It’s all hitting me at once. Over a billion lives—parents, children, spouses, siblings. Friends, lovers, comrades. Over a billion of them cut down because bad men decided they wanted to have it all. When that many people are gone, what is the point?
I actually feel a tear roll down my cheek at that. I look over at Montes, and he must see my despair.
I can see wounds in those old eyes of his; my king’s finally been touched by his war, and his ghosts are eating him alive.
“The enemy fights more ruthlessly than we do,” someone says.
A day ago, I wouldn’t have believed it. Now I do.
A billion people gone. You really do reap what you sow. Montes has cultivated fields and fields of violence and watered them with bloodshed. These are his crops.
I draw in a ragged breath. I was never able to fulfill my promise of healing this broken world. Not until now, when so much has already been lost.
Not glancing away from me, Montes says, “Everyone, out. We’ll reconvene tomorrow at eight a.m. in the Great Room. Bring with you a comprehensive plan for your respective departments.”
The room clears in under a minute, but not before the officers bow and salute us. And even on their stoic faces, I swear I catch a glimpse of hope when their eyes meet mine.
Once they leave, I rotate to the king. “Why did you clear the room?” I ask.
He leans forward in his chair, his forearms going to his thighs. “You don’t like having an audience when you feel weak.”
My throat constricts at that. This man can be so cruel yet so considerate. And God, does he remember me well.
My gaze slides to the door. “They love you.” It’s both a statement and a question.
“Not as much as they love you.”
It’s easy to love a dream. It’s much harder to love the reality. Once these people understand who I really am, I doubt they’ll remain blindly loyal.
“I thought you believed all the good men were gone,” I say. He told me this long ago.
“I was wrong about many things.”
I peer at him closely. “Are you a good man?”
A devil-may-care smile flashes across his lips. He wants to touch me; I can feel his desire as though it’s a physical thing.
“Does it matter?” he says. “I’m still the King of the East, you’re still married to me, and the world’s still at war. Good and evil have little to do with it.”
Now I lean forward, until there are only inches between our faces. “They have everything to do with it. So which are you?”
He leans forward, closing the last of the distance between us, and just as his lips meet mine, he says, “Both.”
The King
I am married to a lioness. Some dangerous, beautiful creature that cannot be tamed, and she will eat me alive.
As my lips move against hers, and I take my conquered kiss, I expect those claws of hers to come out. She hates me, perhaps now more than ever.
Instead, she kisses me back. And now I’m not just reveling in the taste and the feel of her, but the memory of the time when she wanted this every bit as much as I did.
Eventually, she pushes me away, and the look on her face … horror and regret. “I’m not doing this with you again, Montes.”
I lean forward, refusing to let her put distance between us. “Is this one of your famous facts?” I say.
“Do you really think I’m here sitting next to you because I believe we can resolve our issues?”
Oh, the fire that burns within her. I want to stoke it until I can feel nothing but her heat.
“You’re sitting next to me because I didn’t give you a choice,” I say.
She gives me a hard look. “I’m here to fix what you’ve destroyed.”
What she doesn’t realize is that our relationship is one of those things.
I pull my chair as close to her as I can get, until our thighs are pressed against one another. “The terms are the same as they’ve always been, nire bihotza—if you want to fix the world, you’ll do it at my side.”
I think she understands this. I can see the concession in her eyes. I don’t want to be her second priority, and I don’t intend to remain one. However, if this gets her to give me another chance, I’ll take it.
“What happened once I was gone?” she asks.
I pick up one of her hands. She tries to pull it away, and I flash her a look.
“If you want information from me, you play by my rules.” It’s as simple as that. “One of those rules is that while I answer your questions, I get to touch you.”
She glowers at me, despite the fact that we began our relationship this way. She came to my land prepared to trade secrets for sex.
“Fine,” she says. I don’t know how she does it, but she manages to make the word sound like a curse.
Satisfaction spreads through me. “Good.”
I turn over Serenity’s hand, running my fingers across her soft skin. Time has long since wiped away the calluses she wore like jewelry. I find I miss them. I like it best when my savage queen displays her true nature. If I give her long enough in this world, she will wear those calluses once more.
“After you were placed back in the Sleeper, I continued to war with my advisors and some of the surviving regimes of South America,” I say, beginning to answer her earlier question.
She listens avidly.
“The West never much liked me, and the Resistance and other militia groups got behind South America’s fight. Within a year, what little gains I had made in the WUN were undone, and the political leaders who remained loyal to me were slaughtered.”
It should please her that the Resistance pushed me out, but she doesn’t look pleased. She looks worried. She’s must be thinking about the advisors who fled to South America. Those were not men anyone should get behind.
I run my thumb over the soft skin of her inner arm.
“My enemies banded together and retook the West. They called themselves representatives and established their leadership throughout the WUN. Despite the similarities in names, their government is nothing like the one the one they replaced. Ever since then, we’ve been at war.”
To be honest, I’m more interested in the feel of my hand along her flesh than I am in retelling this bleak history. The world has been the way it is for the last hundred years, and I’ve had a century to come to terms with it. Meanwhile, I’ve only had a day to drink up my wife’s essence.
“Montes.”
I am the ancient one, and yet every time I meet her gaze I can’t help but feel I’m looking at someone even older than me.
“How is it that after all this time, you haven’t managed to defeat the West?” she asks.
It’s the most laughable question. No one tries to lose a war.
“I know you have the resources,” she says. “So why, Montes?”
“They fought dirtier than I did.”
“No one fights dirtier than you.”
I’m still holding one of her hands in my own. I tug on it, pulling her close. “That was true until I met you. They are your people, nire bihotza. You care for them, as I care for you. I tried to do right.”
Her eyes widen almost imperceptibly. “What are you saying?”
I bring her hand to my mouth and kiss those soft, scarred knuckles of hers, but I don’t respond. It should be obvious.
She and I are love and war. Peace and violence. I have taught her how to be a worse person, and she’s taught me how to be a better one. I fuel her hate, and she fuels my love.
I’ve torn the world apart and now I need my queen to help me stitch humanity back together, and my heart along with it.
Chapter 13
Serenity
A swimsuit waits for me when we return to our
rooms.
“What’s this?” I say, picking up the two dainty scraps of material.
The king comes striding in behind me. “I’ve decided I’m only going to answer your intelligent questions. The inane ones you’ll just have to figure out for yourself.”
I flash him an annoyed look.
He begins to change next to me, and I realize a swimsuit has been laid out for him as well.
When I don’t follow his lead, he says, “You don’t have to get in the ocean. You can stay inside the palace, just as you have for the last several decades.”
This man knows how to play me even better now than he did a hundred years ago.
“I need to work more, Montes. There’s so much I have to catch up on.” Of course in his world, the king has time for idle swims when there’s work to be done.
“I will allow you to continue to ask me questions while we swim,” he says, unzipping his pants. He steps out of his fatigues a moment later. Reflexively, I back up.
He’s shirtless and clad only in a pair of boxer briefs, all of that toned, olive skin on display. I feel my body react to the sight of him before my mind can catch up.
The king notices, and his gaze heats. “Provided, of course, that the same rules apply.”
“What rules?” I ask, pretending that I don’t feel the heat crawling up my cheeks.
“That I get to touch you while I answer them.”
I narrow my gaze, still not making a move to put on the suit.
As we stare each other down, he drops his boxer briefs, and I get an eyeful of a very aroused king. He’s not embarrassed in the least.
I am. Even after all that we’ve done together I’m still somewhat modest.
Leisurely he grabs his suit, taking his time to pull it on just so that he can toy with me a little longer. And then he’s done changing, and I still haven’t moved.
Seeing that I won’t be joining him, he heads to the door, but then pauses when he gets there. “Serenity?”
I glance over at him.
“I was lying. You don’t get a choice. I’ll give you five minutes to change, and then whatever state of dress you’re in, my men will bring you to me.”
He’s so lucky I don’t have a gun.
From the moment I leave the back doors of the palace, I can feel Montes’s eyes on me.
I scowl first at him, then at the guards that flank me.
I did change into the swimsuit he left for me. I’ll give the king that much. Then I went into our closet and put on the most expensive gown I could find. Seed pearls are sewn into intricate designs across the bodice and down the sleeves.
I intend to ruin it in the salty water ahead of me.
Like I told him when we first met, I’m a vindictive bitch.
Not to mention that dresses like this one belong leagues under the sea.
The breeze lifts my gauzy skirts, like the wind wants to rub its phantom fingers over the material. It is lovely. That won’t stop me from destroying it.
The king is thigh deep in the water, looking like some strange sea god as the waves roll in around him. His hair is swept back from his forehead, and all those fine muscles of his glisten in the sun. Even this far away, I can see him assessing my clothing. Whatever he’s thinking, it brings a grin to his face. If I had to guess, I’d say my defiance amuses him.
“You got all dressed up for me,” he says when I’m within hearing range. “I’m so honored.”
My bare feet sink into the warm sand as I approach him. I don’t bother lifting my skirts as the granules tangle in them.
“I’m beginning to believe you are genuinely suicidal,” I say.
“You know me better than that,” Montes admonishes.
“Do I? The evil king who laid down his arms to heal his people—if that is the man you are, then I don’t in fact know you.”
But I want to.
The realization comes as a shock, and not a welcome one. The king’s seduced me once into forgetting that he was the enemy. If I’m not careful, he’ll do it once more. And, unfortunately, I’m even more vulnerable this time around because my feelings for Montes haven’t vanished.
A wicked man with a decent heart. That is the worst sort of combo. I have no defense against it.
Seawater begins to climb up my dress as the dry sand gives way to wet.
“Then it’s my job to see to it that you do come to know me. Intimately, my queen.”
Intimacy. It always is his endgame with me. I won’t be able to avoid it.
I walk up to him, the saltwater rising up and up until it’s nearly at my waist. My dark king watches me. He’s enjoying this—my anger, his control.
“And what do I get out of that situation?” I ask.
If Montes is going to make my ignorance of current events a situation he can take advantage of, then I will use his desire to my benefit.
A wave crashes against us, the surf wrapping my dress around me.
“What does my vicious little wife want?”
“I’m not going to tell you,” I say. “Not yet. Give me whatever it is I wish, and I’ll give you intimacy.”
A tradeoff—one not so different from the one we made when I was just an emissary.
He stares at me for a long time as the waves roll in around him, crashing against his back. I can’t read him or the machinations of his twisted mind, but he’s entertaining the thought, and that, at least, is something. To even consider what I proposed—
“Agreed.”
I can’t hide my surprise. The king must want me more desperately than I can imagine.
“We begin now,” he says.
My small victory is only just beginning to sink in when his words register.
He closes the last of the distance between us and wraps an arm around my waist. I put my hands on the shoulders reflexively, about to push him away.
“Ah-ah-ah,” he says. “You agreed to intimacy. Fight me on this, and you can forget about your pretty little request.”
“I didn’t mean now,” I say.
“You never specified that. As far as I’m concerned, intimacy will be on my terms. Or, you can forget about your secretive wish and I will seduce you the old-fashioned way.” Which might just be worse because I know myself well enough to understand with perfect clarity that he will pull me under all over again.
He knows he has me when I glare at thin.
“Now,” he says, “put your legs around me.”
This is absurd.
With a very obvious reluctance, I do so, giving him a not-so-subtle glare the entire time. His other hand cups me from below. He moves us into deeper water.
His eyes drop to my mouth. “Now your lips,” he says.
This man is insufferable. Of course he would take complete advantage of his end of the deal.
I will let him have his moment. I’ll get mine later.
I lean into him, brushing my lips against his. I can taste the salty ocean on his skin.
I assume that he’ll find the kiss wanting—I’m not trying very hard to make it enjoyable—but he’s patient, his lips barely moving beneath mine. And then, at some point, he takes over. His grip on me tightens, and the kiss becomes impassioned. Montes’s fingers dig into my skin.
I don’t know what to do with this fever. A part of me wants to fall just as deeply into it as Montes is, but another part of me wants to fight back, even though I just made a promise otherwise.
The king doesn’t give me much of a choice. The arm cradling my back slides up, delving into my hair. I feel his tongue part my lips and then I’m not just tasting water and sea salt; I’m tasting this man’s desperation and his toxic, undying love. How terrible that I’m the focus of it.
Finally, he ends the
kiss. Both of us are breathing heavy when he pulls away to look at me. His thumb strokes one of my cheekbones. “I intend to do more,” he says.
“I know you do.” It is just like my husband to take full advantage of the situation.
His eyes drop back to my lips, which already feel swollen. And I see in his gaze the same thing I’ve been seeing in everyone else’s—hope.
But he doesn’t say it. He makes no mention of the fact that I can feel his need vibrating through him. He and I both know it’s a weakness, and the king hasn’t gotten to where he is today by being weak.
“I see you took great pains to destroy this dress,” Montes says, moving one of his hands along the collar, his fingers brushing a string of the seed pearls and the tops of my breasts.
“Are you going to put me down?” I ask. He’s still holding me to him, and my legs are still idiotically wrapped around his waist.
“You should never make deals without stipulations,” he says. “For I intend to be intimate with you until you freely give into it.”
“That’s not going to happen,” I say, more to convince myself than to convince him.
“It already has once before,” he says, gripping me tightly as the ocean swirls around us. “It will again, my lady of lies.”
What I hate most about his words is that he very well could be right. I’m not nearly as underhanded as he is. I can’t mask my emotions, not the way some people can.
“I’m not the only one who agreed to a deal without stipulations,” I say.
Mirth reenters his eyes. “It is my deepest wish that you will use me as I will use you.”
An unbidden shiver runs down my spine at the king’s plans for me—for us.
“Be careful what you wish for, Montes.”
Because I will use him. Oh, how I will.
Chapter 14