I will gamble everything on this. Because I have no other choice.
I follow him further into the room.
Spencer hesitates, then presses closer toward me, a smile spreading his lips. He looks like a man who’s just claimed the only treasure he will ever need in his life, and that is me.
Though my stomach kicks, I don’t move as he walks up to me and tenderly grasps my wrist.
Do I feel it? The promised tingles? The energy? The apparent love?
... Yeah, I guess I do.
He stares into my eyes, searching for something, and I don’t recoil. “What?” I ask through a throaty rasp after several seconds.
No matter what move he makes, that smile is always pressed over his lips. Now it becomes wider as his fingers clasp my wrist, digging in. The move isn’t rough, just protective. The kind of grasp you’d make around the wrist of a China doll.
“I’ve been waiting for this,” his voice is so low and ragged I can barely pick it up.
Those tingles escape through my stomach once more, leaping higher, making me feel as if I’ve swallowed a flare.
I don’t move, either to swipe them away with a hand or to push forward and see if Spencer’s growing proximity will ignite them into a fire.
I just watch him.
All the while, I don’t forget my gamble.
In order to win everything, I must risk.
And this is....
Spencer takes another step toward me, and I’m drawn in by the rustling fabric of his perfect suit. More than anything, I’m drawn in by the lost, enthralled look in his deep gaze as he brings up a hand, pauses, and locks it on my cheek. Despite the fact he spends all day in an office, his thumbs and fingers are rough as if he’s a man who uses his hands.
Beyond that, they’re hot – not just warm, but practically blistering. I don’t shrink away, suspecting they’ll burn my cheeks and neck. Instead, I find myself leaning into them.
Stop, my better side tells me. Remember your gamble.
Remember why you did this and ditched John.
Remember.
Spencer spreads his lips wide and leans in for a kiss.
I don’t push back.
I let him kiss me, and if his thumbs were hot, it’s nothing compared to his lips. It’s like being kissed by two faint wisps of fire.
It’s intoxicating, easily the most intimate experience of my life. It eclipses what we did in his car.
It would be so easy to fall into. The passion rising through me is incomparable. It’s the kind of passion that promises you that if you give into it, it will burn up your old personality like paper thrown on a bonfire.
It will take you to places you never imagined.
There will never be drudgery and boredom again – just this. The burning fire of longing realized.
He is pressed up against me now, both hands clasped around my cheeks. His fingers may be rough, but his hands clutch me tenderly as if he’s holding a bird. One he wants to stop from escaping. Yet, at the same time, one he can’t afford to clip the wings of.
My head, and most importantly my reason, threaten to fly away on the wings of his passion.
But... I don’t.
I pull myself back down to reality as a single thought slams into me. The memory of John. The way he looked at me when he realized what I was doing. The betrayal.
In a flash, I see practically every memory I’ve ever had of John. From the moment I met him and my body had a visceral reaction to his presence, to the day I finally joined him. Every expression, every feeling, every word. They’re like a tide washing through me, and they are the only thing that dampens Spencer’s passion.
So he kisses me, but I don’t kiss him back. I keep one eye open as I stare over his shoulder at the rest of the room.
When he’s done, he takes a step back. That look in his eyes is deeper now. The stare of a man who finally has everything he’s ever wanted. He smiles, even wider than before, as if he wants his lips to take over his entire face. Maybe he’s so overcome by the sensation of kissing me that he is prepared to whittle down every other part of his body so it won’t distract him from the tingles and heat escaping through his mouth.
“I told you,” his voice is even raspier than before. It’s the kind of tone that reaches into you and shakes your stomach, dislodging any feelings you’re trying to hide and sending them slamming into your heart.
I teeter on my feet, almost ready to give into my passion and take a step toward him, almost ready to finally kiss him back.
But I stop myself.
I remind myself what I abandoned to do this. John. I made a pact in my head. And I’m not going to go back on that.
So I take a step back, cross my arms, and tilt my head to the side. “What did you tell me?”
“That we were meant for each other.”
I have to play this carefully. I can’t seem as if I’m not interested in Spencer, so I deliberately bring up a hand and pat my lips. It’s a lingering movement, and I slow my fingers down as they brush over my bottom lip, drawing attention to my mouth once more.
Spencer presses in, his desire obviously getting the better of him again.
I bring a hand up and press my finger against his lips. “There’ll be plenty of time for that later.”
“Why not now?” he purrs.
“Because you told me you have something to show me.” I control my voice, ensuring my tone is neutral.
“Indeed.” He slips a hand down my arm, clasps my fingers, and pulls me forward.
He takes me up a set of stairs, and I’m drawn in by the sound of his footfall. For some reason as he clasps my hand, I can feel his heartbeat, and every drumming beat of his footfall matches it, making it sound as if his heart is all the stronger.
He doesn’t say a word, but boy does he concentrate on holding my hand. His rough thumb keeps brushing up and down the side of my palm, occasionally tickling up the side of my pinky finger.
I won’t tell you what that simple move does to my stomach and pelvis.
Instead, I focus my mind into a point, and I concentrate on what matters most. Why I came here and why I abandoned John.
I won’t let myself concentrate on him too much. Do that, and my mind will become obsessed by the look he shot me. It’ll make me start to wonder what he’s doing right now. Whether he made it back to his tower and whether he is currently laying down a plan to kill me. After all, that’s what he promised kings will do when they can’t possess a queen for themselves. They will gang up with other kings just to pull her out of the game permanently.
Just hold on, I pray to him. Hold on.
Spencer doesn’t let go of my hand until we finally reach her room. He pauses in front of it, pushing a breath deep into his chest, one that expands his torso and extends his defined pectoralis muscles against his shirt.
I’m almost drawn in by the sight as the part of my passion I just can’t control wonders what it would feel like to rip that shirt right from his chest.
I tick my head to the side, press my teeth together, and hold a breath in my lungs.
Spencer reaches a hand forward, locks it on the handle of the door, lets his eyes roll up into the back of his head, and starts to chant under his breath. Low and sonorous, I can’t pick up the words, but it’s clear they’re magical as sparks start to travel down his shoulder, along his arm, and into his fingers. They sink into the metal of the handle, and the very air begins to vibrate with their power.
“What is this room?” I ask.
“Our destiny.” I hear a click, and he finally opens the door.
He leads me in. As soon as we cross the threshold of the door, his grip on my hand tightens. For the first time, it’s no longer gentle. It’s somewhere between protective and covetous.
At first, the room is dark, but at our approach, something begins to glow on the far side.
There are no windows in this place, and as that glow picks up and becomes more vibrant, I realize we’re in
a large long room. From the glimpse of architecture that I get, it looks like some kind of ballroom.
The floor is marble, and the walls are decorated with veneers of stone.
But none of that matters. The only thing that can capture my attention is the source of the glow far on the opposite side of the room.
It’s a chessboard. In this otherwise empty room, it captures my full attention. It’s seated on a roughly hewn stone plinth.
And with every second, it begins to glow more and more.
And with every second, Spencer’s grip tightens around my hand.
He takes me a step forward. He pulls me a little off balance, and I almost fall against him, my hair fanning around my face.
“This is it. Our destiny.”
“What are you talking about?”
“That will give me everything.” He extends a finger toward the board. Even in the dim glow of the room, I can see that his hand is shaking. I catch sight of the side of his face. His eyes are wide, never blinking, the skin around them strained.
... It reminds me of the Spencer I first met. The very initial impression I had of this man. Before the passion, before the lust. Before the promises of power.
Spencer is a twisted man who is more concerned about power than anything else. Yes, he might have had a tortured past. But no, that doesn’t excuse this. Both he and John are in the same position – two kings who must protect their pieces at any costs. But Spencer chose this path, and John—
I clench my teeth.
I have to make this count. I can’t allow this gamble to fail.
The hall echoes with our footfall as Spencer races across toward the board. I finally keep pace beside him, no longer letting him drag me along like a doll.
We reach the board.
My stomach twists as I stare down at it. Its reflected light covers my body, and it seems alive somehow as it trickles up my neck, glowing across my cheeks, and more than anything, filling my eyes. It’s penetrating in a way I have never experienced. Probing, too, as if this mere glow would be enough to read my mind and chart my fate.
“I underestimated Senator Rogers. If you hadn’t defeated him—” Spencer ends his sentence abruptly as he brings up a hand and clamps it over his mouth. The move is hard, and I see his lips whiten as he cuts off blood flow to them.
I don’t bother pointing out that I didn’t defeat Senator Rogers alone. “What do you mean? Did this... board belong to him?”
With a hand still clamped like a vice around his lips, Spencer forces a nod. His neck muscles are so tight, it’s a surprise I can’t hear them twanging like overstretched rubber bands. “He found it. After all these years and all these kings searching for it, Rogers found it.”
My stomach pitches like a ship that has been torpedoed. “Found what? Is this board... special?” Even as I ask that, I turn to face it once more, and I get my answer.
The energy lapping off this thing is almost unspeakable. It feels wrong on every level. It’s like someone has taken the ingredients of reality and smashed them together, taking every vibrant color and mixing them until all you get left is a brown chaos, lifeless and barren.
My gut kicks. The sense that John has been trying to instill in me – the ability to follow nature – is going into overdrive. It tells me to reach forward and break this board while I have the chance.
“This,” Spencer takes a breath as if he’s so overcome with emotion he can only manage a word at a time, “is the original board.”
“... Original board?”
Spencer nods. With every growing movement, he’s becoming tenser. But not in preparation for an attack. Nor is it with fear. It’s with fervor. Fanatical passion. It’s the look of a man on the cusp of complete power.
... And I chose this bastard over John. As soon as that thought surfaces, I push it away as I shake my head hard, my hair trailing around my cheeks.
No, this is a gamble. And it’s one I will not lose.
If I’d stayed with John, I would never have found out about this board. Now I finally lock my full attention on it. “You mean this is the board that started everything?”
Spencer nods. “The very original gameboard. The source of all power.”
“... And Rogers found it? How? Where?”
Spencer shrugs. “It doesn’t matter. All that matters is it is now in my possession. I mean our possession.” He wrenches his gaze off the board and locks it on me.
I twitch a second before he does, then force my lips into a loving smile. “What exactly can we do with it?”
“Everything. With this board and enough power, we can control every piece.”
“You mean your own pieces, right?”
He shakes his head. “I mean every piece in the game. From every bishop to every pawn, to every king,” he adds, his lips slicing around the word king.
Despair spirals through me. It slams into my chest with the memory of John, and it threatens to break my cool, but as I slide a hand around my back, curl my fingers into my palm, and breathe, I maintain the smile pressed over my lips. “You mean with this board... you’ll be able to end the game?”
Spencer jerks his head toward me. His eyes narrow. But his suspicion doesn’t last. “You’re mistaken, my dear. There is no reason to end the game. I don’t know what lies John has filled your ears with,” he reaches up, collects a hand around the side of my face, and rubs his rough, hot thumb over my ear as if he’s attempting to clean it, “but there is no reason to end the game. Not with our combined power. And with this gameboard – there’ll be nothing that can stop us.”
“... Right. But... how do we use it?”
“We must take it to one of the ancient, original boards, and we must complete the ritual.”
“Ancient board? You mean like the one Rogers was trying to secure in the flood drains?” I don’t measure my words. Spencer would already know about that place.
He nods. “That exact location. That’s why Senator Rogers came here in the first place. He heard about that ancient site. It is one of the only places in the world that will be able to sustain the ritual.”
“... And what exactly will the ritual entail?”
“You.”
My gut clenches, and my back straightens. “Me? What do you mean?”
“You must learn the final move of the queen. Enact it on the board, and everything will be ours.”
“Final move of a queen?”
“You must empty all your power into the board and harvest the power from sacrificial pieces. That will sanctify the board,” he gestures toward the still glowing piece, “and then everything will be sealed.”
“How do I... learn this?”
“From the queens I harvested from Senator Rogers.”
“... Harvested?”
“They are nothing but shadows. But they will teach you what you need to know.”
“I see. And what of the sacrificial pieces? How many do I need, and where will they come from?”
“From John,” he says point blank, his teeth moving hard around his words and making them sound like the hisses of a snake who’s had its tail stepped on.
I control my every movement, pausing as I suck a breath deep into my lungs so I don’t gasp.
“... You want me to kill him?” I eventually manage.
Spencer shakes his head. “No. I need to turn him into an eater. John still has the last scrap of information I need to sanctify this board.”
My stomach flips on the promise that Spencer wants to turn John into an eater. I see a flash of that abomination I fought in the butcher’s wholesaler. It streaks across my mind, clenching my gut and reminding my body of the horror.
Spencer... Spencer wants to turn John into one of those creatures. He wants to strip him not just of his flesh, but his mind.
It’s almost becoming impossible to control my reactions.
I hold on just long enough and control my voice to ask, “How do you turn him into an eater?”
“I
t would’ve been simpler had you not already destroyed the eater I managed to acquire,” Spencer says. There’s no animosity in his voice, just a chuckle. “But I learned enough from that eater to understand the process. All you must do is acquire John, defeat his pieces, capture them for the sacrifice, and I will do the rest. Now, come.” He turns to me fully, reaching forward and grasping my other hand until he’s holding both. He looks deeply into my eyes.
Me? I look back. Or at least, I nominally lock my eyes on his. I don’t dare stare into his soul. I let my mind fall into freefall, and there’s only one place and one man it chooses to fall into.
John.
The question is, can I save him? Will I try to? Does he deserve my protection? He’s a weak player, a man so averse to risk he lets men like Spencer and Rogers do as they please.
But will I let him be turned into an eater? Will I let his pieces be sacrificed for the end of the world?
Hell no.
I’ll save John. I’ll save this city.
And I’ll end this game, once and for all.
Maybe Spencer sees something flashing in my eyes. His brow hardens.
He opens his mouth to say something. Possibly to question my loyalty.
So I press forward abruptly on my shoes, and I kiss him. I let my lips distract the bastard as I plan his downfall.
It’s time for checkmate.
The end of The Last Queen Episode Four. The Last Queen Episode Five – the final installment – is currently available.
The Last Queen Book Four Page 14
