He unfurled his long body. “The princess of Neverra just offered to bathe me. You bet I can walk.”
“If you weren’t already in pain, I’d slap you.”
“If I weren’t already in pain, I’d enjoy it.”
The temptation to roll my eyes took hold of me, but the heat still crisping the air made my eyes water and sting. I didn’t think tearing up would give my eyeroll quite the same clout. Remo offered me his hand but I didn’t take it, preferring to get up on my own. As I rose to my feet, my head swam, and my vision went so pixelated that I wondered if Remo had tossed a handful of sand into my face. I tried to take a step, but the graininess turned into blackness. I fell. Metal rods hit my abdomen, and my name was yelled, or maybe whispered, the rushing in my ears too strong, a current that made words bob.
When the world materialized again, I was leaning against Remo, wheezing lungfuls of scorching air. “I’m okay.” I tried to push away from him.
“No you’re not.” He loosed the noose of his arm just enough to bring up his hands that were coated with so much blood I almost passed out a second time. His gaze dropped to my waist, to the protruding piece of metal.
“Pull it out.”
“We don’t know how deep it went.”
“Just pull it out.” It felt like a legion of ants were walking over every inch of my skin. “Please?” I murmured, resting my forehead against the knob of his shoulder.
“Amara . . .”
“If I bleed out, meet me at the waterfall.”
His body turned to steel.
“Plea—”
I never got the last syllable out. A flash of heat and pain sliced into my waist, dimming the tropical prison cell all over, except this time, it stayed dark a long long time. When I finally reeled my lids up, I was expecting a mirrored portal would be floating over me.
Instead, I got shards of white sky peeking from behind swaying turquoise fronds, the scent of panem drifting into my nose, and a strong heartbeat pounding against my ear. I tipped my face as far as my neck would allow and found myself staring at the auburn stubble on the underside of Remo’s jaw. I hadn’t died, but the wet pain thrashing at my waist almost made me wish I had.
A fresh wave of fire slammed into me, and cold sweat gathered on my brow. In the branches above Remo’s head, a set of eyes glittered. Human eyes set into a crouched human form.
I tried to utter Remo’s name and warn him. I tried to lift my hand and point. I failed at both.
I blinked, and the world became whitewashed. When my gaze cleared, there was no one in the tree.
Then there was no tree.
No sky.
No Remo.
Nothing, but an inky, quiet void.
28
The Girl
Water splashed against my dry lips, curved down my cheeks, dribbled into my hair. I sputtered and coughed, my throat so parched the air traveling down into my lungs felt like a ball of fire. More water. I snapped my lips shut, but again they parted around a rattling cough.
“Amara?”
I twisted onto my side, but choked as my nose and mouth hit water.
“Easy there.” Hands cupped my head and eased it up, helping the water I’d inhaled come back out.
I realized I was still in Hell because never had I choked on water. In Neverra and on Earth, the inside of my mouth and my scaly skin both acted like gills, separating the oxygen from the carbon dioxide before siphoning it inside my body.
“I wish I were dead,” I whispered between coughing fits. Coughing fits that made my body feel as though it had been cleaved in half.
“Don’t say that.”
“But it’s true.” The corners of my eyes released a few tears that bled right into my hairline. “I’m sorry,” I murmured, realizing how selfish I was being.
“You have nothing to be sorry about.”
After inhaling a long breath through my nose, I finally dared to open my eyes. Remo’s face was shadowed but pale, his eyes large and shiny. Water struck and gushed beside us. I turned my head, which he’d cocooned in his lap, and found he was sitting half-submerged in an iridescent pool.
“I was hoping the water would help heal you.” His voice was all at once tenuous and rough. “But I don’t know if it’s helping. Your wound hasn’t magically sealed up. Maybe it’s making it worse.”
I didn’t know if it had made it worse. I couldn’t feel an entire side of my body. Maybe I was cleaved in half . . .
“I didn’t want to rip up your jumpsuit, and I didn’t think you’d want me undressing you, but I think you need to take it off, so I can see the extent of the damage. Make sure no other piece of metal went through you.”
“The lengths you’ll go to catch another glimpse of my breasts . . .”
He shot me a gentle smile. “You think you can sit up?”
I tried but my upper body felt chained to an anvil. “I . . . can’t.” I allowed myself a full minute to sulk. “Just unzip my suit. I’m past the point of caring whether anyone sees me naked.”
“Good thing there’s just me around.”
I sucked in a breath, my lids pulling up higher.
“What is it?”
“Before I passed out, I saw someone . . . in a tree.”
He frowned, but then his forehead smoothed out. “You lost a lot of blood.”
“I didn’t hallucinate it. I really did see someone.”
“I carried you through the entire jungle and then I’ve been sitting here for some time, and I’ve seen no one. I haven’t even seen an animal. Haven’t even heard any.”
Which could’ve been because the crashing waterfall camouflaged all other sounds. Or maybe it was because his ears were still ringing from the explosion. Mine certainly were.
He gripped the zipper nestled in the hollow of my collarbone and gently tugged on it. A groove appeared between his eyebrows as though undressing me required extreme concentration. I would’ve smiled had I not felt so pitiful. He drew it all the way down, but before peeling the compressive fabric open, he shifted me off his lap. Although he handled my body with great care, it still felt as though I were being whipped by a hundred scourges.
He took off his top, which made my pain take a backseat to my surprise. “If you’re trying to distract me from the pain . . . it’s working.”
A bigger smile brightened his face but faded when his eyes fell to the water lapping at my body. I followed his line of sight, noticing the red tint.
He raised my head, fitting it into his tunic, and then he pulled it all the way down to my navel before his hands slid under and climbed to my shoulders. He stretched the fabric down my arms, then lowered it delicately down my ribcage. Sweat salted my lips. I licked them, a pathetic whimper falling from my mouth when the compressive fabric brushed against my open wound.
Placing a firm palm on my spine, Remo jimmied my back off the wet sand and rolled me onto my side. And then he pushed the fabric of his tunic up, bunching it beneath my breasts. I kept my gaze on the golden stretch of skin connecting his shoulder to his neck. When it tensed, I surmised the damage was worse than anticipated. I neither asked whether I would live, nor begged to die. I just stared quietly at the frothing iridescence behind him.
If I hadn’t been injured, I’d be swimming. But how different it would feel to swim without being able to stay under. I focused on that instead of on the fingertips prodding the skin around the deep cut.
“It looks clean, Amara. No metal seems to have stayed inside.”
“My blood,” I murmured. “Be careful.”
A faint smile drew up his lips. “I know how your blood works.”
I raised my gaze back to his. “Bagwa.”
His smile firmed up. “I deserve that.” He smoothed the tunic back over my abdomen, then washed his hands.
“Too bad we didn’t end up in a hospital or a haberdashery. A needle and some thread would’ve been convenient right about now.”
He contemplated my tattooed palm.
“We’ll use what’s around us.”
“No.”
“Amara, you’re bleeding out.”
“If I were bleeding out, I’d be dead already.” Or would I? How long did it take for a body to empty itself of blood? “Besides, it’s not my dust. What if it poisons my blood? I might not resuscitate from death by wita, Remo.”
His jaw seemed sharper. All of him seemed sharper. Even his gaze as it cycled around the dense copse of twisted gray trunks topped with palm-shaped blue leaves, set against taller, tawny trunks with midnight-blue fronds draped in lianas, and shorter tufts of a curly yellow specimen. When he brought his eyes back to mine, resolve hardened him some more.
He latched on to the sleeve of my suit, the one which had ripped in Deception Central, and tore it clean off the bodice. “Make some scissors then.”
I crafted the tool and handed it to him. He sliced up the sleeve until he had two lengths, which he tied together, building a rope of sorts. He handed me back the scissors, then cupped some water to rinse out the wound, soaked the strip to divest it of sand, and slid it underneath me. After positioning it around my waist, he knotted it so tightly it rid me of breath.
“I’m sorry for being so selfish, Amara.”
“Selfish?” I whispered, my throat throbbing as wickedly as my waist.
“I shouldn’t be trying to keep you alive. Not if dying could just fix you and take away your pain.” The indent between his eyebrows deepened.
I melted the scissors back into my palm, then lifted my index and touched the dip to iron it out. “You’re a lot of things, but selfish is not one of them.” My fingers trailed along the side of his face, against the rough stubble and taut skin. When they reached the edge of his jaw, the strength to keep them raised left me.
All of my strength left me, and the world faded quietly away.
This time, wherever it was that my mind went, there was color and sound. And warmth. Slow caresses from the sharp bone of my shoulder to the inside of my elbow. I felt as though I were sinking to the very deepest parts of the Pink Sea and languidly drifting there.
When I awoke, the sky was still white, the sand still velvety.
I stretched out, but it tugged on the wound beneath my belted bandage, and I winced. “Remo?” I croaked.
When he didn’t answer, my pulse quickened. Had something happened to him? He’d probably just gone off to explore. I tried to push myself up, but fire spilled into my veins, and I collapsed right back down.
“I wouldn’t try getting up if I were you.”
My heart banged against my throat, and even though it felt like I was being quartered, I shifted to glimpse the speaker. A girl with hair so blonde it looked white stared down at my crumpled form. Her jaw was soft and rounded, her skin finely freckled, and her ears, which held back pale dreads, slightly prominent.
I tried to inch away from her but made zero progress. “Who are you, and where’s—where’s my friend?”
“The better question is, who are you?” She tipped her head to the side, her long locks springing out from behind her ears and frolicking around a long necklace made of sharp, golden claws.
Even though I wanted her to answer my questions first, I was in no position to act pushy, so I wet my lips and parted them. “My name is—”
“Amara Wood,” a nasal voice finished for me.
I jolted from the familiar timbre.
“Ace and Catori Wood’s daughter.” The boy approached, his handsome but hateful, elongated face framed by curled wisps of honey-brown hair. “My niece.”
Iba had been right.
Kingston wasn’t dead.
29
The Survivors
It had been four years, and yet Kingston looked exactly as he had when he’d tried to assassinate Iba and steal his throne. No, that wasn’t true. His sandy-brown hair was thicker and longer, chopped unevenly even though the curled ends hid the irregularities, and his jaw was coated by a beard which veiled the conspicuous chin dimple he’d always been so proud of because it tied him to Linus, who’d apparently sported one too. Neither Iba nor Neenee had inherited that trait, but Sook and Giya had, to my cousins’ great regret, even though theirs were not as pronounced as Kingston’s.
“You aren’t dead,” I said flatly.
My illegitimate uncle, who’d been born the same year as Remo, grinned nice and wide. “Surprise.” He was leaning against a branch whittled down to a sharp point. Had he carried the weapon to scare me or to keep evil creatures at bay?
“Where is Remo?” I scanned the trees behind them.
“Wandering around the caves,” Kingston replied. “They’re not far, so he should be back any moment.”
“You haven’t hurt him?”
“Hurt him? Why would we hurt him?” The girl side-eyed Kingston. “Unless you came to finish us off . . .”
“They didn’t come to kill us. Remo is Gregor’s grandson. His beloved grandson. If anything, they came to free us. It must be time.”
“Why would they send the king’s daughter if it was time?” the girl snapped.
I surmised they were discussing the coup my father had warned me about.
“Why don’t we ask her why they’re here instead of assuming, Little King?”
Little King? Back in Neverra, Kingston had often been referred to as King for short. The last time anyone had called him Little King, the woman—a female lucionaga devoted to my father for granting women positions inside the army—had vanished. I’d always held out hope that she’d gone to Earth and lived out her life there, but Sook insisted the sparkling blue honeysuckle vine that twined around the railing of my uncle’s balcony at the top of the calimbor had appeared the day she went missing.
Kingston gnashed his teeth. “I think you forget who has the apple.”
The girl glared at him.
The apple? Were they talking about the one that showed up in all the worlds? Before I could formulate a question, the girl asked, “Why are you here?”
How I wished I could climb to my feet, or at the very least, sit, because my prostrate position made me look weak. “I’m here because I was looking for someone. A girl named Kiera Locklear.”
The fringe of dark lashes framing her navy eyes lowered. “Why are you looking for her?”
It struck me then, the resemblance—the blue eyes, the pale hair, the freckles. I’d found Kiera.
I licked my lips. “Your brother told me about this place, told me he thought you might be in here.” I left out the bit about having no choice. I thought it much wiser she believed me a heroine come to rescue her than sent against my wishes. “I didn’t know if I’d find you. I didn’t know if we’d find anyone. Especially after our prolonged visit inside,” I added with a bitter twist of my lips.
Kiera crouched next to me, the stained khaki shorts that grazed her knobby knees bunching around her thighs. “Kingston told me everyone thought I was dead.”
“Not Joshua.” I remembered she also had a twin—Cole. He was almost forty while she looked what . . . fifteen? Sixteen? Josh had said time moved differently here, but he was wrong; time, here, didn’t move at all. “Cole is also trying to find you,” I lied, although maybe he’d held out hope his sister was alive.
I knew Cole in passing. He was a soft-spoken marine biologist who was helping introduce and acclimate Earthly flora and fauna to Neverrian waters. Since he was my mother’s age, I’d never had much contact with him. Giya knew him better, what with having taken care of his kindergarten-aged daughter when she helped with summer camps.
“Cole?” Her narrowed eyes told me she wasn’t convinced.
“Yes, Cole.”
She rose from her crouch. “My twin gave up on me the day he moved to Neverra and left me behind. Josh was only seven, so I forgive him, but not Cole. Don’t try to bul
lshit me here, princess, because I will make your life hell.”
“You’ll make my life hell?” I probably shouldn’t have snorted but how could I not? I was already in Hell.
“Ever heard the story of Prometheus and the eagle, princess?”
Yeah, I knew the story of the eagle sent by Zeus to eat the mythical hero’s liver every night. “If you torture me, then I can’t help you get out.”
“Help me get out?” Kiera’s words smacked of acrimony. “If you’d come to get me out, you wouldn’t be bleeding on a beach. You’d have come with a platoon of faerie guards and Gregor.”
“Why do you think I brought his grandson?” I hoped I sounded confident.
“I don’t know, but I plan on finding out. Kingston, your spear.” She held out her hand, and he tossed it at her. She caught it with the dexterity of a girl used to wielding a weapon.
Pressing the tip to my throat, she said, “Tell me the truth. Why are you and the boy here?”
“You pierce her throat, and I will make sure you never climb out of the portal.” Remo’s voice made my attention snap beyond Kiera. He’d sneaked up on Kingston, whom he was presently holding in a chokehold, the tip of his pen poised against my uncle’s throat.
Kiera’s lips twitched, and although her pressure on the spear didn’t lessen, she glanced over her shoulder. “We finally meet, Remo Farrow.” Her necklace clinked and blinked in the white light. “I’ve heard so much about you.”
The sinews in Remo’s forearm tautened. Although Kingston’s hands rose to the fleshy noose, he wasn’t able to dislodge or break Remo’s hold and then he just stopped grappling altogether.
Kiera shifted her eyes to the thinning lavender-gray steam. “Once the smoke from the explosion clears, the cats arrive.”
My heart, which was already beating too fast, sped up.
“In the state she’s in, she has zero chance of surviving. So either we leave her to get mauled, or I—”
“I’ll protect her.” Remo’s forearm flexed.
Reckless Cruel Heirs Page 25
