Todos los capítulos de The Blood Empress & Her Mortal King : Capítulo 31 - Capítulo 40

POV Adrian“Tell me he’s lying.”Natalie doesn’t answer. The gold in her eyes is the only light left in the cathedral, and it isn’t looking at me. It’s looking through me.“Natalie.”“I can’t.” Her voice cracks. “Adrian, I remember all of it. I can’t tell you it’s a lie.”“You’re a maid. You told me that yourself. You fold sheets.”“I know what I told you.”“Then say it again.”“I don’t know what I am!”“I do,” Williams says.He’s still on his knees in the rubble, one arm hanging wrong, and he’s still smiling. I want to put my fist through it.“Every drop of gold in your veins started with her, boy. You’ve spent three hundred years running from a Council that was built to keep her asleep.” He coughs blood onto the marble. “Do you know what I spent five hundred years preventing? This. Exactly this.”“Then you failed.”“Did I?” He lifts his good hand. “Elders. Now.”All nine of them open their eyes at the same time. That’s the part that makes my skin crawl. Not a word between them. Not

POV NatalieMy feet left the floor.I didn't jump. Nobody lifted me. The air just let go of me, the way water lets go of something that was never meant to sink."Natalie?" Lucas’ voice cracked across the hall. "Natalie, what are you doing?""I don't know!"I really didn't. Something tore open between my shoulder blades, and I braced for the pain. It never came. It felt like breathing out after holding my breath for five hundred years.Then the wings unfolded.Gold and crimson. Blood, but burning, spreading wider than the doorway, throwing light across every face in that room."Hold your positions!" the guard captain shouted. His voice shook. "It's a trick! It's a maid's trick!""Look at her back, Captain," another one whispered. "Look at her back.""I said hold!"Twelve of them. Council black, spears lowered, a tight ring around Lucas and me. A minute ago those spears had been enough to keep me on my knees.They were not enough now."Please," I said. I meant it. "Put the weapons down

POV Natalie"Majesty! Majesty, he's still breathing!"Celine's voice hit the cathedral walls before I saw her. She ran down the aisle with her robes bunched in both fists, a dozen Solar Coven rebels behind her, swords already drawn.I didn't turn around. I was looking at the floor.At him.Adrian lay on his side in the broken glass, in a pool of his own blood. It was already getting cold. He was shivering. Vampires don't shiver. Only mortals do."Majesty." Celine skidded to a stop beside me. "Did you hear me? He's alive.""I heard you.""Then end it.""Celine...""Now, Natalie." She never used my name in front of the others. She knew exactly what she was doing. "Before the court wakes up. Before his loyalists find out what happened here. A king who lives is a throne you'll have to fight for every night."Behind her, the rebels shifted. Somebody muttered, "Why is she waiting?""The Empress hesitates," another one said, low and flat."I'm not hesitating," I said.It was a lie, and every

POV Natalie The stone was colder than I expected.Nobody warns you about that. Obsidian doesn't warm up, no matter how long you sit on it."Kneel!" Warlord Korrin's voice cracked across the hall. "Kneel for the Empress!"Armor clanged. Forty warlords went down on one knee at the same time, and the sound rolled up the walls like thunder. Behind them, the Solar Coven survivors dropped too. Burned hands pressed to the floor. Gray faces turned up at me like I was the last candle in the world.I kept my back straight. I kept my hands in my lap.Under the black mantle, my fingers were buried in gold."Say it," Korrin growled. "Say it like you mean it, you bunch of dogs.""Long live Empress Natalie!""Again!""LONG LIVE EMPRESS NATALIE!"I had dreamed of this. For nine years, in a cell, in a cellar, in a ditch with ice in my hair, I had dreamed of this exact sound.So why couldn't I feel my hands?"Rise," I said.Nobody moved."I said rise."They rose slowly, like they didn't trust me not t

POV Adrian The cold woke me first. The pain took two breaths to catch up.Then it all landed together. My back. My ribs. Both knees, both wrists, even my jaw. I tried to sit up and the wooden bed cracked louder than I groaned.Kings don't ache like this. That was my first thought.My second was that I wasn't one anymore.A boot slammed into the bed frame."Up, Your Majesty."I opened my eyes. Three men stood over me, grinning like they'd paid to watch."Bow, Tobin," said the one with the chipped front tooth. "He's awake.""I would." Tobin rubbed the back of his neck. "But my spine's ruined. Twenty years of kneeling to him."They laughed. All three."Water," I said. My voice came out like rope dragged over stone."What was that?" Tobin cupped his ear. "Did the king say water? Or bring me water? I never could hear the difference."The chipped tooth one, Dane, picked a tin cup off the floor. I looked into it. Then he turned it over, slowly, right beside my hand. The water ran down bet