Songs of Blood by Renee Peters

Author:Renee Peters [Peters, Renee]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781734644111
Published: 2020-06-25T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 26

The grandfather clock in the foyer had barely called out its second, sleepy gong through Redmond Manor when a shadow slipped through the servant’s door. Angelica glittered in the gold and red silk of her gown with the glimmer of rubies catching the light at her throat. The young queen breathed in. Lian was not home. She could feel his distance in the gentle course of music through her blood. What she could hear and feel, much closer and above her, were the curious peaks of Joanna’s music. The queen’s frustration flickered like a fire in her chest.

It didn’t matter.

She slipped her shawl from her shoulders to the crook of her arms, heading toward the sound of Joanna’s flutes. As she neared the top of the main stairwell, she was greeted with the sight of the French queen standing almost protectively on the uppermost step.

“You should not be here, Angelica,” Joanna said steadily, meeting her eyes. “Lian is on a hunt. He is not here.”

Angelica’s lips twitched into a smile and she tilted her head. “My, haven’t you grown a bit of a spine, sweet. A proper Condesa. No doubt Dori enjoys parading around his frog in silks.” She waved her fingers. “Hop along, love, I’ve not a mind to play with you tonight.”

The blonde’s hand settled on the banister, blocking the darker queen’s progress.

Angelica’s smile never wavered, though she breathed a huff of breath. “Well, if you insist on being a bother. Wherever have we put the little maid strutting about the ton as your friend? Does it gall you terribly that she’s prettier as a mortal than our gift could ever make you? I would certainly hate to be the uglier companion. But you’re of a kinder constitution than I.”

Joanna did not answer.

Angelica’s eyes flashed red, and her darkness stirred the French queen’s gaze into a shining peridot. A warning played in Angelica’s song before she spoke. “Move, Joanna.”

When Joanna did not, the queen in red darted a hand forward to close a grip on the frog’s wrist, dragging her down the hall at a preternatural speed that Joanna, for all her relative youth, stumbled to keep up with.

“Which door is it?” Angelica trilled the singsong, stopping at each one, with Joanna all but crashing against her with the suddenness. “Eena, meena, mina —”

The unexpected scent of mortal blood in the air, old, as if it had been sitting for days, gave her pause for the potency it carried. It was unlike anything she had experienced before, and a burn triggered near instantly in her veins. It twisted through her, and Angelica’s grip tightened on Joanna’s wrist, her nails digging into the queen’s flesh. The soft pink of her tongue poked free from between her lips, tasting the air.

“Lâche-moi!” Joanna hissed, turning her own nails into Angelica’s skin. Now the perfume of both their blood drifted through the air.

“I do not speak frog, pet, try again in the King’s tongue, will you?” The queen yanked her sister along, chasing the scent of mortal blood into the west wing.

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