I Dare You to Break Curfew

by Eva Muñoz

  “What?” I grabbed his wrists. “What!”

  “The only thing keeping you alive right now is the last booster shot I gave you.” He held my stare. “I don’t know if the formula will fade before it completely ravages your body.”

  “Then what’s the plan?” I asked, panic reaching a painful peak inside my gut.

  “I have a possible way of flushing out the formula from your—”

  “Do it,” I said. “Give it to me.”

  “Camron,” he said, shaking me, “it’s dangerous.”

  I had no words left. My chest continued to inflate and deflate, but it no longer felt like breathing. I waited for what he had to say next.

  “In order to flush out the formula, I need to inject you with my strain of the bubonic plague,” he explained.

  I slumped forward, unable to believe it. He let go of my shoulders and moved to the table and sat down. I vaguely heard him sigh. A sad, remorseful sound.

  The formula transformed my body to mimic that of an Inshari, but fundamentally, I remained human. And what did Inshari eat? It seemed plausible that the formula would begin consuming me from the inside out. The emotional side of my brain screamed in panic. My heart rate picked up. My survival instincts kicked in, making me want to run and never look back. It wanted the formula out of my body quick. It wanted me to live.

  I rubbed my palms together and closed my eyes. Then I rested the heels of my hands on my eyelids, attempting to soothe the sudden, piercing throbbing that gathered within. I breathed—in and out, in and out—trying to calm the emotional and think with the rational.

  I couldn’t gather the strength to be pissed at Gaige. He couldn’t have known what the formula would do. I agreed to help him. Unfortunately, that decision had backfired on us. Now, the formula was ravaging my body and I had two choices: ride it out until it faded or let Gaige inject me with his version of the bubonic plague. Both put me in a dangerous situation. Both held the possibility of killing me.

  I dropped my hands, opened my eyes, and looked at Gaige. For the first time since he injected me with the formula, true remorse marred his features.

  “I’m sorry for doing this to you, Camron,” he said.

  I must really be worse off than I thought. My heart shrank into itself. I didn’t know what to say to Gaige. Saying I was fine was a blatant lie. Saying it was okay would send the wrong message. I wanted him to be sorry. I really did. Then the smiling face of my mother flashed before my eyes.

  I smiled through welling tears. “When my mother got sick, we all thought it was just the flu. She got a checkup, and the doctor sent her home with a prescription. Two weeks later, she was still sick and getting worse. They confined her for tests. My father told me everything was going to be fine. The next time she left the hospital was in a pine box.”

  “Camron,” Gaige whispered.

  “Every night I prayed the doctors would find what was wrong with her.” I wiped away the tear that escaped. “When you came to me asking for help, I really wanted to say no, but then I realized you were fighting to save your people the way I wanted the doctors to fight for my mother. Maybe they did fight their hardest. I don’t know.” I looked into Gaige’s eyes then. “But this I do know, no matter how scared I am about dying right now, I don’t regret saying yes to helping you.”

  “Camron, the death of your mother wasn’t anybody’s fault.” Gaige’s raised hand stopped what I was about to say. “I cannot tell you what happened with the doctors because I wasn’t there. But based on everything I’ve read about your mother’s case, no one could have done anything. Maybe even I couldn’t have saved her if I was her physician.”

  I spent months of my life being angry at the doctors for being useless. Like what I told Zaire about forgiving his father, maybe I should forgive the doctors. It wasn’t their fault my mother got sick. And I said yes to helping the Inshari. I would see this thing through to the end.

  “I want to see Troyan,” I said. “Before I make my decision, I want to talk to him.”

  “All right.” Gaige nodded. “He should be up and about. You can go now.”

  I stood up and headed for the door, feeling a sudden high that propelled me forward. Anticipation curled my insides. I needed to see him. I needed it so badly.

  “Camron?” Gaige called just as I twisted the doorknob.

  I glanced at him over my shoulder. “Yes?”

  He hesitated. “If you happen to see Zaire, will you send him here?”

  A small smile spread across my lips. “Finally telling someone else?”

  “I figured it’s about time.” He shrugged. “He saw what happened to Troyan. He should know.”

  I left Gaige in a daze. The realization that I was dying didn’t seem real. I wondered if this was how terminally ill patients felt right after the doctor told them they had six months to live. Did Mom feel the same way when the doctors told her they didn’t know what was wrong with her, just days before she slipped into a coma?

  I walked, yet my feet didn’t feel like they touched the ground. In fact, I felt nothing from my chest down. The need to see Troyan kept me going, though. I wanted to… what? I had no idea what I wanted to tell him. Should I tell him about the disease? Should I tell him about what the formula was doing to my body? I had no clue.

  The questions kept recycling inside my head until I reached the weapons room. Troyan wasn’t lying on the table anymore, and the plastic tent had been dismantled. Only a lone Vityas remained, mopping the floor.

  I grabbed his sleeve. “Where is he?”

  “Who?” He blinked at me.

  “Effendi Troyan.”

  “With Demarcus Majesty, but—”

  I didn’t wait for him to finish. I turned and ran for Zaire’s study.

  Chapter Twenty-Four: Precipice

  BREATHING HARD and more than a little nervous, I stared up at the double doors of Zaire’s study. The carved owl glared down as if judging me. Should I go in? Should I knock? Would they let me in? Before I could make up my mind, one of the doors opened. I jumped back in surprise. Zaire slid out and yanked the door shut.

  “Little cat,” he greeted.

  “Jeez! Don’t do that.”

  A wide grin erased his worried expression. “I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist coming to me. Come, give us a kiss.”

  I put my hands up. “Not when Troyan’s behind those doors.”

  “You’re saying if Troyan wasn’t in my study right now you’d kiss me?”

  “Stop it.”

  He looked away, smile disappearing. My heart broke in half. I closed the gap between us and touched his cheek. He leaned into the contact, covering my hand with his.

  “I shouldn’t let you go in there,” he whispered.

  I pulled my hand from his cheek and stepped closer until I stood inches from Zaire. Shifting my weight, I planted a soft kiss on his jaw.

  “Thank you for saving him,” I said. “I owe you one.”

  Zaire regarded me with an icy blue stare. “If you had bitten me first, would things be different? Would you have considered me over him?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Many unsaid words floated between us, choking the air. We stood still, gazes locked, searching for answers in each other’s face. I wondered what it would have been like if I’d bitten Zaire. Would I have felt the same connection? The same physical pull?

  From what Perrin and Gaige had told me, they found partners by first forging a connection. Not the other way around. I stopped myself. I couldn’t let myself dwell on the what-ifs. As Darius said, what was done was done. There was no use hoping the past would change because it never would. All I could do now was move forward.

  “Are you sure he’s the one you want?” Zaire asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  With a sad sigh, Zaire stepped aside. “He’s still recovering. Don’t do anything to aggravate him.”

  I glared. “I won’t—”

  A golden eyebrow arched. “I doubt
that.”

  I punched his arm playfully. “Gaige has something to tell you.”

  He nodded and left.

  An overwhelming sense of sadness I couldn’t explain gripped my chest while I watched him turn a corner. My shoulders slumped. If Gaige thought he had made a mess of things, what about me? I just clawed Zaire’s heart out and stomped on it with my sneaker. I was the worst person in the world right now.

  After a huff I faced the doors again. I lifted my hand to knock, but before I touched the wood, Troyan said, “Come in.”

  Hand trembling, I twisted the knob and went in. I pushed the door shut with a soft click and leaned on it, my head bowed, afraid to see what stood in front of me. No point in denying Perrin’s words. My body reacted the moment I entered the room.

  My skin tingled. My heart raced. The pull of him was a magnetic field. If I moved away from the door, I knew I’d catapult toward him. A burning thirst that needed quenching ravaged me. A primitive urge begged for me to move, leaving me craving for some sort of release.

  My heart contracted when I remembered Troyan almost died today. He allowed himself to get whipped because of what I had done to him. All this time, he had been saving me, acting as my shield against anything that posed a threat. No matter what was happening between us, he managed to wrap me in his warmth and make me feel safe. I couldn’t ask for more, and yet, I had a feeling if I did, he would give everything he had. It was enough to make me cry. I couldn’t lose him. Not now.

  “How long do you plan on standing there?” Troyan asked. His deep voice touched my skin, sending a delicious shiver all the way to my toes.

  Troyan stood by the massive desk wearing a white shirt and dark trousers. His hair was tied back with a red ribbon. Despite seeming paler than usual, Troyan looked like he had never been whipped.

  I approached him carefully. I was afraid he’d disappear if I hurried. I wanted to feel him, to know he was really standing there.

  Troyan gathered me close. I hesitated at first, and he waited patiently until I stepped into his arms. He sat on the desk’s edge and leaned me against him. His groan reverberated from his chest into mine.

  “Does it hurt?” I asked, pulling away.

  “Hurt? No.”

  Despite his features barely showing any expression, I saw desire blazing within the infinite blackness of his eyes. A smoldering blush blossomed on my cheeks and climbed up the bridge of my nose. My heart raced like a hamster on a wheel.

  “I thought you were going to die,” I whispered.

  He searched my eyes. “Not now.”

  “But you could have. You shouldn’t have let me bite you.”

  “Are you saying you made a mistake in marking me?”

  “Where is this coming from?”

  “No matter, the end justified the means,” he said.

  I squinted. “You wanted to get whipped?”

  Troyan met my accusing stare with a stubborn one of his own. “Vladimir needed to feel he was in a place of power. Having me humiliated in public would make him complacent. It would push him to move forward with his plans.”

  His words flew over me. “I don’t understand.”

  “Vladimir has been planning on stealing power from my father the moment Zaire abdicated. He wants to return to the old ways, to lift the forbidden. Having me whipped shows his party members how much power he holds, hopefully inspiring them to act. And when they do, we will be ready for them.”

  I couldn’t believe it. He planned the whole thing so that he could corner the man who wanted to take his father’s throne? Anger and disgust left me cold and alone.

  “That’s sick! You sacrificed yourself. You had me worrying just because you wanted that vile man to act on his plans?” I clenched my fists until my fingernails bit into my palm. “Damn you!” No sooner did those words leave my mouth did arms wrap me in a strong embrace. “Let me go,” I hissed.

  “No,” Troyan said. “You have to understand.”

  “What exactly don’t I understand? You used me, plain and simple. And to think I….”

  “You what?”

  I shook my head in defeat. “It doesn’t matter anymore. Gaige says the formula is killing me. If I don’t let him inject me with his version of the plague, I’m gonna die.”

  “Camron, look at me,” he said urgently. I didn’t, so he shook me and commanded, “Look at me!”

  I did then, but with all the hatred I felt in my heart.

  Troyan’s eyes narrowed. “I do not believe you.”

  “Ask him, then,” I challenged. “Better yet, let me go and wait for him to tell you. The less I see you the better.” I struggled, but it was useless. His grip was too strong.

  In seconds his lips were on mine, claiming, taking, forcing his way in. I tried to keep my lips rigid, unresponsive, but it was a losing battle. I hated how weak I was against Troyan’s kisses. No matter how used I felt, I was still melting in his arms, asking for more, responding as if nothing was wrong.

  Troyan turned us around and moved toward the desk, not once breaking the kiss. I whimpered when my back hit the desk’s edge. Troyan’s lips swallowed the sound. He hooked his hands behind my thighs, and in one swift lift had me sitting on top of the desk, positioning himself between my legs. I didn’t care at that point, lost as I was in the drug of his lips. All I could do was cling to his neck in the hopes of living through the heat burning inside me.

  Troyan’s lips left mine and moved to my ear. While he was kissing a line down to my neck, he pulled my hands free from their death grip on his hair and pinned them at my sides, palms flat on the table. I wanted to hold him, but he wouldn’t let me. It was torture to have his lips touch me and I couldn’t touch him. I moaned my frustration.

  His kisses stopped. I opened my eyes and saw him staring at me with hot intensity. I felt the burn of his eyes all over my body.

  “Listen to me,” he said almost like a threat. I nodded even if my mind was still muddled from his kiss. “I did not use you. I would never think of using you.”

  “Then why did you say so?” I accused more than asked.

  “Because…,” he started but turned his face away.

  I wished he wasn’t pinning my hands so I could use them to turn his face back to mine. “Because?”

  The muscle on his jaw jumped. He returned his gaze, but his eyes were strangely guarded. “Because you are only responding to the change. Because you do not feel the same way I do for you.”

  His words made no sense. Me? Not feel the same way? It was crazy. How could he ever think…?

  “Let go of my hands,” I said, meeting his stare with my own.

  Reluctantly, Troyan released them.

  I cupped his face and pulled him down until his lips met mine. His palms slammed on the tabletop as he received my kiss. I put every feeling I had in the kiss, but it was my eyes he was looking at when I broke free to catch my breath.

  “How can you be so dense to think that I don’t feel the same way you do?” I clapped his right cheek with my hand.

  “But you said as much when I asked you about marking me.” He had the face of a lost child when he spoke. If I wasn’t so angry at him, I would have smiled.

  “I didn’t know what I was doing, Troyan,” I said. “I’ve been with other guys, but I never felt this way about them. It scares me how much I feel for you.”

  “Before I met you, Camron, I was….”

  “A robot,” I finished. All I saw of his annoyance was the furrowing of his brow.

  “Appropriate in many ways.” He paused a moment, then said, “Zaire and I are working together to keep Vladimir off the throne. We have been monitoring him. I hardly cared before. I was helping because it was my duty as Effendi.”

  “But when I saw you backing away from Eli that night, something in me screamed to save you. Maybe it was the way you faced him head-on. Or maybe it was your innocence. I was going to walk away, but I found myself running toward you instead.” His eyes focused on my face.r />
  “After that, all I wanted was to keep you safe. As an Inshari Regalia, an Effendi Excelsi, I could not be under the spell of a human like you. Humans and Inshari do not mix. Ever.” He took my right hand and kissed my palm. I felt the heat of his lips all the way to my toes. “Gaige, bless and curse him at the same time, gave me what I wanted.”

  “The formula,” I said.

  Troyan nodded.

  “Troyan, I asked Zaire to take the throne back,” I said before I lost my nerve.

  The look in his eyes hardened. “You what?”

  “Okay, not the reaction I was looking for.” I pulled back. “That time you found me kissing Zaire.”

  Troyan’s breathing quickened.

  “It’s not what you think,” I said before he stopped thinking clearly. “I asked Zaire to take the throne, and he said he would if I kissed him. Don’t you see? You’re free. You can travel the world—”

  “Do you think just because you kissed Zaire that he would take the throne?” he said, ice in his voice. “Camron, what you heard me telling my father about traveling is irrelevant.”

  The first stab of betrayal went into my heart. “What are you saying?”

  “I will be the next Excelsior after my father relinquishes the throne.”

  The second stab joined the first.

  “It is my destiny to lead my people.”

  Words failed me. How could I argue with the determination in Troyan’s eyes? He practically said we couldn’t ever be together. That his feelings for me weren’t enough to accept that Zaire could take back the throne. Each beat of my heart sent the knives of betrayal deeper in, killing me softly.

  “Listen,” he said, and then the doors slammed open.

  The urgent energy surrounding Zaire as he strode to his work desk zinged over my skin, causing electric goose bumps to rise.

  “We have a problem,” he said, the strong lines of his shoulders tense. “Camron, I think you should go back to your room.”

  Troyan moved from between my legs and helped me down from the desk.

  “I’m staying,” I said.

  “I think he is right,” Troyan said. “I think it would be better if you returned to your room.” He touched my cheek.