Free The Hated (Sleeping With Monsters Book 3) by Cassie Alexander

that stank of refuse and defecation. There were no pictures of this place on the palace’s screens – was all Aranda like this, now? I passed doors that held back sounds of people and music like I had never heard, walked over men sleeping in small groups wearing shreds of clothing, too inebriated to feel rats nipping at their fingers.
    Lights flickered on a wider boulevard ahead – as much as I hated Rixan objects, I flew towards them like a moth.
    What had happened to the world? And why didn’t that girl inside the palace know? What was the point of keeping her so innocent – and who gained from keeping her trapped there?
    I looked up and couldn’t see any stars. Had the world lost those, too, while I slept?
    I heard a sound from close behind me – scurrying feet. Like a rat, but man-sized. I turned.
    “Give me all your money.”
    I had no idea what he was saying, but he brandished what I was sure was a weapon. Twenty-thousand years and some things will never change.
    “Come on! Give me all your money!” he said. I stepped closer to him and he stepped back, holding the weapon up higher. “I mean it – I’ll cut you – I’ll –“
    “I am Zaan the Fearless and you will regret this decision.”
    A second later he was slashing his knife through the air where I used to be. He shouted, more words, it didn’t matter – I reached in and grabbed hold of his shoulder, while he tried to slash me through. I made the parts of myself in his path smoke and so he stabbed nothing.Avoiding his blows was second-nature – my scars were from training, not battle. I hoisted him up, and his shouts turned to screams as his weapon clattered to the ground.
    I held him there as he howled. If I spoke his language, I knew I could have asked him anything – but where would I even begin? How much time has passed? Have you heard of a Zaibann? The name Airelle, is it familiar to you? I clenched his shoulder tighter and tighter, hearing bones pop, the unanswered fury of twenty-thousand years pouring out of me, until urine trickled down his leg. I set him down in disgust, and his hand found something in a pocket and threw it at me. I caught it, releasing him, and he ran off cursing.
    The thing he’d thrown – I opened it up. Inside were cards I didn’t recognize the use for – and one piece of paper that I did. I smeared it with some of his blood in pulling it out.
    It had her face on it. Ilylle’s.
    The sky was getting lighter – dawn was coming. While the world would be less frightening in daylight to the people that lived here, I would become moreso. I walked back to the palace wall, changed into smoke again, and wafted the piece of paper back up with me on the wind.
    #
    I tossed and turned that night. Nightmares about creatures of stone, and people in the screens, beating on the glass, trying to get out – it was a good thing I wasn’t in the dream cradle, or I might have poisoned my people. When I woke, Joshan was there.
    “Queen Ilylle, your King appears to have left.”
    I lay back exhaustedly. Did I have to tell anyone? Perhaps the celestitians could choose another Zaibann for me – but what if all of them were like him?
    “Is there anything I can do for you, my Queen?” Joshan asked, worry creasing his brow.
    I looked up at him. He, like Beza, was just an elaborate zoomer – four limbs, instead of eight. No wonder he always knew the time – or when the Council called. He was a lie. Everything in the palace a lie except for me.
    No, not even except for me. I was a lie too – ruling a people I never saw, lands I’d never walked. There was no proof that I was a Queen. For all I knew, the palace and everything in it could be a dream. And one of my titles was Queen of Dreams, wasn’t it?
    I felt like I had dove too deeply into my pool and stayed down too long, like I was running out of air. I felt my throat close, my heart race, no matter that I was lying in my bed. I had never felt this way before – it felt like I