Hive Queen by Sinclair, Grayson (positive books to read .txt) 📕

left most of my upper chest bare without revealing anything. I dressed and left the room, trying to find my friends.

The long wooden hallway was sparse. The only decorations were the covered oil lamps that provided light through the corridor. I rounded an corner and found Evelyn waiting for me.

She looked over at me when I came barreling around the corner but didn’t move.

“We need to talk, little queen. About what you saw in your Mnemosyne.”

With what happened with Reina, I’d nearly forgotten what I’d seen, the sights I couldn’t fathom. I didn’t know exactly what I’d seen, but I knew one thing for certain. I just needed her to admit it.

I settled on the wall next to her. “Tell me, Evelyn. I need to know. Are you human?”

Her eyes fell from mine, and she sighed. Her usual calm aloofness faded away as her luminescent eyes stared at the ground.

“Once. But that was a very long time ago.”

Chapter 19 - Iron Bound

Sampson

I activated Chitin Shield, and the chitin on my left hand shifted, melting and reforming in the shape of a smooth concave circle on my forearm. I raised it as the frontrunner charged me, a long-haired blond with a trimmed beard. He raised his one-handed axe and brought it down. Its curved blade clanged against my shield and chipped a sliver from the chitin. I batted it aside as it struck and thrust with my sword.

My blade slid though the side of his neck, nicking his carotid.

He clutched his bleeding neck, but it wasn’t deep enough to kill him quickly. One hand gripped his neck as blood slipped through his fingers, and the other hefted his axe once more.

I kicked his leg out from under him, and he stumbled back, landing on his ass. I raised my sword to finish him when the equivalent of a freight train took me off my feet.

I flew into the air and got a glimpse at what had hit me. One of the dwarves was a mage and had used earth magic to turn the floor itself into a weapon. A jagged stalagmite rose a few feet from the  ground.

I rolled when I hit the ground, nearly clipping a pew as I stood. I shook off being flung and settled back into my stance as another dwarf charged me.

The aubergine-faced man growled in anger as he thrust with his spear. I sidestepped, but he nicked my sword hand, and I dropped my weapon. I didn’t bother attempting to retrieve it. I shuffled into his space before he could whip his spear around and brought my shield down on the metal. Chitin met steel, and the inferior metal sheared under my strike.

The dwarf dropped his spear and tried to regroup with his comrades. He’d made a mistake in engaging me and had put a row of pews between him and them.

I had him.

I lashed out with a clawed hand and sank my fingers deep into his face.

The sharp chitin tore through flesh with ease until resistance met me as I hit bone, and then I forced my hand deeper. The frontal bone resisted as my fingers carved divots in the ivory. It held for as second before cracking under my strength. I broke through and sank my fingers into as much brain matter as I could get in my hands before I yanked it free.

Half of his frontal lobe came, clutched in my claws as red blood and scraps of gray brain stuck to my chitin. His jaw hung slack as I pulled my hand from his pulped and ruined face.

The dwarf tipped over as soon as my hand no longer supported him. Vile chunks of brain oozed out, and I shook the gore from my hands.

I knelt and retrieved my sword before the blood reached it and leapt over the pews.

They were too spread out for me to use Dance of the Immortal, and I’d added enough points to my battle fatigue that though I still had a lot of fight left in me, I didn’t know if I could take all five of them. Even counting the one whose neck I’d cut. They’d swarm me quickly.

‘”Let them. Slow time and devour them.”

And how do I get out after I drop from maxing my fatigue?

The Aspect shut up after that and left me to deal with the rest of them.

I focused on the injured one. He would go down the quickest, and one less to deal with would only help me.

He’d retreated, leaving a thick trail of blood on the floor along with his axe. He was currently trying to staunch the bleeding while the other four guarded him.

“Who’s next?”

Two of them flanked around me. One, a taller dwarf with dark hair and darker eyes, unstrapped a shield and hefted his sword at me. The other, one of the women, a blonde, wielded a bow staff comprised of shadowsteel.

While devastating against unarmored and lightly armored opponents, her staff wouldn’t be able to generate enough force to crack my chitin, and it was flexible enough to distribute the impact so my brain wouldn’t turn to mush if she managed a lucky hit. My chitin, along with the leather and shadowsteel underneath meant I was relatively safe against her attacks. Which meant I discarded her as the immediate threat and dealt with the shield bearer.

I quickened my pace and stepped to the side, keeping the dwarf with the shield between me and Bowstaff. He lunged with his sword while holding his shield tight. His blade aimed for the right side of my chest. I brought my shield to intercept it when he struck me in the hip with a surprise kick. I stumbled back, and his shield smashed straight into my chin.

My head snapped back from the blow, and