The Reluctant King (The Star-Crossed Series)

by Rachel Higginson

  “Eden’s right,” Talbott agreed. “There is something seriously wrong with their magic. It’s not right. Whatever happened to them, happened at a molecular level. It’s unnatural.”

  “The Queen will go with me,” the Witch announced in a deeply melodic voice. “But neither one of us will try to heal them until we have diagnosed their injuries.”

  “Fine,” Kiran ground out. “But Eden, speak with me before you try anything. Please,” he finished on a whisper.

  “Alright,” Eden consented, her demeanor softening now that she was getting her way. She turned on her heel to follow the Witch from the room.

  “Eden,” Kiran called out desperately before she could completely leave the room. When he had her attention again he smirked that annoying smile of his and confessed, “I love you.”

  Relief and a sense of security washed through Eden so strong that I felt it to my core and practically reacted from it. “I love you too,” she smiled back at him. “Now let me leave so you and Avalon and Talbott can figure out how to stop this fake Terletov before this happens to anyone else.” And then she let the Witch lead her from the throne room.

  The brass doors closed and Talbott, Kiran and I were left alone. For the first time today I noticed how empty this room felt without the rest of my council. Angelica was not here, but that wasn’t surprising since Silas and Gabriel were off hunting a lead.

  “First things first,” I started, not wanting to waste another second. “Terletov? What are the chances he is actually alive?”

  He’s not alive. Eden broke into my consciousness and I realized she was eavesdropping. I couldn’t stop the smile that made Talbott look at me like I was crazy. This felt like old times.

  “Tell my wife to mind her own business,” Kiran said sternly, although I watched his lips twitch like he was trying not to smile. When I gave him a confused look he explained, “You two always have this far-away look on your faces when you’re communicating telepathically.”

  “And here I thought we were so sneaky,” I complained.

  “Not at all,” Kiran laughed. “Tell her.”

  Your husband wants you to mind your own business and stop eavesdropping. I conveyed to Eden even though I knew she was already aware of what Kiran had said.

  How about you just get better at hiding our conversations? Eden replied with a good bit of snark in her mental tone.

  Done. But don’t you dare get me in trouble later. And I’m talking about Terletov and you can’t stop me. I declared, feeling proud of myself for standing up to Eden.

  Fine. She grumbled, but then I felt her attention get pulled away as she entered one of the refugee’s rooms with the Witch.

  “I don’t trust you two,” Kiran narrowed his eyes at me.

  “Uh, she’s with one of them now,” I answered honestly, feeling my own attention wanting to be pulled into the room with Eden. I forced myself to get out of her head and focus on Talbott and Kiran. Eden would save the problem, but we were the ones who needed to solve it and it would do nobody any good if I wasn’t here one hundred percent.

  “Alright,” Kiran nodded, satisfied with my answer. “Talbott what are the chances Terletov is not dead?”

  Talbott thought it over for a minute. I watched the wheels in his head turn as he thought carefully over whatever he was about to say.

  “There is a chance,” he finally admitted. He looked at Kiran first and then directly at me, his dark brown eyes a steely cage of anger. “I did not witness his execution, although the Titan Guard was informed that it happened. And he was not among the prisoners that I released the night of the final battle. In fact, there were no actual criminals in the prisons that night; only captured Resistance members.”

  I thought about that for a minute and wondered if that was strange. I had not thought about the phenomenon that the prisons were empty of criminals completely until just now. Talbott released everyone from underground before Eden went down and destroyed the dungeons. I had to wonder if there were criminals down there, if Talbott would have released them or kept them locked up; but now I realized the decision had been taken from him, I had to wonder if it was by design.

  “Hmmm,” Kiran mused and my suspicions were confirmed. “If I remember correctly, there were four other men with Terletov from that Latvian farm?” Talbott nodded his affirmation and Kiran finished. “Were you told they were all executed or just Terletov?”

  “Just Terletov,” Talbott answered.

  “But it’s possible my father did not have him killed, isn’t it?” Kiran pressed, looking for an answer to a question that would only make more questions.

  “It is possible, but I don’t know why he wouldn’t. Terletov was planning a Rebellion of his own, and he had kidnapped Eden right from under your father’s nose,” Talbott explained, his accent thick and tainted with frustration.

  I chomped down on my thumb nail taking in every detail of the conversation and dredging up my own memories of that time.

  “Ok, let’s assume we are operating with the truth and that these are not spies. That means that either Terletov escaped this Citadel and Lucan either didn’t know or didn’t want to admit that it happened again…. or it means that Lucan let him go,” I deduced, realizing there were at least a hundred other possible scenarios.

  “Alright, so going under the assumption that this is actually Terletov…. then that means what?” Kiran continued. “He is after the throne. And he has absolutely no respect for Immortals.”

  “He only cares about the power,” I agreed.

  Avalon. Eden interrupted. This is not their magic…. He took their magic and replaced it with something else and now what’s inside of them…. it’s fighting to get out. It’s killing them.

  I coughed on disgust and revulsion, trying to process Eden’s explanation. How did he do that?

  From what they’ve explained…. By experiments. Avalon, bring Kiran up here, you need to see this. Eden demanded.

  A chill of fear slithered down my spine. I nodded my head toward the door, and turned around to find Eden. Talbott and Kiran had fallen silent when they noticed I was talking to Eden again and followed without question.

  The electricity in my blood felt close to boiling over as I prepared myself for the interrogation to come. Nothing made sense yet, except that Ileana had been right. Experiments? Only one minute ago I had been convinced that Lucan was the worst evil this people had ever seen.

  But I had been wrong.

  Chapter Twelve

  The acrid smell of rotting flesh washed over us in unwelcome waves as we entered the guest room where Henri had been placed. I used magic to settle my gag reflexes and moved to the side of the bed where Eden sat holding Henri’s hand and whispering soothing things in a quiet voice.

  Kiran immediately moved behind Eden to put comforting hands on her shoulders while Talbott hung back against the far wall assessing the situation with his military paranoia. I noticed then how still the room had become. There were no servants running around trying to take care of this man, and even the Witch had disappeared, although I suspected he was with Sophie. I wondered what I missed in the few minutes we had been apart, and then wonder turned to worry when a lone tear slipped out of the corner of Eden’s eye.

  I cleared my throat, realizing I was about to be very insensitive, but suddenly feeling pressed for time. “Tell us what happened,” I ordered as gently as I could. “Were you released or did you escape?”

  Henri’s eyes were overly large and deathly hallow on his gaunt face, and when he opened his mouth to speak his breath smelled sour and his lungs rattled with the effort to survive, gurgling and rasping deep in his chest. “He…. let us go…. No reason…. to keep us,” his sentences were broken and each word was a struggle to put sound to. “We…. are…. dead….”

  “But why?” I choked on the words. “Why did he do this to you?”

  “Used…. to be…. Shape-Shifters….. Not any…. more,” he answered and the sickening truth to his wor
ds rang out in the stillness of the room.

  “And you’re sure it was Terletov?” Kiran asked gently, his voice weak and full of compassion.

  Henri gave the slightest nod, affirming our fears. “There were…. more. Not…. all…. Shifters…. No one es-“ he trailed off, his eyes fluttering with the determination not to close. “escapes…. He took us to…. Siberia…. to the old…. Titans….” he trailed off, not able to finish his sentence and I realized our time was out.

  “What does he want? Why did he do this to you?” I asked quickly, desperately.

  Instead of answering my questions verbally, Henri lifted a long, boney finger just barely from where it rested on the bed. He pointed to me, to the center of my chest, before his finger moved slowly, painstakingly slowly upward where the crown I inherited with this job sat lopsided on my head.

  My eyes were glued to his finger as it started trembling with the struggle to stay elevated. And when it dropped to the bedspread in defeat I knew this was the end of his interrogation. It was the end of him.

  My eyes stayed on his limp hand in what felt like giving him his last bit of dignity. His chest heaved with one more painful, raspy breath and then the magical current both giving him life and fighting to take it disappeared from the room.

  The air and magic whooshed from his body in a breathy sound that smelled worse than death. I lifted my gaze from his finger just in time to watch his chest collapse into itself, leaving his body a concave, defeated shell.

  Eden let out a shuddering breath before her tears fell in hot streams of grief onto her cheeks. Kiran picked up her hand and then pulled her to him. None of us knew Henri to grieve him the person that he was, or the life that he lived. But his death was unnatural and even more than that it was traumatic, even for me. And I would always feel responsible and mourn what happened to him.

  How could this be going on in my Kingdom? Right under my nose and without me knowing anything about it?

  Before my brain could catch up with the raw, scraping emotion of anger I my crown into my hands and threw it as hard as I could against the stone wall. It hit with a force strong enough to break apart the surface stone and send the piece of gold clattering to the ground unharmed. For some reason the wall being damaged but not the crown infuriated me even more and a guttural growl shook my chest and burned my lungs.

  “Avalon,” Eden gasped, tearing from her husband’s arms to throw hers around me. She shook against me, her tears wetting my t-shirt and her compassion infusing my anger.

  I took a shaky breath, trying to calm the naked nerve endings that felt tortured by the boiling magic inside of me. “I apologize,” I offered insincerely to the room at large.

  “You are all dismissed,” Kiran nodded wearily at the rest of the room that scurried past the Witch who stood in the doorway now, a sign that Sophie had passed away too.

  I eyed the crown that lay defeated on the ground, wishing it was in my hands so I could throw it again.

  “This shouldn’t have happened,” I growled. “Not while I am King…. Not while I lost nearly everyone I loved to stop this kind of sickness.”

  “Avalon it’s not your fault. I should have been able to heal him, I should have been able to save him,” Eden confessed, her tears renewed. I felt the waves of guilt and self-recrimination move through her.

  “It’s certainly not your fault, Eden,” I all but threatened. “Don’t start that. You can’t blame yourself.”

  Kiran pulled her to him again when my words sunk in and he leaned down to whisper in her ear, words that I couldn’t hear but I felt her relax a little against him.

  “It will do no good to blame yourselves,” the Witch spoke patiently to us all. “The only thing that will solve this injustice is retribution.”

  “He’s right,” Talbott agreed, walking to look out the windows into the courtyard.

  Just then Talbott’s pocket chirped and he pulled out a ringing phone. Talbott looked at the cell phone screen before answering it and then touched the speaker phone button. Kiran nodded for the Witch to close the door behind him and the mysterious man obeyed.

  “Gabriel, tell me you have something,” Talbott demanded.

  “We have something but it’s not much,” Gabriel replied in his Spanish accent, his voice sounding far off and obstructed by background noise. “Terletov’s farm is deserted. There hasn’t been anyone here in years. The buildings are run down and the house has been vandalized. What’s strange is that it looks like the house was packed up in a hurry. If Lucan ordered the Titans to clear the house, they would have done a better job; they wouldn’t have left anything behind. Whoever cleared out of this house did it fast and took only what they needed. Looters have taken everything that was valuable, and what is left behind is unimportant.”

  “Are there any leads? Where they might have gone? Or evidence that Terletov is still alive?” I demanded, speaking loud enough so Gabriel could hear me.

  “Nothing like that here, this farm was a dead end,” Gabriel answered honestly. “But Silas has asked around and it turns out Dmitri had a younger brother, Alexi, who lives in Zurich. We’re going to pay him a visit and see what we can find out.”

  A small, almost miniscule prickle of relief nudged at the back of my neck. They had something; they had a next step, a purpose. We weren’t completely at a dead end.

  “Gabriel, Talbott is going to debrief you on what just happened here. I will be in touch with you shortly,” I announced and then strode out of the room, past the Witch and the cluster of Titans standing in the hallway awaiting orders.

  “Avalon, what are you planning to do?” Kiran matched my long strides with his own, his jaw set and his hands clenched into fists at his side.

  “I’m going to Siberia,” I said without missing a step.

  “By yourself?” he ground out, and I didn’t have to be magic to feel how badly he wanted to join me.

  “No, I’ll assemble a team,” I said carefully, knowing without a doubt he would not be included on it. I made a promise to Eden and I intended to keep it. Besides, someone had to run this place. “Jericho will be more than happy to go with me and I’m sure I can dig up Xander and Xavier…. maybe even Titus.”

  He opened his mouth to say something so I quickly moved on, “You and Eden can run things for a while, right?” I threw in my sister’s name reminding him of his responsibilities. When he nodded like it was painful to agree with me, I knew I had made my point clear. “Good. Siberia is where the Titans trained for a while, isn’t it?”

  Now that it was clear Kiran would have to stay behind, I felt more at ease discussing details of the mission with him. I couldn’t blame him for wanting to go with me, for wanting to hunt down Terletov and deliver a righteous reckoning, but I wouldn’t risk something happening to Kiran. I wouldn’t risk making my sister’s nightmares come true. She deserved peace of mind and I was bound and determined to give it to her.

  “Yes, they used it during and after World War II, while most of this part of the world was occupied with war. They didn’t move back to the Romanian Citadel until after the fall of Communism in the eighties,” Kiran sighed, clearly unhappy with his resignation to stay behind.

  “What happened to the training facility after they moved back here?” I asked before biting down on my thumb nail.

  “A small group of Titans was left to maintain the property and look after it, but other than that it was abandoned,” Kiran explained.

  “Have you checked on the facility or with the Titans who stayed there since we took over?” I asked, careful not to sound like I was accusing him of anything.

  “It was one of the first places we stopped on our honeymoon,” Kiran explained and I felt another prick of relief. At least we hadn’t been completely negligent. “I knew that since they would be hearing of my father’s death second hand I should stop in and prove that I was in charge and that they still answered to someone. The property was a bit rundown and the Titans that kept it were all older generat
ion and a bit rundown themselves. But everything looked and felt fine. Everything but their housing was empty and I would have pulled the Titans from that post all together, but they were proud of their work and had built a life there. I didn’t see the point.”

  “Alright, show me where this training facility is on a map. I’ll leave tonight,” I announced, confident that we were on the right track, even if we were a few steps behind. I would catch us up. That’s what I did. This was what I had been born and raised to do. I was finally back in my element, even though it was under the worst circumstances possible. Even through the desperation, I felt to find this son of a bitch and make him pay for his sins, this was familiar territory to me. I could turn my rage and hatred into action and accomplishment.

  And even though I couldn’t think about what happened to Henri and Sophie without nearly choking on intended wrath, I could feel the relief of finally identifying the threat, of finally being able to put a game plan together and start to act.

  The peace and safety of my Kingdom came first.

  Always.

  This was the destiny that Gabriel was always going on about. I wasn’t good at sitting still and governing menial issues. But I was good at this. I was good at fighting.

  And Terletov had no idea just how good I was.

  Not yet.

  Kiran led me toward a planning room I had rarely used for lack of reason. My blood had already ignited into a frenzied boil of anticipation and adrenaline. I started making a mental list of everything I needed to do. I wouldn’t waste time, I would leave tonight. Tomorrow morning at the latest. I needed to call the old team back together and have them meet me en route. As long as no one had gone and fallen in love or somehow tied themselves down, I knew they would be just as anxious as me to jump back into the action.

  Maybe I should even call Roxie, I didn’t need to bet that she was bored out of her mind.

  This time around I wouldn’t involve those married couples, especially the ones with children. But my single, unattached friends had spent plenty of time in the field and were probably restless with the everyday monotony of life.