Chapter 82: A Bloody Kitchen Nightmare

Ren marched toward the scullery, her red puffer coat rustling loudly over the trailing robe, looking like a furious strawberry marshmallow.

But as she neared the stone archway, she slowed down. There was a crowd.

Dozens of snake beastfolk were clustered around the entrance, their tails twitching with nervous energy. They were craning their necks, trying to peek inside, whispering in hushed, hissing tones.

“Is it done?” “I heard the snap.” “The King is cleaning house.” “Heads are rolling today.”

Ren’s stomach dropped. ’Heads rolling?’

She shoved forward. “Excuse me. Move. Watch the tail. Coming through!”

She elbowed a large python guard in the ribs. He looked down, hissed, saw it was the King’s new mate, and immediately scrambled out of the way as if she were radioactive. The crowd parted like the Red Sea, though they looked terrified.

Ren stepped into the scullery.

And then she screamed.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!”

The scream echoed off the stone walls, silencing the room instantly.

The scullery, usually a place of vegetable peeling and soup simmering, looked like the set of a slasher movie. There was blood—bright, crimson snake blood—splattered across the floor.

On the large central stone table—the table Ren used to knead dough—the Coral snake and the Albino snake were pinned down. Four burly guards held their limbs and tails, pressing their faces hard against the rough stone. They were sobbing, their eyes wide with terror.

Standing over them was Viper. The stoic guard held a massive, jagged obsidian blade raised high above his head, poised to chop through the Coral snake’s neck like she was a stubborn root vegetable.

And standing just to the side, watching with the calm, bored expression of a man waiting for a bus, was Syris.

He looked up at Ren’s scream.

Immediately, his face transformed. The boredom vanished, replaced by a radiant, sun-splitting smile that was entirely too sweet for a man standing in a puddle of blood.

“Ren!” Syris chirped, stepping over a severed hand. “You are awake! I was just finishing up some chores.”

“Chores?!” Ren shrieked, pointing a shaking finger at the table. “You are conducting executions in my kitchen?! On the prep table?! Do you know how porous that stone is? The bacteria! The cross-contamination! We make food there, Syris!”

The Coral snake, seeing Ren, let out a wail. “Mistress! Save us! Please!”

“He’s going to chop us!” the Albino snake sobbed, snot bubbling from her nose.

Ren’s eyes darted around the room, and then she saw it.

In the corner, lying limp like a discarded doll, was a body. It was wearing Lyssa’s distinctively gaudy robes. But the collar ended in a ragged, bloody stump.

Ren’s blood ran cold. She clamped a hand over her mouth, swallowing back the bile.

’Where is the…? No. Don’t look for it. Do not look for it.’

“Syris,” Ren choked out, her voice trembling. “What is happening?”

Syris shrugged, a gesture of casual elegance. “It’s the law, my love. Now that I have chosen a mate, the harem is obsolete. And Lyssa…” His eyes darkened slightly. “She was disrespectful to you. So, I removed her.”

He gestured to Viper. “Carry on. The little red one is next.”

Viper grunted and tightened his grip on the obsidian blade. The Coral snake screamed.

“STOP!” Ren yelled, throwing herself forward. She grabbed Viper’s arm. It was like grabbing a tree trunk, but he paused, looking at his King for confirmation.

“You cannot kill them!” Ren argued, turning to Syris. “This is insane! You can’t just murder people because you got a girlfriend!”

Ren searched her mind, frantically searching for an angle that a logic-driven snake would understand. “Do you know how much work it is to feed you? And Kael? You two are bottomless pits! I cannot peel fifty pounds of potatoes by myself! I need staff!”

Syris tilted his head, looking at the terrified harem girls with disdain. “They are useless.”

“I can train them!” Ren lied. She looked at the Coral snake. “You! Can you peel a potato?”

“I… I can try!” the Coral snake blubbered, though she had no idea what a potato was. “I love potatoes!”

“See?” Ren gestured wildly. “She has passion! And they know the swamp! I don’t know a poisonous mushroom from a tasty one. If you kill them, I might accidentally poison your stew. Do you want to die of diarrhea, Syris? Do you?”

Syris frowned. The threat of bad stew seemed to weigh heavily on him. He looked at the trembling women, then back at Ren’s desperate face.

“You wish to keep them… as servants?” Syris asked slowly.

“Yes! As my kitchen brigade!” Ren insisted.

Syris sighed, clearly disappointed he didn’t get to see more heads roll, but he waved his hand dismissively.

“Very well. If it makes you happy, Little Chef.” He looked at Viper. “Release them.”

Viper lowered the blade. The guards let go.

The Coral and Albino snakes didn’t run. They scrambled off the table and threw themselves at Ren’s feet, wrapping their arms around her feet, sobbing into her puffer coat.

“Thank you, Mistress!” “We will do whatever you say! We will peel all the potatoes!”

“Okay, okay, get off,” Ren said, trying to shake them off as they smeared tears and blood on her shins. “Go wash your faces. And wash this table! With bleach! Or lye! Or whatever we have that kills DNA!”

The harem girls scurried off to the corner, grabbing buckets with frantic enthusiasm.

“See?” Ren exhaled, her heart pounding. “Crisis averted. No more death.”

“As you wish,” Syris said softly. He bent down and picked something up from behind the stone counter.

“However,” Syris said, his voice light and conversational, “I did save this for you. As a memento.”

He held it up by the hair.

It was Lyssa’s head.

Her expression was frozen in a permanent look of shock, mouth open, eyes staring vacantly. Blood dripped from the severed neck, landing on the floor with a wet plip, plip sound.

Ren’s knees buckled. “Oh my god.”

“Is it not impressive?” Syris asked innocently, turning the head so it faced Ren. “Viper cut it very cleanly. I thought we could mount it in the Nest. Perhaps over the bed? To symbolize your victory over the first Concubine.”

Ren squeezed her eyes shut, her stomach doing backflips. “Syris. Put it down. Get rid of it.”

“But it is a trophy,” Syris argued, sounding genuinely confused. “And it sends a message.”

“The message is ’I am a psychopath’!” Ren shrieked, eyes still squeezed shut. “I do not want a severed head watching me sleep! Throw it in the swamp! Burn it! Just get it away from me!”

Syris sighed and tossed the head to Viper, who caught it one-handed like a basketball.

“Dispose of it,” Syris ordered.

Ren gagged.

As the harem girls scrubbed the blood off the prep table, Ren realized that running a kitchen in the Beast World was going to require a lot of bleach. And possibly therapy.

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