Doomed Cases Box Set: The Complete Collection Books 1- 4 & Prequel

by Joanna Mazurkiewicz

  Brandon was convinced that George had been here before, staying in the penthouse, and that was a good sign. On my way to the elevator I felt my phone buzz. Zachary was trying to get a hold of me. He already left a couple voicemails on my mobile. The doors closed, and I pressed the top floor, but the light indicated that I needed to insert a special key card. Right, so there was a problem; that floor was restricted and only accessible for the guests.

  I pressed floor sixteen and decided to improvise, possibly use the stairs. My demonic energy rose as I was moving up. The temperature of my body shot up as anticipation settled in. When the door finally opened, I realised why. Royal guards were scattered around the sixteenth floor. I recognised their matching suits and a couple of familiar faces. A bulky man who was part of hotel security stood in front of the main door that most likely led to a conference room.

  Someone from the royal family was staying on this floor, and I didn’t need this right now, renewing old contacts. I turned to the left and started walking in the opposite direction, thinking about my options.

  “Max, hey, Max,” someone shouted after me. I cursed under my breath and stopped. A moment later, Jonathan Blackwell caught up with me. He was personally responsible for the security of Prince George when I still worked in the palace. I had no idea what he was doing in a place like this.

  “Hi, Jon, how is it going?” I asked, pretending that this meeting was one huge coincidence.

  “I’m good, everything is fine. There is some sort of meeting going on here,” he said, looking relaxed. I exhaled with relief, knowing that the guards were here for completely ordinary reasons. I needed to stop worrying. “But what the heck are you doing here?”

  “Well … I need to investigate something on the top floor, but I can’t get—”

  “Jon, what’s going on?”

  I didn’t have to look up to see who was walking toward me a moment later. My senses registered him before I had a chance to even face him. I had no idea what the hell happened to my abilities. How could I have missed the fact that Arthur was staying in the hotel? We were connected, and I was always able to tell if he was close. This wasn’t the time or the place for a friendly chat.

  “Maxine, what a pleasant surprise.” He beamed when he saw me. Jonathan didn’t know about our history, so he nodded and started backing away. Crap, seeing Arthur right now wasn’t on my list of priorities.

  “Hey, Arthur. It’s good to see you,” I greeted him. “I’m actually heading somewhere.”

  His whole entourage stared at us from the other side of the corridor. I needed to do something, either use my abilities to make him forget that I was here or knock him out for a bit. Both options were reasonable enough.

  “Well, let me go with you. I’m on my break. We aren’t due to come back to the room for another half an hour. We need to have a proper catch up,” he said, and heat flared up my neck. Last night I had my first sober night in a while, so my mind was clear enough to know that I needed to leave. Arthur looked bloody handsome wearing a black, most likely designer suit. When he stared at me like this, I lost my breath and all sense of time.

  “I have to go. I’m on a case,” I said, quickly breaking our eye contact and turning around. My heart turned in my chest as I continued pushing my legs forward. He had his morning planned out, and I was hoping that this time he wouldn’t follow me around. The end of corridor was blocked off; the doors were only accessible with a special key card. I couldn’t use my abilities; there were too many humans on this floor, all aware that I wasn’t supposed to be here.

  “Flower, I can help you with access to the top floor,” the voice behind me stated. Arthur leaned against the wall, holding a sliding key in his hand.

  “Then let me in. There is a girl upstairs who might know where George is,” I snapped at him.

  “Your wish is my command,” he whispered and slid the card in. The doors were unlocked, and I went in, heading upstairs. The only problem was that Arthur was right behind me, and his whole entourage followed through.

  Chapter 24

  “If the present world go astray, the cause is in you, in you it is to be sought.”

  ― Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy

  I turned around to tell him to get lost when we reached the top floor, but Arthur had something entirely different in mind. The doors to the room opposite us were wide open, and he pushed me inside, shutting them behind us with his left leg. A fresh dose of anger boiled my blood, but at the same time his presence was like an antidote for all my pains.

  “Two seconds,” he told me and then cracked the door open slightly. “Jon, make sure that no one enters or passes through this door. Am I making myself clear?”

  “Yes, Your Highness,” Jonathan said, and then Arthur shut the door in front of his face. I glanced around the room and scratched my head, slightly taken aback by its size. This must have been one of the private suites. A four-poster wooden bed stood in the middle, there were a couple of leather sofas by the window, a huge TV with other high-end gadgets.

  “Arthur, I really haven’t got time for this. We have nothing to talk about,” I said, placing my hands on my hips. Secretly I wished that I had the ability to change the past. I could have saved myself a lot of hassle if I had never accepted that job in Buckingham Palace. He clasped his hands together and approached me.

  “We are going to talk, here and now,” he said, sounding completely serious.

  “No, you’re not forcing me to talk. I have shit that I have to get on with, Your Highness,” I snapped, emphasising his royal title. He dragged his hand through his hair and started moving closer, so I took a couple of steps back until I hit the wall. I could easily wave my hand and stop this whole nonsense, but the line between doing what was right and wrong was thinning with every passing second.

  He lifted my arms above my head and pressed himself closer, deeper. God, I was losing complete control of myself so quickly.

  “You know how much it turns me on when you call me that, Flower,” he said, shifting his voice to that husky tone. My body pulsated with the rhythm of my heartbeat, and the energy started to circulate, this wild anticipation that was suddenly building deep inside me, a promise that this could go somewhere. “I looked for you everywhere after you disappeared, Maxine. Someone in the palace had discovered the truth and went to Queen Mother. All my choices were taken away from me twelve months ago. The guards were following me around almost twenty-four-seven nonstop. I felt suffocated.”

  Our last kiss nearly broke me to pieces, but right then I didn’t care about the rules. My heart beat loudly in my chest, telling me that things were different now and he needed me back. Warmth danced in my belly, reminding me of the euphoric times in his private study.

  A tiny voice in my head shut down these conflicted emotions and roared no and stop. I pushed him away. It hurt, it fucking tore my stupid heart apart, but I couldn’t let him cloud my judgment.

  “No, you have no right to me,” I snarled, and lifted his right hand, so he couldn’t deny anything. “You gave Natalie a ring, and you’re going to marry her. There is nothing more between us. It ended when the Queen discovered the truth, when everything fell—”

  “Flower, I nearly lost it then. It fucking hurt so badly when you vanished. I wandered off to the wildest places in the city, hoping to find you. I drank and lost control. Everyone tried to lead me back to the straight and narrow, but I still loved you. Listen to my heart … listen, Maxine, it beats for you.”

  I wanted to laugh at his claims, but a messy lump formed in my chest. My throat was raw with emotions as I stared at this man who transformed my life for the better, then the worst. It was now or never. I needed to tell him, but after that, there was no way out. He would hate me for the rest of my life.

  “She fired me. Your precious grandmother pushed me out as soon as I stepped into her quarters. I had five minutes to pick up my things and leave, Arthur,” I shouted, remembering the humiliation. He was pale, and his hand
s were clenched into fists. The undying love that beamed from him was crushing. I remembered that day when I was thrown out of the palace with no way of coming back, like a pleb, someone who needed to rot in Hell.

  “After I’d gotten myself into yet another fight, I was called to the base, and within days, I was being deployed to a combat mission. I searched for you, but Ricky didn’t want to tell me anything. When I beat him up, he called the palace, sold me out. I was sent to Iraq, Maxine, and got stuck there for months without any way of getting out.”

  I didn’t have to listen to that. I knew the truth, but he had no reason to lie to me. Frustration boiled through me. There were two broken hearts in this room, and I never thought, not in a million years believed that this whole affair would cause so much drama. I should have stopped myself when there was still a chance, when we were only playing with each other.

  When I came back to London, Prince Arthur was already engaged to Duchess Natalie Morgan. Somehow, Ricky had convinced me that I needed to regain my focus and keep myself busy, so I went back to work. I was fully aware that Arthur had forgotten about me, about what we had.

  “What?” he yelled hoarsely when someone knocked at the door again. We’d both ignored it the first time.

  “Your Highness, a few other people are asking for you. The meeting is just about to start,” Jonathan said, standing outside the door. I needed to remember the reason I was here, and even if Arthur was telling me the truth, nothing changed the fact that he was already taken.

  “They have to wait. I’m not finished here,” Arthur snapped back. I shook my head, wondering what the hell I was still doing here. He was determined to keep me here as long as necessary.

  “The past is no longer relevant. I’m putting my life back together and you have Natalie, your fiancée. The Queen Mother won’t let you break the engagement and the royals can’t afford another scandal,” I explained. We both knew that his future was set, and his family stood firmly with the Queen Mother’s decisions. He was in his early thirties, and he was expected to settle down, to start a family. This was something that he’d always dreamed of. “I’m no one, Arthur, just a woman who used to work for you, who grew up in an orphanage run by nuns. Come on, let’s get out of here. You have a meeting and people are waiting for you.”

  He was furious with the fact that I was right, that he had lost me a long time ago. There were too many people who wanted to keep us apart, too many responsibilities to make it all go away. Besides, he knew I had returned to London six months after we got separated, and still, he didn’t come to see me. I had no right to expect anything from him, but deep down, I had hoped that he still cared.

  “No, Maxine, we are going to sort this out now, here. I’m not marrying her. When I came back from Iraq, I was lost, and she was there, but I never loved her the way I used to love you. Please believe me, please let me make this right.”

  He was begging me now. The future king of Britain was begging me to take him back. The pain inside me felt too real, and I couldn’t imagine that it would ever ease. We couldn’t have a second chance; no member of his family would ever accept the fact that we were in love. Besides, Lucifer kept an eye on royals, and the faction would make sure that we stayed separated.

  The knock persisted, and I moved toward the door, passing Arthur on the way. I tried to open it, but he shut it with his body and then grabbed my wrists.

  “Go away, Jon, or I swear to God, I will fire you,” he shouted and wrapped his arms around my waist. I considered fighting him off, but his fingers were touching my skin. The caress sent jolts of electricity through me, and a stream of power followed all the way to the tips of my toes. He pushed me down to the large bed and had me pinned beneath him within a heartbeat. Around him, I wasn’t even myself; my abilities shifted. It was easier to wait until he was done with me, than fight him.

  His hair fell sexily on his forehead, and the warmth that travelled down between my legs was melting my biting anger into submission. Arthur was the only man in the world who had this kind of power over me. I could beat the shit out of other demons, creatures of the underworld, but when he pinned me down with his hard, lean body, I felt hopelessly lost to him.

  Thoughts of Zach entered my mind. I felt more in control around him, but my emotions around him were running wild. Arthur was a man who craved more and expected all. I shivered, hopelessly drawn into his pale eyes.

  “What are you trying to achieve, Arthur? This won’t change my mind. I’m moving on, leading a new life away from you. Nothing you say will change things. Just let me go,” I whispered, pleading and thinking that we’d had our chance, that he was only hurting himself.

  When he didn’t answer and leaned down to kiss me, I moved my head to the side. His lips started tracing the skin on my neck, zipping away the hesitation, the determination of staying immune to his tortures. I moaned, suddenly aware of how ready he was for me, parting my legs with his.

  The knock gave me a chance to flip him over onto his back and stop this nonsense. One kiss a couple of weeks back had nearly killed me, and I wasn’t going to sleep with him. Too many things went wrong the last time.

  “Your Highness, everyone is waiting for you.” Jonathan kept talking through the door. Arthur was holding my wrists, but now I was sitting on top of him, aware that he was hard, and he was stripping me with his eyes.

  “You’re going to marry Natalie and live happily ever after. Don’t worry about me. I’m going to be fine. I’ll find George and then disappear—”

  “No, Flower,” he growled, fighting with me.

  “Yes, Your Highness, I’m not worth it to be chased, not worth it to lose, because I’m not even—”

  I couldn’t finish the sentence and risk the life of other demons. I also knew what happened to humans who found out about our world. Sometimes their twisted minds couldn’t be repaired.

  “What, Maxine? You’re not what?” he asked with anger and resentment, but then the door opened, and Jonathan barged inside. He took in the scene in the bed and muttered, “fuck” under his breath.

  Behind him was a guy in a suit, a human who I hadn’t seen before.

  “Blackwell, you’re out of line, and I’m going to fire your arse. I didn’t give you permission to enter,” Arthur shouted, looking like he was going to lose it and batter Jon to death. The guy behind Jon was a demon, too. I scrambled away from him, gathering the energy that slipped inside the room. All of a sudden, I was lucid and alert. Another member of my kind just saw me on the bed with the prince. This wasn’t going to end well.

  “Your Highness, Miss Morgan is downstairs. There was—”

  “I have to go,” I said, as the coldness settled in my chest. Natalie was on her way upstairs and she couldn’t see me here, especially like this. On top of that, I had to find Natasha. She was somewhere on this floor.

  “Maxine, we are not done. I can tell her now.”

  “Your Highness, your fiancée. There is no time,” Jonathan said, more forcefully, staring at me, looking uncomfortable. He knew that Natalie could enter this floor at any time, and he wanted to spare us both the embarrassment.

  “Arthur, your guard is only doing his job, so listen to him for once. Get it together. I’m leaving,” I snapped, and then left the room. My legs pushed forward even as my brain screamed at me to stop. I glanced back a few times, but only saw more guards. Arthur didn’t follow this time, so I exhaled with relief.

  I had lost my head, and it was a huge tactical error. We could have been caught again, and this time, I didn’t think I could last on Earth longer than a day.

  As I walked through the long corridor, I realised that there were only a couple of rooms on this floor. Around the corner, I nearly bumped into two Chinese men who were talking rapidly in their native tongue. My skin still burned, demanding Arthur’s touch, asking for more of what I considered distraction. Zach was different, rougher and more demanding. Maybe I was deluding myself. Neither of them was ever going to be suitable for m
e. They were both humans with many flaws and they weren’t part of my world.

  I stopped in my tracks in front of Room 106. My heart kicked me in the ribcage as I sensed a painful struggle inside.

  My intuition had never let me down, even when it came to tracking someone who didn’t want to be found. I cleared my throat and knocked, after I made sure there was no one watching. The two Chinese men had left, and there was only silence—except for the heartbeat of a woman inside the room. It was pounding in my ears. There was something wrong. I hesitated, then entered the dark room.

  After I closed the doors behind me, I knew it wasn’t a human anymore that I was facing, but a creature who came straight from Hell.

  Chapter 25

  “This mountain is so formed that it is always wearisome when one begins the ascent, but becomes easier the higher one climbs.”

  ― Dante Alighieri, Purgatorio

  The silence of the room was broken by long raspy breaths. Someone was standing by the bed, watching me through the gloomy darkness. The large windows were shaded with thick red curtains, and it’d been an hour since the sun hid itself behind the horizon. The creature in this room most likely had taken Natasha’s body; I felt her human heart still beating wildly in her chest. Her face was hidden by the hood, somehow deformed, twisted at a strange angle. A wave of frigid air blasted me when I shut the door behind me. The creature that possessed this human’s body was desperate to tap into my demonic energy. I wondered how it escaped from the underworld. In theory, the Watchers were meant to keep an eye on unofficial entrances to Earth, but that didn’t quite work in practice.

  Suddenly her appearance shifted, and she turned into a pretty woman with long curly blond hair, a perfect small nose and long bare legs. The ugly hood disappeared and was replaced by a silky pink dressing gown. The creature that now stood in front of me was an A’rea, a mythological being, a female demon of curses. Centuries ago, these creatures were worshipped by Lucifer.