I kick it all the way over the floor, reach the stairs, take them, then finally exit the crypt.
I sigh.
Heavily.
And yet, I never allow my senses to leave me.
As I make it across town and back to Rowley Tower, finally re-assuming my disguise, I never once let my guard down. But fortunately, I don’t come across any of Spencer’s pieces. Nor do I come across the horse.
I’m home. I tick my head up, stare at Rowley Tower, and sigh.
I walk toward it.
But I don’t get far.
Chapter 9
There’s something I’ve forgotten, isn’t there?
I freeze.
My whole body locks, as stiff as it could possibly be as my eyes blast wide.
I’m in my disguise – with my short, cropped strawberry blond hair and long legs. I’m even wearing the evening dress that Rowley gave me for the charity function.
I bring a hand up, clamp it over my mouth, and let out a shaking, “Oh my God.”
It’s been such a hectic night that I’ve forgotten one fact. The horse has seen me in this disguise. What’s worse, he saw through it.
I stare up at Rowley Tower, wanting more than anything to walk inside, flop face first on my pillow, and fall asleep.
But I can’t afford to.
I have no idea what the horse will do. Though I want to tell myself that he won’t be stupid enough to stride into Rowley Tower and tell Rowley who I am, I can’t forget that now the horse will be desperate.
With all those kings coming to Rival City for the auction, he’s going to do whatever he can to get his hands on me.
I teeter there on the spot, rocking back-and-forth on my high heels.
I have no idea whatsoever what I should do.
Though there is no doubting that I’m now imprinted stronger with Spencer than I am with Rowley, there’s also no doubting that a deeper part of my body that wasn’t affected by the imprinting spell gains far more solace from Rowley’s presence.
And that presence extends to this building.
For the past two weeks of staying here, I’ve felt more protected and sheltered than I have for most of my life. And that’s something I desperately don’t want to give up.
But I have no choice.
I feel an utter sense of loss as I realize I have to abandon this disguise.
I rock back and forth on my feet one last time, then go to walk away.
I’m holding Walter’s phone in my hand.
I’d come up with a plan of what to do with it.
I was going to leave it in the atrium. Then, hopefully, John would’ve been able to find it without realizing I was the one who put it there.
I hear someone clear their throat. “Where have you been?”
Fear punches through me.
I know his voice. Even without the power of his imprint, my body will always know his voice.
John.
Sure enough, as I turn around fully, he’s right there behind me.
At first, there’s a confused edge to his gaze. Then?
He looks down.
I go to hide Walter’s phone behind my back, but I can’t move quickly enough.
John shows his true strength and agility, shifts forward, grabs my arm, and locks it in place.
Even from here, even in the dark of the half-lit city street, he can recognize Walter’s phone.
John Rowley’s expression changes.
In an instant. In a snap. It’s almost like watching somebody crumble.
But he doesn’t crumble for long. Because just as quickly, the anger floods in.
It reminds me exactly of what happened when Antonio saw this phone. One second, it seemed as if Antonio would do anything to protect me and keep me safe. The next? He looked as if he wanted to kill me.
John is no different. No, wait, John is different. Because while Antonio changing his opinion of me in a snapped second was awful, the way John looks at me now is gut wrenching.
He won’t let go of my wrist.
“No, wait, I can explain,” I try to say, lips moving so quickly, I can barely control them.
His jaw couldn’t be harder as he faces me. “You work for Spencer,” he snaps. “You relied on my honesty and generosity,” he hisses. His words are biting, but nowhere near as biting as his grip.
It takes me a second more to realize he’s pumping magic into my arm, trying to hold me in place.
If I’d had the hope that I’d be able to explain to John what was going on, what he’s doing to my wrist tells me I have no chance of that.
John Rowley has made his mind up about me.
I try to jerk away, but he follows my move.
I’ve never seen him looking darker. “Did you kill Walter? Did you follow your goddamn master’s twisted wishes to kill an innocent?”
I can’t do anything. I’m just staring at him, completely dumbfounded by what’s happening.
Seconds ago, my heart had been filled with the welcoming prospect of being in John’s presence and benefiting from the safety of his building.
Now?
Now I have to get away.
And yet, I just can’t turn tail and run. I have to make him understand that I didn’t kill Walter.
I try to jerk away, and this time, I use more force.
I also push my mind into whatever kind of spell John is trying to cast on me.
I manage it.
Even though John takes a strong step toward me, with a jerked move, I lurch away.
His eyes blast open wide in surprise at the fact I managed to escape from him, then he lurches forward.
I twist on my heel and jump away.
It’s not an ordinary human move, and instead, I let my magic pulse as I flip right across the side of the street.
John lets out a bellow and pushes forward, obviously to follow me.
I draw a hand up in a desperate move, letting my fingers pulse wide in a stopping motion. “No, please, wait. You have to understand. I didn’t kill Walter. I just found him. I don’t work for Spencer—”
“I can smell him all over you,” he growls, not stopping as he lurches toward me.
He also makes a specific motion with his left hand.
I’ve never fought a king. At least, not one-on-one.
Though I managed to scrounge back a lot of my magic, I’m still weak. I’m also shaken to the bones. In other words, I’m in absolutely no condition to fight John.
I take another staggering step backward, then leap again just before he can reach me.
He draws his hand up, forces his palms forward, and utters something under his breath.
Before I know what’s happening, something shoots out from the side and barrels toward me.
I have absolutely no hope of jerking out of the way in time, and whatever the hell it is, it wraps around my wrist with such force, it feels as if it would be able to hold the earth still in its orbit around the sun.
And yet, a second later, it breaks. It’s almost as if it can’t quite grab hold of me. As if I’m not exactly real enough for it.
I look surprised as that white energy simply dissipates. But in no way do I look as gut-wrenchingly surprised as John.
He stands there, eyes as wide as two open pools. My mouth opens, lips two thin strips of pressured white. “You’re unattached?”
I keep staggering backward, one hand held up in a stopping motion, the other still holding Walter’s phone. “Yes, I’m unattached. I don’t work for Spencer, honest. I found this phone, just as I found the kid it belonged to. A Walter,” I say, hoping that the more details I add, the more he will believe me. And yet, there’s still one detail that I cannot add. One detail, that, if I were to add it, would end this right now. That hateful look in his gaze, the fight, everything. It would end all my troubles, too.
Three little words, that if I were to utter them, would change the course of my destiny.
I’m a queen.
And yet?
/> I cannot say them.
I’m still clutching Walter’s phone hard, but I release several of my fingers. “I will give you this phone. I was going to give you this phone, anyway. I was going to leave it in the atrium,” I say.
He’s not saying anything now. He’s just looking at me, and that look of hateful suspicion is still burning brightly in his eyes.
I can’t tell if he suspects that I’m the unattached queen he’s been looking so desperately for, but I doubt it. There’s no hopeful curiosity to the way he’s staring at me. Just anger.
“And then you were going to get back to spying on me?” he asks bitterly.
He’s no longer attacking, and I wonder if he’s reassessing his chances now he’s appreciated that I’m unattached.
And I doubly wonder if that has anything to do with the fact that he’s fresh from a fight with Spencer.
Though I long to ask him how that fight went, I know I can’t.
I take another staggering step backward. And I throw the phone at him.
He catches it in one smooth move, his knuckles tightening to a ghastly white as he clutches it with all his strength.
He doesn’t let his gaze deviate off me for a single second.
And yet, at the same time, he doesn’t say nothing.
Sweat lines my brow, and I’m shaking. Worse, I’m starting to wonder whether the exquisite fear I’m feeling could undermine the effects of my disguise spell.
Though this situation is already bad, I know it will get a hell of a lot worse if he figures out who I am underneath.
“Look, you have to believe me. I found that kid. I... I saved him from one of Spencer’s pawns. Retrieved his bag, too. The kid told me to pass on a message to you.”
“Do me the dignity of stopping your lies now. I don’t believe a word—”
“He told me to warn you that a war is coming. I... I don’t know what that means. He was earnest. He begged me to tell you that a war’s coming,” I say, and as I speak, I put all my heart into it. All the damn emotion that has been raging within me for the past several months.
I remember Walter, too – the way he stared up into my eyes, the way his body shook, and yet, the way he used the last of his strength to beg me to warn John.
Maybe... there’s something in my tone, because for the first time, John doesn’t look as if he wants to wrench my head off. Instead?
He pales.
There’s no doubting the move. For the exact ghastly hue his cheeks turn engulfs his face like a blizzard.
The reaction is so visceral, that it affects me, too, and I can tell my cheeks become just as pale. “What... what does that mean?” I ask.
His lips tick back up, and he snarls. “No more games. You made a mistake in breaching my loyalty. Know this, no matter what hunts you down, no matter what Spencer does to you, if you ever choose or are forced to leave his employ, I will not accept you as one of my pieces.”
There’s something so final about what he’s saying. It’s clear there’s magic lacing his words, too.
For the first time since this conversation began, I get the desire to tell him. Just scream at the top of my lungs.
I’m the attached queen. And whatever he’s doing, he needs to stop, because he will not understand the consequences.
John draws up a hand, spreading his fingers wide. I see his distinct, white-blue magic start to play over his fingers. “You will never—” he begins.
I don’t know why, but I know it’s important that I stop the spell.
So, for the first time since this awful conversation began, I attack.
I lurch forward. I round my shoulder, and I let a charge of magic sink hard into my skin.
I move more than fast enough to catch John off guard.
I slam into him, knocking him over.
But, at the same time, despite my speed and agility, he manages to lock an arm around my waist, and he pulls me backward, right on top of him.
I land on top of his chest, straddling him.
I’ve been close to John Rowley before, but this is by far the closest.
And our proximity knocks the breath out of me. It also sees my eyes open as wide as they possibly can as I catch his gaze.
I can see him begin to jerk up, can feel as he flattens a hand against my shoulder, getting ready to shove me off with more than his strength.
But then he stops as he stares into my eyes.
I’ve always told myself that the one thing I can’t afford to do, even when I’m in a disguise, is to stare too deeply into John’s gaze.
He may not have the magic to be able to see through my disguise, but there’s something... fundamental that happens whenever I stare too long into a king’s eyes.
And that process, whether I want it to happen or not, starts now.
John freezes.
I’m still straddling him, and I can feel how hard his chest muscles become.
But it’s not the tension of a man whose getting ready to fight with every last ounce of strength he has.
It’s bone-pounding shock.
I... try to look away.
I tell myself I’ve achieved what I set out to achieve – I stopped him from casting whatever spell he’d been about to cast.
Now I have to get away.
I have to....
I can’t move my eyes. I can’t close them.
I can only stare at him as I feel something start to build between us.
But whereas I can’t move, he can.
He still has a hand flattened on my shoulder, and I feel the heat begin to pick up beneath his palm.
It easily sinks through the soft fabric of my dress and starts to dance along my skin.
It sees me shiver, but that’s the only move I can make as I continue to stare down at him, almost as if my eyes are becoming doors I can’t close, at least to him.
Though he appears strong, maybe he isn’t, because he suddenly loses his grip on my shoulder, and his hand falls, his limp fingers coming to rest against my hip bone.
I....
Start to feel something open up between us. Like a path. No, like a tunnel. One that can’t lead anywhere else.
It’s exactly the same process that happened with Spencer. And as it happens again with John, all thought of my connection to Spencer starts to be pulled from my mind.
My thoughts start to spin.
Faster and faster.
Until I can’t hold myself up anymore.
A wave of weakness washes through me, and I slump forward.
John has just enough time to open his arms to catch me. But I don’t fall against him.
Just at the last moment, I feel something snake out of the darkness, wrap around my middle, and jerk me backward.
It’s a whip.
The horse, it seems, is back.
Chapter 10
I can’t keep up.
In most battles, no matter how frantic, I can always track my enemy. Now I’m floppy, fragile, like a woman who’s been turned into a doll.
There’s nothing I can damn well do as the horse’s whip closes around my middle then yanks me into the air.
I dangle there as if I’m a berry on a tree.
Though I was on top of John seconds before, and I felt his weakness, suddenly, he finds strength from somewhere and pushes to his feet.
Maybe that strength is desperation.
His lips crack open, and the one word I’ve been waiting to hear from him since the day I met him finally rattles from his throat. “Queen. You... you were the Queen. All along.”
I can barely make eye contact. My eyes roll into the back of my head, and with every second, I’m just waiting for consciousness to claim me.
But John can fight, and that’s exactly what he does.
He doesn’t question the horse. Doesn’t share a single word with the man. John rushes forward, balls both hands into fists, and sends a charge of magic slamming into the whip that holds me in place.
But just as the
whip fractures and breaks, another snakes out of the darkness, loops around my middle, and holds me in place anew.
I can’t see the horse’s face. But I don’t have to to appreciate he’s desperate.
Completely and utterly desperate.
The kind of desperation that would see an ordinary man do anything. But the horse is not ordinary. He has magic. And an unchecked ability to use it.
“You insert yourself between the business of a king and a queen,” John spits as he rounds on the horse once more, never giving up, “so you will open yourself up for acquiring,” he bellows.
The word acquiring seems to have just the same kind of visceral, awful effect on the horse as it always does on me.
I can feel the whip around me tighten as the horse lets out a bark of a laugh. “I will not be acquired, King,” the horse spits viciously. “I will never run the risk of being acquired again.”
It takes John a moment, then recognition narrows his eyes. “You plan on bargaining for ultimate freedom. But understand this. There is no one who will give it to you.”
“On that you are wrong. I think you’ll find there are many kings in this world who will bargain that for a queen.”
John’s eyes pulse wide with recognition. “You’re going to auction her?”
“I already have,” the horse spits back.
I may be completely limp in the whip, but that realization strikes me with enough force to see my eyes blast all the way open.
Such a sick, quick chill crosses down my entire body that I shiver.
It’s enough to remind me that I’m not down yet.
John’s eyes lock on me for half a second until he lets out a growl, rounds his shoulder, and runs at the horse.
There’s now so much magic charging over John that he could light up half of the city.
I can feel a reality bending field in place, though, and I know no one out there will be able to witness this.
No one save for the other kings – that thought strikes me.
... It’s already done?
The horse has already auctioned me off?
Out there is a king who’s coming for me?
... I’ve never felt terror like this. I doubt that anyone in the existence of the world has ever felt fear this awful.
The Last Queen Book Two Page 12
