All Chapters of A Queen Among Darkness: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

The pain becomes too much, and I begin to scream and wail; agony ripping through my body like knives as images of my family trapped inside, screaming for their lives filter through my mind, and me nowhere to be seen. I failed to protect them. I was meant to be their protector and I let them down. My mother, my father, my sweet little sister and my uncle… my uncle. I look over at Manon, hatred and disgust burning through me hotter than the flames burning my world to the ground, “You killed your own animai. He was a good man who did nothing but love you!” I shout. “A weak, pathetic man who stood in my way. You were gifted power you don’t deserve, that power should be mine, and no animai was going to stand in my way. I will endure the pain of his death because it frees me of our bond,” she says with dark satisfaction. “If you wanted to kill me, then you should have just killed me. They were innocent!” “Collateral damage. I couldn’t risk them saving you, and yet here you are, the thor

I must have fallen asleep on the couch because I’m suddenly woken up by the sound of a scream. I’ve heard more than my fair share of screams in my life, having been the cause of most of them, but this one sent a chill through my spine, straight to the core of my very being, and instantly made my stomach drop. Adrenaline pumps through me and I immediately become alert. I leap off the couch and run to the sound of Isolde's screams. I find her on the kitchen floor clutching her chest with her face contorted in pain. The sight of it has fear propelling through me in a way I’ve never felt before and I drop to my knees sliding across the tiles and cup her face in my hands, feeling that familiar static shoot through me. My instinct right now is to panic, but I push it down and try to remain calm as I let my training take over and quickly scan the room for any signs of an attacker. “Izzy? Izzy, speak to me, what’s happening?” I urge her to answer, as she struggles to gasp for air. I should

“Hey, wait for me!” I shout, quickly wrapping the tablet back in the cloth and locking it back in the chest. I race after Valeria with great difficulty since this stupid bullet graze continues to restrict some of my movements, I think it went a little deeper than originally thought. I really need to ask Alaric to heal it at some point, even though I hate asking him for help. I catch up to Valeria who smirks her sexy smirk at me. Thankfully she’s not mad at me anymore, which is a huge relief. I nearly called her my animai and would have had to go into the whole explanation that our souls are magically bonded, and I’m just not ready for that. As far as she has come and as open-minded as she is becoming these days, I’m scared the moment she learns magic is responsible for this connection we have, she’ll become enraged and leave me. A week ago I planned to reject her and now the thought of her running away terrifies me. Valeria is the first good thing to happen in my life in centuries, a

“I totally got us off track, didn’t I?”I chuckle, “A little, but it was worth it.” I kiss her and reluctantly roll off her.She sighs and sits up grabbing her towel. She gets up and uses the towel to clean herself up. Remind me not to ever turn her on around people with advanced senses of smell. I don’t want anyone smelling my woman’s arousal.Valeria dumps the towel on the floor and faces me in all her naked glory with her hands on her hips, “Okay, dress me.” I slowly sit up and rake my eyes over every curve of her body. Fuck dressing her, right now I just want her to ride my face. “Hello, earth to Izzy,” she says, waving her hands in front of my face.“Huh?” I say, snapping out of my erotic thoughts.She smirks, “I know I look amazing, but you can’t keep me naked forever.”“I actually could you know.”Valeria straightens up and just stares at me before shaking her head, “Okay, so as erotic as that sounds, we have a missing prophecy to go find, so do your magic thing and get me dres

Walking through the streets we come past a merchant selling fragosika. This cactus fruit thrives on the Aegean islands and the island of Symi. I’ve had them before and found them very delicious as long as you don’t eat the skin. The merchant walks up to us cuts the prickly peach-coloured pear into segments and hands them to us. I pull out twenty euros from my pocket and hand them to him encouraging him to keep the change. “What is it?” Valeria asks as she sniffs the fruit. “It’s called fragosika, it’s a cousin to the dragon fruit only this is very sweet. Try it,” I encourage as I bite into the tasty fruit. Valeria gives it a tentative lick, and I try not to laugh. She bites into it and then smiles happily, “This is really good!” “Maybe we can take some home with us,” I suggest as we finish our fruit and continue our journey through the long winding streets, “Speaking of home…” “Uh oh, I don’t like that tone.” “It’s nothing bad, it’s just… well you have to go home eventually. You