Chapter 15
Make sure to take a look at GODDESS, my newest work that Navy-Knight825 is partnering with me on.

"How?" Andromeda's face is sharp, cold and just plain awful to look at. Her lips are twisted into a sneer. It's like she thinks that if she can make the nastiest expression she can muster, I'll fall to the ground dead.

Instead of indulging in her want to see me shrink away from her as I used to as a small child, I look her head on.

I'm not the girl you once knew, darling.

I scoff loudly and the sound makes my ears ring, "you were always sloppy."

That sneer turns into a grin. It's not a pretty grin that invites you and snares you, it's one of those come at me grins. "Or maybe I'm not real at all and you really are going crazy."

I raise a carefully groomed brow and ensure my own face is as snooty and self important as I can make it, "As if. What do you want?"

That snake had come back to kill me. There would be no other reason for her return. She's still loyal to Ravenna and is living in the past under delusions.

But even the predictable opponent, she tries to take advantage of my youth and inexperience. Andromeda doesn't know me anymore, though. Once I may have folded under her gaze and done her biding, but I'm no longer that naive girl who was battered and broken, who was covered in the bruises her father laid on her and stewing in the hate her mother spewed.

"I'm here to help."

"Come on Anna. Show me those teeth if yours."

"You desperate little thing. You need me." She talks with such self importance, as if she's some kind of god, which I know that she is not. I wonder if her kind of monster was bred of cultivated.

At the nickname I call her, her face slips from impassive cruelty, to the barest hint of rage, "you silly girl. You may think you've changed, but I still see the whore of a girl you were, begging for scrapes."

My laugh is like chiming bells. It's light and airy, but it leaves a ringing in the air, "you sure enjoyed whoring around yourself. Don't be a hypocrite, it doesn't look good on you, Anna darling."

I glance to my left. Draven is still here. He doesn't look shocked, or angry, or anything really. He looks ever the impassive royal, as if he hadn't a care in the worlds.

Draven lazily leans his head back, content to watch the show. All he does is give Andromeda a nod, "Hello Dromeda."

She smiles, trying to look somewhat flirty, I guess? "Draven, so nice to see you." Can a half-human purr, because that's the sound that just came out of her mouth. Her words may be smooth, but each one is coated with venom.

In response I keep my expression firmly in place. Where Andromeda uses her expressions to try to gain advantage, I need not do such things. I chuck a knife at her, it imbeds in her shoulder.

She grunts, ripping it out, giving me an odd look like she doesn't recognize me. I may be impassive, but it's clear that I'm wicked.

"I've changed Anna. So have you."

"So it seems." Why she's bitter, I have mot a clue, but people like her are always the same. She's consumed by want and nothing else.

I nod at her, parroting placket her words, "so it seems."

I can always mess with later, but for now... we'll... I've got a meeting to sit in. I suppose Draven can follow me, too. He is consul, after all.

With barely a though Andromeda is gone. All that's left in her wake is a faded scream she let out as she disappeared and a slight kick up of dust from the books that she had stood in front of.

Without a word I get up, Draven following. As he gets up from the bed his limbs unfold. How can a person be so freaking inherently graceful? It took me years to be able to unfold like that. Stupid him and his parents who I also stupidly liked. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

He trails a step behind me as I Salk through the halls like a woman on a mission. I guess I am a woman on a mission. A very short, powerful, inhuman woman.

Swinging the doors to the throne room open, I walk up to my throne, people shrinking back from me as I move. The only noise is hushed whispers and shuffling feel as people basically run from me.

I assume my usual position as I lay on the throne, feet kicked up and an expression of haughty arrogance on my face. It dares them to mess with me.

I just to mess with the room I lean my head back, just letting it fall limp. I see Draven and his impassive face five paces away from the throne, slightly behind it, too.

"Draven, darling, time?"

He clears his throat and if I didn't have supernatural hearing I wouldn't have noticed and hence I wouldn't have noticed his slight discomfort, "it just struck fifteen past tenth sun."

I sigh, "Varsillians these days."

I hear a shuffle of footsteps approaching. The whole room holds it's geek as Evander Temes walks in, his shoulders slightly hunched.

I barely acknowledge his status as a high house member, not even addressing him by his title as I go to prop my head up with a hand, "Evan."

He scrambles onto his knees, his head touching the ground, "My apologies for the lateness, the canals were busy today. My queen."

"Get up." I bite out cruelly, both words Punctuated and powerful.

"Yes, my queen. Why have you summoned me today?" This time instead of getting to his knees, he stumbles to stand up and straighten himself out.

I ignore the question because I don't answer to him. Why would I answer his question, thus putting him out of his misery?

"How's Temes house? The weather well?" He goes to rush out responses, but I cut him off after hearing two words fall out of him mouth, "and what of the Alex's. We miss them dearly?"

"They are well, my queen." I urge him to go on with a flick of my wrist, giving him attention, but not giving him attention at the same time.

"There have been several small attacks along the southern most border and one more major one. We lost a total of three hundred and fourth six of our own and took out about five hundred and three of the Varkeshians."

"Good."

"Of course." He looks like he wants to say no, it's not okay. How can you dismiss life so easily? I don't blame him, but this give and take game he wants to play isn't one I want to play in.

"So move them more inland."

Perhaps he's been raised as a member of a royal house, but he's not true royalty. His suits and name and legacy aren't enough to give him dignity or backbone.

"Is anyone else down there helping you."

"Arianna has assisted me in a few matters, but other than that my house monarchs direct how everything goes."

"How are Killian and Miriam?"

"Grateful for you're eternal generosity."

"Leave."

With just a word I've commander a Temes to leave. I have the power to shake the world, to boil blood, to move the heavens, but I also have a presence that commands people. A presence that is pure power.

1283