by Carysa Locke
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The closer Mercy got to the arena, the worse her anxiety became. She had a vague idea of what she would be walking into, but that wasn’t enough. She didn’t know the level of control this girl-queen had over everyone. She’d called them to her. Could she force them to do things? Make them turn on Mercy?
Could she force Reaper to kill her?
Because Mercy was pretty sure the whole “can’t kill a queen” magic didn’t work when a second queen was in play. It was a hunch, but one she’d bet money on if she were a betting woman.
She didn’t remember exactly how to get there, but the ship’s systems were all working properly. The map of Nemesis traced color over the wall as soon as she touched it, and Mercy was able to pinpoint the route she needed to take. She took as much time as she dared, to give Atrea time to get what she needed and find a good position. But every minute that passed chased prickles of anxiety up her spine. Soon, she was certain, someone would be sent to look for her. She wanted to be the one to walk in on Willem and whatever he was planning. She did not want to be dragged there.
She stopped in her quarters and retrieved the disruptor she’d picked up on the space station. Doc had given it back to her, but Mercy hadn’t felt the need to carry it in a long time. Now, the weight was comforting in her hand, even though she knew Willem would strip it from her the instant she stepped into the room. Hopefully, he wouldn’t look too closely to see if she was carrying anything else. The capsulet she’d pocketed was small and easily missed.
Mercy stopped when the lift spat her out on the correct deck. She was still a few corridors away from the arena.
She kept her voice just above a whisper. “Atrea, can you hear me?”
“Copy.” Even that one word sounded weary. Mercy remembered how weak she’d felt after waking for the first time in the infirmary.
She hoped Atrea was up to this. “Should have tested these earlier, I guess.”
“I’m jump ready. Got the goods.”
“Let me know when you’re in position.”
“Copy. Watch yourself, Mercy.”
“I always do.”
With no further reason for delay, Mercy forced herself to continue forward. She didn’t walk slowly now, but strode with a confidence she didn’t feel. When she threw open the doors to the arena, she did so aggressively, as hard as she could.
It was a bit anti-climatic to walk in and find it so crowded with people that she couldn’t even see to the center. And those nearest to her didn’t even react to her entrance. A few glanced her way, but without emotion, as though marking the movement without taking anything in. So much for that. Guess I’ll have to do this the hard way.
“Willem!” She pitched her voice as loud as possible, yelling it across the room like she stood on the loudest deck at the busiest spaceport in existence. “Willem Frain!”
The crowd parted before her like the tides on Lunas 7, pulled apart by twin moons. Mercy walked between them all, marking faces as she went. She spotted Cannon, Griffin, Nayla, Doc, Cage, Sanah, Dem, Vashti, dozens of others she’d seen in the mess, or the bar, or passed in the halls. None of them changed expression as she passed, though she thought Vashti’s robes might have twitched when she walked by. She didn’t dare reach out with her mind to touch their thoughts. She was afraid of what might happen, of leaving herself vulnerable with Frain and his pet queen.
She saw the two of them waiting for her in the center, and stopped dead for a beat. She couldn’t help it. Looking at the girl was like looking at a ghost. Or a mirror into the past. The girl looked like Mercy, but like Mercy from ten years ago. She was maybe fifteen, tall and thin with dark hair, bronze skin, and green eyes. Mercy remembered that awkward stage when her body seemed to have a mind of its own and she’d hated everything about how she looked. No curves, just a skinny stick, with coloring she’d had to change and hide using nanites. Looking at this odd reflection of herself now, she could admit she’d been a pretty teenager. Awkward, but pretty. Why were the young always so hard on themselves?
The girl’s eyes might have shared Mercy’s color, but they glittered with something eager and dark that was absolutely foreign. Willem, dressed impeccably in a suit, stood beside the girl where she sat perched on a crate. No…a throne. Someone had used the nano-graph to build her a Mother-damned throne.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Mercy thought she whispered the words quietly enough, but she heard Atrea in her ear a moment later.
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
“Just a few delusions of grandeur. Nothing to worry about.”
“Then why are we talking about it? Don’t scare me like that. A few more feet and I’ll be in position. Center left, above you.”
Mercy didn’t dare look up or acknowledge Atrea’s words in any way. She was too close to them now. She continued walking, keeping her eyes fixed on Willem’s scarred face. He was dressed in what he probably considered his best. An even more expensive suit than the one he’d worn on the space station, this one clearly cut and tailored to him. It was black, the color so deep it looked like velvet, though it wasn’t. Mercy imagined it in pieces. That bastard wasn’t going to leave this room alive.
Before she took another step, someone moved in front of her. She looked up, and her heart stopped along with her feet. Reaper.
His face was expressionless, but that wasn’t unusual. His eyes weren’t the icy Killer blue that would make her worry, but he also wasn’t answering her. She’d reached out to him mentally on instinct, breaking her vow to keep her mind locked down tight. But he didn’t answer back. She could feel him distantly. It was like a barrier existed now that hadn’t been there before. A wall she couldn’t see a way through. It kept her mind from even brushing his.
He took the disrupter from her.
“Reaper.” She reached out to touch him, and he stepped away. It was casual, as he turned his back and strode down to hand the gun to Willem. She let her hand fall to her side, and hoped her face was blank. She didn’t want to let Willem know how much that exchange had hurt.
Willem eyed the weapon, and laughed. “This is it? You came armed with a disruptor to…what? Shoot me?” He tossed it aside. “As though I’d let you get close enough to use it. It’s good to know our time apart hasn’t improved you.”
“I see you’re still an asshole.” Mercy couldn’t help it. Taunting him in any way was probably a stupid plan, but it made her feel just a tiny bit better. And she remembered how much he’d disliked crudeness, so she deliberately used it. She moved forward again, slowly. Careful to stay mindful of where Atrea would be positioned.
His smile faded, and he placed a hand on the young queen’s shoulder. “Have you met the new you? A much improved version. Rani, meet Mercy. She was the source of the DNA we used to rewrite your clone matrix. A bit of a dud, but then one doesn’t run across a queen every day.”
Mercy shook her head. “It really burns you that I lived, doesn’t it? That you couldn’t kill me for all the times you’ve tried. Maybe I’m not the queen you hoped for or wanted, but that’s a bonus in my book. And I’m still here.” She crossed her arms, stopping a few feet away from him. “I’ve got the best of you, Will. So what does that say about you?”
He watched her with eyes full of malice and disdain. “Rani, tell Mercy what you’ve done.”
The girl gave Mercy an insolent look that really grated. It made her sorry for all the times she might have looked at Wolfgang the same way when she was that age. Wolfgang! Where was he? She didn’t see him anywhere, and she couldn’t risk looking around too much.
“I claimed them,” Rani said. She waved a hand at everyone gathered in the room. “They’re mine now. It was stupid of you to leave them unclaimed for so long. You had weeks. What were you doing for all that time?”
Fucking learning who I am, brat. But Mercy kept the thought to herself. She was pleased that, for all his bluster, Willem had yet to enter her mind. She wanted to believe it
was because he no longer could.
The comm crackled. “I’ve got you in my sights. And Willem. Wow, still a dick, huh?” Atrea’s voice in her ear spread warmth through Mercy. She wasn’t alone. “No sign of Dad. Mini-you is kind of creepy.”
“Don’t get me started.”
“Started about what?” Rani glared at her like Mercy had just said something insulting.
“About what I’ve been doing with my time.” Mercy made herself smile. “It’s been a busy few weeks. Meeting family, learning where I come from, recovering from this asshole’s hospitality, surviving explosions. You know. Stuff.” She tried to affect a bored tone. “So what do you mean by claiming them?”
Rani cocked her head, like she wasn’t quite sure she understood the question. Then she laughed. She grabbed Willem’s arm, and annoyance flashed over his face before he stiffly removed himself from her grasp.
“You were right,” Rani said between giggles. “She has no idea how to be a queen!” She practically bounced in her seat, like a child excited about a present. “Let’s show her! Can I show her?”
Willem tugged at his sleeve where Rani had gripped it. “If it amuses you, my dear.”
Ugh. Mercy was so glad he’d never used that creepy, possessive tone with her. Rani snapped her fingers.
Seriously. It was an imperious and arrogant gesture. And people responded. The crowd parted, and Zion and Jaxon stepped through. Each of them held the arm of a boy. Kator and Max. Mercy made to lunge forward, but even as she stepped, an iron arm caught her around the waist and held her imprisoned. Reaper. His grip was so tight it was painful. She couldn’t break free, could barely move as he held her.
“Let go of me.”
Poor Max and Kator didn’t look like everyone else in the crowd. They weren’t expressionless drones. They looked terrified, wide-eyed and frantic. But, like her, they couldn’t break free from those who held them.
“He can hear you, but he can’t respond. I won’t let him.” Rani gestured to Reaper. “He’s not nearly as scary as I thought he’d be. All this talk of Killers, and he fell just as easily as the rest of them.” She looked at the boys, and her smile thinned. “But not them. You’d already claimed them. I tried to take them away, but a queen’s influence once made is hard to throw off.”
“Listen.” Mercy tried to appeal to her rebellious side. She was a teen. Surely she had one. “You don’t have to do what he wants.” She nodded to Willem. “You’re a queen! You can do whatever the hell you want.”
Rani smiled again, and something dark glittered in her eyes. “You’re right. I can.” She looked at Jaxon and Zion. “Kill one of them, or both. I don’t care which.”
“No!”
“Fuck.” Atrea’s voice was a distant sound in Mercy’s ear. She strained against Reaper’s grasp.
Three things happened at once. Jaxon and Zion moved at the same time, and for one horrible instant Mercy thought both boys were dead. Something huge filled her, numbing her hearing and prickling her hands as it swept through her and out. The people standing between her and the boys were knocked to the ground by a wave of force. It staggered Jaxon and Zion just as they were moving, each of them gripping a boy’s fragile neck and twisting.
A shot rang out. Blood sprayed and Jaxon went down. Max scrambled away from him, coughing. Another shot. Everyone hit the floor. Mercy couldn’t see who else had been hit, if anyone had been. Willem had grabbed Rani and pulled her down with him. Bodies crowded around the throne, swallowing them up and shielding them.
Get that bitch! Willem’s order went out as a broad command, and several people started moving, shoving past each other to get to where the shots had come from.
“Shit. I have to move, Mercy. I know I hit one of them, but I think I missed the other. Too much movement, people crowding the shot.”
“I know.” Mercy’s voice was breathless. “Get out. Get safe.”
“Fuck that. I’m not leaving you.”
“They’ll find you. Go.”
A string of expletives filled Mercy’s ear, and relief coursed through her. Atrea would go.
That wave had loosened Reaper’s grip on her. She concentrated. This was Reaper. He didn’t belong to some child, some other queen. He was hers, on a level Rani couldn’t possibly reach or understand. Mercy twisted so she was facing him. With his arm still holding her, she was pressed against him like a lover. That suited her just fine. Chaos still reigned around them. Mercy leaned close and brushed her lips over his. She kissed him, pouring everything she had into it, every desperate emotion. It was hard to drum up passion when she still didn’t know who was alive and who might be dead, but this meant more to her than just freeing Reaper from Rani’s control.
This might be the only chance she had to show him what she felt.
“I choose you.” She whispered the words against his unresponsive mouth. “You are my first consort. My heart. My center. You are mine, but I am just as much yours.”
She kissed him again, and reached out with her mind. The wall was still there, but she wasn’t going to let that stop her. She pressed with her thoughts as much as her body, hammering at that wall. There was flutter of movement behind it. Reaper was reaching for her, she was sure of it.
Reaper, please. You’re a Killer. You’re stronger than her. You don’t belong to her. You said you’d never belong to another queen like Lilith. Let me help you keep that promise. I love you.
Mercy. It was faint, but she could swear she heard her name. Then he started to return her kiss, and she was sure.
Hard, bruising hands grabbed at her, tore them apart. No!
Chapter Twenty-Nine
She’d been so close. Reaper stood motionless as she was ripped away from him, his face still expressionless. But she thought she saw a flicker of ice in his eyes now.
Men she didn’t know pulled her to the center of the room, closer to Willem and Rani. Mercy struggled against them, reached for the same power that had knocked dozens of people flat, but nothing happened. All she managed was to slow their progress, and the crowd was doing a better job of that. People were still pressed tightly to the center as a human shield for Willem and his queen. Robes brushed against Mercy as she was tugged along, and she saw a flash of Vashti’s face, blank and emotionless. But she also felt the brush of her mind…and there was no wall there. A hand brushed hers, soft and wrinkled. Vashti.
A whisper answered her, so light she wasn’t sure she heard it. Inspiration struck, and Mercy fumbled in her pocket, gripped the capsulet, and pressed it into her aunt’s hand a nano-second before she was yanked away and past the older woman. But she’d felt fingers close over it decisively. She was sure that somehow, Vashti was in control of her own mind.
Finally the crowd before them parted, and Mercy got her first glimpse of the tableau near the throne. Max had disappeared, but Kator lay crumpled and still on the floor. Jaxon sprawled near him, a pool of blood beneath his body. No, no, no.
No longer caring if it opened her up to Willem, Mercy reached out to touch Kator’s mind. There was nothing but blank emptiness. Not even a spark of his mental signature remained. His head lay at an odd angle; his neck was broken. She moved on to Jaxon, was surprised when she felt the flicker of a presence there. Fading fast. She closed her eyes, allowing herself a brief moment of grief.
A boy’s life, so much potential, had been snuffed out on a whim. A good man had been forced to do something reprehensible, and another lay dying. Anger rose quickly on the heels of sadness. No more of her people would die today.
Willem stood, and she took a perverse satisfaction in the fact that his suit was hopelessly wrinkled, and even smudged with dirt in a few places. Rani was next to him, looking dazed and more vulnerable than she had moments ago. She almost seemed confused, looking around like she didn’t quite know where she was.
Was Willem controlling her somehow?
“Mercy.” The way Willem said her name, it might have been a curse. “As usual, you manage to be mo
re trouble than you’re worth.”
She smiled at him. It was more a baring of teeth. “Fuck you.”
“And charming, even in the end.”
“Still trying to kill me?”
Anger tightened his face, made his scar stand out starkly white against his skin. “We finally have the queen we need. You are obsolete, and despite your shortcomings, present a threat we cannot allow to stand.”
“Which is it, Will? Either I’m useless, or a threat. You can’t have it both ways.”
He ignored her, turning to put both hands on Rani’s shoulders. Mercy took the opportunity to search the crowd around him. She saw both pirates and his people, including the girl who’d teleported him away at the space station. He was confident, but he also had an escape. Mercy set her jaw. No way was he going to get the chance to take it.
Turning, she caught a glimpse of something behind the throne that made her breath catch and her heart stutter. A shock of white hair. She eased to the side and couldn’t breath; it was Wolfgang. He lay as still as Kator, and Mercy stared with tears welling, unable to move or look away. She struggled with herself for a horrible, endless moment. She wanted to reach out mentally to check for his mind, but dreaded what she would find. Breath ragged, she forced herself to feel for him. She had to know.
Faintly, so faint she thought she might be imagining it, she felt the familiar whisper of his presence. Still and silent, but there. He was alive, barely.
A muttered curse brought her attention back to Willem. Luckily, his attention wasn’t on her. He might not know the old Wolf still lived, and Mercy would rather shoot herself than bring it to his attention. Willem was focused on Rani. He looked unhappy, and anything that he found upsetting had to be good news for her. Rani, she noted, wasn’t looking so good. He helped her to sit back on her throne, but her eyes reflected confusion.
“What’s wrong, Will?” Mercy shoved aside the worry and fear. She couldn’t deal with it now. “Your pet isn’t quite the replacement queen you were hoping for?”
