Page 3 of Their Rejected Queen

The one around my ankle is next. The blasted iron has been chaffing against my skin, resulting in a blister that I’ve been treating with one of my vials.

The meager light from the stairs is blocked out again as the captain surveys the scene. I strain to see if I can hear the women in the background, but they must already be off the ship by now.

There is a loud thumping. Are those waves?

Or men?

Or… something else?

“Hurry it up,” the captain barks as the henchman works on Sofia’s lock next. I can’t act until she’s free, because she’s coming with me.

I don’t know when I decided that.

It’s just what’s going to happen, because the alternative makes my stomach sour just to think about.

She winces when her chain drops from her overly swollen ankle. She probably broke it when she had one of her nightmares. It’s normal to get them when leaving the Elite City.

I’ve been using magic to keep them at bay.

Sofia refused my tonics, but I have been using enough on her while she slept so that her wound didn’t get infected. Not enough for the withdrawal nightmares, though. She seems to need them. I can respect that.

Sofia might play her part well, but she’s stronger than she realizes.

Glancing up, I take stock of the captain as he eyes me like I’m a piece of meat he wants to tear into. Prey would flinch away from his inhuman gaze, but I don’t.

He raises an eyebrow.

“You’re going to the companion auction first,” he says with a cruel smile that shows off his strangely long canines. His eyes are completely white, and they seem soulless as he peers right through me.

By “companion,” I’m sure he means sex slave. I expect this is a black-market operation. Cain, our King from the Elite City, would never allow this kind of trade.

But maybe out on these isles, he doesn’t have as much control as I would have liked.

In the Elite City, I always had Cain’s protective presence, which he offered to all of his human flock. But here, all I can feel is the pounding of my heart against my chest and the lightness of my limbs now that the chain is finally gone.

I’m not for sale, I repeat inside my head. I don’t bother to say it aloud.

Actions speak much louder than words anyway.

Rushing the henchman, I snatch the dagger hanging like a temptation from his waist and scream as I shred my way through the stairwell. I’m a fourth of the size of the captain, but I don’t need to overpower him.

Just surprise him and then get the hell out.

And thanks to the few drops of magic I digested moments earlier, I won’t pass out in the process.

The captain seems to be successfully startled, because a guttural sound of pain escapes him as he buckles to the side, just enough for me to squeeze through.

“Come on!” I yell at Sofia. I grab her wrist and brush past the captain, only to be yanked back hard when Sofia jerks to a halt.

I swipe the dagger at the hand holding her hostage, earning another growl of pain from the henchman this time as I force Sofia and myself through a net of claws and growls.

We’ll never be hostages again.

“What’s the plan?” Sofia whisper-yells as we emerge on deck. I don’t stop to scan our surroundings. I’ve already mapped the entire ship based on the sounds of boots, the clank of chains, and the way the waves wash over the slanted boards.

“Run,” I instruct.

“Run where?” she asks, her voice squeaky with panic.