The Passionate Queen (Dark Queens Book 2) Read Online Free PDF Page B

twenty minutes at most. I was sure at least an hour had passed.
    Moving down the hall, I peeked into the kitchen and frowned when Hagar was no longer where he’d been. I was just about to go in search of him when I noticed him sitting before my door, one leg sprawled out, and snoring like the groaning of a banshee’s wail.
    It seemed I’d be able to save what bane I still had left for another night. He might be growing a tolerance to the herbs, but for tonight, at least, I was free to go find my dearest, and only friend.
    Blowing out a heavy breath, I eased into my room, snatched up the stupid rocks that’d caused me such pain, and brushing my fingers over the heart-shaped pendant nestled against the hollow of my throat, whispered, “Nyx, Goddess of the Night, embrace me.”
    Immediately I felt the dark tug of shadow wind around me. The magic was not my own, but an enchantment woven through the locket itself.
    One morning, five years ago, I’d woken up to find the bauble threaded through a leather thong and wrapped around my neck. Laying on my chest had been a roll of parchment with the words I’d just whispered written on them.
    I could only assume my fairy godmother had sent it for me. Zerelda had tried to take it from me every day for an entire month. But each time she’d touched it, it’d zapped her. Apart from the fact that she could not remove it from around my neck, she assumed it did nothing more.
    It was an ugly bit of ornamentation. Just a carved bit of gray rock, nothing special to look at. I’d come to suspect that those who meant me harm in any way couldn’t take it off me, because I’d been able to take it off and put it back on at will. A secret I’d not divulged to her.
    For the first year I wore it, just the sight of the rock stirred Zerelda to a frenzy of fury. She’d whip me anytime she spied it. After a while, I’d learned to hide it beneath my gown, and soon, she’d forgotten all about my “ridiculous little bauble.”
    Planting a kiss on the cold stone, I once more tucked it beneath my gown, shoved up the window, and quick as a wink, wiggled through it, dropping to the sodden earth below.
    It’d been raining the past few nights, heavy, horrible rains that’d lashed against the trees like a giant’s hairy fist.
    My toes sank into the mud as I ran, shoving the pain of my ribs aside. If he left, I’d be devastated. I’d be forced to throw away the stones too. I could not run the risk of keeping them on me another day.
    Tonight had been far too close for comfort.
    “Please be there, boy,” I panted as sweat coated my brow, “please be there.”
    ~*~
    Ragoth
    T rue to my word, I’d watched Lena’s home every night for the past three years. I couldn’t believe how quickly our time together had flown, but somehow it had, and every day I grew more and more aware of the fact that I only had her for a few more precious weeks before she was to be handed off to her King of Hearts.
    My heart burned with a hatred that was all-consuming for that man.
    “Why so glum, chum?” Cheshire’s words rippled across my form. I lay in Lena’s and my spot, waiting for her. I’d not wanted to be molested by the foolish denizens of wonderland, but it seemed the cat never quite understood when he wasn’t wanted.
    I pierced him with my gaze, but he chuckled.
    “Were I a man, I do fear I’d have been boiled in my socks, but I am simply a cat and have not the sense to be afraid, I’m afraid.” His face winked out of existence, leaving only a body and tail that swished back and forth.
    Grumpy, I sighed, belching a layer of steam against the tree trunk he rested on, causing the bark to singe just slightly.
    “I wish to roast and eat the King of Hearts, but I cannot do it because then my Lena would hate me . ”
    I’d told him more than I’d intended to say, but then again, I had no one to speak of this with. My family still had no idea that I was traveling between dimensions to visit a woman who