The Reluctant King (The Star-Crossed Series)

by Rachel Higginson

  “Impossible,” Jack Smith, the Australian Regent scoffed. He was a big, burly man with an extremely awesome handlebar mustache that reached out to the middle of each of his cheeks and he was always wearing a straw cowboy hat lined with crocodile teeth. “Terletov is dead. This happened before Lucan fell.”

  “We were all under that impression,” I agreed, bringing order back to the room. “The specifics of what happened or how he escaped are still uncertain. Eden herself drained him of his magic and we have been working with Titans that arrested him and personally put him in his cell. I want to give you every specific piece of information we have gathered so far, but I have to warn you that we are painfully, even dangerously under-informed. There is something at work that we do not fully understand yet. And as dangerous as ignorance can be, whatever Terletov is planning, scheming…. accomplishing, it is more dangerous than anything we have been up against yet.”

  I paused again to gather my thoughts while the Regents looked at each other nervously. They trusted me enough to know I would not exaggerate something like this. The mood in the room, even the current of electricity turned frightful and anxious. I was glad I wouldn’t have to waste time convincing them of the danger we were in, but now I faced the task of catching them up to speed, which was a place I didn’t want to be.

  I swallowed against the bile that rose every time I had to think about Terletov and what he was doing to my people and then continued, “The Immortals that died were…. I don’t know how to explain this to you properly, but they were changed. Their magic was not their own and whatever foreign force was injected into them was eventually what killed them. They gave us a lead to Siberia, where apparently Terletov had been conducting experiments in the old Titan training facility. By the time we got there, there was nobody left except a pile of dead bodies and left over equipment that still doesn’t make sense to us. From there we followed him back to his old Latvian estate. We seemed to have interrupted his scheme there, where we intercepted a shipment of weapons and bullets. If you remember from when he kidnapped Eden, Terletov used guns with special ammunition to incapacitate his victims. These bullets are enough to completely shut down an Immortal. Although it doesn’t kill you, it will put you into a very painful coma. But if you happen to be without magic, drained or otherwise incapacitated, they can absolutely kill. Eden and I seem to be somewhat immune to the bullet by way of her healing gifts, but everyone else needs to be aware of how dangerous just one hit, anywhere on your body can be. You will be unconscious within seconds. During this exchange we captured one of Terletov’s men, only to have him assassinated by his own companion just moments later. From Latvia we followed Terletov to Peru, where we met more of his men in the mountains. We fought and won the battle, but without one living prisoner, we still do not have even a significant piece of information to explain Terletov’s survival, his behavior or his motives. Other than the obvious, that being he is after the crown.” I let the frustration seep into my tone, unable to stop the torrential downpour of helplessness that threatened to drown me. I forced my eyes up to meet my people, my people that trusted me and would follow me no matter what and I continued, “In Peru we found five more Immortals that had been held prisoner, badly beaten and abused. And more than that, we found five humans with them. They were as equally battered. They are all recovering in the Citadel as we speak.”

  “Humans?” Solomon Camera, the West African Regent gasped, standing to his feet. “What could he want with humans?”

  “We think….” I paused to meet each of their eyes. “We think he was trying to infuse them with our magic. We think he was trying to make them Immortal.”

  The room erupted in nervous chatter, all of the Regents demanding more information than I could give them. I took a shaky step back, rubbing rough hands over my face. I ripped a rubber band off my wrist and pulled my unruly hair into a knot on the nape of my neck and let them talk out their fears with each other. This was a lot of information to take in and I couldn’t blame them for needing to repeat my facts out loud so that they would sink in. When their fears started to take over the conversation completely, I stepped back in.

  “Please,” I called out respectfully and immediately the room was silent. “I am going to answer as many of your questions as I can, but I need you not to panic. This situation is frightening, I understand that, but unless we come up with a rational solution we will not get through this. Our first goal is to protect our people, I cannot…. we cannot lose any more Immortals to his sadistic experiments. That much is certain. We also need to start thinking of ways to protect humans, although it’s not as though we can give them a public service announcement. In order to protect our Immortals and humans alike, we have to protect the crown first. I need unity, stability and I need you to project a united front for the world to see. I will now take questions, one at a time and if anyone has information or suggestions we will also take those. I have a team of Titans, led by Silas hunting Terletov now, but I am desperate for information. If any of you remember working with him, or speaking with him, even the most insignificant detail could help. What we do know is that he is highly secretive and incredibly meticulous. There are hardly any details we have been able to uncover and before we can interrogate his men, they either commit suicide or are taken out by a sniper. Alright, questions,” I nodded my head toward Seiko Lee, the Asian Regent who had been in her position for three hundred years. She was surprisingly very disloyal to Lucan and even though her long, black hair was now peppered with gray I had come to enjoy her crass sense of humor.

  The questions started then and went on for hours. I answered as best as I could but most were met with my own lack of information. The Regents were all tasked with taking the information back to their people and spreading the word. We worked out safety precautions and traveling restrictions, even a curfew, but I wouldn’t enforce any of those. These were precautionary and suggestive. I wouldn’t make my people do anything.

  In the end I realized the most I could do was pray for their safety.

  Terletov was beating us at this game and unless I figured out a way to stop him, my people would never be safe again.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  “Are you glad you decided to have the engagement party at the club?” Sylvia asked me over lunch.

  I met her on her break because she asked me to. There were some people in life just worth dropping everything for. She was one of them.

  “Yeah, it makes it easy for Eden,” I agreed.

  “I thought you were the one planning this shindig?” Syl laughed at me.

  “I am planning it. I plan, and then I delegate. I can’t be expected to do everything,” I winked at Sylvia. Although it was true, my decorating skills were not exactly what people jumped to when they thought of my strongest qualities. But I had a twin sister, that’s what she was for. “Besides, ever since Eden got knocked up, she’s been super lazy.”

  Sylvia gasped and then narrowed her meanest glare at me. I cracked my charming smile to let her know I was joking, but the daggers she was shooting at me did not disappear.

  “Don’t let me ever hear you say something like that again,” she threatened and I held my hands up defensively.

  “No promises,” I smiled wider.

  The waiter stopped by our table and we both ordered outrageous sized burgers, topped with jalapenos, grilled onions and fried eggs, and then I added sweet potato waffle fries and onion rings. There was no way Sylvia was going to be able to get through her pastrami burger, but she was definitely going to try. Stella’s had the best burgers in Omaha, after all.

  “You’re coming tomorrow night, right?” I asked after the waiter refilled our sodas and walked away.

  “Of course,” Sylvia nodded. I nodded, I did know that. Lilly had one of those personalities that people rarely did anything with but love. “I adore Lilly, you know that. I’m also on airport duty with Eden tonight. Did you know Sebastian is escorting them over and not Jericho?”

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nbsp; “Yes, Jericho says they are having some issues with the humans that we rescued. One of the girls is not recovering well and he wants to oversee her treatment,” I explained. “Besides the Cartiers are staying for the party so Sebastian should probably be here with his family anyway.”

  I swallowed against the lump in my throat at the mention of Amelia’s family. She hadn’t talked to me since she dumped me. Dumped me. I had been dumped.

  I averted my eyes from Sylvia before she saw anything there. I didn’t want to think about Amelia’s rejection. I wanted to just move on, bury myself in work and finding Terletov. I had never wanted to fall in love to begin with. I knew this would be a risk and I was stupid enough to believe that after I found Amelia I would be untouched by heartbreak.

  Ugh…. heartbreak.

  It was more than a break. It was like my heart had shattered into miniscule pieces of pain and then splintered into every single working organ inside of me, slowly hemorrhaging me to death.

  And the acute pain was so much more than being jilted…. It was imagining my life, my future, my very existence without her.

  “I want you to come back to Romania with us,” I blurted before she could see the dark path of my thoughts.

  “What?” Sylvia nearly spit out her drink.

  “At least during Eden’s pregnancy. She wants to stay here for the full term, I know that. But it’s not like she can give birth in your hospital. And with Terletov running around…. I want her safe. After the party, she needs to go back to the Citadel. She needs you, and I need to know she’s well taken care of,” I explained professionally.

  “Avalon,” Sylvia sighed and then met my gaze. “I understand your concerns for Eden and I agree. She does need to go back to your part of the world. But I can’t just pack up my life and move to Romania for a few months. I have a job, a life, obligations…. everything is here for me.”

  “I would pay you, obviously,” I explained, meeting the first of physical needs I knew she would complain about. And then I appealed to her emotional ones. “Sylvia, I need you. I don’t think I can track Terletov efficiently if I am desperately concerned for my sister. I know you’re worried about her too. Why not just take a short sabbatical from the hospital and put both of our fears to rest?”

  “The money is not necessary,” she rolled her eyes. “Avalon…. I…. let me think about it, alright?”

  “The humans that are there,” I pushed one last point her direction and hoped she would think seriously about my offer. “They need someone to talk to. Someone who knows what they are going through, someone who can help give them peace. And after the reports I’ve heard, your medical expertise wouldn’t hurt either. The Witch involved with their care is the best we have besides Eden, but I’m not sure he understands completely what a human body needs in order to heal. You could help with their recovery.”

  “Now you’re just playing dirty,” she laughed at me, but I saw the wheels turning in her head.

  Good.

  The waiter returned with our food and for minute we were too completely involved with our own burgers to continue conversation. My southwest burger was heaping with toppings, and took two hands to hold. BBQ sauce, pepper jack cheese and egg dripped down my fingers onto the napkin used instead of a plate and I resisted the very real urge to lick my fingers before even one drop was wasted.

  When our burgers were official devoured and the onion rings and fries had disappeared, Sylvia leaned back on her stool like she was in physical pain. I rubbed my stomach and contemplated a second burger.

  “I brought something for you,” Sylvia said quietly, pulling herself out of her self-induced food coma. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly before she continued. “Do you ever think that Amory knew he was going to die that night?”

  The gravity of where the conversation was headed landed on the table like lead and I sucked in a sharp breath unprepared to answer her question. I sat silent for a minute, letting my thoughts collect, putting them in some kind of organized order and then I answered, “Yes, I do.”

  She returned my words with silence on her end as she seemed to think over my simple words. The bar/restaurant was noisy and uncomfortably crowded around us, the line of people waiting for burgers extended out the door, but with the conversation sitting idly between Syl and I, the room had narrowed to just our table, to just us as we contemplated the workings of my dead grandfather.

  “Me too,” she finally agreed. Emotion flooded her eyes, glossing them over with slick tears that threatened to spill over any second. I reached across the table and took her hand in mine, comforting her by running my thumb cross the back of her hand. She snatched her hand from my grasp and waved it at me as if I were making things worse for her. She shook her blonde hair out and pierced me with those same, tear-filled blue eyes. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to get upset.”

  “It’s alright,” I told her in a gruff voice that betrayed my own emotion.

  “Anyway,” she shook her head again and started digging through her ginormous purse. “Before…. before everything happened, he and I had a talk. Your grandfather was an amazing man. I know you know that, but it just needs to be said. He was so worried about you and your sister, but at the same time he was so proud of you. I know that some of you can see things, like future things. And I really, truly believe Amory could. See things, that is. Anyway, he gave me this.” She pulled a small, square black box from her purse and set it on the table between us.

  I stared down at the ring box, afraid to even move. The velvet square sat in between our saturated napkins and empty baskets with fried crumbs left in them. It sat on the only piece of dry table between our condensation-dripping glasses of soda and the salt and pepper shakers. Questions, emotions, fears and hopes filled my head, but all I could do was stare at it. I didn’t even really know what it was, let alone what I was supposed to do with it.

  “I loved Amory,” Sylvia admitted what all of us had suspected since the first time we saw her and Amory together. “He came into my life when I needed someone to take care of me, when I needed someone to love me. And he did both. He helped me get through med school and gave me pieces of this world that I wouldn’t have known existed if it weren’t for him. For a long time, he was my world. And I hoped that he would always be that way. Then you and your sister showed up.” She gave me a sad smile and I suddenly realized when things had ended for her and Amory. He had given up everything for us, even things he should have been able to keep. Sylvia continued, “It was like he suddenly remembered what his purpose in life was, like he had forgotten or chose not to remember. But then there you were and I watched him come back to life. He had seemed happy and functioning before you two, but after I saw the change in him, I remember wondering to myself how I had never noticed how asleep he seemed before. Before you he was just surviving, even though he had good things in his life. After, there was purpose and hope and something so much deeper I don’t think I’ll ever fully understand what you two did for him. But I do know that he became fully himself again. We were over. And he ended things with such grace and love that I don’t even think I complained. I didn’t have time to complain because he somehow broke up with me at the same time he handed me a newborn baby and gave my life an entirely different purpose.” Sylvia paused to laugh at the memories. “It was through that experience I realized he had never loved me. Well, not like I loved him. I can’t say that he was using me, because he was a gentleman and considerate and everything a girl dreams about in a man. I know he cared about me, but he never loved me. Not like he loved her.”

  She paused and I took the opportunity to clarify, “Diana? My grandmother?”

  She nodded meeting my eyes so I could see she didn’t feel jilted. “Yes, Diana. Whatever they had must have been incredible, I mean the kind of stuff legends are written about because it wasn’t too long after Eden came to live with me I realized everything he did, he was doing for her. Lucan, no not Lucan…. who was King before Lucan?”

/>   “Cedric,” I clarified knowing this part of history but I needed to let her finish.

  “Yes, Cedric is the one that took her from him. And I really believe he spent every day after that just trying to get back to her. I can’t even imagine what life was like for him after your mother disappeared. But by the time he found me, he was…. functioning. And then there were you two. And I swear it was like he had found Diana again. Everything in his life became about that, about vindicating his wife.” She nudged the ring box toward me and I reluctantly picked it up and opened it. “Right before he died, he gave this to me. He asked me to hold on to it for you, Avalon. I think he knew Eden and Kiran would always end up together. Eden wouldn’t need this, but one day he knew that you would. It’s Diana’s. It’s the ring he gave to Diana.”

  I swallowed back a torrent of emotions and cleared my throat to keep it from closing completely. The ring, my grandmother’s ring, was blinking back at me, but I could barely make it out through blurry, unseeing eyes.

  This would not do.

  I closed the ring box and set it down on the table. Then I stood up and circled around the high bar top table in one step, tugging Sylvia against me in one breath. I held her there while she sniffled against my chest and I clung to her, just needing someone close that felt the intense heartbreak of my grandfather’s thoughtfulness.

  We stood like that for a long time. The busy bar burst at the seams with people, hectic from a rushed lunch hour or trying to squeeze in anywhere to sit. And we stood in the middle of it all, lost in the tangled path of our own memories.