“What happened?” I mumbled weakly.
“Before or after Hagne tried to kill me?”
“After,” I whispered.
“Callias broke her neck, and your Seer companion closed the wound. I must admit, I have never seen anything like it.”
Just wait until you see your time-traveling fetus.
Speaking of babies, “Where’s Arch?”
“He is right here.” King jerked his head to the basket next to him. “He’s been changed, fed, and is sleeping now.”
“Is he okay?” I muttered.
“Yes. It took a while to rock him to sleep—he is a little fighter, that one.”
“I’ll have to thank Teddi. When is she coming back?” I whispered.
“What makes you believe that I am incapable of rocking a child?” King crossed his thick biceps over his bare chest.
“You rocked him?”
King stood with a straight back. “I am a man of many talents.” He grinned proudly.
“Thank you.”
“I am the one who is grateful.” He scratched his short black beard. “But might I ask why you risked your life and that of your child to save me?”
I made a little hissing sound. It felt too embarrassing to tell him how much I loved him. “It was instinctual.”
“No. Mothers instinctually move to protect their children. You put yourself into harm’s way. For me.”
“I didn’t feel like Arch was in danger—I mean, I felt like…I could…Okay, it was stupid. I really wasn’t thinking.” I drew a slow, pain-filled breath.
King pulled up a small wooden stool next to the basket holding Arch, and sat, bobbing his head of thick black hair. “So you instinctually want to protect me,” he said quietly as if thinking out loud.
“Something like that,” I whispered.
He nodded and then looked down at his hands, which were resting on his lap across his little man skirt, his large slightly hairy thighs exposed.
He drew a breath. “I have to say, Mia, that your actions have given me reason to doubt my assumptions about you. A woman would never take such a risk unless she truly loved a man.”
I looked away, my heart and body too tender to cope with this conversation.
“You do love me,” he said. “More than your own life and as much as you love that child.”
Well, the way I loved Arch and Ariadna were very different from the way I loved King, but I supposed if it could be measured, they’d come pretty close. Without a doubt, I would give my life for any one of them.
“Don’t let it go to your head,” I said.
He leaned forward, planting his elbows on his thighs. “I do not understand what that means. But you truly are my wife, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” I replied quietly.
“And he is truly mine?” He glanced down at Arch.
“Yes.”
He nodded slowly as if trying to soak it all in. “And I died before you came here?”
“To save Callias. You gave him your body so that he could live and be with Teddi. But then you returned. You, but not you.”
“I see.” His brows furrowed and lips tightened. “Mia, I would like you to tell me everything. From the beginning. As much detail as you can provide.”
“Why?” I blinked at him.
“I believe the Seers were right; fate wishes us to be together.” He placed his warm strong hand over mine. “And I cannot deny that I have waited my entire life to find a woman as brave as you.”
“So you don’t hate me anymore?”
“You are quite lovely to look at, so that does help matters.” He grinned and it was his trademark charming smile.
My heart got all fluttery. There’s my King.
“I am sorry for the way I treated you,” he added. “I promise it will never happen again.”
I could hardly believe this change in him. It made me want to weep with joy and jump up and down. I loved him so deeply and this made me want to believe, foolish as it might be, in us. That we might find a path forward again.
I chuckled softly, trying not to provoke my wound. “If I’d known it would just take getting stabbed by Hagne to get you to believe me, I would’ve started out with that.”
His warm smile melted away. “Seeing you lying on the ground, bleeding, is something I never wish to repeat.”
“Me neither.”
“Then let us proceed. Tell me how we came to meet. Tell me our story.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat. “It all started when my brother went missing in Mexico. You were the only person willing to help me. For a price…”
It took several hours to tell King our story again, this time with more detail—about how we met, how he’d become cursed and how history repeated after I came here the first time. He paced and listened. I breathed and tried to ignore my pain. When Arch woke, King called one of the servant girls to change him and feed him in the next room.
“So it seems,” he said, “that Hagne initiated the events.”
“Yes.” I shifted on the bed—a stone platform covered in soft fabric stuffed with something cushy. King’s bed was much nicer than what we’d been sleeping on. “But really, it’s what happens after you die that starts all of this.”
“I see now why you wish things to change, but I do not understand why you still love me. After all that I did, I would think you’d be happy to be rid of me.”
An awkward silence filled the air.
“I guess I’m a sucker for three-thousand-year-old kings.” I grinned weakly. “God, my back hurts like hell. Where is Teddi?”
“I told my men that no one is to disturb us. This is important, and I do not want to be interrupted. Please go on with the story. What happened after you returned from here the first time?”
Something didn’t feel right. King’s voice had a hint of worry.
“Is everything all right?” I asked.
He smiled down at me. “You have nothing to worry about, Mia. Please continue.”
Weaker than hell, I completed the story. King and I getting married, having Arch, and Mack dying. Then there was the awesome part about 10 Club and King’s super-fun buddies coming back to life in the name of world domination.
After I finished, King sat for a long time, scratching the back of his head, getting up and pacing the room, sitting again, and then pacing some more. I got the impression he wanted to say something, but didn’t know how.
“What is it?”
Finally, he turned and looked at me with a hardness in his eyes. “Hagne is dead now; however the Seers wished to execute her. They will not be upset that Callias killed her, so there should be no war.”
“I hope not, but things could change and repeat some other way. That’s why I wanted to take you home. You can’t become cursed, live three thousand years in pain, and create 10 Club if you come back with me. It changes the game completely.”
He shook his head. “Come back with you?”
“Yes.”
“You mean leave my people?”
I winced, trying to sit up. I knew that Teddi had closed any wounds, but I wasn’t feeling any better. “The way to think about it isn’t that you’re leaving them, but saving them. It closes the door on a war with the Seers.” It also eliminated his death—for now, at least—and becoming cursed and creating his evil empire.
“What if it is someone else who starts a war?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s your people’s destiny to disappear. Maybe it’s not. But what happens to you and the evil you facilitate is a thousand times worse, King. The 10 Club kill, rape, torture and do anything they like to anyone they like.”
“Evil will always exist.”
“Not like this.”
“Mia! Ohmygod. Are you okay?” Teddi dashed into the room, her beige linen tunic dirty and soaked with sweat.
“I’m fine,” I mumbled. “What happened to you?”
“Good.” She turned to King and gave him a push. “What th
e hell, buddy! I had to jump over a wall to get in here and then your thugs chased me down.”
“This is because I did not want to be disturbed,” he snarled at her.
“Teddi, I’m okay,” I warned, not wanting the two to go at it.
“No. It’s not! You came this close to dying.” She pinched an inch of air.
“Well, I’m okay now.” Weak and in pain, but okay.
“Mia, that was way beyond a broken wrist or stomachache. I didn’t have enough in me to fully heal you. Let me check you.”
Before I could say anything, she had her hands on me.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Lema has been showing me how to read a person’s light. Now be quiet. Let me concentrate.” Teddi closed her eyes. “See. There. I feel it. You’re still bleeding inside.”
Shit. “That explains why it hurts to breathe so much.”
“You need to get to a hospital, Mia. I’m a healer, not a surgeon. My gift works better on emotions and psychological conditions.”
“I already tried to go home, but I couldn’t get it to work.”
Teddi scratched the back of her head. “Okay. I’ll go get Lema.” She pointed at King. “And you! You better let me in this time or so help me—”
“May we cease with the threats for today?” he snapped. “I have had quite enough of them, especially from Seers.”
Teddi shot poison darts with her green eyes. “Asshole.” She turned and hightailed it out of there.
King looked down at me. “What is an asshole?”
“Never mind. She’s not happy with you. That’s all.”
“And this place she says you must go? A hospital?”
“It’s where they heal the sick, but the healers use medicines. Sometimes they use machines.”
“Machines?”
“Those are—” A sharp pain exploded in my chest, and I felt hot lead pouring into my left lung. I wondered if that knife had punctured something. If so, Teddi was right. If she couldn’t heal me, I needed a doctor.
“Mia?” King kneeled down beside me and stroked my forehead. “What is happening?”
“The pain,” I ground out my words. “Oh God.”
“You are not going to die on me, Mia. You cannot. I will not allow it.”
How sweet that he thought he could order me not to die. “I don’t know…” I rolled to my side, crying out in agony. All I could think about was poor little Ariadna.
“Hell.” He got up and called to the guards. “Find out where those Seers are. Tell them to hurry!” He quickly returned to my side. “Tell me, Mia. Tell me why I waited so long to see you for who you really are? Cursed gods.”
I loved his BC swearing. It was truly adorable. But at this moment, my heart was pounding in my chest and my vision turned all spotty.
“It’s the story,” I groaned, “of our lives. Tragedy.”
“No. Do not speak that way. You came all this way and endured the impossible. You saved my life, and I refuse to let it be for nothing.”
Tears welled in my eyes as I made a fist over my chest. I couldn’t breathe.
“I wish to know you more. I wish to know our children and watch them grow,” he said.
This was the man I’d come to love so deeply—soft underbelly, fiercely protective, and loyal. When he loved, he loved with everything he had. When he made a promise, he did everything in his power to keep it. It made me wonder how tormented he must’ve felt when he broke his vows to me in order to let Mack live. I couldn’t help thinking that a part of him died that day, and he just couldn’t bring it back, which was why he didn’t remember me. Self-preservation.
“Mia! Oh fuck.” Teddi rushed into the room, this time with Lema. “Oh fuck. Dammit, this is all your stupid stubborn fault! Why did you have to keep her from me?” she said to King.
“You said she was fine,” he argued, his voice panicked. “Do something to help her.”
“I said I hoped she’d be fine. And I can’t fix this.”
“Children.” Lema stepped in. “Please cease your bickering and move out of my way.” A moment later I felt her soothing warm hands on my chest, but it did little to help the pain or the lack of air in my lungs.
“She and the child are suffocating,” Lema said.
“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” Teddi grabbed my hands and for a moment, I felt them heat up, but the warm light didn’t reach into my chest. “Okay. Okay. I’m going to give you my ring.” She began tugging it off her finger.
“No. Not safe,” I groaned. The ring did not stop a person from dying, it simply rebooted their bodies after death, so they didn’t stay dead. I had no clue what that would do to Ariadna. “I need a doctor.”
“Mia, you must go back now,” Lema said.
“She said she tried; it didn’t work,” Teddi pointed out.
“Try again, child,” Lema demanded, placing a bundled Arch to my side. “Here, take her hand. You will leave with her.” She put King’s rough hand into mine, and he squeezed.
Our gazes met for a moment, and all I could see was warmth and affection in the blue depths of his eyes. He wanted to be with me.
My heart blew up like a big happy balloon. “Are you sure?” I whispered.
“I knew you were special the moment I saw you, Mia. I was simply too afraid to admit it.”
Okay. We were doing this. I closed my eyes and tried to focus my mind away from the pain and on wanting to see us all safe and happy in my time, but nothing happened. I felt so tired, and Ariadna’s little light felt colder.
“I can’t,” I whimpered in agony. “I’m too weak.”
“Then we must ask the ancestors for help,” said Lema, “but they will want a sacrifice, and—”
“Enough!” barked King. “All this talk is spending time she does not have.”
I gasped for air, looking to Lema for help.
She closed her eyes.
After several moments, Teddi began prodding, “What are they saying?” But Lema remained in some meditative state.
“Hurry!” Teddi snapped.
Lema’s dark eyes popped open. “They say…” She drew a deep breath. “It is as I told you. They say Mia must make a sacrifice. She must give something up to gain something.”
God, I just wanted to kick those dead Seers in their woman balls.
“Mia, you must choose something important to you.” Even Lema looked worried now.
I suddenly felt like I was once again being played with, asked to make impossible choices between those I loved and held dear to my heart. Regardless, I would give my own life if it meant saving my unborn daughter, but that was not an option. She and I were not separable, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to give up Arch. Not now. Not ever.
The pain unbearable, the tears flowed freely down the sides of my face. I looked at King, who stood tall behind Teddi and Lema. When our eyes met, he knew. He knew I had to give him up.
His lips parted with a sad little gasp or perhaps it was disappointment.
“I’m so sorry,” I mouthed.
He moved Teddi out of the way. “No. I am sorry. I am sorry I wouldn’t listen to you when you first arrived, but now you must listen to me. You will not make that trade with the Seers. You will focus. You will make yourself leave here this instant and go to this hospital place, and I will be there waiting for you on the other side.”
I blinked at him, his words a mishmash I couldn’t understand. “Where?” Did he mean death perhaps?
“You will leave right now, and I will be there.” He bent over me and squeezed my shoulder.
I didn’t understand. “But that’s not possible. You can’t—”
“Curses, woman! You can. If I’ve learned one thing about you, it’s that you have the obstinacy of an ox. Now for once, do as you are told and leave.”
“But how are you…” My mind clicked. Shit. Please, no more curses. “No! You can’t, King. Please, I’m begging you.”
“You must trust in me, Mia,” he said.
My body screamed for more air and to help Ariadna. “No, please don’t. You have no idea what you’re saying.”
The only way for him to meet me on the other side was to live, in one form or another, through the next three thousand goddamned years.
He leaned down and whispered in my ear, “I will make things different, and I will be there. I promise. So please go and save our daughter.”
As much as I wanted to plead with him, I didn’t have time. He would live in hell, feeling his soul rot, consumed by rage and the darkness that comes when you cannot escape your worst nightmare because you are that nightmare. I would only get to the other side and find the 10 Club still there, King possibly still alive—evil as fuck and wanting to hurt me, unable to protect our children because his heart simply didn’t feel love for anyone.
He pressed his forehead to mine. “I am sorry for doubting you, Mia. But now, you must have faith in me. We will get our time together, and I will ensure you are safe.”
“You must let go of her now,” Lema said. “Mia, try again. Focus.”
With Arch tucked to my side, King bent down and kissed his tiny forehead. “See you soon, my little warrior.”
King reluctantly stood up and backed away. Lema jerked her head at Teddi. “Put your hands over her stomach.”
“What are we doing?” Teddi asked.
“You are going to give her your light.” Lema jerked her head. “Hurry, child.”
Teddi placed her trembling hands over Lema’s. I looked into Teddi’s eyes, wanting to say so many things—that I was so glad to have met her and would miss her if I survived. That she was like a sister and the time we had together, when I needed a friend the most, was something I’d never forget.
“Don’t forget to write,” I muttered.
Teddi laughed. “Tell my parents I love them.”
I then looked at King’s beautiful face. Please don’t do this. But that was a lie. I would’ve given anything to see him again. I wasn’t ready to let him go.
He flashed that charming, cocky smile as if to tell me one last time that it would all work out. Then I felt a warmth blanketing my body and my mind going dark. I thought of Ariadna safe and happy. I thought of Arch in his little crib. I imagined King and me walking on his favorite beach just outside our home, his warm living body close to mine beneath the sheets. Go there. Go there. Your life depends on it. I felt my body fading away, unsure if I was dying or returning home.
TEN CLUB (KING SERIES Book 5) Page 15
