The Queen's Conquer

Chapter 48 : Wicked Games

Maltalent • [mull-tail-lent]
The negative emotions of wanting injury or harm to befall someone; a hostile behavior or attitude towards someone considered an enemy.

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~ Samuel ~

I'm blind.

Correction: this room I've woken up in is void of any light.

As I attempt to regain my bearings—and remember why I'm here—, an involuntary shiver runs through my body. My palms press into whatever cold surface I've been laying on for Goddess knows how long, and after a moment of thinking, I notice it's made of stone. Or rock. I can't seem to tell at this point.

I sit up, realizing my head is pounding for some unnatural reason. And as I flex my hands and sore joints and limbs, I feel exactly why that is.

My blood is drowning in wolfsbane.

Fuck, I'm barely able to sense my surroundings. There's only ever been one other occurrence in my life when I experienced the poisonous substance firsthand. When I was enduring my brutal trainee years, we had a month where we were injected with a small dose of the weakening liquid every day. It was meant to help the warriors build immunity towards it, as my trainer had explained to us.

Sure, it did prove to be effective, but damn, it was hell. Just like now.

The month-long conditioning could've never prepared me for something like this—a dose this strong.

I feel around the dark, damp space for a wall or anything other than the floor, crawling like a moron until I finally find a vertical surface. Using nearly all of the strength left in my bones, I pull myself up, grunting and struggling just to get on my feet. 

"Don't bother," a quiet voice says from what sounds to be the other side of this unfamiliar room. Xander.

I collapse back on my knees out of shock, groaning as my bones are forced to collide with the hard ground.

"Xan?" I eventually ask for confirmation. Without my enhanced smelling or hearing because of the wolfsbane, it's difficult to tell if my mind is playing tricks on me or not.

"I'm here," he says, his voice hushed and seeming weak. I release a heavy breath I didn't realize was clogging up my lungs, eased by the fact that he's alive—that he's breathing and conscious after getting shot with silver bullets.

"Are you alright?" I say, trying to follow the sound of his voice so I can reach him.

"Sore as hell," he grumbles. "But yeah, I'm fine."

"What about your—?"

"Someone took them out," he answers before I can finish.

They healed him and took out the bullets?

"They helped you?" I ask, dumbfounded by such a possibility.

"Apparently," he says, a muffled grunt escaping his lips as he sounds as though he's readjusting himself against the wall.

I shuffle closer, eventually finding one of his legs. His hand latches onto my wrist, and just by the frail feeling of his grip, I can tell he's also been drugged up, too. Or that may be because of the fact that he jumped at the opportunity to kill Markus and paid the price with those fatal bullets.

"You're a fucking idiot, you know that?" I chuckle.

"Yeah," he says with slight humor in his tone. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have—"