#Chapter 14: The Queen

Raven “You will be meeting the Lycan King and Queen today.” Great, I thought as Ember carefully pulled my hair back into two ornate braids, affixing small golden cuffs around the end of each. That was just what I needed; to spend a day having to blend in with people who executed their own. After all, if they executed their own, then that meant that they’d happily execute me if they knew who I really was. The image of Neil lifting that heavy blade over the traitor’s exposed neck, the sound of the family’s screams, the coppery tang of blood in the air… It was still so fresh. And it would remain that way for some time. Castor and the others had explained, after Neil had stormed off during dinner, that what Neil had done was necessary—that the man Neil had executed had attempted to harm the Lycan Queen. And in this country, the punishment for such a crime wasn’t a prison sentence. It was death. I understood why he had done what he’d done, and I cou