by Geneva Lee
Smith’s lips twitched. We both knew that the types of clubs I’d preferred in my younger days had a very different atmosphere. “It reminds me of The Library.”
“The Library?” I repeated.
“It’s a lot like this but with more whips,” he added in a low voice. “Very discreet. Should you ever…”
“I’m a married man,” I said, and I would be for the rest of my life. Once Clara was back in my arms, I wouldn’t need anything else. “Clara is all I want.”
“She’d be welcome,” he assured me. He didn’t press the subject further. Perhaps sensing that talk of my wife upset me. Perhaps not wanting to remind me of her absence more.
The Cigar Club was empty save for the presence of the men believed to control my destiny: the Council of Ghosts. The last time we’d faced them, the Prime Minister had been present. Today he was absent, and in his seat was a familiar face.
Chapter 12
CLARA
Her face told me everything I needed to know. Since the doctor had warned me about my condition, June had come to monitor my blood pressure dutifully every few hours. I never asked her what it was. Sometimes she would smile to herself. Other times she would frown. Now her face was a collection of hard, straight lines.
Something was wrong.
And this time I couldn’t keep my mouth shut.
“Is the baby okay?” I asked, nerves getting the better of me. Rubbing my stomach, I willed my little boy to stay put a while longer. At least, until mommy had a plan.
“Everything is fine.” Her eyes told a different story as they darted away from my face. “The doctor is being cautious.”
I wouldn’t have believed her anyway.
Rachel, who had become my shadow since our heart to heart, had stayed tucked in a corner behind us while June did her examination. Close enough to see everything that was going on, but far enough not to get yelled at. She’d learned her lesson when she’d bothered to ask June a question earlier today and gotten her head ripped off. It had shown me a different side of June. Maybe the nurse believed the lies they told her. Maybe she was a really good actress. Either way, she was either choosing ignorance or too stupid to know the truth.
“How are you feeling? Are you getting enough to eat?” she asked, turning on her bedside manner like she was flipping a light switch.
It might have been soothing in another circumstance. “Does it matter?”
“We need to keep the baby healthy,” June chastised me, her voice taking on a hard edge.
Of course, we did. I wanted to tell her that I’d been doing a fine job of that until I was stolen from my home and husband. But I knew how she’d pat my arm and tell me everything would be fine. She could keep trying to convince me I was crazy. I knew the truth.
But was I the only one? Had word gotten out yet? Was Alexander still looking for me? Did the rest of the world know?
The more time I spent with June, the more I suspected she knew exactly what she was doing. How couldn’t she? Unless she’d lived under a rock—or in this hellhole bunker—she knew exactly who I was. She could play sweet, innocent nurse all day long and I’d pretend alongside her—while waiting for an opportunity to crush this snake with my heel.
“When will the baby come?” I asked. I already knew we wouldn’t be waiting until I went into labor. My doctor had wanted to control the baby’s arrival. Dr. Rolland would want the same. But whereas Dr. Ball would have waited until I was near term, I got the impression that I was being prepped for delivery.
“Probably very soon. Ideally with a male child, we want to wait until the lungs develop, but your blood pressure seems to be a problem,” she admitted.
It was the most she’d told me. I grabbed a pillow, willing myself to stay calm. This was about my blood pressure and maybe I had some control over that. It seemed unlikely given the circumstances, but I would try. It was all I could do until I finally got a chance to make a run for it.
June’s eyes softened, mistaking my silence for fear. “Don’t worry. A friend is coming to see you.”
“A friend?” I repeated, wishing I’d heard her wrong and hoping she would correct me.
She didn’t. “Before the baby comes. To check on you.”
Bile rose in my throat and I forced it to stay down. I wouldn’t show any weakness. Not to her. Not to them. “My friend?”
“I assume.” She smiled warmly as she collected the blood pressure cuff and her stethoscope.
As she bustled around the room, casting annoyed glances at Rachel, dread mounted inside me. Were they going to take someone else? Bring someone here to comfort me? Why bother? Why pretend at humanity when they had none?
I couldn’t even process the other possibility.
No friend of mine would be in on this.
No one I knew or loved could ever do this to me or Alexander.
But even as I told myself this, I knew it wasn’t true. They wouldn’t go to the trouble to take Belle or Edward simply to give me some company. I had plenty of that with Rachel hovering around my room.
I also knew one thing: whoever was coming was no friend of mine.
“I’ll be back to check on you this evening,” June told me, “but I need to get these to the doctor.”
After she was gone, Rachel peeked out from the shadows, her swallow face equally grim.
“That bad?” I breathed. Rachel had been a nurse. She’d been paying attention to everything June had tested me for, explaining what she could. Judging from her expression, time was running out.
She nodded slowly. “Your blood pressure is really high. They’ll need you to deliver the baby.”
I wanted to ask her why. I wanted to know how staying pregnant could be any worse for either of us. As long as the baby was inside me, he was safer than he would ever be in their hands. But she didn’t understand that. She couldn’t. To her, we were two nut jobs locked up for our own good. She would trust them.
Even so, she still knew more than me. “What happens if I don’t have him now?”
“You could die,” she said, looking like a child facing the prospect of losing her new toy.
Part of me wanted to comfort her—to lie and say it would all be okay. The other part of me had nothing left to give, because I had a feeling I was going to die either way.
“It’s nice that a friend is coming to visit you.” Rachel changed the subject in a doomed attempt to cheer me up.
“Yes,” I said in a clipped tone, not wanting to shatter her illusions any more.
When she’d first spoken to me, it had taken effort to compose myself when she told me what year it was. I’d considered telling her the truth—that ten years had passed—but how could I? And would she even believe me?
It wouldn’t do any good. It might push her over the edge she seemed to constantly teeter on. I doubted Rachel was insane when she came here, but this place? How could anyone survive this without losing bits of themselves?
Still, she was the only ally I had and I would use our new friendship if I had to.
“Rachel,” I said, “could you help me to the bathroom?”
I needed to speak to her somewhere without cameras. I knew they were watching us now and if I was going to plead my case, I couldn’t do it here.
I wasn’t giving up. Somewhere I knew Alexander was looking for me. I knew he was burning down the world for me. I owed him every ounce of fight I had left.
I owed it to our child.
Rachel helped me down the hall, but when we reached the door, I motioned for her to follow me inside.
It would look suspicious, but I could lie—claim I was having another dizzy spell and needed the support. I only needed a few minutes. I had to try to convince her and not simply for my own sake, for hers. They’d stolen her life as well. She deserved to know.
“I need to talk to you,” I said in a hurry. I had no doubt that we wouldn’t have long before someone came to check on us if we lingered. Someone was always coming around to peek into ou
r rooms and check the corridor. Whoever was watching the cameras would have seen us go in together.
“Okay,” she said, looking frightened. Not of them, I realized. Of me.
She’d bought the lie they sold her so well that she still didn’t realize she was a prisoner not a patient. It was that lie that made her more scared of me than she was of them. It worked in their favor and kept her in line.
It also made asking for her help a big gamble. But I was running out of options. If she was right about the blood pressure reading, it wouldn’t be much longer. Once they took me into surgery—I didn’t know if I would wake up.
“I have to get out of here,” I told her. “The baby needs special medical care.”
“They’ll take care of the baby.” She shifted on her heels, eyeing the door. I half expected her to dart for it. It was clear she didn’t like being in here without anyone watching.
“They’re lying to you, Rachel. You need to know the truth. You can’t trust them.” How could I make her see? Anything I said would be treated with suspicion. She believed I was the crazy one.
And what could I do? Tell her the truth? That ten years had passed since she was brought here? That I had no idea why they’d done this to her? Why she’d been targeted? It sounded insane, because it was. Everything about this was crazy.
No, I couldn’t tell her that. She was too fragile not like glass but rather like a bomb. I had to take a different approach.
“Please. My husband and daughter need me,” I begged her.
“You have another child?” This got her attention.
“A little girl. Elizabeth.” I nodded, my heart aching to hold her.
“She must miss you,” Rachel said softly.
Finally, I was getting somewhere. Still, what I was about to say next was a big risk. “You met my husband. Just for a moment. The day you woke up in the strange place. I was there and he was there. He came and spoke to you, remember? You asked him about your family, and he told you I was his wife.”
The confusion clouding her dark eyes stormed. She remembered. The trouble was that it seemed like she didn’t want to.
“Why would he let them put you in here?” she asked.
“He doesn’t know where I am,” I said frantically. In the hall, I heard a heavy door slam shut and footsteps on the cement. Time was up and I hadn’t convinced her. “Please. If you know anyway to get out. I have to find him.”
Rachel glanced between me and the door, then she lifted one finger to her lips and nodded.
“Thank you.” I wanted to cry. Instead, I turned to wash my hands. I needed to be able to sell a lie to whoever was on the way to check on us.
Rachel opened the door a crack and peeked out. When she pulled her head back in, her wide smile made the hairs on my arm stand on end. “He came!”
“Who?” My heart stuttered as I asked.
“The nice one. The one they call your highness. I told you about him,” she reminded me.
She waited, obviously wanting a cue for me. But I didn’t know what to do? On the other side of the door was someone I didn’t want to see for who they really were. I had no doubt this was the friend June said would come. I’d thought I would have longer, but it seemed the clock was winding down.
I recalled something that Norris said to me once: love doesn’t run on clocks.
I supposed that was true. When I was gone, Alexander and I’s love would remain. But only he would feel it. Our daughter would hear about how I loved her but never know it.
Right now, I—my heart, my body, my lief—was on a clock and I suspected the person on the other side of the door knew when that clock would stop.
It took everything in me to open that door to face the person who’d betrayed me. I wasn’t certain what to expect, and when I finally opened the door, I met the wolf in friend’s clothing that had betrayed us all.
Chapter 13
ALEXANDER
I stared at my uncle waiting for an explanation. He didn’t belong here among my self-appointed conscience. Not here with these men who’d served in Parliament for decades. He wasn’t one of them, and now I knew: he wasn’t one of us either.
When no one spoke, I finally lost control. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m happy to explain that if you’ll sit down,” he said serenely, his saintly demeanor not quite matching the all black suit he’d worn.
He was in mourning.
I didn’t care.
My uncle, Henry, had been a thorn in my side since he’d returned with my grandmother to reinstate the sodding Sovereign Games. Everything had been a mess since then. I’d been unable to contain the truth about Anderson Stone. Clara had taken too much interest in the games. And then, mysteriously, my wife had found herself at the bedside of my long assumed dead sister. All these problems could be traced back to Henry’s arrival.
He apparently liked to be at the center of whatever new family scandal was brewing. I’d gladly let him take all the pity for my grandmother’s death, but I hadn’t come here to talk it over with him.
I was here for information.
“What is the meaning of obstructing my access to a known criminal?” I demanded.
Smith took a chair, at ease with letting me confront them.
“We were saving you the trouble,” Clark, a member of the House of Lords with a reputation almost as auspicious as his bushy white eyebrows, informed me. “We’ve kept this meeting to the pertinent parties.”
There was one person missing today. The Prime Minister had been present during my first meeting with the infamous Council. Clark’s implication was that he wasn’t a necessary party. It said something to the sway they held, but whether or not that translated into something useful in this situation.
“Then why is he here?” I asked. I had no reason not to like my uncle, but his presence was unnerving. Up until a few hours ago, we’d kept Clara’s kidnapping quiet. Now more and more people I didn’t well enough to trust were finding out. “I agreed to meet with you!”
“We’re in the habit of conducting meetings, not yelling matches.” Byrd was one of the oldest members of Parliament and of the men here the most likely to become an actual ghost the soonest. He didn’t have time for any of it, not even the king, it seemed.
I waited a moment, still glowering over Henry’s presence. I didn’t like this. It had all the markers of a set-up. Had he weaseled his way into their good graces or had they kept his membership a secret?
“Alexander, I’m not your enemy,” Henry said as though reading my mind.
Yes, but he wasn’t exactly my ally either. Not if he was here amongst men who judged whether I was suitable to carry the crown or not. Since he was my family, I might have expected him to be on my side, but he was here sitting with them instead.
“Then what are you?” I dropped into a chair, my eyes glued to him like he might vanish.
“He is the dark prince,” Clark informed me.
“The what?” Smith asked for me.
“The council relies on someone within the royal family to provide reliable intel on the mental well-being of the king. Henry has done so for decades. He was our link to Albert. Now he is our link to you.”
That’s why he’d suddenly decided to return to London. I’d begun to shake things up. I had questioned Parliamentary rights versus my rights as King. I’d blessed my brother’s marriage. The Council must have been concerned about my next controversial move.
“You’re a spy,” I accused.
“I never share information just my assessments and opinion,” Henry said, toying with the cuffs of his jacket. It was a nervous gesture that had also plagued my father.
He was uncomfortable, but why?
He could claim whatever he wished, but it didn’t change the facts. “I can’t say that it feels benevolent to find out a member of my family speaks to a secret council behind my back.”
“It is,” Henry assured me. “The dark prince is brought in as a counter measure. I
see the private life. I was privy to what Albert struggled with. I saw into your home life.”
“He was the one who assured us that you weren’t a loose cannon,” Byrd said as though this absolved Henry’s actions entirely.
“Merely progressive,” Clark added. Byrd’s lips pursed as though he disapproved of this, but otherwise didn’t speak. “Someday, another member of your family will take the role.”
“Who?” I asked. There was no one in my family who would willingly take the role. Whereas Albert had maintained a slight distance between himself and everyone else in his life after my mother’s death, there was no one close to me that I would push away.
“We can’t share that. It’s out of the ordinary to reveal this to you now.”
“No one in my family will spy on me,” I told them.
“You’re looking at this the wrong way. The shadow royal protects the monarch. He finds justification for seemingly illogical actions. He helps guide a king back onto the right path.”
“Protects?” I asked, calling their bluff. “So none of these so-called shadows have ever turned against the crown.”
The monarchy had spent far too many periods at war amongst itself for such a duty to go without abuse. I could point to moments in history where I seriously doubted this shadow royal had protected the reigning king.
“Rarely, but it has happened,” Clark admitted. “Not in the way you assume. Sometimes there is nothing defensible in a man’s actions. Sometimes, it’s merely the misuse of power. A shadow knows exactly which is which.”
“How is that?” I didn’t buy it. Any of it. “What if they simply want the crown for themselves?”
“Because the shadow knows the king on an intimate level, and they are in a position where the crown will never become theirs.”
That narrowed down the possible options, but hardly seemed foolproof. I couldn’t imagine who they would find to fulfill this position, but Henry definitely didn’t know me on an intimate level.
“Why reveal this to me now?” What did any of this have to do with Jacobson or Clara? “What does this have to do with my situation?”
