The Queen of All that Dies (The Fallen World Book 1)

  The king feels me trembling beneath his hands. “You need to rest.”

  “I’ll do whatever you want, Montes, just please, stop torturing him.” A tear leaks out. It’s Will, after all. I might hate what he’s become, but torture … I don’t wish that on my worst enemy.

  The king sighs. “If we don’t get information out of him, then your life might still be in danger. I can’t allow that.”

  “Montes,” I say, my hands clutching his arms. “Please.”

  That vein near his temple throbs, and I’m sure he’s going to say no.

  His hold on me drops. “Get the queen out of here.” The king eyes each one of his soldiers. “And I don’t care what threats the queen made to get here, the next time you defy my direct orders—it will be your head.”

  He raises an eyebrow at me—the warning is for me as well—then he turns on his heel and re-enters the interrogation room.

  “Montes!” I yell after him. The door clicks shut; the bastard ignored me.

  I stare at the room as I’m dragged away. My world is completely falling apart.

  The walls of this place might be thick, but they don’t muffle everything. I’m halfway down the hall when I hear a bang. My body jumps at the sound, and a tear leaks out.

  Gone. Will is gone.

  The King

  I’m getting too soft. That sentiment is running on repeat as my men drag the Resistance leader’s body out of the interrogation room.

  I’ve been the master of strategy and power plays since the beginning of my career. I don’t compromise, ever. Yet here I am, watching the cleanup crew wipe up the boy’s spilled blood. I did as Serenity asked—I put the traitor out of his misery. Thanks to listening to my bloody fucking heart instead of my brain, I threw away the opportunity to learn the locations of dozens of Resistance cells.

  Deep in my gut, unease pools. Killing him was a mistake, one I can’t correct. And it’s one I might repeat if I become too compassionate. I rub my mouth.

  “Your Majesty,” Henry, the lead investigator, enters the room.

  “Hmm?” I glance up at him.

  “There’s something you need to see, and it concerns the queen.”

  “The Resistance recorded the queen’s interrogation,” Henry explains as he leads me to one of the station’s conference rooms.

  That horrible rage that I’ve kept in check since we retrieved Serenity now rears its ugly head once more. That anyone would dare harm my wife. No one crosses me and gets away with it.

  “Show me the footage.” I know Henry doesn’t miss the flinty edge to my voice.

  Henry grabs a remote control sitting on the conference table and points it at the large screen that dominates one of the walls.

  A grainy black and white image of a cinderblock cell flickers on. I lean my knuckles heavily on the desk, and I lean forward. My blood pressure rises as several Resistance members drag an unconscious Serenity into the room and dump her onto a cot.

  Henry’s time lapsed the footage so that it fast forwards several hours. During all that time, my wife’s form barely moves. The sight of her looking so fragile does something to me.

  The tape slows; several seconds later, Serenity’s eyes open. After taking in the room, she sits up. I only have to wait a minute more before the door to her cell opens and William Kline joins her.

  The sound is even grainer than the video, but I can still make out the words. I grit my teeth as William cups my wife’s face. He touches her like he has a right to. Now I doubly regret my decision to end his life.

  As I watch and listen to the entire interrogation—which really isn’t an interrogation at all—my breathing slows. The Resistance knows so much more about me than I believed. I thought this might be the most worrisome aspect of it, until William threatens my queen.

  “She’s associated with the Resistance,” Henry says.

  “I can damn well see that,” I snap.

  I glare at the man on the screen. I should’ve gotten more information out of this piece of shit. They’ve set their sights on the throne, and they plan on using my wife to usurp me. This needs to be suppressed stat.

  I’m a cold-blooded bastard. I know this, the world knows this, and most of all, the queen knows this. Yet as I watch her, my heart pounds madly. She’s vicious and frank, and she’s not giving into their demands.

  If I didn’t understand her, I might’ve worried that she was some sort of double agent. But Serenity doesn’t hide her violence and anger. No, she puts the worst parts of herself out on display and hides the best aspects of herself. Even that she’s not so good at because she’s risking torture and death by defending me.

  She’s the most fearless person I know.

  My opinion of her only increases when she slugs Will, and again when she pulls his own gun on him.

  It doesn’t take a genius to know I married up.

  Chapter 24

  Serenity

  I’m returned to my hospital room where I languish until I’m questioned on my time spent in the warehouse. It’s a sad day when giving a statement is preferable to the alternative—leaving me alone to my thoughts.

  After the stunt I pulled with Will and the king, I have extra guards watching me throughout the day, none of whom want to make small talk. I burned that bridge either when I killed their comrades, or when the king threatened them with death for listening to me.

  Hours tick by before I see Montes again. By then the officers are long gone, as are the painkillers I’ve been fed. Several sets of shoes click against the linoleum floor outside my room.

  The king doesn’t knock. He stalks inside, his men filing in behind him. My eyes flick to them.

  Montes crosses the room, cups my face, and kisses me long and hard. It’s over before I can react.

  “Let’s get the queen out of here,” the king orders his men. There’s shuffling.

  “Does this mean I’m all better?”

  He returns his attention to me, and he’s looking at me funny. “I’m not making the same mistake twice,” the king says, evading my question. “We’ll be finishing your treatment in a more secure location.”

  That’s when I know, I just know, I’m not all right. Not at all.

  Things happen quickly after that. A nurse comes in with another round of pain pills, and I take them to distract myself from the king’s unnerving expression. He’s either deeply worried or deeply moved by me. Neither emotion is particularly welcome.

  It’s only as I’m moved to a stretcher and wheeled out that I realize something’s amiss. My eyelids droop.

  “What did you give me?” My voice slurs.

  Montes is there, his brows pinched. “A mild sedative.”

  “Am I going to die?”

  “No, Serenity, you’re going to be fine.”

  The King

  The Resistance makes good on their threat of blackmailing the queen. The first leaked file hits the Internet shortly before we land in Geneva.

  Serenity’s still unconscious, her body encased in the Sleeper, and she’ll remain in there for the rest of the week. The machine is busy regenerating the muscle and skin destroyed by the gunshot wound and removing the cancerous tissue that’s regrown since her last treatment. I could keep her in there like Marco suggested, but I’m a selfish prick and I want her out and by my side as soon as possible, cancer or no.

  Marco himself is down in the hull of the aircraft with her, stashed away in another Sleeper. He also barely made it out of the hospital alive. The thought that I almost lost both Marco and Serenity to the Resistance has my fist curling in on itself. They’re going to regret pissing me off.

  So far the Resistance has released just a single audio file from one of their meetings, one where Serenity’s taken an active role in the discussion. B
ut even this small piece of evidence is damning. Serenity’s promised the Japanese Resistance members weapons in return for information.

  The leader in me admits she’s good—shrewd, assertive, compelling, and empathetic when the conversation calls for it. Too bad she’s on the wrong side of the conflict.

  Already the Internet is blowing up with this. The audio has been compared to that from the peace talks here. It matches.

  “I want those sites shut down,” I say to the advisors onboard with me. “Have all the major search engines do a sweep for this audio file and have them block all the links they find. I want my top guys to trace the leak back to its source.

  “Your Majesty,” one replies, “it’s likely encrypted.”

  “I don’t fucking care. Have them find the source, or you’re all out of jobs. I’m going to hunt these assholes down.”

  When I get my hands on them, I won’t kill them.

  They will wish I had.

  Serenity

  I blink my eyes open. An unfamiliar room stares back at me. My hands finger a velvety comforter, and around me a fresco covers the walls.

  I push myself upright in bed, belatedly realizing there’s no more pain. My eyes flutter shut as my hand brushes over my torso. Someone’s removed the gauze, and where a bullet hole should be, there’s only smooth skin.

  The king’s technology has cured me once more. The thought pisses me off, mostly because I got duped. Montes does what he wants when he wants to whomever he wants.

  Flinging the sheets off, I begin to storm out of the room. Halfway to the door I realize I’m still in a hospital gown. I practically growl as I rip the thing off of me and search the dresser and closet for real clothes.

  Five minutes later, wearing tight pants, a loose shirt, and ass-kicking boots, I stalk out of the room. My hair whips wildly around me. I couldn’t care less how I look. In fact, the scarier the better.

  Outside the room a guard intercepts me. “Your Majesty,” he says, scurrying after me.

  “Where’s the king?” I demand.

  “If you’ll follow me, Your Majesty.”

  His acquiescence surprises me. I guess the king’s learned that he can’t keep me stationary unless he locks me up.

  I trail after the guard. My body receives a shock when I realize we’re back in Geneva, inside the king’s estate, and not the palace where I married him.

  Why stop here and not there?

  My thoughts are interrupted when the soldier halts in front of a door. Before he can politely knock on it, I push past him and throw the door open. Storming inside, I catch sight of over a dozen important people, including my husband. A tape recording immediately blares throughout the room.

  I freeze as I hear a familiar voice—my own.

  Chapter 25

  Serenity

  “Serenity,” the king says, pushing his chair back and rising to his feet, “I wasn’t informed you were awake.”

  I can hear the surprise—and happiness—in his voice. That’s where the two of us are now. Caught between hate and love, between our grim reality and what might be.

  Montes comes to my side while someone else clicks the recording off. He runs a hand through my hair, tilting my head to get a better look at me. “Are you feeling all right?”

  “Don’t baby me, Montes.” I hear several of the king’s men suck in air at that. I want to laugh. I’ve said so much worse to this man.

  Montes’s mouth curves at my words. He likes me best with my claws out.

  I lift my chin a little as my gaze flicks beyond him to the other people in the room. Amongst them is Marco; guess he survived the hospital melee. Shame.

  “What’s going on?” I ask.

  “The Resistance is blackmailing you,” the king says.

  My throat catches. “How bad is the situation?”

  Montes lets out a breath. “People’s opinion of you was already shaky since we were still at war with you only months ago. But you also participated in this terrorist group.”

  I don’t deny it. I don’t even try to.

  “The Resistance is capitalizing on that. Over the last week they’ve begun a smear campaign, and they’re targeting you.”

  I’m preoccupied with another portion of his statement. “A week?” I say. “Is that how long I’ve been unconscious?” I can’t keep the accusation out of my voice.

  “Yes.” He’s remorseless. Seems neither of us feel the need to defend our actions. I can respect that.

  I turn my attention back to the situation at hand. The Resistance followed through with their threat; they’d already begun to disclose the incriminating files they had on me.

  “How are people reacting?” I ask.

  “Exactly how you’d think they might—they’re getting worked up. Our statistics suggest that there’s been a surge of new recruits in the Resistance.”

  All because of some audio files from when the king and I stood on opposite ends of the war. It’s the ugly elephant in the room, this volatile history of ours. When we were more likely to kill than kiss. There will always be that looming shadow, and now it might mean more battles and more violence on the horizon.

  I saunter towards the conference table. The rest of the room’s been quietly watching the king and me up until now. I can tell by the glares of some of the king’s men—and they’re all men—that my presence isn’t welcome. They could go screw themselves for all I care.

  “I’m going to need to make a statement,” I say, swiveling back to face the king.

  He shakes his head, following me to the table. “They’re waiting for that. As soon as you do so, they’ll release the footage of your bloody arrival into the WUN. It’ll undermine your credibility.”

  “We could release the footage first,” I say. It would still be a shitshow, but at least we’d control the chaos somewhat.

  Again the king shakes his head. “Better to let my team attempt to delete it from the Internet before it catches on.”

  I press my fingertips onto the conference table and nod. “Well, now you all know I’ve worked with the Resistance.” When I look up, I give each one of the men in the room a piercing look, then turn back to the king. He’s scrutinizing me, a small smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. I’m giving him a show, one that he seems to greatly enjoy.

  “That means you might want to actually utilize me. I’m good for more than just staring at.”

  Next to me, the king’s mouth tilts further up. “Yes, why don’t we?” He places a hand on the small of my back and leads me to his seat while someone fetches him another chair. Finally, for the first time since we’ve met, I can tell the king doesn’t just see me as a distraction.

  He sees me as an equal.

  “The Resistance has moles everywhere,” I say to the men in the room. “And I do mean everywhere. When I was with them, they’d infiltrated many of your research labs. Now, however, they seem to have focused their attention on King Lazuli and me, which means they’ll focus on the king’s homes as well as those places we visit.”

  A muscle in Montes’s jaw jumps. “You mean you believe there are Resistance members here right now?”

  “Absolutely.”

  The king slams his fist into the table. “That should be impossible. We do intensive screening.”

  “Montes, tens of millions of people have died fighting this war. There are plenty of identities one can take on, and the Resistance excels at scrubbing them down. You’d never know.”

  This causes the king to pace, his hands clasped behind his back. He pauses and scrutinizes the men in the room. Suspicion flares in his eyes.

  “Usually Resistance fighters take on positions that allow them to disappear,” I say. “Maids, drivers, cooks, and so on. It’s unlikely that any of the men in
this room are in the Resistance’s pocket … though not impossible.”

  One of the king’s advisors, who’s been staring at me with intense vitriol, now speaks. “Your Majesty, how do we know the queen’s not still working with them?”

  The king stops pacing.

  I tense, and not from the accusation itself. I couldn’t care less what the king or his men think of my loyalties. I owe no one an explanation.

  No, my muscles coil up the moment the king’s shoes stop clicking against the floor because something bad is about to happen.

  My eyes move over the men at the table. Like me, everyone’s frozen in their seats.

  I hear the squeak of the king’s shoe soles as he swivels to face the man who spoke. “Are you questioning your queen’s loyalty?” I can hear the dangerous edge in his voice.

  Don’t speak, I want to tell him.

  I can see the man’s body shaking. “N-no, merely—”

  “You said ‘how do we know the queen’s not still working with them?’ didn’t you?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “How do we, indeed?” the king says. “Perhaps, you know something I don’t about the queen’s loyalties? I’m sure she’s had plenty of time to deceive us between getting shot and fighting cancer.”

  The man’s gone pale. The officers sitting at his sides are scooting away from him, like being too close might make them guilty by association.

  When I glance at Montes, a smile is playing on his lips. He’s a cat that’s caught a mouse and is now toying with his food. “Or maybe it was when the Resistance kidnapped your queen and threatened her with torture?” Montes snaps his fingers. “Oh wait, she never gave into their demands.”

  My breath catches when I realize that my interrogation must’ve been recorded. Somehow the king got his hands on it.