by Amarie Avant
“Lies!”
People begin to speak up. They’re holding newspaper articles about me from California. The newspaper clipping of a lost little black girl who spoke Xhosa, which my adoptive parents kept in my ‘baby’ album always ate at me with shame. Now, it has served a purpose. Proof that I was abandoned by Qaaim.
I stare at the crowd as there is an uprising. I’m just about as frozen as my uncle, and he’s the one under the scrutiny of not only hundreds of people here today, but an entire nation watching from the various news outlets.
“Princess Mikayla, the show has just begun,” a smooth, confident voice says from over my shoulder.
I glance around to see that it belongs to Prince Fari. “Please.” He motions for a chair.
Dark chocolate is enhanced by a perfectly constructed goatee set around full lips. The young, ambitious, and smart Prince Fari of the Zihula nation moves his hand gracefully in order for me to take a seat. While Qaaim is arrested for the deaths of my parents, Fari’s hand moves from his lap, trailing down to mine. Hesitantly, he claims my palm, allowing our fingers to interlock.
“There will be more traitors,” he says, not turning his hard stare from the crowd as Qaaim’s men are handcuffed. Tone sincere, face stoic, he continues. “Take courage, Princess Mikayla. You will not allow them to take over. They will be found out for who they are, albeit slowly, and slaughtered.”
My eyes find his dark, marble-chiseled face. His dark gaze continues to watch onto the crowd. There’s a certain aura about him. The confidence that I need in order to rule a land funnels through his fingers into mine.
The head of the department steps before the podium and silence ensues, except from the few angry co-conspirators of my uncle, Qaaim.
“Today, I have the unfortunate duty of sharing the news I have learned regarding the King Regent, Qaaim Shaka Mthembu’s heading and organizing a conspiracy to commit murder of Her Royal Highness, Queen Makuachukwa Mthembu Rakoto of the Nivean nation, and the one true king, Bannan Andry Rakoto. Evidence has been submitted as to how their deaths were not by car crash but, in fact, trauma due to various stab wounds to their bodies.”
“You have me, Mikayla. You can do this . . .”
The dream unsettles me, not only because my uncle was finally exposed for the scum that he is, but because of how natural it felt for Prince Fari to hold my hand.
The dream morphs into the nightmare I’ve endured since I was a little girl; the one when my adoptive mother, Joyce, would come and pray with me after I woke up sweating and crying. It took ages to come to terms with it, but I drown in that dream now.
We were running, or the queen—black beauty in a gold dress—was attempting to run and dragged me along a corridor with gold embellishments. I stumbled, my feet tripping over my own beautiful dark purple dress, as we headed up a never-ending staircase.
More and more steps surrounded us, and the windows were high up, but I could see a blanket of stars from my position. I could hardly breathe as she tugged me, offering a smile that should have been encouraging instead of laced with anxiety and fear. We continued to go up toward a plunging chandelier.
“Umama . . .” I uttered, as I realized, even though I was dreaming, that the beautiful woman beside me was indeed my mother. She was attempting to keep me safe.
The palace was never a quiet place, but the sound of my heartbeat faded every other sound in my ears. Where were the servants and the guards?
“Your malume is coming. Mikayla, Qaaim is not to be trusted.” Her voice was heavy. She had more to say, but with her urgency and my toddler legs, we were having difficulty running, running from Uncle Qaaim.
Finally, we weren’t scurrying through a gilded staircase any longer; now, we were heading down a long corridor. Along the walls were tapestries with Nivean Kings and Queens—some photographed, some painted—in chronological order and beautifully rich with history.
“Makuachukwa.” A manly voice called my mother by her first name.
Her spine stiffened. My tiny feet tripped over each other as we stopped moving with a jolt. I gasped for air.
“Ubhuti, you are still my mntakwabo,” she spoke with authority, “you will allow me to put her—”
“You cannot hide my niece,” Qaaim said.
Realizing that I have power in my dreams, I mentally call out for MamLalumi, our divine healer, praying that the spirits whisk my tired body away from this dream. It doesn’t work.
I gulped, slowly turning around with her. Qaaim had the same rich dark skin as my mother. His muscles filled out the tailored suit, and a leopard skin hung over his shoulder. My Utata’s leopard skin! Even at my age, I knew that no matter how generous my parents were my baby brother, growing so very slowly in my umama’s belly, was the only one who would receive my father’s leopard skin.
“Utata,” I murmured.
My mother’s lips trembled as she held her head high.
“You will not hide my niece, her royal highness, the princess from me, my udade ohle.” Qaaim spat the words. “I am to become her keeper when you die, right?”
“Kill us both!” She ordered, pressing me behind her. “No need becoming regent, just kill your blood, Qaaim! Murder your sister and your niece just like you did . . .” Her voice broke. “That belongs to my husband! You . . . you can kill us in the same manner that you just murdered my—”
Goosebumps rose along my flesh. What did she mean? Her voice had cracked and gone cold, quiet. Lulami always praised me on being a smart child, but I simply didn’t understand.
“Just kill us both, little brother. Have all of Nivean.” She trembled with each word as Qaaim closed the gap between them.
Qaaim slid a dagger into her heart.
My shoulders jolt and I jump up, the crown of my head slamming onto a ceiling. My eyes open to a dark, small area. I’ve been queen for two months. This is not the palace that was just handed back to me.
“You cannot hide my niece!” Uncle Qaaim’s voice echoes in my ears, making me whimper.
“Mikayla.” Jagger’s low grumble rides over me, instantly calming my jitters.
Awareness seeps into my bones. We’re on a nine-hour superjet flight from Durban, Africa to London. Two hard months have passed since we’ve been together. With MamLalumi’s help and Nivean elder, Chumi, I have worked the crops in my land, heard over a hundred cases of grievances that my people have for each other, and worked with Chumi and government official, Zane Solarin, to clean up any outlying Qaaim sympathizers.
And I’ve done it all without Jagger at my side. My heart has been broken the entire time, and this morning, it almost tore me in two when Jagger told his closest associate and fellow hitman, Trick, that he wasn’t going with him to his niece’s soccer match. Trick has done so much for us, and we had made promises.
Jagger shifts me from my buttery-soft leather seat onto his lap.
“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” He asks.
We haven’t managed any alone time while on this tiny jet.
“I really, really missed you.”
“You weren’t acting like it.”
I can tell Jagger is still a bit miffed about earlier. Trick hadn’t told him that I had planned on coming along to London as well. This was supposed to be a test. Jagger was supposed to do something out of the kindness of his heart and not for a reward—i.e. me.
“Hey, I called you this morning . . . or was it yesterday morning?” My eyebrows crinkle together in thought.
His rough fingers glide across mine. “I know I’m a selfish ass, baby.”
“You are.” I chuckle softly, kissing his mouth. I’d called him and asked about the help that he’d once offered to the church where his British parents worked in South Africa before he was born. Despite Jagger’s savagery, he wasn’t bred as such. His mother was a missionary, converting various tribes to Christianity. When we broke up two months ago, I had hoped that he’d help them out of the goodness of his heart—and not to prove anything to me—but a sel
fless act for him. To prove that he gave a damn for the human race.
He failed that test. No doubt he gave them money and helped in that way, but he didn’t know a single person’s name when I asked.
This had been a test too. He was to agree to meet Trick’s niece, as he’d previously promised, without being aware that I had agreed to go as well.
“How much longer until I can have you all to myself?” I whisper, intense desire trembling through me, reminding me just how much I miss and crave his touch.
2
Jagger
“Me? How am I?” I chortled. “Fucking dead without you, uthando. You know that.”
“Alright, let’s not follow the norm. No, ‘how are you, yada, yada, yada,’ because I distinctly recall you providing the same response on numerous occasions. Jag, you aren’t dead. How are the plans for the church?”
There’s no time for taking it slow, so I ask, “Mikayla, what can I do to have you back?” It comes out more like an order.
“How are the plans, Jagger?”
“I could just kidnap you again. Tie you up and keep you hostage until you love me.”
“I love you, Jag. Now, tell me the names of five people you’ve worked with at your mother’s church?”
“Paul.”
“Okay . . . four more.” She actually has laughter in her voice. It makes me want to steal her more and force her to be mine.
“Michael. Matthew.” I shrug. The names are from The Good Book my mom used to read to me as a child. “I don’t know their names, Mikayla. Fuck their names. They have a whole lotta my money, which should give me some brownie points here. I’m in town for you.”
I blink back, recalling the conversation we’d had before I was to travel with Trick to London. I’d made a promise to go with him to his niece’s soccer game, since he’d missed the last one, helping me escape Vegas. Hell, I’d made the promise to the kid too, all the while planning on breaking it.
Now, I grip Mikayla’s thigh, and thank the God of my parents that I followed through with these plans. That fucking Trick, he should’ve told me she was coming with him.
“How much longer until I can have you all to myself?” she murmurs in my ear.
“Uthando, I’ll have you now, right now,” I growl. My cock is stiff against my jeans. These past sixty days without touching her, tasting the sweet honey, I’ve been dead, and she just doesn’t understand it. I take her hand, placing it over my hard-on. She rubs her hand over my jeans, our tongues hungering for each other.
Breathlessly, she whispers, “We are on a tiny jet. Trick is a few rows back, Jag.”
“He’s asleep.” Better be, or I’ll kill the bastard myself.
I recall my words of desperation earlier: “I don’t know how to love, Mikayla. But if you let me build a house down the hill from your palace—shit, I’ll even pitch a tent—I’ll learn. I just can’t be so far away from you.”
Every single word was true. I’ll do anything to keep Mikayla Bryant at my side. I unzip her pants, staring into her fearful, worried gaze. My sly grin is enough to tell her that there’s nothing she can do to stop me from having my way with her. My hand slips into her panties.
Quietly, Mikayla mews against me, closing her eyes.
“Imagine my cock.” I brush my thumb against her clit. “Getting you wet and ready for me.”
“I am so wet.” Her head falls back, body begging me to enter.
All the gyrating she’s doing on my lap compels me to give in to her command. My thumb slips inside of her as she shivers with excitement. It’s like her pussy is raining on my finger, begging me to screw her. Fuck her, no mercy. But I have to take things slow, break through her resolve because riding along with this need for me is Mikayla’s worry that we’ll get caught. She continues to look over my shoulder every few seconds.
I insert another finger, filling her tight walls up. I compel her eyes to meet mine, so she’ll focus on us and not waking Trick. I thrust my fingers in her taut opening, stroking her faster and faster. Her hips begin to work, synching to my rhythm. My cock has become such a traitor, ready to explode without the slightest taste.
It’s been ages for us, and we need that one good orgasm. But I’ll deny myself for hers.
“Ohhhh, shit, Jag,” she murmurs, steeling her movements. Her brown eyes look lost for a moment. She crashes back to earth, showering her essence on my fingers. Her pussy contracts around them.
“That’s right. Imagine that your milking my cock, uthando, keep getting you wet for me.”
Damn, it’s so erotic, so laidback and relaxed in the way that she gets off. When she’s done, I start to remove my hand, but she grumbles, placing her palm on top of the back of my hand. “I’ve felt so empty without you, Jagger.”
The left side of my mouth tips in a hint of a smile as I look into her eyes, which are possessed with need. I slowly remove my fingers from exploring her depths.
Whimper low, ripe with excitement, Mikayla presses her chest against mine and whispers, “Fuck me now, Jagger, please.”
“Shhh.” I press my wet fingers against her lips. My voice a low rumble at her ear, I say, “Lick this cum off like it’s my dick, Kayla. Show me you aren’t afraid. Show me you want it.”
My other hand grips the chair when Mikayla slips my glossed fingers all the way down her throat, licking her juices off it.
“Good girl.” I grab her face with both hands. Her thick lips are hungry, and her tongue has a delectable spicy taste, the taste that I have grown to love between those luscious thighs of hers. This time, Mikayla’s fingers clasp my zipper, and she starts to pull down.
“Those trousers come down, mate,” Trick grits out, “you’re dead.”
Mikayla cackles, zipping up her pants and buttoning them.
Blood pours before my eyes, I am seeing red. “Try me, bro.”
“You won’t be the first wanker I push off my plane, no parachute.”
“I’m sorry, Trick.” Mikayla cuts in, through a tizzy of laughter. I grab her arm as she begins to unsaddle me. She pinches me, and when I begrudgingly return the favor, she scoffs before plopping down in the seat next to me. “It was me. I’ll behave.”
He breathes in shock. “Oh my Kayla?”
“Mikayla.” I correct him, turning and rising from my seat slightly to face him.
The overhead light from his seat comes on. His arms are folded. He’s holding a silver knife with massive curled edges in his hand. “This is called Black Mamba juice. Would you fancy a show?”
I stare unwavering at the blade, which this idiot has laced with black mamba venom.
“Trick, can you stop pointing that thing in this general vicinity,” Mikayla asks. “Don’t forget, you’re in the company of friends.”
“Don’t worry my love. I’m good at this shit.”
She laughs. “You know, I wonder if you accidently stab yourself—”
“Tosh. Already immune to an even greater dose than this knife, my Kayla.”
I scoff. My forearm drapes over the back of the chair, Magnum in my grip. “Are you immune to a .357? Keep calling her ‘my Kayla,’ and we’ll see.”
“Alright, if you two are going to fight, I’ll throw both of you off the jet and meet your niece myself, Trick. I cannot with the two of you and, Jag, I doubt he is calling me—”
His dark eyes dazzle, and I almost imagine them posthumous as he declares, “My Kayla, yes. I am.”
I stop myself from cocking back the hammer.
“Don’t be so gobby, Juggernaut,” Trick snaps, making me hiss at the nickname he’s bequeathed to me without warrant. “There’s only room on this jet for one asshole, and that’s me. I know bloody true love when I see it. Otherwise, I could’ve told Mikayla you weren’t coming. Then the two of us would really be traveling to London on our own.” He places the knife back into the side of his boot. “We’re about to descend. You too slept long enough. No more getting randy on my plane.”
I reach over and pu
ll up the tiny window cover to see that the sun is rising. With Mikayla in my arms, prior to her nightmare, time had ceased to exist.
“I am so hungry.” Mikayla stretches, her ass spreading across the seat, tiny waist curving, and my cock barks again. “Trick, where are we staying while we’re here?”
“Eh, haven’t thought about all of that yet. But I know just the place for some real good grub.”
I turn around. “What about your home?”
“We’ll go there after we eat.” His tone is as short as mine. “Jag, if I can help you flee the states with the entire country and X Members on your ass, then calm the fuck down and expect to be treated like our pretty, Kayla—like royalty while in London.”
I growl, but a sound pings, and a pilot speaks up. “We are now landing in . . .”
The three of us sit under an umbrellaed table outside of a pub on a busy street. The sunshine that met us upon arrival has disappeared. The sky is gray, but it doesn’t matter. What I crave most in the world is at my side. My gaze lands on Mikayla’s, and she falters at their intensity as her hand goes to her glass of wine. She hides a smile while taking a sip.
“See, I told you, Mikayla, wine with breakfast will do you well.” Trick winks at her, and I stop myself from gripping the neck of my beer and bashing his face with it.
I place an arm around her seat and tug. It makes a loud noise, scraping over the cobblestone as I pull Mikayla close to me. I lean down, pressing my lips against hers. The moment shrinks into a second as I devour her mouth. I pull back, glaring at Trick. “I love it when you eye fuck my queen.”
Mikayla shakes her head. “It’s dawning on me now just how much of a train wreck the two of you are. Like, literally dawning on me that this get-together is the equivalent of inviting a jailbird uncle to a family reunion the day after he stole your favorite aunties flat-screen television for drugs.”
The silence continues between us.
“Hey!” She holds up a sausage link, pointing it between us. “Did you guys realize I sacrificed my real-life hatred for my uncle to provide you a super funny ‘uncle joke.’ ”
