Kingdom Come (17 page)

“Shall we?”

He followed her to the doorway, the two of them pausing just outside long enough for her to point out the unassuming black box that was capable of generating black holes. It was no larger than his hand, but able to swallow a city. He smiled. How interesting.

“But better than the litum…” Desta trailed off and gave the door her voiceprint.

He followed her into the spacious, oval shaped room. The roof had been retracted over her work space to let the daylight glint off the armor on the stand in the center of the space. As he considered it, he moved closer. Desta stepped out of the way to lean against the wall and let him study her work.

It was made of the same gold metal as his own, light as cloth and nearly indestructible. He stopped a few feet away and took in the delicate details. Desta had laid hundreds of paper-thin layers in the mold to create the chest plate. The top most layer was inlaid with silver scrollwork. The loops and swirls over the left side formed a stylized capital ‘A’.

He started to turn and praise his armorer when he realized Abby’s first initial was interlocked with a bold ‘E’. It was usual for a woman to have her own name on her armor, but to have her mate’s was rare. He frowned. It would mark her as his, as much as he was hers.

“I think she will be pleased,” his mother said from the direction of the door.

He turned to find her just inside the room, watching him. Thankfully, his father was absent. He bowed to her, as she approached.

“I apologize, my queen. I did not see you there.”

She glanced at him. “I know.”

“What brings you to the armory?” he asked, watching her circle the stand to look at Abby’s armor from every angle.

She stopped where she began and answered without turning to look at him. “I heard a rumor that Abigail’s dagger would soon have company.”

He looked at Desta to see her frown in confusion. “Oh?”

His mother finally turned to look at him. She stared at him a moment, before she turned her head to regard the silent Desta.

“Please excuse us.”

Desta bowed and walked swiftly from the room. The door closed behind her with a quiet thud.

He raised his eyebrows. “Company?”

His mother nodded. “I did not tell you before, because there never seemed to be a good time.”

He stayed silent while she pulled the sword fro
m the scabbard at her side. The royal blade shone in the bright light. It wasn’t until she turned the hilt to face him that he noticed the difference. Where it had been pure silver, gold had been added to match Abby’s armor.

Edric frowned. “Why?”

Her lips quirked. “You are the only child of a Ghadrikan queen, my son. Who do you think will take the throne when I step down?”

“Step down?” He took a step toward her. “Is Gol forcing you—”

Loreet gestured sharply with one hand. “Your father makes me do nothing. I have simply been waiting for you to find an arammu of your own.” She returned the sword to its scabbard. “And now you have.”

“You would pass on the throne to a human?” It hurt to ask, but he had to know.

His mother sent him an amused look, seeming to read his mind with her next comment. “She is far more than a simple human. Or perhaps, we should spend more time in Earthly company.”

He smiled. “Perhaps.”

They turned together to look at Abby’s armor. Loreet spoke after several minutes of silence.

“She will make a fine queen.”

Edric smiled. “Yes.”

“You should bring her soon.” Something about her tone made him turn his head to look at her.

“Mother?”

She continued to stare at the armor, clearly deep in thought. “Your father is, at times, a mystery to me.”

“How so?” he asked, narrowing his eyes.

“You believe many things about your father which are not true. He is not as you believe him to be.”

Edric fought the urge to scoff. “So, he is not responsible for the actions of his second?” He shook his head. “He did not tell Caern to cause havoc and endanger my future arammu?”

His mother scowled at him. “Your tone is bordering on disrespect.”

He gave her a curt nod. “My apologies, my queen. It is my concern that makes me brash.”

She stared at him hard, as if weighing his sincerity. Finally, she nodded and looked back at the gleaming armor.

“Lord Caern has ceased to follow King Gol’s orders.” She pursed her lips. “As the humans would say, he has gone rogue.”

“Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.”

-Kahlil Gibran

She woke suddenly, the last visages of her dream still clinging to her mind. Something about Edric. She stared up at the ceiling above her, a smile tugging at her lips at the thought of him. He loved her. The smile widened.

A quiet sound came from somewhere off to her right, the source hidden by the back of the couch. It was soft and raspy, like a shoe on the carpeted stairs. She frowned and began to sit up. The moment her eyes cleared the couch, they widened in alarm. Three shadowy figures stood just inside the door, another two quickly ascending the stairs.

Agent Jackson’s men. It had to be. The figure closest to her turned to look in her direction. She tensed and, even though she could not see his eyes, she could see the moment he realized she was awake. The figure immediately rushed her, whispering fiercely in a language she could not understand.

Eyes wide, she sprang off the couch backing toward the closet under the stairs. She could clearly picture the dagger Edric had given her. Perfectly sharp and waiting. The figure continued to advance, voice rising as the other two people tried to cut off her route to the closest. A loud thud and scream drifted down the stairs.

Abby reached for the doorknob, jerking at the door a moment before a heavy weight slammed her sideways into the wall. She yelped at the burst of pain in her shoulder, but dropped to her knees to scramble for the blade. She closed her right hand around the hilt of the dagger and swung upwards blindly.

A man yelled in pain and she spun to face her attackers. One had fallen back, a hand pressed firmly to his midsection and she felt a twinge of satisfaction. The other two gave her no time to celebrate her small victory, rushing her at the same time. The first slammed into her, his muscled forearm forcing the air from her lungs as he pinned her to the wall.

She slashed with her dagger and the blade caught on the back of his thick shirt, sinking in a few inches before the other man grabbed her wrist and twisted. She heard something snap. A low, wounded cry spilled from her mouth before she could bite it back. She thrust her head forward to crash her forehead against that of the man in front of her.

He stumbled back a few feet, spewing what sounded like curses, and clutching at his face. Even in the darkness, she could see the splash of blood. She hoped she had broken his nose. The hand on her right arm twisted and agony screamed across her nerve endings. Her fingers went numb and the clang of the dagger on the hardwood floor sounded far away.

The first man lurched forward and she had a brief moment to see his closed fist heading for her face before her head snapped to the right. She gasped, pain blooming across her face at the same time the coppery taste of blood filled her mouth. The world spun, her eyes refusing to focus. She blinked hard.

The fist came again, this time to her left side. Her legs threatened to give out and it was only the pain in her wrist that kept her from collapsing. She wrenched away from the man holding her arm, sending a knee into his groin hard enough to bring him to his knees. As she spun away, a fist caught her in her lower back.

She stumbled forward a few steps, catching herself on the back of a dining room chair. She did not have time to take a full breath, before the man was back. One, two, three punches to her ribs. She thought she felt the bottom ribs on her left side crack, but she pushed back from the chair hard.

She used her momentum and body weight to drive her attacker back into the kitchen cabinets, throwing an elbow to catch him in his temple. He stumbled away from her, the same foreign curses on his lips. She wrapped her wounded right arm around her body, trying to breathe shallow as she lurched toward her fallen dagger.

She had just gotten her fingers around the hilt when the two men stampeded down the stairs, an unconscious Candace between them. At least she hoped she was only unconscious. The two seemed to notice the situation at the same time. They dropped Candace at the base of the stairs and started toward her.

The one she had kneed yelled something in a guttural language and the two men lunged for her at the same time. They slammed her to the wall, just barely avoiding her wild swings with the dagger. The cracked ribs gave away in an overwhelming burst of agony. Past the pain in her side and wrist, she barely felt the hand fisted in her hair.

The one on her left threw his weight against her broken ribs. She screamed in pain. He leaned forward to spit angry words in her face. She did not need to understand the language to know he was threatening her. When she just bared her teeth at him, he slammed his body into hers again. She bit her lip until it bled.

The hand in her hair tightened and jerked her head back to meet the wall. The world blurred into a mess of shadows and dark figures. The man yelled at her, threats or demands, she was not sure. Her head hit the wall twice more, before they dragged her away. She watched through slitted eyes, as one of the men stooped to pick up her dagger. Her present from Edric.

“Give me that!” she snarled, weakly lunging for him.

He swung his fist at her and she could not avoid it. The room flashed in and out of focus and she slumped to her knees. She was only vaguely aware of the arms that hooked under hers to jerk her to her feet. She swam in and out of consciousness. She caught a glimpse of the side of a cargo van, an unconscious and bound Candace, angry faces hovering over her as she lay curled on a hard surface. The world finally faded to blackness, her body giving out on her.

She woke slowly, unsure if hours or minutes had passed, and lay perfectly still. The air was filled with the smell of fuel and machine oil, so strong she felt the urge to gag. She focused past it. The mechanical roar of engines vibrated the cold metal floor beneath her.

From the queasiness of her stomach, she assumed the strikes to her head had caused a mild concussion. Perfect. She opened her eyes just wide enough to take in the space. A plane’s cargo hold. That explained the smell and noise. Her eyes darted around to count the men around her.

Twelve, human if she was not mistaken. The Dorn could disguise themselves to fit in with the population, but she doubted they would have such a good grasp on human behaviors. The men seemed focused but relaxed, still clad in the same black uniforms they had been wearing when they broke in to Candace’s apartment.

A few laughed and joked amongst themselves, ignoring the two women in their midst. The language sounded almost like Russian, but not quite. Something about the accent was off, the pronunciation a little different. Maybe, Ukrainian. Her eyes drifted from the men seated around her to the bound woman on her right.

Candace was slumped against the wall, her chin resting on her chest. Her hands lay in her lap, tied together with zip ties. What Abby could see of her face was unnaturally pale. If it weren’t for the slow rise and fall of her chest, she would think the other woman were dead.

“Hey!”

One of the men rose from his chair and stomped toward her. It was too late to feign unconsciousness, so she opened her eyes fully and glared at him. He paused on her left side, a dark scowl on his face. She noticed he had fresh bruising under both of his eyes and a swollen, angry red nose.

“The forehead is the hardest part of the head,” she said conversationally, remembering the crunch of his nose when she hit him.

He gave her a crooked smile. “Yeah?” His boot slammed into her broken ribs.

She clenched her jaw shut to muffle her scream. She would not give him the satisfaction.

One of the other men barked what sounded like an order and the man backed away.

She could barely breathe. Where the pain in her body had faded to a dull ache, it was again at full force. Every time her lungs expanded, agony speared through her side. She lay still and focused on breathing. Panic threatened to overwhelm her when she started coughing and could not stop.

Every time her lungs seized, it felt like her broken ribs were gouging into her organs. She rolled her head to the side to send the man a hateful glare. Coward would get his.

“You are Abigail Ashley.” The man who had stopped her attacker rose from his seat. Her name sounded odd in his thick accent.

She him a look of pure loathing, but did not answer. She would tell these men nothing.

“Tyhrytsya,” he murmured, moving toward her. “Fierce and troublesome.”

She tried to move away from him and found she could not. Her broken wrist was bound to her other arm with a zip tie and any movement sent shooting pains up her right arm. She considered it a blessing that the actual area of her injury was numb. She raised her eyes again to find the man standing over her.

“What do you want?” she spat, pulling her legs closer to her body. The grind of her ribs made her throat tighten, but she continued to glare up at him defiantly.

“You are work for the President of America. True?”

“What do you want?” she asked, refusing to play along.

He sighed and shook his head. “Why so not answer? You want to be hurt?” He knelt at her side and reached for her. She flinched, but he only moved the hair away from her face.

“Who hired you? Where are we going? What have you done to Can—”

He struck her hard across the face. “Answer question. You are Abigail Ashley?”

She felt blood dribble from the corner of her mouth and narrowed her eyes. “If you don’t stop hitting me, so help me God—”

He laughed, a low, rasping sound and grabbed a handful of her hair. “You give threats?” She heard several of the others chuckle, but she could not turn her head to look. “You do nothing. Answer question.”

“Yes,” she snarled. “Now let go of me.”

His lips curved into a mocking smile, pulling at the small scar on his right cheek. He gave her a long look, but finally shoved her away. “Long trip to Kharkiv.”

So, they were Ukrainian. She tucked that information away for when she escaped. She watched him walk back to his seat and sit.

He stared at her intently. “Sleep.”

She started to tell him off, when the man to her left lunged. She got a glimpse of a dirty rag in his hand before his full body weight hit her. The two of them slid across the metal floor, the roughness scraping her back painfully. He grabbed a handful of her hair and tried to press the rag to her face with the other.

She twisted and struggled until she got a knee between them to shove him away. He hit the wall hard and bounced back, a snarl on his lips. He growled under his breath and she watched two more men stand to approach. She managed to get her legs under her and stood, wobbling with the cold floor under her bare feet.

“Do not fight,” the one who seemed to be the leader said.

Over her dead body. She crouched and watched the three men exchange silent looks. With a signal only they seemed to understand, all three leapt at her. She hit the floor flat on her back, the wind leaving her lungs in a single burst. One of the men laid across her midsection, as another pinned her legs down.

Her arms were all but useless, trapped under the man lying on her. She could only watch with wide eyes as the third man knelt by her head and pressed the rag to her face. Immediately, a sickeningly sweet scent overwhelmed her and she gagged. Chloroform. She jerked her head to the side and gasped for air.

Between the weight on her and the ribs scraping her lungs, she began to feel light-headed. She blinked several times to clear her vision. The man acted while she was distracted, holding her head in place by her hair and pressing the rag to her mouth and nose hard enough to remind her of the bruises on her face.

She held her breath, forcing herself to stay calm. The man seemed to realize what she was doing after a few seconds and shouted something. The man lying on her shifted and suddenly his weight was pressed into her ribs. She sucked in a deep breath and screamed. She felt the chloroform hit her the same time something gave internally.

Her limbs tingled strangely, quickly going numb and she drew in another deep breath to wail. The sound of the plane engine began to fade in and out, as if she were repeatedly submerging her head under water. It finally fell silent and the weight on her body vanished the same time her vision grayed out.

…

He straightened his tie. The guards stationed outside the door to the Oval Office shifted nervously. Their eyes continuously scanned his party as if waiting for a sudden outburst. He glanced at Desta. The attention is obviously making her nervous. The fingers of her right hand twitched, clearly itching to find her dagger. She finally crossed her arms across her chest to still the movement.

“Your Highness,” Konani murmured from his right.

“What is there to hide?” he asked in Ghadrikan. His eyes tracked the nervous shuffling of the White House guards.

“I have not seen the human, Jackson.”

He nodded. “Nor have I.”

“Shall I see what has occupied him?” Desta asked, her gaze still fastened on the humans nearby. Edric noticed the one closest to her began to squirm under the scrutiny. Desta smirked.

He had not seen Abby, either. “Quietly.”

Her smile widened. “Of course.” She turned her head to send the two humans a dangerous smile, before striding down the hallway and out of sight.