by Amarie Avant
“You’re the only choice for me, Jag.” Through thick, lustrous eyelashes, Mikayla looks up at me—coy and sexy at the same time. It’s enough to send my already rock-hard cock jumping for action.
I plant my mouth on her forehead again. Cool down, dog, I warn my manhood. We love this one. “We better get outta here, Kayla, before I take you on that chair again. You’ve got company anyway.”
She glances out the window to see an SUV with Nivean flags on either side of the hood. “Too late to make a run for it.”
On our way out, she adds, “Can we keep our two lives separate for now? I need to gradually introduce you to my people. After the news, I don’t know how long it will take them to warm up to you.”
I nod. “I’m not just some white guy, babe. I understand how the Johansson name is associated with colonizing.” I subtly mention my parents. My surname was once associated with converting people to Christianity while I don’t recall anything but believing in my mother’s kind heart.
“Thanks for understanding. I’ll look at my schedule. With any luck, I can juggle around a few tasks, but let’s give it a few days. Okay?” Mikayla sucks in a breath of air, and my gaze tracks to what she’s looking at.
Kmota Okeke steps out of the backseat of the SUV, two Nivean guards at her sides. With the last twenty-four hours being jampacked with learning about Frank and whatnot, I assume she’d forgotten requesting that her servant be here upon arrival.
“Take it easy,” Mikayla says wearily, eyeing the guards.
“They’re your guards, not hers, right?” I stride over to Kmota, who is a few shades darker than Mikayla. Her hair is styled in a short crop. She has high cheekbones and pouted lips, tensed. Her eyes are keen, and I can tell she doesn’t like me much. That doesn’t matter, I just need to assess if she’s a threat to Mikayla.
“You walk before our Queen.” Kmota glares at me, eyes narrowing, and then at Mikayla. The daggers she just gave off instantly fade as she nods. “Welcome home, Queen Mikayla. I am at your service should you need anything.”
“Thank you, Kmota.” Mikayla shifts awkwardly in her boots then glances toward me.
I stare at Kmota again, just enough so she’d squirm under my eye contact, then I extend my hand.
“I know who you are, Mr. Johansson. You are the man who murdered my cousin, Abayomi. Unless Queen Mikayla requests it of me, I will not shake your hand.”
The two guards who have stayed alert yet pretended to be in a private discussion straighten up.
“That is your right.” I put my hand down. The stewardess who made herself scarce during the entire ride sails past us with luggage. Sensing that there won’t be a show down, the two guards help her place Mikayla’s luggage into the trunk.
Mikayla nods her head to me and heads over to the opposite side of my truck. I follow.
“That was the definition of awkward, Jag.” She fidgets with her fingers.
“I don’t believe she’s helping your uncle.”
“Well, I appreciate you getting that bit of truth out of her without brandishing a weapon.”
Pulling Mikayla into a hug, I add, “I doubt she likes you anymore than she likes me, but I saw respect for you in her eyes. That and I’m not supposed to walk in front of a royal.”
“Okay, that’s settled. Now, let’s say our goodbyes again.” Mikayla steps forward to me.
I move back around my truck, and she follows. Due to Kmota’s glare, I wave my hand for Mikayla to move her ass before me as we walk the few yards over to her SUV. I open the back door, and she gets inside. Her eyes are despondent since I chose not to kiss her goodbye.
“Jag,” she gasps, realizing that I am still going to kiss her—and not while hiding behind my truck either.
Her mouth is set to reprimand me. I reach into the car and dominate that unruly mouth, letting my tongue glide over hers, cleansing her of the need to be cordial. We’re past that shit. Her people know she’s mine. I kiss Mikayla until her heart pounds against mine. We break away, and she has to catch up on her breathing. I walk away.
“Jagger, I asked you to . . .” She pauses, not brave enough to finish her sentence with Kmota and the two guards nearby.
I turn around and gesture only with a two-finger solute, so she’s at least had the last word. Her thick lips purse into a line. Her fiery gaze warns that I crossed the line. Yeah, I know. I’m not just a hitman. I’m a fucking Johansson, and her people have always hated my parents for tearing apart families for the sake of “the greater good” or whatever. So, there are only three Niveans that viewed my display of affection today. If she believes the rest of them require additional time, so be it.
14
Mikayla
In the backseat of the Suburban, I stare out of the window, watching as Jagger climbs into that modified truck of his. Our paths diverge as my guard, Eadric, navigates toward the road and the freeway north while Jagger heads back to Cape Town. He becomes a golden shimmering mirage in the distance, but I can’t take my eyes off him.
Moving around in the seat, I let my head fall back, and I lick the intoxicating taste of him from my lips. For about thirty minutes, I contemplate on how a few days in Jagger’s embrace broke the apprehension of being queen. Feeling a set of eyes on me, I open mine and glance to Kmota, but her face is glued to the savannah outside her window. We’re within the confines of Nivean.
“Take this turn please.” I point.
Eadric says, “But—”
“Take it.” My lips hardly move, my voice commanding. “Eadric, if you are feeling incompetent let me know, your services can be otherwise used at the palace gates.”
It might sound rude of me, but I’ve added Eadric to the top of my list when the time comes, and I can smoothly transition women’s rights into our nation. I can’t just go popping men upside the head for their learned behavior.
From the side of the rear-view mirror, I see that Denso, who is seated in the front passenger seat, offers the faintest smile. He is handsome with opulent dark skin and blazing black eyes further brightened by the intelligence of being Chumi’s son. He never speaks without prompt, but the muscles underneath his shirt are a telltale sign that I can trust him with my life when Jagger is away.
“Her Royal Highness, may I ask where we are going?” Eadric asks.
“MamLalumi.” I place my nails against my lips in thought. Though the creepy voice that sounded eerily like mine—with completely antagonistic thoughts—has ceased in my psyche, it’s best to seek out her advice now rather than later.
MamLalumi lives in a dome-shaped beehive hut, called an iQukwane. Sticks are bound and thatched together, and the top of the structure is made of split reeds and grass. Only a select few of the elders and other older members of Nivean live in these types of homes. She’s at the bottom of a slope. Above her is the town where most modern homes—even those cookie cutters that have ridiculous HOAs in the States—are, and above them at the top of the hill is the palace.
The front doors begin to open just as Eadric pulls the key from the ignition.
I get out quickly. “I don’t require any assistance here.”
Eadric closes his door. Denso steps out, closes his door, and speaks in a low tone. “Queen Mikayla, would I be permitted to say a quick hello?”
First, I consider his words. Just a quick greeting because I need to speak with MamLalumi about my predicament alone. I grin and bear it since he is one of the guards who could model appropriate male-female behavior for his cohorts.
“Queen Mikayla, may I be permitted to speak of—”
“Please, Denso,” I begin while walking the thirty yards through the grass to the hut. “We’ve pretty much started a conversation already, go ahead.”
His jet-black eyebrows pull together. “Your servants are loyal,” he states, and I’m wondering if Jagger and Kmota’s display a little while ago had anything to do with his comment. Though Denso has spoken with graceful intelligence during meetings with the Elders, he’s a more sympathetic,
passionate Chumi. His demeanor is respectable and hesitant with me. However, right now, I’m fixated on how I’ll introduce Jagger to Nivean society one day when Denso adds, “Please don’t believe it too forward of me if I mention that I believe most of your guards can be trusted as well. At least, my father has granted that task to me. The men will test you. Eadric, as well, but I believe in his duty to you.”
“That’s promising.” I smile meekly because I’m still fixated on Jagger.
“I apologize.”
“For what?” I pause, almost ten yards out from the front door.
“You are not satisfied with my response?”
“I’m . . .” The door opens.
“Molo,” Denso says the Xhosa equivalent of “how are you” while displaying a row of pearl-white teeth.
MamLalumi holds an an ishoba. She stops short of giving me a hug. “Stay here.”
Denso and I stare at each other as she walks back into the meager room. There’s a tree trunk in the center of it that she moves swiftly around, humming a tune to herself. It’s a tune that’s soothed my soul my entire life, from when I called her Lalumi, and she cared for me while my parents performed their royal duties.
She’s back at the door with some sort of incense in the form of a thick stick with leaves laced together. It almost looks like sage, though I doubt it is sage.
“Denso, move.” Her commanding tone holds a hint of love.
“Yes, MamLalumi.” He walks into the house, making me feel like an outsider.
“There are bad spirits surrounding you, Mikayla. They want in. It’s good that you haven’t let them in.”
“In what?” I shriek.
“Inside of you, sweetie. They’d prefer to inhabit your body.” She continues to twirl the leaves around my face, over my head, and behind my ears in a calculated movement. Behind her, Denso keeps a keen, empathetic eye on me.
I start to pray to God in heaven like my mom Joyce did when I was a child but then stop. This is too much for me. I croak. “Did you get them?”
“Not in their entirety. Denso, you must keep our Queen safe.” She turns to him. I suppose that I’m not allowed to enter as she begins to drudge her thumb through a muddy goop that is gunked up on the back of her hand. It wasn’t there before because this is the hand she holds her blessing stick with. She swipes the goop onto his forehead. “Mikayla, you have a strong, intelligent young man to keep watch over you. Ensure that he does.”
When she is done blessing him, he gives her a hug and thanks her for a salve that she’d given to his wife.
“We’re trying to get pregnant.” Denso includes me into the conversation, though I have yet to be permitted inside the home.
“I pray that it helps,” I respond, then bite my tongue. I grew up Baptist.
“Now, someone is playing games with your head, Mikayla, and . . .” She places her hand over my chest. “Your heart.”
“Which is worse?” I ask with a wry smile, almost feeling like heart papulations may be more dangerous than being turned into a dummy. Then I consider what the sounds in my head were doing the first time I heard them.
Denying my love for Jagger.
Cognitively speaking, if I had been any more confused in the moment with that voice uttering what it said to Jagger, the love we had would’ve crashed and burned.
MamLalumi’s lips tip ever so slightly to the sides as she reads my mind. “That young man of yours is crazy about you. We will need to fix this issue.”
I stare at Denso, too nervous to ask him to leave so that we can chat. And then MamLalumi is addressing him like he’s her own personal sous chef, ordering him to grab ingredients and place them in a pot on the opposite side of the room.
“You may enter, Mikayla,” MamLalumi says, guiding me toward a pallet on the floor at the back of the hut.
I lay down before her, and the leaves continue to dance in her hands, smoke puffing out before me. The scent is calming.
“I must call upon our ancestors, Mikayla. For your enemies have attempted to bind them here.” Her hand trails over my forehead. “We cannot allow this. You are stronger than your enemies.”
I can feel questions churning in my mind, but my lips won’t move to utter them. Who are my enemies? What is it they want?
Denso places a pot next to me. MamLalumi cups her hand over the smoke then places her hands over his so that he will complete the movements. The aroma wafts over to my nostrils. I’m left to assume that the leaves that MamLalumi used before didn’t quite cut it.
MamLalumi’s head falls back, chanting an ancient Xhosa language, calling Nivean ancestors. In a blink of the eye, I’m surrounded. Tears fall down the sides of my face as I lay there. My mother, Makuachukwa, kneels before me as her parents and grandparents surround us. Faces similar to mine are there, and my spirit understands they belong to great, great, great Mthembuses. Denso continues to feed smoke to my face, unaware of it all.
Where is Dad?
“My beautiful Mikayla, this is not a social call.” Makuachukwa’s fingers glide over my cheek. “Although Bannan would love to remind you of your strength, your father will do so in other ways when you least expect but deeply need his help.”
A resounding pain shoots through my side. Then my mother’s hand is glowing there. When I blink, MamLalumi’s hand is there with more of the goopy stuff.
“Imphepho and goat fat.” She begins to name off the ingredients, helping me up. “Now go and remember what the ancestors told you.”
“But I only spoke with my mother.”
“Nonsense, you were out for over an hour. All our ancestors gave a few morsels of advice, lastly Makuachukwa.”
Outside, Denso’s eyebrows furrow. “You did well.”
“What happened?”
He gestures to his washboard abs, his fingers trailing along his rib. “She cut your side. I do not believe you had any anesthetic. Then she added the paste.”
There’s no time for shock as my gaze catches Kmota’s off in the distance. Her eyes lower in respect. My pace faltering, I tell Denso, “I’ll need your discretion.” They don’t need to know that their queen was almost possessed.
“I have yours.” He pats his pocket, which holds the medicine MamLalumi gave him for his wife. Babies are an important part of Nivean culture.
“Definitely,” I reply, my smile not quite reaching my eyes. I place my hand at my side, deciding to give it a once over after I’ve gotten home.
Home. I sigh. The edges of my heart break ever so softly for Jagger. He is my home.
15
Jagger
My eyes pop open to the black of night. Multiple compact engines. Four cylinders. Climbing up the mountain. My mountain. I’m off the bed in seconds, the cool glass on my bare feet as I head toward the window to glance out. Three Nissan Almera’s creep up the road.
Arms folded, legs planted wide, I stand there and watch. The minions of my longest standing enemy, Mr. Pierce, are begging for death at my hands. It is too bad Pierce is untouchable. Cape Town loves him. I hate the ground he walks on—literally. The land was mine.
The paternal side of my family were rich. My grandfather owned a beachfront resort, right below my home. The sorry bastard unhooked his rowboat from the side of his yacht while it was filled up with rocks and took his life with his own hands.
After that, my dad took his rich, confused ass off to Tibet. He dabbled in one religion and then was manipulated by my mother’s charming, sweet ways into another when he returned to South Africa. This led to him giving the rest of my family’s money to Christ and making me one greedy-for-green little fuckoff. Pierce changed my grandfather’s resort into what’s now called The Blue Cove.
The bastard bought all the surrounding businesses around the resort, signing his name on the entire fucking town. The only place he forgot to buy was the cliff overlooking his beachfront resort. First, he begged for my home. Now, he’s offered me an obscene amount of money for the air rights so that the main resort
can build higher. Over his dead body.
Right on cue, lights flood down on their cars once they hit a certain spot. You’d think it would be omen enough for them to turn back around. Driver one, in the lead, becomes hesitant. Driver two merges around to the side of the first, stopping next to it. Clearly, the one in the lead has a few brains. They argue. Idiot driver two has to be encouraging the idiot driver one, telling him that this is a great paying gig. Then he speeds off. That asshole will be first to die.
I step toward the dresser where my two beloved Magnum .357s are just waiting to be used. My hands graze both, but I only pick the one on the right. Can’t make this too easy on me.
Doors close softly. The sound of footsteps echoes off the fragmented stone as they walk toward the house. I step up to my alarm panel next to the door of my room and disable my beautiful house of horrors. There are a few traps that can’t be modified, such as the river built throughout the house and filled with red and white Lionfish from the Indo-Pacific.
“Pierce said he’s out of town. We don’t have to be quiet,” one man says, then there’s a crash. “That had to have been worth thousands—”
“I could feed my family for a month with some of the stuff in here.”
“No, we were told to vandalize. We get caught with some of this stuff and . . .”
They’re in the middle of vandalizing my home as I start down the stairs. Two hundred and twenty pounds of muscle and light as a fucking feather, which is made further soundless by the blare of a scream.
“What is wrong with you?” one of the men shout.
“I . . . something stung me!”
“Shhhh,” says another.
Despite being begged not to, the shocked man screeches over and over, “Something stung me! Something stung—”
“Lights on,” I whisper. Throughout the smart house, every recessed light illuminates down on their transgressions.
Standing at the second landing, I lean on my forearms over the railing into the living room. The man who was stung by the fish in the stream stops howling for a split second. Along with three other guys, he stares up at me in shock.
