The Queen of Traitors (The Fallen World Book 2) (10 page)

Chapter 14

Serenity

All productive governments
have schedules and patterns. Reliable systems put in place to chart out the ruling of a country—or, in this case, the world. The king’s is no different. So despite the early morning festivities, we both get ready for work.

We dress—me in black jeans and boots, the closest thing to combat gear I now own—and the king in a pressed suit.

Since the bath, we’ve both been keenly aware of each other. I don’t think either of us is prone to softer emotions, but what happened less than an hour ago hasn’t happened before.

We’ve had sex, yes, but we’ve never fallen into each other the way we just did. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Marriage—and sex—I’d agreed to. But not love.

I hadn’t even thought I’d be vulnerable to falling for the king. I’d only ever meant to bide my time until I could thrust a dagger into his heart or a bullet into his brain.

But now I know that won’t happen. Not now that I’ve seen the sharks he works alongside. Not now that I’ve grown to care for him.

“Ready?” he asks, extending his arm towards me.

I ignore his arm and reach for the door. Where I’m from, after all, chivalry is long dead.

“Happy to see that I put you in good spirits this morning,” Montes says as he follows me out.

He doesn’t know the half of it. My heart’s still beating too fast, and every time I close my eyes I see the way he looked at me as he moved inside me. Like more than just sex passed between us. I hate that he’s convinced me that there’s another side to him. I hate that I want to drop back and take his hand, or hold his face in place while I memorize those irises that scared me for so long.

My own urges make me feel dirty. It’s one thing to be taken by a monster, and quite another to be taken with him.

“You vastly overestimate your skills, Montes,” I say. “I’m beginning to understand why you settled on world domination before marriage.”

“My queen
did
enjoy herself,” Montes says. He sounds so smug. “Perhaps a little too much?”

I run my tongue over my teeth. It would do me no good to respond to him. But it burns to not rise to his bait.

The palace is already bustling with people. Save for the guards, all the men are in suits, and the few women I do see wear heels and skirts. I’m the only one wearing anything sensible. It’s just another reminder that these people were once my enemy, and they were so untouchable that safety never dictated what they wore. They never had to worry about fleeing the palace at a moment’s notice.

This den of iniquity is now my home, and at the moment I’d love nothing more than to burn it to the ground, just to let these people feel a shadow of what I have my entire life.

Ahead of us, the servant carrying tea is the only one, as far as I can tell, who’s wearing shoes she can run in. Not even the others that mill the halls wear the same sensible black shoes she does.

Perhaps it’s that small detail that has me giving her a second look. A linen cloth is thrown over her forearm, and the base of the silver teapot she carries rests on it.

She’s only feet away from me, her eyes downcast. She’s not looking where she’s going, and even as I try to sidestep her, she manages to bump into me.

I feel the pressure of the knife sliding into me well before I feel the pain. That’s all it takes for my training to kick in.

Working on reflex alone, I grab the woman’s wrist and yank it behind her back. She cries out as I sweep her feet out from under her and follow her to the ground.

Jesus. Now I feel the pain. It only makes me more aggressive. I grind my knee into her back and pull her wrists more tightly together. My blood slips down the hilt of the dagger protruding from me and drips onto her.

“Nice try,” I whisper in her ear.

“
Guards!
” Montes yells.

The people in the hallway stand frozen as guards run to our side, a few gasp as they catch sight of me. Here in their world, nothing bad happens.

The guards gently push me away as they take over restraining the woman.

I rise to my feet slowly, careful not to cut more of myself. Montes helps me up the rest of the way.

“We need a medic!” he shouts.

He’s staring at the line of blood blooming across my abdomen, his face shell-shocked.

Two attempts on my life within a single week. Someone wants me dead. “You really should give me back my gun.”

It’s only once
I’m standing that I realize the woman inflicted more than just a flesh wound. My hands move to my stomach as I sway.

“Serenity?” Montes’s eyes are wider than usual. He turns to the guards not dispensing with the hit woman. “We need a doctor! Now!”

I place a hand on him to steady myself and stare down at the woman who’s now being jerked to her feet by several of his men. That was bold of her, trying to kill me in the king’s headquarters. She had to know she’d get caught. That she would be killed.

Montes holds my sides like he wants to draw me into him, but he’s afraid of jostling me. His eyes follow mine to my attacker.

“Make her talk by whatever means necessary,” he says. “Then make an example of her.”

The woman hasn’t said a word this entire time, and really what is there to say? She catches my eye as the guards drag her away. There’s nothing there. No remorse, no anger, no fear. That’s something else I’ve learned from war. Sometimes, violence isn’t personal. Sometimes it’s cold and passionless. And sometimes, you’ll never know a person’s motives.

As she’s taken away, several sets of feet sprint down the hall. A handful of medics move towards us, pushing a stretcher between them.

Now I’m half considering removing this knife from my belly and attacking my attacker for making me face more doctors.

Once the medical crew reaches us, they make quick work of laying me onto the stretcher. I reach for Montes’s hand and grip it in my own bloody one.

“Stay with me,” I whisper.

His nostrils flare as he breathes through his nose. That perfect suit of his is now rumpled. “I’m not going anywhere.”

I’ve heard that love was messy, but ours is downright bloody. It turns men into monsters, and monsters into men.

I don’t care that soldiers, medics, staff, and politicians are watching. I bring his bloody hand to my lips and kiss his knuckles. And the entire time they wheel me away, I hold my monster tightly to me.

The King

They put her
in the Sleeper again.

She fought it. Again.

Her pain almost broke me.

Again.

I’ve never bloodied my own hands, but I’m honestly giving it thought at the moment. Someone’s targeting my wife, someone wants her dead.

The Resistance had been the likeliest suspect. Serenity herself warned me that they had eyes everywhere. But Serenity’s attacker never fully broke under interrogation, which in and of itself means that she wasn’t just some crazed vigilante. What she did say was that someone paid her off. That’s not how the Resistance does their dirty work.

But if not them, then who?

I sit outside Serenity’s Sleeper, my elbows braced on my thighs and my hands shoved through my hair. I’ve taken to coming here between my meetings. This time, the doctor joins me.

“You had some information for me?” I say to Dr. Goldstein, staring at the Sleeper as it hums away.

“Yes.”

My heart’s thundering, though I don’t let on that it is. I’m afraid, I’m desperately afraid of what this man is going to tell me about Serenity. Special news from Goldstein is almost always unwelcome.

“What is it?”

“Her injury’s fully healed. The Sleeper is removing the malignant tissue it has detected. It should be done in another two hours, then she’ll be out.”

I already know this.

“If nothing is done for her … the cancer will eventually overtake her system. It’s only a matter of time. If you want her to live, not just for the next year, but for as long as you intend to, then I’d advise you to consider leaving Serenity in there for … a longer stretch of time.”

He wants me to leave her in there like some sort of vegetable until we find a cure for her cancer. Marco advised the same thing while he was still alive. And if we were talking about anyone other than Serenity, I might. But now that my oldest friend’s gone, my wife is my closest companion, and she’s swiftly becoming something more.

She could be in there for years, imprisoned in a box. A coffin, really. All that ferocity of hers forced to lay dormant. For Goldstein to even suggest that has my blood pressure rising.

I rub my knuckles. “No.” I feel selfish, even as I say it. “We’ll continue with treatment as we have been. Is that all?”

He lingers. “That … wasn’t what I came here to talk to you about.”

My cheeks suck in. “Then get it out already.” If he gives me one more piece of bad news …

“Your Majesty, when I was looking at the imaging of the queen’s cancer, the machine captured something else as well.” He takes a breath. “Congratulations, my king, the queen is pregnant.”

Chapter 15

The King

The news doesn’t
immediately take. I stare at the tiled floor as the doctor’s words sink in.

Serenity is … pregnant?

With my child?

My gaze moves up slowly to the doctor. “She is?”

He nods.

She’s carrying my child.

Serenity’s carrying our child.

I draw in a lungful of air.

Now it takes.

Fierce joy surges through my system, followed on its heels by possessive, masculine pride. I can’t stop my reaction. Now my heart’s pounding for an entirely different reason.

A child.

We hadn’t planned on this. I wasn’t trying to get her pregnant, despite my eventual plans for an heir. I’d never considered kids, and now I don’t know what to do with this strange elation I feel. If I’d have known I’d have this reaction, I’d have pushed the issue sooner.

I want to grab my wife and hold her. My eyes move to the Sleeper. Instead she’s unconscious, hurt once again.

She and our child.

A burst of anger punches through my joy. Someone needs to die, and Serenity and I need to leave the palace. It’s clear that if we remain, this will continue to happen. It grates me to flee my own home, but I’ll do it for her and the baby.

I’m going to be a father.

Had I once worried that no one who knows me will love me? Already my wife’s long-standing hatred is toppling. And my child—I rub my mouth. I’ll make damn sure they love me.

“How far along is she?” I ask.

“Just shy of eight weeks—Your Majesty, I need to caution you, the child might not survive. Women like Serenity who have been exposed to high levels of radiation often have fertility issues. And if the child does survive, it might have problems of its own.”

These words, too, don’t immediately sink in. But when they do—and they eventually do—they slaughter me.

This is karma, giving me everything I want only to steal it away.

I’m shaking my head. I won’t believe it.

Usually I’m a reasonable man. But reasonableness has nothing to do with this. Not now that I have a future to look forward to and something to hope for.

“The Sleeper can fix this.” Serenity is a survivor. Maybe our child will be as well.

“The Sleeper, as we’ve previously discussed, has limits.”

“Then fucking
enhance
it! Goddamnit, I will not sit here and listen to you tell me all the ways this won’t work.” I rise to my feet and get in Goldstein’s face. “You’re the royal physician. Consider your life now tied to my child’s.” I mean every word.

He blanches.

Good. Perhaps the threat will be enough to prompt him into usefulness.

Once he recovers, the doctor bows his head. “As you wish, Your Majesty.”

“Leave—and tell no one of this.” If my enemies knew of the pregnancy, they’d redouble their efforts to kill Serenity.

Goldstein exits the room, leaving me with my sick, pregnant wife.

I stare at the Sleeper, my excitement offset by Goldstein’swarnings. I place a hand on the machine.

Deadly, savage woman.

Now that I’m alone with her, I realize Serenity won’t react to the news like I have. I don’t know quite how she’ll take it, but I doubt joy will top her list. I remember her barely masked revulsion on our wedding day when the subject came up. It burns me raw to remember. She still hates me; I haven’t won her over enough for her to forget the bad blood between us. And when she finds out she’s pregnant with my child … it will set off all sorts of her triggers.

I’m a wise enough man to know telling her will earn me her famous wrath. I might not survive an angry, hormonal Serenity. Better she figure it out on her own.

I smile at the prospect of a pregnant Serenity stomping around.

I’ve only gotten the barest taste of this future, but already I know I want no other.

Serenity

When I wake
up, it’s in the king’s bed.

I push myself up and rest my back against the headboard.

How did I get here?

I have to jog my memory to recall the knife wound.

The Sleeper. Of course.

Now I wear a dress someone else slid onto my body while I slept. I try not to think about that too hard. Same goes for the underwear I see when I lift the hem of the dress up. There really isn’t anyone who I’d want to see me naked.

I continue to raise the material until I see the smooth expanse of my stomach. I touch the skin that had been split open last time I’d seen it. Nothing remains of that wound, not even a scar.

How many days did I lose this time?

I pull my dress back down and lean my head against the headboard. A glint of metal catches my eye, and I turn to the bedside table.

A row of bullets are lined up along the polished wood. Next to them are a giftwrapped box and a card with my name scrawled across the front. I reach for the card.

I thought you’d prefer this to flowers.

I run my thumb over the king’s handwriting.

A reluctant smile spreads across my face. I do prefer bullets to flowers.

I pick one of them up and study it.

My smile falls away. This ammunition is familiar.

I turn my attention to the gift wrapped box. When I lift it onto my lap the weight, too, is familiar.

I tear away at the ribbons and paper that cover it. I’m breathing faster than I should be. And then, when I open the lid of the box, I stop breathing altogether.

Inside, resting on tissue paper, is a gift I have already been given once before. I pick up the piece of cold, hard metal. It fits in my hand like it was born there.

The gun had originally been a gift from my father, and ever since he’d given it to me, it had been the most constant of comrades.

Montes had held onto it this entire time. I can’t stop the anger that rises at the thought. He’d taken away one of the few possessions I’d coveted.

But he had given it back. With bullets.

What a trusting, stupid man.

I’m loading bullets
into the chamber of my father’s gun when Montes storms in. His eyes capture mine, and he stalks towards me.

My anger is no match for the emotion pouring off him.

He doesn’t bother removing the gun from my hand before he cups my face the same way he had the last time we’d been intimate. The same intensity burns through him now as it did then.

He takes my mouth savagely. When the kiss doesn’t let up after a few seconds, I set aside the gun to better return it.

I can tell without asking that Montes’s emotions simmer just beneath his skin. Usually I doubt his motives and intentions, but there is no confusion here: I’m no passing fancy of his.

He threads his fingers through my hair and his tongue invades my mouth.

It’s not enough.

I can practically hear the thought running on repeat in his head. The man who owns the world has finally found something he can never have enough of, and he’s trying to figure out a way to remedy that.

He breaks off the kiss and leans his forehead against mine. “How do you feel?”

“You gave me back my father’s gun.” Even as I speak, I reach for it.

“Thinking of using it on me?” His eyes are full of mirth, and any anger I was planning on directing his way now dissipates. He enjoys the vicious side of me; it’s hard to threaten someone when they relish it.

I turn my attention from the king to the weapon. I flip it over and over in my hand. I miss my war-torn country and my father. I miss knowing right from wrong and friends from enemies. I miss knowing my place in the world.

I can feel the king watching me. The bed dips as he sits at my side. “Your gun had me thinking.”

That train of thought can’t end well.

His fingertips touch the scar on my face. “I have a serious question for you: Now that you’re the unofficial representative of the western hemisphere, how would you feel about returning to the WUN?”

Not two days
later Montes and I are on the plane heading to the last land to fall to the king.

Up here, the sky is bluer than I’ve ever seen it, and the clouds are whiter than even the king’s smile. It hurts my chest that a day can be this beautiful.

We’re not headed to the continent formerly known as North America. It’s an odd mix of relief and disappointment to not be returning to the place I called home. It’s all I’ve ever known, but there’s nothing there left for me.

Instead, we’re heading to the land on the other side of the equator. The king’s having trouble pulling together the fractured nations of Southern WUN, and now, as the self-appointed representative of the western hemisphere, I’m to help him fashion some sort of cohesive government. I smile to myself as I stare out the window. What he wants to do is damn near impossible, and it may be petty of me, but I look forward to seeing the king struggle.

I steal a glance at Montes, who sits across from me, his legs pressed against my own. He’s pinching his lower lip as he scrolls through a document on his tablet. Without warning, Montes looks up and our eyes meet. I squeeze my chair’s armrests.

A wry smile spreads across his face. “Still plotting my death?”

I frown. I don’t want this casual familiarity with him, no matter that it’s inevitable.

Absently I touch my holstered gun. “You shouldn’t remind me. The prospect is too tempting.”

“So you
weren’t
plotting my death while you were staring at me? Hmmm, I wonder what my queen was thinking.” He leaves the thought hanging there.

More bait for me to rise to.

“This is where all your delusions of grandeur come from,” I say.

“They’re not delusions, Serenity, if they come true.”

He has a point.

“Who are we meeting with first?” I ask, purposefully changing the subject.

We land in Morro de São Paulo, a city along the continent’s eastern coast, in another several hours. The discussions don’t begin until tomorrow, but I want to be ready. Not only is this a chance to establish my own abilities, I know many of these people either directly or indirectly from my time with the WUN.

“Luca Estes,” Montes says.

I groan. “Don’t tell me you’re giving him a government seat.”

“Not just a government seat,
the
government seat. He’ll spearhead the South American region of my rule. You have an issue with this?”

“Yes.” A huge one. “He’s a sellout.”

My eyes flick over the luxurious cabin we sit in. Greed, in the end, got to Estes. It’s as corrosive to the soul as outright violence. After all, if not for greed, there would be no King Lazuli.

I click my tongue. “He’s not a good person to have working for you. Before he was a politician, he was a thug. He only came to power once he killed enough people.”

Something you two have in common.

“I dare you to find me a single person in office that hasn’t gotten his or her hands dirty—including you.”

I can’t say anything to that. Our world is one of hard choices and bloodshed.

“After you detonated the nukes across the WUN,” I say, “Estes began destabilizing many of the neighboring regions.”

When I was just the daughter of an emissary, Estes had been one of the thorns in the WUN’s side. He often pulled aggressive maneuvers on his allies rather than trying to come together and provide a united front against the Eastern Empire.

“That’s because he was working for me the entire time.”

Montes’s words aren’t surprising, but they are disheartening.

“So you would have a sellout—a traitor to his comrades—holding the seat of Southern WUN.”

“South America,” Montes corrects.

“What would you have me do?” he asks, leaning forward.

He really wants my advice, this man who’s taken over the world.

“You have better experience with bad men than I do.” He convenes with a whole room of them on a daily basis. “Perhaps you can handle Estes. But I’d listen to what the people here want.”

“My reports indicate he’s a favorite amongst the people.”

I know all about Montes’s reports. They’d serve more use as kindling than as information.

“Fear and love wear similar faces,” I say.

“Not on you.”

This is hedging too close to subjects I don’t want to talk about. “You’ve never seen love on my face,” I say, staring him down.

“I thought you and I were beyond the lies.” He holds my gaze.

My fingers dig into my arm rests. I’m itching to unholster my gun, but not because I’m angry. Heaven help me, it’s because Montes might be right and I can’t bear that he of all people lured something as soft as love out of me.

Montes lifts a cup of coffee to his lips. After he sets it down, he says, “I will take what you say into account. For now, let’s keep our friends close and our enemies closer.”

“I already am, Montes.” And that really is the problem.