Hive Queen by Sinclair, Grayson (ereader iphone .TXT) 📗

When dinner was over, Gill and Makenna volunteered for first watch while I turned in to get some sleep. I crawled into my tent, but as I lay back on my pillow, the emptiness kept me awake. It was the first time I’d slept alone since being freed from my prison, and I couldn’t stand it.

Though the trees rustled, and the nocturnal animals chittered away happily, I couldn’t help but feel completely alone. I tossed and turned for a few minutes before I sighed and got up out of my tent.

I peered out of the tent where Gil and Makenna were chatting happily close to each other next to the fire. “Hey, Gil,” I called out.

He turned at my voice and smiled. “Whatcha need, Eris?”

“I’m sorry to ask, but would it be okay if Kenna slept with me tonight?”

He laughed, his baritone voice rumbling to echo through the forest. “Can’t sleep without someone next to you, I get it. But who’re you missing more, Duran or the kids?”

“Both,” I answered honestly.

Gil thumbed over to Makenna. “She’d poison me in my sleep if I spoke for her, ask her—“

She smacked Gil playfully on the arm. “Only when you deserve it, you big lughead,” she replied, leaning over to kiss him deeply. “Love you.”

“Love you more.”

She hopped up from the log and skipped over to me. I went back inside, and she followed. I lay back down as Makenna stripped to her nightclothes and removed the hair ties from her pigtails. She shook her crimson hair out and lay down next to me. “Holy hell, you’re like a furnace, Eris!”

“Is that a good or bad thing?”

“Well, it means I won’t get cold during the night, and I thought Gil ran hot. You must have fire in your blood.” She threw off the blanket and snuggled up next to me. “Though it’s kinda nice. Gil snores in his sleep, makes it hard to sleep next to him sometimes.”

“You’re good together, though.”

Kenna blushed furiously and couldn’t hide the grin that bloomed on her face. “He’s something special, but you know what that’s like, don’t you?”

I smiled at the thought of Sam, but it fell when what I’d been trying to forget came to mind. “He’s not doing well. He’s weak, cold and hungry. And so very angry. I’m terrified for him, but I’m also terrified of what’s going to happen when we see each other again.”

Kenna froze, her eyes widened. “Something happened didn’t it? Between you and Evelyn?”

I shook my head.

“So with Reina.”

The words were on the tip of my tongue, but I held my mouth closed and looked away from her waiting gaze.

She pouted. “Don’t stop at the good part. what’d you do? Never mind, I can guess. Did you?”

“Yes.”

There was no way for me to hold them back, the word came spilling out along with too many tears. “Sam’s so angry.” I sobbed. “What if he hates me?”

Kenna came over and wrapped her arms around me, her warm cheek pressed against mine as her hands came up and brushed my hair. “It’ll be okay. I don’t think he can hate you.” She pulled back and wiped away the tears that fell to my chin. “Just be honest with him. Make him understand, and if he rejects you after that, then you know you did everything you could.”

She held her hands up quickly. “But he won’t reject you. I can almost guarantee it. He cares too much about you to hate you.”

“I’m worried about him.”

“It’ll be okay, Eris. He’ll be fine. Duran is reckless, rough around the edges, and a truly terrible guild leader, but he’s the second toughest bastard I’ve ever met, and if I’m guessing things went wrong, and you said he’s cold and hungry, then he’s in Tombsgard. A nasty prison, but if anyone can thrive in such conditions, it’ll be him. Don’t give up hope, and have faith in him. He’ll return to you.”

“Thanks, Kenna.”

She leaned over and placed a kiss on my hair. “It’ll all work out, trust me.”

With that my eyelids grew heavy, and I drifted off to sleep listening to Makenna’s deep breathing.

In the morning, Gil woke us up by barging into the tent.

“Sorry for the rude awakening, but Duran just called.”

I was awake in an instant. “What’d he say?”

“He was only able to talk for a second. He said he’d be fine and not to call in the calvary. Said he has a way to escape.”

“Escape Tombsgard?” Makenna said, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. “It’s possible, but I don’t know how Duran could pull it off. He’s not exactly the slip in and out unnoticed kind of guy.”

“He’ll do it. I know he will,” I said.

Gil nodded and gave me a reassuring smile. “I’m gonna go let the twins know while you two get dressed. We hit the road in twenty.”

After we got dressed and had a very light breakfast, we set off towards Castle Gloom-Harbor.

We spent most of the week on the road back to the castle. It was mostly a quiet trip back, broken by only a few random monster attacks. When we crossed back into the Salted Mire, we accidentally stirred up a nest of over a dozen rougarou in the swamps.

They rose up from the muck as twisted, mangled hybrids of wolves and dogs. Their matted fur was filled with mange and clung with mud and bits of swamp. The sudden appearance of them surprised us, but all of us leapt off our horses and into battle.

I personally killed one of them with a lucky headshot when I drew my bow and loosed an arrow at one of the rampaging beasts as it came toward me. The others dispatched their foes quickly. I fired a few more