by H Q Kingsley
But they didn’t blend in. The other servers and busboys were making themselves almost invisible, darting in here and there so they didn’t disturb the beautiful wealthy people in their conversations about slave labor or whatever.
The sketchy dudes were just walking around boldly, looking for something.
They were obvious and blatant, and still, no one seemed to notice them.
But how could they? The inside of the building was an absolute spectacle. It was a gob smack of luxury and fineries to the point that it was actually a bit of an eyesore.
Everything in the room was gold or velvet, making it blinding under the overuse of chandeliers. All of the little round tables scattered around the ballroom were covered in tablecloths that were gilded at the edges, and they were decorated with ice sculptures and trays overflowing with fine food.
Keyian was on a raised stage at the front of the ballroom, flanked by three other guys who shared his grunge out-of-place look. They looked to be arguing as they stood next to a drum kit. Keyian didn’t see me as I slid through the crowd, and it was probably for the best. I was on a new mission now. I didn’t know why, but I couldn’t seem to leave it alone.
Even though the further into the crown I made it, the more ridiculous I felt. Everyone there was somebody, and everything there was expensive. I started to feel pretty damned stupid standing there in my ratty jeans and t-shirt, scoping the place out like I had any right to be there.
So what if there were sketchy guys doing sketchy things? Everyone in that room probably deserved whatever was going to happen, assuming anything was going to happen, and I needed to get the fuck out of there and go back to minding my own damned business.
2
Zyke
I squeezed Teddy and my book into my chest as I tried to make my way through the crowd in the banquet hall. It was the sixth day of Rehan’s seven-day birthday bash, and I was desperately hoping it would be the last one they made me show up to. I never understood why my father made us do so much as a family. According to him, it was a show of strength, a testament to the world that the Stava family was a unit, and for the most part, that was true. They were a unit, but not me. I was the extra piece that didn’t quite fit anywhere. That piece that you threw into a drawer and forgot about but kept just in case one day you needed it. And that was exactly how they treated me.
Everyone at the party seemed to be having a splendid time, dressed to the nines, and my father and brothers were well past their threshold for wine.
I was quietly trying to find my way to a corner before their drunkenness got the better of them and they decided to entertain themselves by torturing me. That was always how these sort of things ended. My brothers didn’t know how to have a good time without a little cruelty. But for the moment, they were distracted enough by Rehan and his fan club. It seemed every available citizen in the city was fawning over him, over all of them, really. And why wouldn’t they? They were handsome and rugged, and when people looked at them, they saw beauty. When people looked at them, it was raw and sexual. A stark contrast to how people looked at me; that was, when they did look. Most people just liked to pretend I didn’t exist, and I preferred that over the looks. The scowls and the whispers of how weird I was.
Tonight was no exception. The people who weren’t hovering around Rehan, waiting with bated breath just for a moment to tell him happy birthday, were staring at me in disapproval. Even in my best suit, I didn’t meet expectations. Even Teddy had on a sleek, deep-blue tuxedo and golden tie to match the decor, but it only seemed to attract more attention.
I dropped my gaze to the ground and held my breath, something I’d started doing when I was younger to try and disappear from everything around me. If I didn’t look at them, maybe they wouldn’t look at me. Sometimes it worked, and sometimes…
“Watch it, fucking weirdo!”
I stumbled backward as someone bumped into me as I tried to maneuver toward the back of the room to find an empty table.
I looked up into familiar bright-blue eyes. Prince Dimon, son of King Leon IV. I knew him well...well, I knew him from a distance. He never missed a party even though his kingdom was nearly two-thousand miles to the south. He prided himself on being everywhere and anywhere that was considered elite. He was more of a socialite than a prince.
“Sorry,” I mumbled, trying to drop my gaze again, but it was harder with Dimon. He was flashy and fashionable, and every inch of him demanded to be looked at. From the glittering, neon belt that cinched his waist into the tightest, pink fringed dress I’d ever seen to the ten-inch bedazzled monster heels that made him tower over me, he was hard to look away from. “I-I was just trying to—”
“Try harder, honey,” Dimon snapped, his long, crystalized eyelashes fluttering over his icy-blue eyes. “Cause whatever you’re going for”—he looked me up and now—“it’s a miss.”
He held out his hand, and like magic, his flock was by his side, fluttering their fingers against his in a show of praise.
I watched them despite myself. Dimon’s gentlemen-in-waiting were equally as glamorous as he was, and together, the four of them commanded a room more fiercely than even my family.
Dimon and his minions pushed me aside, their heels stomping in formation as they made their way across the banquet hall to the front stage where Dimon beckoned a kiss from the lead singer of the band. Of course Dimon knew Work in Progress. More than knew…. Apparently, he was seeing Keyian Mendoza, one of the most famous people on the planet.
I sighed as I watched after him. Sometimes I wondered what it would be like to be one of them, any of them. To just be seen for once.
I shook my head, cursing at myself for even thinking it. I’d told myself a long time ago to stop fantasizing about things that would never happen.
I squeezed Teddy into me and made my way to an empty table at the back of the hall. This was my reality. A lonely table in the corner of a crowded room just trying not to bring attention to myself. Trying not to say anything about the busboys that were hovering way too close for comfort.
I opened my book and tried to bury myself in it, but the busboys seemed to be moving in even closer. Something wasn’t right. I could feel it in the pit of my stomach, and I lifted my head just in time to see one of them prick me with something before my world went dark.
3
Omar
Finding my way back out of the party wasn’t as easy as getting in had been. People were everywhere, and I had to keep sidestepping the actual wait staff as I made my way back toward the backdoor.
Someone brushed past me, shoulder checking me a bit, and I grunted in irritation, trying to avoid further contact with anyone else.
The last thing I wanted was for some rich asshole to see me and point me out and then make a scene. I was in no mood for it.
I pushed further through the crowd, getting closer to the back of the building, but I stopped for a second as my eyes fixed on a back corner.
One of the sketchy not-busboys was hovering near the back corner circling too close to one of the tables. There was someone sitting there that I couldn’t quite make out, but the hairs on my arms bristled a bit for them.
Something is very, very wrong.
Proving my lion right, in a quick as a flash move, that man’s hand snuck out from his pocket and he touched something to the guest’s neck. It was so fast, maybe a normal person might have missed the motion. Certainly everyone else in the room had.
For a second, nothing happened, but then the guest swayed slightly and then slumped over, clearly unconscious.
Fuck.
You have to do something. My lion roared in the back of my skull.
It was one thing to walk away when I didn’t know what, if anything, was happening, but it was something else altogether to leave in the middle of some shit going down, letting someone get hurt.
And there was something urgent in my lion’s tone. Maybe somewhere in my subconscious, I felt connected to this guest. They were
alone in a corner, clearly so unimportant that nobody even noticed their abduction. That was how I felt all of the time lately. So disposable that nobody cared that I was missing from Belaria.
I barreled forward, knocking guests over as I bolted for the corner.
I didn’t know if they had more backup waiting outside or if anyone at that over-the-top party would care enough to help me save the guest, so I couldn’t waste time. I had to get to them now.
My teeth sharpened as I moved and my lion’s claws came out, ready for a fight. I could shift at a moment’s notice and stay in that form longer than the average person. I knew I could take these guys. I knew I could turn that party into a bloodbath, and with all of the anger brewing inside of me, that was exactly what I was going to do.
You picked the wrong fucking party, assholes.
I was on them in three seconds flat as they secured a bag over the guest’s head. Now that I was on top of them, I could see how small the guest was, likely a child.
What sort of sick fucks…
They didn’t even see me coming, either stupid or too cocky to realize they weren’t as undetectable as they thought.
My claws dug into the one securing the bag on the kid’s head, and a scream went up from the crowd as blood went across the back of the room in a messy spurt as he cried out.
Guests began to scream and panic, and I expected them to cause a ruckus as they rushed for the doors. But as I whirled around, pouncing on another two of the fake busboys as they attempted to grab their bounty, I realized they weren’t running for the doors at all. Instead, they screamed in horror as they pulled out their cameras, recording the moment as if a person wasn’t actually unconscious in the corner.
Anger boiled in my chest, and I let it fuel me as I moved for the last one. He fumbled in his jacket for a moment, but before he could even get out the obvious gun he was reaching for, I was on him, snapping his arm and taking him down.
It was over in a matter of minutes, the training cutting through the alcohol and the drugs and suddenly, I was as sober as I’d ever been, and I hated it.
I looked out at the crowd of people watching me as if I’d just put on some sort of show for their entertainment instead of saving someone’s child.
I rolled my eyes. I needed to get the fuck out of there.
I picked up one of the bottles of fancy champagne off one of the nearby tables and cracked it open before downing it and finishing with a burp.
I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, knowing that they were still watching me like some kind of circus monkey.
“You guys owed me that,” I said. I walked forward and took another bottle off another table. “And you owe me this, too.”
I popped the new bottle and headed for the door. “Pretty sure that belongs to one of you,” I said, pointing to the slumped over figure still in the chair with a bag over their head.
I started forward, but there was something holding me back.
Take off their hood and look at their face.
I blinked at my lion’s insistence. I didn’t know what it was about, but it made me turn back, and my hand reached out. I needed to see his face, maybe just to know who it was I had saved. I didn’t know.
Before I could so much as touch him, though, the crowd parted, and a big, well-dressed man stepped forward.
He was draped in the royal blues, and the moment I saw the crescent ring on his finger, I knew I was looking at the king.
“Impressive,” he said, and his voice seemed to boom even when he was speaking at a normal volume. When he spoke, everyone else fell silent. The whispering stopped, the cameras dropped, and everyone seemed to be standing at attention waiting for his orders.
“That does belong to me, unfortunately,” the king said, and for reasons I didn’t understand, I bristled. I didn’t like the way he said it. The way he called his own child “that.”
The king stroked at his manicured beard. “You took down those men very quickly. I must say, it isn’t often I’m impressed, but you have impressed me.”
I scoffed. “I’m not here to entertain you,” I spit.
The king laughed, and it cued the rest of his captive audience to laugh with him. “Well, aren’t you spirited.” He turned to one of the men at his side. “Rehan, collect your brother, less he embarrasses us any further.”
The man jumped into action, moving for the child with urgency. He removed the bag from his head and for a moment, time seemed to slow.
His scent hit me like a ton of bricks. Not because it was strong or bad but because it cut through literally everything else in the room. It was soft and sweet, like vanilla and chamomile, soothing and calming to the senses.
Or I guessed it would have been if it wasn’t for the fact that my heart was racing a mile a minute just standing there.
There was a churning in my stomach, like a pit opening or something tugging me from behind my navel making me want to move closer to him, to lift him up and brush him off and straighten his crooked tie.
To keep him safe.
I’d never felt anything like it before, never felt any impulse so strong to just touch someone, to just hold them in my arms.
I was aware I was staring, but with the way Rehan winked at me, it was clear he didn’t know where my attention was focused.
The boy in his arms had delicate features. Soft cheekbones dusted with the slightest hint of freckles around his small, sharp nose. His dark hair curled all in the same direction, save for one small stubborn curl that went against the rest. I desperately wanted to reach out and fix it for him. To brush at his thick bed of curls with my fingertips.
His eyes were closed, and his lashes were long enough to brush his skin.
Suddenly, I really wanted to know what his eyes looked like.
Through the haze of everything going on in my head, I heard King Heydar speaking again and tried to shake myself out of it, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away from him. He was so small and delicate. He had the body of a child, but he wasn’t. He was certainly young, eighteen, maybe nineteen, too young for me to feel so drawn to him, but I couldn’t help myself.
“I’m not one for protection staff. The reign of Heydar is about strength, and most of us are capable of protecting ourselves. But….” He frowned in obvious disappointment at the boy in Rehan’s arms. “My youngest is a weakling, and despite my best efforts, he’s obviously not capable of protecting himself. And with the fall of Belaria and the people getting ideas, we’re stretched rather thin.”
He said it like it was something disgusting. The people “having ideas” about being better. I scowled, suddenly wishing he would stop speaking, stop interrupting my time to admire his youngest son. I hoped he wasn’t like him, but I wasn’t optimistic. I knew how this went, how royals were. But even still, I couldn’t help but admire his beauty and breathe him in. His scent was so settling, it took away all of the anger, all of the self-hatred that had been plaguing me the last few months. It put me at peace.
“I’d like to offer you the job of protecting my son. To be his bodyguard and make sure shameful displays like this don’t happen again,” the king finished. Judging from the murmuring of the crowd behind him, they were all in agreement.
I shook my head. “No thanks,” I said. “I don’t mix well with royalty.” That was a fucking understatement. I’d already had my life trampled on because of one royal. I didn’t want to get mixed up with more of them...did I?
I tried to walk away. Tried to storm out and maybe take another bottle with me, but I couldn’t seem to move, couldn’t seem to walk away from that tiny, gorgeous prince.
“Take the job,” the king insisted. “You’ll be paid handsomely. More money than you’ve ever seen in your life, I’m willing to bet,” he said as he looked me up and down. “You’ll move into the palace and live in the lap of luxury. Nobody in their right mind would turn down an offer like this, I assure you.”
I didn’t give a shit about the perks. I’d lived my whole
life in the dirt, and I was fine. I got by. I didn’t need the king’s money or his lavish life in the palace. It was on the tip of my tongue to refuse again, but I kept looking at the boy’s face.
He seemed so innocent, so small. Everything in me was clamoring that he had to be kept safe. He’d almost been taken, and no one had even noticed but me. I wanted him to be safe. I needed him to be safe.
When I finally tore my eyes away from the prince, the king was watching me, waiting.
“Yeah,” I said. “Okay. I’ll do it.” I cleared my throat. “One condition.”
“A condition? Because money and prestige aren’t enough?”
I shook my head. “Not for me.”
The kind waved his ringed fingers. “Fine. What is it?”
“I work for him,” I said, gesturing at the boy. “Not you.”
4
Zyke
I opened my eyes, blinking slowly up at the ceiling.
Unlike a usual morning, I didn’t have any memory of going to bed the night before, which was weird. Even if I fell asleep reading, I could usually remember brushing my teeth and tucking myself and Teddy into bed before then.
I remembered going to the party, but after that, it was all hazy blackness, which worried me. There was a feeling of dread in my stomach, and I glanced around, but everything seemed to be the way it was supposed to be. My room was the same as it always was, bookshelves lining the walls, the nook in the corner where I liked to curl up on the cushions and read during the day.
I reached out, groping around on the bed for Teddy, wanting to hold him while I tried to figure out why I was so disoriented, but I came up empty.
My eyes widened, and I turned over, lifting the covers and pillows, but there was no sign of my bear.
Well, that would explain the feeling of dread, and I was about to work myself up into a panic before the bathroom door opened and someone walked out.
