“Say goodbye to your precious instrument. It wasn’t all that useful anyway.”
His eyes bulged at the words, but behind them lurked a begrudging respect.
A respect I wanted to see die.
He did not make me.
He did not own me.
I was not his queen.
My vine of fire twisted around the base of his cock and burned through the flesh, cauterizing the wound as I severed the most despicable part of him.
Necros screamed, his body shaking in exquisite agony, his power dying before my eyes and then flashing again as he attempted one last time to save himself.
“I see why you enjoy this,”
I mused. “It’s beautiful to watch someone so vile writhe in pain.” I lifted the sliced-off part of his anatomy to his face, pressing it to his lips. “Open. Take it all. And swallow like a good little king.”
His gaze met mine. “You’ll destroy Cal—”
I shoved the offending item inside with a surge of heat, no longer interested in his voice. “The only thing I’m going to destroy is you, the male who murdered innocent women and children of his own realm as a test. The male who raped for pleasure, abused for fun, and murdered for power.”
Darts of fire spanned from my body and pounded into Necros’s flesh like a hailstorm in a thunderous downpour. I watched as his skin melted, the smell of acrid flesh filling the room. One hit his eye and burned deep into the socket, blinding him.
“Your outside matches your inside now,” I said quietly. “A scarred monster.”
Adrik stirred beside me but still didn’t wake. I could sense his thoughts as they entwined with mine. A fervent desire for Necros’s death.
Rest, my lover. Rest.
I pictured the organs in Necros’s body—his liver, lungs, kidneys, bladder, intestines, stomach, brain, and heart. They were what kept him alive. I latched onto them all, shoving my angelfire inside, needing to destroy him completely. Utterly. Resolutely. His insides burned and bloated and crumbled. His heart didn’t take long, because he barely had one, and last was his brain.
“Goodbye, husband. See you in hell.”
His single eye met mine, just long enough for me to see his pride.
I ripped him apart into a sea of embers dissolving to ash at my feet. That look from him would haunt me for the rest of my life. He was proud of me for torturing him. Proud that he taught me to lead in this way.
And it was vile. Disgusting. Wrong.
He thought he’d created a monster to live out his legacy.
And I would spend the rest of my life proving him wrong.
With a sweep of my arm, I sent his remains as high as my power allowed, into the sky above. The violet sun dissipated, replaced by a dark night littered with glistening stars.
Necros.
Where he would remain for eternity and watch my rule, unable to interfere, just observe. He didn’t deserve the death planes. No. This fate served him much better.
“I’m not you,” I told him now. “And I never will be.”
I’m free.
I’m finally fucking free.
A queen.