My expression is on the verge of collapsing.
Montes saves me from myself; he recaptures my mouth, and we’re desperate for each other once more. It’s not until he lifts me onto him and he slides into me inch by agonizing inch that our frantic movements slow.
I exhale out my breath once we’re fully joined, my arms twined around his neck. I stare into his eyes as I begin to move, my fingers playing absently with his hair.
“Say it,” he whispers.
Swallowing back my emotion, I shake my head.
We’re wrapped up in each other, our limbs tangled, and now his arms tighten around me. “I know you want to. I see it in your eyes.”
I know he can.
“You don’t get to have all of me, Montes.” I don’t know why I say it. Maybe to harken back to the very beginning, because I’m feeling sentimental. Maybe to protect my heart, even though it’s too late. I don’t know.
I expect his normal retort. He doesn’t give me it.
He brushes my hair back from my face. “Alright, Serenity. Alright,” he says. His eyes are sad again. “This is enough.”
I lean my forehead against his shoulder to hide my expression.
His hand tips my chin back up. He frowns at what he glimpses on my face. “Don’t hide from me.”
He flips us so that I’m staring up at him.
My terrible, undying king.
Who knew at the beginning of things that it would all come to this?
He makes love to me slowly, drawing out each thrust. He stares at me the entire time.
“Nire bihotza, nire emaztea, nire bizitza. Maite izango dut nire heriotzaren egun arte,” he says.[1]
“What are you saying?” I ask.
He cups my face. “Just a promise.” His thumbs rub my cheeks as he moves in and out of me.
“Now,” he thrusts harder, ratching up the sweet burn, “come for me, my queen. I want your cries in my ear.”
As if on command, sensation builds. I fight it, wanting to stretch this out for as long as I can.
Montes has other thoughts.
He puts more power behind each stroke and he takes the tip of one of my breasts into his mouth. I squirm against him, panting as I try to stave my climax off.
“Come—for—me.” He punctuates each word with a thrust.
All at once, against my will, my orgasm rips through me. I clutch Montes, my back arching as each wave of it washes over me. I feel him swell as his release follows my own.
The two of lock eyes as our sweat-slicked bodies crash against each other. I want this moment to last. But then it ends.
Montes eventually slides out of me, dragging my body onto his.
He holds me to him, stroking my back.
I wrap my arms tightly around him. Our ragged breathing eventually evens.
I don’t want this night to end. I never want it to end.
Running a hand over his chest, I ask, “Montes, do you think we could have ever been good people?”
“My queen is full of deep thoughts tonight.”
I don’t bother responding.
He tilts my head back to face his. “I think we still can be. I don’t think it’s too late to try.”
I maintain eye contact with him, but it takes so much effort. I want to curl up into him and just let go. I think death, when it comes for me, will be a great release. Oblivion from this cruel world.
“Montes,” I say, “I need you to promise me something.”
“Why don’t you tell me what it is first?” he says softly.
“Promise me you will always try to do good.”
He flashes me a quizzical look. “Where is this all coming from?”
“Promise me.”
He frowns. “I promise you, I will always try.”
That’s the most reassurance I’m going to get.
I settle back in his arms. And for the rest of the night, I hold my monster to me.
It’s early in the morning, when I finally pull myself out of our bed. The king’s breaths have long since evened. I, meanwhile, haven’t slept a wink this entire night. Instead I spent the long hours savoring the feel of him.
One last time.
I drag on my fatigues and boots, careful to muffle my movements. I clip on my two guns and then I head out onto our balcony.
I stare up at the stars and let the past wash over me. I carry a terrible history inside myself, one full of loss, but it’s the only one I know, so I cherish it.
Over a hundred years ago I stood in almost this exact place, a woman married to her enemy.
How the tides have turned.
I continue to stare up at the dark sky, where everyone I love now lives. Or perhaps they don’t. Perhaps death really is the end.
I push away from the railing and leave the room, not allowing myself to give Montes a parting glance.
Today I’m going to have to be strong.
I make my way to my office. I need a place to hide out until all hell breaks loose. Anyone who catches sight of me before then will see that I’m acting cagey as fuck.
Once I’m inside, I pace a little, sit behind my desk for a bit, flip through reports that I’ll never get around to addressing.
Slowly the hours creep by.
I’m checking the magazine of my new gun for the thirteenth time when I hear a rumble. I slide it into place with a satisfying click and stand, my head turned towards the door.
I hear a hollow, hissing noise, then—
BOOM!
I stumble back as the earth rocks. The walls shake violently. Books rain down from the shelves that line the room and my monitor topples over, along with a lamp.
I grab the edge of the desk and straighten. Out my window I see bits of the palace arcing through the sky. A large slab of marble slams into the fountain the king and I sat at mere weeks ago.
The screams start up almost immediately.
So it’s begun.
[1] Translation: My heart, my wife, my life. I will love you until the day I die.
Chapter 51
Serenity
I storm out of my office, gun clutched in my hand, my heart beating a mile a minute.
I head down the halls to the main entrance as the sound of gunfire joins the screams.
People run past me, and none seem to notice the queen is amongst them, so focused they are on their own self interests.
The second explosion hits the southwest wall of the palace, the shockwave making me stagger. The screams ratchet up.
I throw open the front doors. I get a clear view of the chaos outside the palace.
Trails of dust and debris arc outwards from the blast sites. Both wings of the palace are enveloped in flame. I can already smell the smoke on the wind.
The West’s aircraft are all invisible, as are their missiles. But I can hear them all.
I stand at the palaces threshold, my clothes and hair whipping about.
BOOM!
The explosion hits directly in front of the palace. I’m thrown through the air, across the entrance hall. My body slams into one of the great columns that line the space, the force of it knocking the wind out of my lungs and the gun out of my hand. I fall to the ground, landing hard on my hip.
Those haunting pictures that line the great entrance drop from their perches, smashing against the ground, becoming just one more piece of the growing rubble.
I glance towards my gun, the palms of my hands pressed against the ground.
“Serenity!”
I close my eyes and swallow. I knew he’d come for me.
I am a spider, and I’ve lured my husband into my web. I don’t bother looking above me, where several of the king’s cameras
are recording this footage.
I push myself to my knees, my hand reaching for my father’s gun, the one still strapped to my side.
This is it. The moment I’ve feared since I left the West.
This will not be some detached act. It has always been personal between Montes and me.
When I look up again, I finally catch sight of my husband through the haze.
The king covers his head, and even amongst the chaos in the room he’s trying to make his way to me.
On either side of us, bombs detonate, one after the next after the next, down the entire length of the great hall. Just as planned.
The entire thing happens in slow motion.
The walls blast out, blowing plaster and stone across the room. There is a strange beauty to the synchrony of it all.
The columns that hold up the second story sway, but they don’t give out.
I don’t wait for the explosions to stop before I stand, drawing my gun. At some point, the blasts threw Montes to the ground. He’s halfway to his feet when he catches sight of me, gun in hand.
I’m not running towards him like I should be. I’m not panicking either. My true intentions are finally on display.
This must look like a savage reckoning—the king’s brutal queen covered in dust and ash, walking towards him amongst the flames.
Montes doesn’t appear betrayed or confused like I thought he would. It’s desolation that I see in his eyes.
He’s worked so hard for so long to keep me alive. All because that wretched heart of his loved me.
I have to draw on all the worst parts of me to keep my feet moving forward and my arm steady.
Perhaps Montes isn’t guilty of all the depravity I initially attributed to him. It doesn’t matter. Somewhere along the way, he lost his humanity. Whether or not he flicked that first domino and set events in motion no longer matters. We both have done too many unforgivable things. The blood on his hands, the blood on mine … It’s time for us to pay.
He rises to his feet, his eyes moving from my father’s gun to my face. He drinks in my expression, his eyes pained.
“I knew you hated me when we met, Serenity,” he says. “I knew you even hated me when I married you. But I never knew it ran this deep.”
The blackened lump of coal that is my heart breaks.
Another thunderous boom tears through the hall. The ground shakes and the fire flickers.
For a second, Montes turns his head to the side, listening to the sound of his palace going up in flames. Everything he spent lifetimes building is being torn down before his eyes.
The soldier in me who fought for the WUN, the one who lost her family and nation to this man, she revels in the retribution. The rest of me simply weeps.
Montes’s attention returns to me.
Had I thought before that he was majestic? Otherworldly? Now, even when he knows his empire is collapsing right in front of him and his wife has turned traitor, he looks untouchable. His shoulders are straight, his eyes still deep with secrets. That timeless face dares me to finish what I’ve begun.
“Do it.” Montes walks forward, lifting his chin in defiance. “I’m tired of fighting. If you think this is right, then do it.”
I taste smoke on my tongue. All around us, the king’s mansion burns.
There is no happy ending for people like us.
Cold resolve takes over.
I cock the gun and point it at the king.
All those years ago my father told me a story about my name, my birthright. I was named Serenity for the peace I brought my mother. Peace has been the very thing my life has lacked. And my father told me long ago that in order to find peace, I had to forgive.
In front of me is the one man who has always stood between me and that.
A tear slides down my cheek, and then another.
After all this time and all the awful things we’ve done to each other, I finally, truly understand my father’s words.
Montes. The Undying King of the East. My nightmare, my beautiful monster, my enemy and my soul mate.
I forgive him.
My throat tightens up.
This is what happens when you love and hate something.
I know what I have to do. I’ve always known.
“I love you, Montes,” I say.
His eyes widen at my admission.
And then I make good on my age old vendetta—
I pull the trigger and kill the undying king.
Chapter 52
Serenity
There are many types of death.
There’s the literal one, the one I am most familiar with. You stab a man in the chest and watch him bleed out. If you do it right, you will see his life and his soul slip out with all that blood.
But then there are other types of death. No one ever talks about those. The death of your identity. The death of your dreams. The death of your innocence.
I know all of death’s pseudonyms, because he and I are very good friends. He’s been my shadow since I was a child.
And he’s here in this room with me and the king.
In an instant, the bullet cuts through skin, bone, and finally muscle. Not just any muscle either. The most important one.
The heart.
To kill the king, I had to kill a part of myself. A hundred years ago he took my heart and never gave it back. Montes might be the only person who would want that rotted organ of mine.
He clutches his chest, his eyes wide with shock. The king staggers, and my lips begin to tremble as I hold back all the emotion that’s welling inside me.
I holster my weapon, and grab the gun that I dropped earlier, clipping it back into place as well. And then I approach the king.
I walk amidst the flames to get to him. The most terrible thing in the world might be fire. That’s why hell is always imagined as an inferno.
But fire doesn’t just burn, it transforms. And here in this blazing building, as Montes’s palace and his life fall to ashes, it’s not the end. Of him. Of us. Of our efforts.
If you can survive the flames, what becomes of you?
The two of us are about to find out.
I hook my arms under the king’s shoulders. His eyes have slid shut. I begin to drag him, forcing my muscles to move faster than they ever have.
The clock is ticking, and time is not my friend.
From the wings of the entryway, Marco steps out.
He must’ve seen the entire thing. His eyes are red, though I can’t say whether it’s from remorse or the burning smoke that hangs thick throughout this place.
“Let me help you,” he says.
I shake my head, not slowing down in the least.
Tick-tock, tick-tock.
“Call the men we’re rendezvousing with, then clear a path for me outside. I’ll be heading out the back main entrance.”
He hesitates.
“Now!” I bark.
That’s all the encouragement he needs. He leaves my side, racing back down the long hallway, his form disappearing in the haze.
I begin to move in earnest, straining all my muscles to drag the king as quickly as possible.
I head to the nearest room, a room I requested Heinrich disable the cameras in. Up until now, the representatives have been watching a live feed of the king and me vis-à-vis the palace’s security cameras.
That’s about to change.
To the representatives, it will appear that the explosions took the system out. But it was deliberate.
Inside the room, five soldiers wait, a gurney at their feet. As soon as the door closes, they rush to help me, loading Montes onto the stretcher.
Beyond them, the mirror at the back of the room has already been shot
out. Beyond it, I see the shadowy hall of the king’s no-longer-secret passageways. I grab an edge of the gurney alongside the other soldiers, and together we step into the passageway.
And then we run.
Everything down to the last detail of this day has been carefully crafted to look spontaneous. Believable.
But it’s all a lie.
The entryway, this guest room—all of it was picked for a specific reason. These were the closest rooms to my crypt. Marco doesn’t know that, but I do, and so does Heinrich.
Still, there’s a good twenty-five yards between us and my Sleeper and only so long that the human body can return from death unharmed.
Tick-tock. Tick-tock.
“Hurry!” I shout.
We pass through the double doors that lead to the subterranean room, and then we trip down the marble steps in a mad rush to get the king into the Sleeper. As we descend, the moat, the walkway, and then, finally, the golden Sleeper all come into view.
This should work.
I’m betting that it does.
I’ve learned quite a few things from the king, and one of them is gambling. I doubt the king ever imagined I’d take this to heart, or that he’d pay for it with his life.
The six of us make it down the stairs, and then our footsteps are pounding against the marble floor. The roof above us shivers with each muffled explosion. From what I’ve learned, this room was designed to survive an earthquake. Or an attack.
Heinrich waits for us next to the Sleeper, a scowl on his face. As soon as we get to him, the soldier and I hoist the king’s body into the very Sleeper I lay inside for a hundred years.
And then the victim becomes the villain, and the villain the victim. The king and I have utterly swapped roles.
I only have a moment to stare down at him.
I hope I’ll be able to gaze at his face again. I hope, but I doubt it.
The king’s men hoist the Sleeper’s lid back into place, and the machine flares to life. The readout of this one is on the back of the machine, hidden from view by a removable golden panel.
The Queen of All That Lives (The Fallen World Book 3) Page 28
