The Queen of All That Lives (The Fallen World Book 3)

  “I don’t want to know anything about you,” I say, “and I sure as hell don’t want you know anything about me.”

  In the moonlight, I see his expression tighten. Any minute now he’s going to get violent. Fortunately for me, a bullet moves faster than a full grown man.

  “Now,” I say, “get the fuck out of my room, or I will shoot your dick off.” I’m tempted to anyway. I have an unhealthy amount of violence for predators.

  The seconds tick by, and he doesn’t move. Just when I’m about to pull the trigger, the corner of his mouth lifts. “You will be fun to tame.” His voice—hell, his entire demeanor—changes.

  Shoot him, shoot him, shoot him, my heart chants.

  I can’t. Not yet, anyway.

  My upper lip curls. “Get. Out.”

  He inclines his head. Still keeping his hands in the air, he backs up, towards the door. The barrel of my gun follows him. I know enough about men to know that this one is obscenely dangerous. Not the same way Montes is. Styx is not terribly strategic or calculating.

  He’s just evil.

  “I’ll see you in a few hours,” he says when he reaches for the knob. “Sleep well.”

  As soon as he leaves the room, I sag against the window.

  That was far too close a call.

  It’s only once the sun peaks out from between the mountains that someone else comes for me.

  These footfalls are not quiet, which is a relief. If Styx Garcia came for me again, I wouldn’t give him the benefit of the doubt.

  The door to my room opens, and I see a familiar face. Chief Officer Collins stands with a group of soldiers out in the hallway.

  “It’s good to see you again, Your Majesty,” Collins says by way of greeting.

  The feeling isn’t mutual.

  He and the soldiers march me to the Iudicium’s main room, the same place where, only weeks ago, I agreed to kill the king.

  Twelve representatives wait for me. I bite back my disappointment when I see that thirteenth seat once again unoccupied.

  My plan hinged on having all thirteen representatives gathered in a single room.

  When I’d plotted with Heinrich, I’d been so sure the cocky SOBs would finally unveil their elusive thirteenth representative.

  I stare up at them, no longer in shackles like I was last time, but it doesn’t take handcuffs to be someone’s prisoner. How stupid they must think I am to get myself in this situation.

  “You decided to come into the West armed.” Tito is the first to speak, his bulging eyes staring at my firearms.

  “And you decided to lock the Queen of the East in a guestroom,” I say. I glance at the several guards that still surround me. “I was brought here under the assumption that we were going to discuss a peace treaty between our two hemispheres as allies would.”

  “Yes, we will discuss the treaty momentarily,” Alan says. “Please,” he gestures to the benches that face them, “be seated.”

  “I prefer to stand.” My eyes move over the representatives. “What, exactly, is the hold up?”

  “We’re waiting for the bloodwork and dental records to come back,” Alan says.

  I stare stoically at him.

  He leans forward. “You didn’t think we were just going to assume the body you gave us was the king’s, did you?”

  I don’t respond.

  “Once it all checks out,” Alan continues, “we will begin negotiations.”

  Not five minutes later, someone knocks on the double doors at my back.

  “Ah,” Alan says, “that should be the medical examiner. Let him in, let him in.”

  I can feel Ronaldo’s eyes on me. “Troy,” the traitor-turned-representative says to one of his soldiers, “keep a bead on the queen. If the results don’t match the king, please shoot her where she stands.”

  A soldier to my right removes his gun from its holster, the barrel of it pointed at my temple.

  My situation settles over my shoulders.

  I’m not leaving here alive. And now all I can think about is my monstrous king.

  He’s going to wake up and I’m going to be dead, and I can’t guarantee that the world will survive it.

  A man in a lab coat strides down the aisle, stopping just a few feet away from me.

  “The results?” one of representatives inquires.

  The man’s eyes slide to me, then back to the line of men sitting above us.

  “It checks out. The body is that of Montes Lazuli.”

  Chapter 55

  Serenity

  It takes a moment to register.

  The DNA matches?

  Impossible.

  Is the man lying? That’s the most obvious possibility.

  The soldier to my right lowers his weapon.

  “Do you swear before God and men that this is the truth?” Ronaldo asks the medical examiner. I can tell he’s hoping it isn’t.

  “I do,” the medical examiner says. “My technicians can verify it. The remains belong to the former king.”

  The representatives look almost disappointed.

  The remains are the king’s.

  “It seems our suspicions were misplaced,” one of them says to me. “Our apologies. Surely you understand …”

  The king is … dead?

  I give no sign of it, but my fallen heart is falling apart. It fell for a fallen king amongst the ruins of this fallen world. And all of that has now fallen into the hands of these men.

  No, I refuse to believe that. There was a mix up of some sort. The king can’t be dead. Otherwise, these men win, and they don’t get to win. That is not how this world ends.

  The double doors swing open again.

  I swivel to see who’s entered this time.

  Styx Garcia strides down the aisle behind us, his eyes devouring me.

  I fight the urge to touch my gun.

  What’s he doing here?

  This is not going according to plan.

  “You’re late,” one of the representatives says.

  “I couldn’t fall asleep.” He stares at me proprietarily. “Jet lag.”

  I watch him with narrowed eyes as he passes me and heads back behind the representatives, taking the final, empty seat.

  I don’t breathe.

  Styx Garcia is the thirteenth representative.

  “You’re surprised,” Styx notes, scooting his chair in.

  I don’t bother denying it.

  He leans forward. “How do you think I managed to find you in the first place?”

  “The First Free Men?” Did the group even exist, or was it just an elaborate ruse meant to throw off the East?

  “A real organization that I also run. Convenient when the West needs mercenaries to get a job done without any of the messy political ties.”

  Removing me from the Sleeper had been one of those jobs.

  “My queen, I will admit, I didn’t think you had it in you to kill the king,” Styx says, changing the subject. “You’re a more dangerous woman than even I gave you credit for.”

  I’m going to die. I can sense it.

  “We are in a quandary, Serenity,” Ronaldo interjects. “We could just kill you—that would be the easiest.

  “But that still leaves the problem of swaying public opinion. It seems they like you.

  “Fortunately, Styx here has a solution.”

  The representative in question leans back in his chair, his sick eyes on me.

  You will be fun to tame.

  He doesn’t even have to say what the solution is.

  We will be working closely together in the coming days.

  My anger feasts on the indignity of their proposal. I’ve already been given once to
a man. That will never happen again.

  I’m done with the deception.

  I let them see my empty, empty eyes. Killer’s eyes.

  In the distance, I hear a muffled sound. The ground shivers then resettles.

  I am chaos. I am the undoing of man. And all the world will fall to my feet.

  That’s what this feels like. That’s what everything since my awakening feels like. And today it ends.

  Chapter 56

  Serenity

  I see the first stirrings of unease. The representatives didn’t really think it was going to be that easy did they?

  How do you take down the West? You gather all thirteen representatives together. How do you gather thirteen representatives together?

  You make them believe they’ve won.

  More vibrations follow the first.

  “I’ve been a thorn in a lot of men’s sides quite a while,” I say. “You know the problem with my existence? I’ve always been just useful enough to keep alive.”

  Ronaldo stands. “Guards—”

  “Your time is over.” I speak over him. “Those pretty walls of yours are coming down.”

  “Seize her!”

  I smile viciously as the adrenaline begins to move through me.

  High above us, the glass dome explodes. That’s my cue that the clock’s begun. Heinrich is going to blow this place up, and if I don’t escape in the next fifteen minutes, I’ll get blown up along with it.

  The representatives and guards shield their heads as shards of glass rain down on us. From beyond the opening, the king’s soldiers begin to rappel down.

  I use the distraction to unholster the gun.

  And then I fire.

  I go for the armed guards nearest me first. The gunshots echo throughout the room as my aim moves from one temple to the next. Troy doesn’t even have time to react before my bullet lodges itself in his temple, his blood splattering against the bench directly in front of Ronaldo.

  The traitorous former advisor now stares at the blood in shock. His eyes move from it to me. The barrel of my gun is trained on his forehead.

  He was a marked man the moment he turned on the king.

  I pull the trigger.

  Ronaldo’s head whips back as my bullet catches him between the eyes. His body collapses half-on, half-off his chair.

  Outside, distant gunshots echo my own.

  The Western soldiers around me are now recovering, but even as they reach for their weapons, the king’s men are dropping to the ground and firing at the enemy soldiers and representatives.

  Collins takes a bullet to the gut, as does the medical examiner. Alan’s body seems to dance as he’s pumped full of bullets.

  Many of the other WUN commanders duck behind their desks. What big men they are now that they can’t control their enemies.

  I round the bench, gun aimed. It’s like fish in a barrel; the representatives are all lined up, some of them reaching for weapons they’ve stashed near their seats.

  I shoot Gregory and Jeremy in the head, the two men responsible for human trafficking and concentration camps, and they die where they stand.

  At the end of the row, Styx stands, gun in hand, a dark look on his face as he stares out at the room.

  I train my gun on his forehead. This is a kill I’m going to enjoy.

  As if sensing my attention, he turns.

  And smiles.

  A split second later a large body rams into my backside, tackling me to the ground. I grunt as the soldier pins me down.

  “Drop your weapon,” the man on top of me says.

  When I don’t immediately comply, he grabs my hand and slams it repeatedly into the ground until I release the gun.

  Styx heads down the bench, shooting soldiers as he moves. I see the king’s men go down.

  “Get up!” Styx shouts to some of the representatives he passes, kicking one as he goes.

  A couple of the men do shakily stand. A few others remain crouched.

  Amongst the madness, Styx levels his gaze on me.

  He lifts his gun, the barrel focused somewhere between my chest and that of the guard pinning me down.

  Styx and I stare at each other, and I can tell he’s having an internal debate about what to do with me.

  Before he comes to a decision, I hear the familiar clank of heavy metal right outside the doors.

  I close my eyes and breathe out. Saved by a freaking grena—

  BOOM!

  The blast unbalances my captor and he releases my wrists to stabilize himself.

  This might be the only opening I’ll get.

  I reach for my discarded gun. My fingers lock on the cold metal, and I point it at the guard’s face. He only has time to widen his eyes before I pull the trigger.

  His blood splatters down on me, his body collapsing on mine.

  I grunt as I force his dead weight off of me. Styx slips between fighting men, heading for a side exit.

  He’s getting away!

  I can’t let that happen. All thirteen men must be either captured or killed, otherwise, today will have been for nothing.

  I’ve barely gotten my feet under me when I stare down another gun.

  Tito, Montes’s traitorous former advisor, trains his weapon on my chest. Sweat dips down his ruddy face. His hand trembles just the slightest.

  “You better aim for the head,” I say, rising slowly. “You don’t want me coming back.”

  But it’s not my head that gets blown away.

  One moment Tito’s bulgy eyes are glaring at me. The next, they’re gone, along with a good portion of his face.

  I follow the bullet’s trajectory back to its owner.

  My knees almost give out.

  Impossible.

  Standing just inside the threshold of the room is the very man I shot through the heart.

  The love of my fucked-up life.

  Montes Lazuli, the truly undying king.

  The King

  She’s war and peace and love and hate. She’s my death and my salvation, and right now, standing amongst all these massacred bodies, she’s staring at me like I’m the mythic one.

  “Montes?” Her voice shakes. Uncertainty is an endearing emotion on my wife.

  “You’re shit at keeping secrets, my queen,” I say.

  Finally I can speak on this subject.

  And finally I can breathe easy, knowing Serenity’s alright.

  Bloody, but alright.

  Her mouth is slightly parted, and her brows are furrowed. I know my queen well enough to know she’s trying to piece together what she feels is an impossible series of events.

  One of the representatives nearest her moves, and she shoots him without question.

  Deadly, savage woman.

  I make my way towards her, shooting anyone I don’t recognize. Already my men have taken out most of the enemy soldiers and representatives in here.

  Now I just need to get to my wife. My scheming, violent wife who concocted this elaborate, foolhardy plan so that war could end and I could live.

  Even after everything I put her through, she did this for me. It is without a doubt the single greatest show of love I’ve ever received.

  Which makes me all the more frantic to keep her safe.

  I feel Marco at my back, covering for me.

  The three leaders left standing now balk at the two of us.

  Marco never was the West’s mole, he was a double agent working for me.

  Serenity sees Marco as well, and she appears equally confused. But quickly her gaze returns to me, her eyes dropping to my heart.

  In my peripherals, I see the last of the West’s representatives and their royal guard go down.
I breathe a little easier as I step up to Serenity.

  “How?” she asks.

  I whisper in her ear, “I surround myself with loyal men.”

  Loyal men, and loyal women.

  Serenity

  All of my elaborate plans, all of my late nights, all of the details I worked hours on ironing out. Montes had known, and he’d kept it from me.

  I want to be angry, but my heart’s not letting me have my moment of indignation. It’s far too happy that the king is alive. Alive and … not all that upset himself, considering that I shot him.

  “How long have you known?” I ask. There had been nights where he gazed at me with such sad eyes, and I could’ve sworn he’d seen right through me.

  He stays quiet.

  “How long?” I repeat.

  “Serenity, you are not that good at being subtle.”

  Goddamnit, had he known the whole time?

  Around us, the gunfire has ceased, and the only ones left standing are the king’s men.

  “And you just let me go along with my plan?”

  Montes’s eyes are stormy. “It was … difficult. All the details were so very reckless. And I wasn’t looking forward to getting shot. But yes.”

  My eyes dip to his heart. Tentatively, I place a hand on his chest. I feel the organ thump beneath my palm. “Your gunshot wound?” An injury like that should’ve left him in the Sleeper for a week.

  He covers my hand with his own. “I wore a bullet proof vest.”

  I tilt my head up to him. “But there was blood.”

  “It isn’t hard to rig a blood bag to my outfit. You yourself managed to get ahold of an entire body.”

  The wrong body.

  His body. The second impossible detail about this situation. “The bloodwork, the dental records—they said it was you.”

  “It was me.”

  I furrow my brows.

  “I didn’t just clone you and Marco.”

  The full force of what he’s saying hits me. That single Sleeper I wasn’t authorized to view. It had housed his double.