Free The Passionate Queen (Dark Queens Book 2) by Jovee Winters

room.
    I didn’t hear the words they said, but I could hear the angry rumbles.
    I’d never be certain what it was that Ragoth told her that night, but for the next two weeks the hag never looked my way, and hardly engaged me in conversation. She no longer forced me to do chores or even snapped at me.
    In fact, it was more like two ghosts going on about their business—one completely uninvolved with the other.
    It was the night before my wedding, I clutched onto my stomach, sick at my soul. For years I’d known this day would come and that it was inevitable, that I could not stop the hands of fate.
    Zerelda owned my soul. Literally. She would not release it to me ever. The night she’d bought me from the witches I’d become hers to deal with as she saw fit.
    But what if I was wrong?
    That tiny seed of hope whispered in my heart, louder and louder with each minute that ticked by. Mouth running dry, I wondered at why I’d never thought to question those words.
    The only person who claimed that I did not own my soul was Zerelda. What if I did actually have my soul? What if she’d not taken it at all? Moving my hand to my chest, I pressed it tight against my breast, feeling the frantic beat of my heart.
    Had the words all been a lie to get me to comply? And what did it mean to own one’s soul anyway?
    Blinking, I turned to stare out the window.
    The night was heavy and thick with purplish clouds. The trees along the pathway were skeletal and ominous looking.
    I’d not seen my boy in too many days to count. I missed him desperately. I didn’t think I would. Not to this extent. Not to the point where sometimes breathing hurt. Where tears would sting my eyes at random throughout the day. Where just the thought of him made it difficult to swallow.
    His kiss had nearly ruined me. I’d seen him at his most violent. And yet... and yet...he was all I thought about. Day in and day out, my thoughts grew more and more consumed by Ragoth.
    I’d left things so badly between us. He’d asked me if I loved him and I’d not been able to answer, because the truth of it was, I loved him so much I thought I would die of it sometimes.
    I wasn’t sure when it’d happened to me either. It’d all crept up so slowly. One day I’d stopped seeing the boy and had begun to see the man.
    The very beating epicenter of my heart.
    Did I have a soul?
    Nibbling on the corner of my lip I pondered that question.
    If I had a soul what did that mean? That my life was my own? That my will was my own? Maybe I could never kiss Ragoth, but I could hold his hand. I could gaze into his eyes and feel my heart complete and whole because he was with me.
    All I knew was I’d never known affection, or kindness, or even love until him.
    “I can’t live without it,” I whispered the confession to the breeze. “I don’t want to live without him.”
    With a start, I jerked to a sitting position and ran my fingers through my hair. I’d stopped meeting with him, odds were he no longer waited for me in the grove.
    Odds were he’d written me off, cut his looses and no longer even came to wonderland.
    The thought had my eyes burning. Sniffing, I rubbed at them frantically. For years I’d been so afraid of stepping out of bounds, afraid of Zerelda’s wrath, afraid if I did wrong that she’d hurt my soul, scar it.
    My fingers ran along the coarse fabric of my stiff sack gown. What did a soul feel like? And did it even feel?
    I’d never thought to ask anyone that question, but perhaps having a soul felt like nothing at all. Perhaps it merely was, perhaps that feeling of emptiness inside of me had nothing at all to do with being soulless and everything to do with this house and these contemptible people.
    “I don’t want to marry him. I don’t.”
    A tear dripped off the tip of my nose; only then did I realize I’d been crying all along. In a daze I wiped the wetness from my cheeks and slipped my dirty feet into my hole riddled clogs.
    I would regret this