Semua Bab Scorned Luna To Alpha Queen: Bab 71 - Bab 80

The cavern shook.Not literally but it felt like it did. The roar that went up when Lyralei's words hit the air was immediate and total, every warrior in the pit reacting at the same time, on the floor and above on the ledge, and the sound slammed off the rock walls and came back doubled before she'd even finished speaking."Did she just—""By the Moon Goddess, she did!""Two at once! The outsider wants two at once!"Warriors on the ledge were shoving each other, some laughing so hard they had to grab the person beside them for balance, others leaning over the edge with their fists in the air. On the floor the ones pressed against the walls had started stamping, the impact coming up through the packed dirt in a rhythm that built on itself. A group near the far wall started it first, then the ones beside them picked it up, until the whole floor was vibrating with it under her boots.Some of them were cursing her outright."The girl has lost her senses!""How long do you give her? I say

Lyralei stood in the room staring at nothing in particular, her mind still buzzing from the fight and the crowd and everything that had happened in that pit.The space was smaller than her room in Crimson Fang, though not uncomfortably so. Stone walls rose on all sides, rough-hewn and practical, with a single narrow window cut high into the rock that let in a sliver of fading daylight. A bed sat against one wall with furs piled thick enough to keep the mountain cold out, and a wooden chest rested against the far wall beside a small table that held a basin of water. Nothing decorative. Nothing soft. Just the essentials and nothing more. It was oozing shadowfang all over.She was clean now, at least. The bath had been brief and efficient, with Keziah standing guard outside the chamber door the entire time like she expected someone to walk in and start something. The water had been hot enough to sting her split lip and make her ribs complain, but it had washed the dirt and blood and swea

Lyralei walked side by side with Keziah through the stone corridors, their footsteps echoing off the walls in a rhythm that would've been comfortable if Keziah wasn't acting so damn strange.The woman was wringing her hands slowly, fingers twisting together and then pulling apart, over and over again like she couldn't quite figure out what to do with them. Lyralei watched it happen twice before she got the distinct feeling that Keziah wanted to say something but couldn't quite figure out how to start.They passed through another corridor, this one lit by torches set into brackets along the walls, and Keziah's hands twisted together again.Lyralei had enough.She stopped walking and turned to face her directly. "What's got you twisted up like that? Just say it already. Your fidgeting is getting to me."Keziah stopped and frowned at her, her expression shifting immediately to something darker. She glowered. "What do you mean by fidgeting?" Her voice came out sharp and defensive. "The la

Lyralei shook her head and immediately regretted it.The world tilted sideways and her vision blurred at the edges before slowly crawling back into focus. She blinked hard a few times, trying to clear the haze that had settled over everything like a thick fog that refused to lift.She was drunk. Actually, genuinely drunk.The realization surprised her more than it probably should have, considering how many cups she'd emptied over the course of the night. She'd had wine before, plenty of times, but this was different. She felt like her thoughts moved like they were wading through honey and her tongue felt too thick for her mouth and everything seemed just slightly off-center in a way she couldn't quite correct.Which meant she'd drunk a lot more than she'd realized while she was doing it.Beside her, Keziah giggled at something one of the warriors had said, the sound high and loose and completely unlike her usual careful control. The woman was utterly lost in the alcohol, her guarded e

Lyralei kept walking with determined strides, her boots hitting the stone floor in a steady rhythm that echoed off the corridor walls and came back to her from the empty space ahead.Then she slowed and stopped entirely, standing in the middle of an empty passageway with the sudden realization that she had absolutely no idea where she was going.She turned and looked back the way she'd come, the corridor stretching behind her in a series of torchlit curves and corners that all looked essentially the same. She considered whether she should just swallow her pride and go back to ask Keziah for proper directions to Joefrey's training grounds. The woman would probably give her that peculiar expression again, the one that said she was watching something fascinating and potentially catastrophic unfold, and she'd probably make another comment about Joefrey maybe killing her for the ass-grabbing incident.But at least Lyralei would know where the hell she was supposed to be going instead of w