Majesty’ or nothing.”

Laughing at the way he tilted his chin up snottily, I pushed myself over the side of the bed and started rooting around for what I had stashed earlier, “You look like that no-named butler we met at the O’Murphy and O’Sullivans Estate.”

“You better take that back.” He rumbled.

“No way, No-Named.”

Yelping, I gripped the wooden bed frame with one hand as Cillian tried to yank me back towards him, “Lilly, wait!”

“Not a chance. You’re going to take that back, Peasant.”

Fingers scraping the bottle, I snagged it right as Cillian dragged me across the mattress. A pair of callused hands grabbed my bare hips and flipped me over to face him only to get a face full of brown liquid sloshing around in a clear bottle.

“What the hell is that?”

Wiggling out of his hold, I stood on the mattress before jumping to the floor beside him, “The finest damn chocolate wine you’ll ever have.”

Lilly eyed it like it was going to leap out of the bottle and drown him, “You made this?”

“Mmmhhh.” I hummed, swishing the bottle in his face with a grin. “It was hit and miss the first couple of times I made it but I really got it down after I added a little more sugar.”

“Cell Bait. You don’t cook.” Cillian replied like he was telling me something I didn’t already know.

Bouncing on my toes, I shook the bottle, “But this isn’t cooking, it’s mixing. Try it.”

“I don’t know…”

“Oh come on, Lilly! Just try it! You’ll like it, I promise!”

He eyed me for a long moment but my big grin must have convinced him because the next thing I knew, he was reluctantly reaching for the bottle.

Vibrating in excitement, I jerked the bottle to my mouth, sharpened my teeth and ripped the cork out before pushing it into his hand. Wide eyed and full of anxiety, I watched as he slowly brought the long necked bottle to his lips. Lilly’s silver eyes shot to mine and I motioned for him to take a sip that he took cautiously. Full lips pursing, Cillian’s sharp features contorted at the first taste of the chocolate wine.

“Wellllll, what do you think?”

Licking his lips, silver eyes roamed between me and the bottle, “Are you sure, you made this?”

Punching him in the arm, I snagged the bottle out of his grip and took a delicious sip. Stepping back to keep the bottle out of his reach, I scrambled back onto the bed to sit down cross legged. Following my lead, Cillian took up a criss-cross applesauce position half on top of the furs across from me.

“Alright, it’s good. Now hand it back, it’s my turn again.”

Laughing, I took another swig before replying, “Let’s play a game. For every question answered we take a sip and for every question skipped we take three. You in?”

“Yes. I’ll go first.”

“Okay.”

“How and when did you die the first time?”

Heaving out a huge sigh, I rolled my eyes, “Can’t we just have sex again?”

“Macha.”

“Lilly.”

Huffing, I crawled my way over to his side and smushed the side of his head against my flat chest. With my hand on the side of his jaw, I tipped his head up and answered his question at last, “I did a death deal with Afric. I wish I could say I needed the deal at the time but it was really just for thrills. We were dead for, i don’t know, around ten minutes?”

“Macha, how could you be so-”

Seeing the dip of his silver brows deepening, I lifted the bottle and shoved it between his lips. His voice turned muffled as he drank the sugared wine I was forcefully pouring down his throat. I counted to five and then pulled the bottle away.

“For what possible reason would you think-”

Oop, I thought, putting the bottle back to his lips and patting his head. Not yet. When he took another three sips, I pulled the bottle away and waited.

Blinking hard, he turned his head a little more into my chest to see me better, “Did you say something about sex?”

Laughing, I started chugging to catch up.

—

Gotta say y’all....I’m really not liking Mab, not that I did to begin with. That little visit from Mab had even me surprised by Machas strength and wrote it. Lol. Btw, Macha and Lilly reminded me of a college kids in this chapter. They’re so playful, it’s too cute.

As always, feel free to comment on the chapter if you enjoyed it! Silent readers thank you for reading, I appreciate y’all too.

Smooches, Verbage💋