Wicked Thing (C.O.A Series Book 2) (21 page)

“They should be here by now,” Tiberius placed his hands on a few of the hand prints and opened the stall with ease. Kevin and Patrick were waiting outside of the door. He signalled them in and the group squeezed into the stall together.

Kevin smiled at her and asserted, “Don’t accidentally lean against that button on the toilet seat. The stall will shrink.”

She imagined that they’d all had a similar messed up experience the first time they’d used the bathroom in this place
. “I only figured that out earlier this evening,” Lexy replied to the boy that had briefly been in their clan. He’d just done the unthinkable to the girl he loved for the greater good and now here he was about to sacrifice himself for Kayn once again and she’d never be able to know.

Kevin began to catch her up with their plan, “Silas will be slipping Kayn something to keep the Dragon at bay. We’ll also be drugging the wine in the King’s suite. With any luck it should temporarily knock out the King and he’ll think he blacked out. There’s more to it but long story short we’ll need to use the room next door and it belongs to Prince Amadeus. Can you get us all in there?”

If the King drank the wine from his bedroom and if Kayn took Silas’s advice, this might actually work. There were a lot of ifs involved in this plans success.
Lexy answered, “I think I can get us in the room next door.”

Kevin nodded at her and said, “Let’s do this. We’ll need to get back to our seats and act appropriately shocked when they take her.”

Tiberius opened the door for the two boys, gestured them out and added, “You two get back to your seats. We’ll wait a minute and follow.” He shut the stall behind them once again leaving the two of them all alone. Tiberius whispered, “Just in case everything goes wrong tonight. Can I kiss you goodbye?”

She nodded and as their parted lips met, her pulse raced and she thought of
Tiberius’s words…Just in case everything goes wrong
. Their lips parted and she stared into her enemy’s entrancing pools of ocular seduction.
Oh, hell, they were probably going to end up entombed for a hundred years for this. What did she have to lose?
Lexy, stepped towards him and became the aggressor, kissing him passionately. Her tongue slipped between his parted lips and he groaned, “Oh, sweetheart, I know I’m going to kick myself for stopping this but you have a Prince to speak to and we have a virgin sacrifice to stop.”

He was right…What was she doing?

They left the bathroom and walked down the long hallway in silence, enemies once again. They parted ways as they strolled out of the hallway without even looking at each other and Lexy made her way towards where she’d been seated earlier. The music had ceased to play and no more began.

The announcer came on and asked the stragglers that still lingered on the dance floor to take their seats. They all wandered back to the table. Grey pulled out Kayn’s chair before he went to find his own seat. Lexy smiled at her Handler as he passed her.

Grey grabbed a hold of her arm and whispered in her ear, “If I disappear for the rest of the evening are you going to be okay with that?”

She squeezed his shoulder, smiled and whispered back, “Do whatever makes you happy.” Paused, and teased, “Just don’t drink too much and puke in that bathroom again.”
She wasn’t going to be around to peel anything off of his face.

Grey chuckled as he walked away. Lexy grinned as she made her way back to her chair and took her seat beside an unsuspecting Kayn. The fledgling Dragon smiled at her as she took a drink from her goblet of wine.

Kayn gave her a rather comic giant grin and asked, “Do I have purple teeth?”

Her teeth were fine.
Lexy replied, “No, you don’t, and this makeup stays on for days. It’s like a temporary tattoo. Kind of cool isn’t it?”

Kayn sighed, “I wish it was a permanent tattoo. I will never be able to copy this masterpiece. I had no idea I could look like this. What’s going to happen now?”

Do not react. Don’t think about it.
Lexy kept her mind blank as she responded, “It’s probably another sick and twisted show.”

Frost took his seat and Lexy didn’t dare look his way. She glanced across the table at her lifeline to humanity and he was grinning at her. Grey was obliviously happy that they were all together again. He probably thought nothing could rain on his parade. She looked back at Kayn and noticed the concerned expression as it flashed across her face. The fledgling Dragon could sense the dark cloud that had descended over their table.

Lexy tried to side track Kayn’s thought by gently touching her arm, to get her attention. She smiled, looked directly at Grey and whispered, “I love seeing him like this.”

Kayn grinned back at her as she replied, “Me too.”

Lexy looked into her goblet and there were a couple of yellow flowers bobbing around in the deep burgundy liquid.
Oh, this is bullshit. They were trying to calm her Dragon down too. Now, she was pissed
. She glanced up as she sensed her Handler watching her.

He mouthed the words, “What’s going on?”

It was her Handler’s job to sense her anger and attempt to rectify the problem before it got out of hand but there was little he could do in this situation. Lexy mouthed the words, “Trust me.” She casually disposed of her tainted wine by dumping it into Kayn’s goblet while she wasn’t looking and had her goblet refilled as the boy passed her seat.

Kayn turned around just as she took a drink of her wine. Lexy said, “I’m proud of you guys. You were amazing in there.”

Kayn looked into her wine, knit her brow and fished the flowers out of her drink with one finger. She wiped them on the napkin as she answered, “Could you see us in the Testing?”

Lexy replied, “No, but Winnie told Jenna how you were all doing every once in a while. Each clan’s Guardian and Oracles were able to witness parts of the Testing.”

Lexy glanced at Frost and he was pensively staring into his goblet of wine, tracing the rim with one of his fingers. He knew and he couldn’t say anything. When Kayn turned to look at Frost, Lexy placed the yellow flowers from Kayn’s napkin back into her wine. It would be easier for her if she was slightly sedated, up front. She wouldn’t have a chance to drink from the goblet…

The trumpet played again. Lexy braced herself. She took a deep breath and did her best to maintain the blank emotionless expression on her face. This would be a true testament to her inner Dragon.
She couldn’t shut her emotions down. She had to be cunning not reckless. Nobody in her clan could know what they had planned…not when the penalty was entombment. The four of them would be the only ones compromised if the whole plan went south.
She glanced up at her Handler and checked herself; if he heard her thoughts he would never allow her to go through with it.
This one time even Grey could not know.

A man dressed in some seriously flamboyant clothing marched to the center of the room. He cleared his throat and announced, “As decreed by pure blood immortal law. The unbroken Dragons shall surrender themselves to the King.”

Kayn glanced at Frost and his voice caught with emotion as he whispered, “Stand up and walk over there. You have to go. It’s not a choice.”

Kayn spun around to look at Lexy and whispered, “This isn’t seriously happening?”

They weren’t going to do this. She wasn’t going to let them do this…
Lexy squeezed her hand under the table. She looked into her eyes, and said, “If you don’t go willingly they’ll take you by force. Do you trust me?”

Kayn responded, “Of course, I do.”

Lexy squeezed her hand again and said, “Then stand up with all of the grace and dignity you can muster and walk to the center of the room.”

As Kayn rose to her feet, their entire table was furious but no one more than Lexy.
She didn’t care what happened to her. She was going to stop this
.

Markus mouthed the words, “You have to go.”

Kayn walked around the table with her head held high. When she reached the center of the room, she glanced back at the table filled with both her friends and sworn enemies and in true Dragon form she mouthed the words, “I’ll be okay.”

Lexy was so proud of her.

The frilly man summoned her to follow him and Kayn began to walk behind him. They walked out of the archway.

Chapter 12
Virgin Sacrifices

T
here was a long intensely volatile moment of silence in the room as everyone fought to reign in their reaction to the virgin sacrifice predicament their clan member had found herself in.
It was more than that…it was everyone in the room
. You could hear a pin drop. Lexy’s heart thudded in her chest with both nervous energy and lack of faith in her acting ability.
She was lying by omission… to everyone
. Lexy took a deep calming breath. She had to appear to be just as shocked and mortified as the others were. This was not a rule or a law. The King had created one to suit the situation and unfortunately there was no Guardian present to veto the King’s twisted demands. Second tiers had no rights. Grey looked directly into her eyes. She was trying to remain composed, but knew she was far too calm to be believable.
Grey wasn’t stupid, he knew that she was up to something
. She’d seen that all too familiar expression of disapproval on too many occasions to misread what he was saying to her with only his eyes. It meant,
don’t you dare do anything stupid, Lexy
.

She met her Handler’s probing gaze and whispered the words, “Go help Zach deal with this. I’m fine.”

Perhaps, she should have reworded that last sentence. I’m fine usually never meant she was really fine.

Grey gave her a skeptical look. He calmly rose to his feet and made his way towards Kayn’s panicked Handler. She was a fledgling Dragon but he was also new at this whole Handler thing. Zach needed to understand that this was a good example of an occasion where he’d need to stand down. Grey had been in Zach’s shoes at one time. He’d been the Handler of the girl that was taken by a Prince. The only difference being that she’d been taken by the good brother and Amadeus hadn’t touched her. This situation was different. The King wouldn’t be feeding Kayn pastries and chatting about life. He’d be taking out his unresolved feelings for her mother on her in an alcoholic fit of rage. Grey had made his way a couple of seats down to where Zach was seated. Lexy watched as he began to reason with Kayn’s agitated Handler. Before Lexy had the opportunity to even think about what her next move would be she heard a voice behind her say, “Prince Amadeus requests the pleasure of your company.”

Lexy glanced at the head table. Amadeus made eye contact with her, but didn’t attempt to leave the table. He would stay there until after she’d been escorted to his quarters. She exchanged a look with Grey. He knew she was safe with this particular royal. He’d stay by Zach’s side for the remainder of the evening and make sure he behaved himself. Lexy stood up and turned back to look at the table of worried Ankh that she adored.
These were her people.
Lexy’s gaze lingered on Greydon and for a second she fought the urge to walk back over there and confess everything she had planned with Triad. He’d never let her do it without him and there was a chance this scheme would backfire and they’d all end up entombed. She could roll the dice on her own freedom but not on his. The urge passed and she briskly followed the guard across the empty dance floor and out of the banquet hall without looking back at the keeper of her heart. Lexy exchanged a look with Silas as they passed by each other and knew he’d given Kayn the flower. She didn’t like to think about those flowers but they were a much needed means to an end in this scenario. The flowers would calm down Kayn’s Dragon as they’d once calmed hers. A memory of the pile of yellow flowers the lady had left buried in the corner of stall eleven, under the hay flashed through her mind. She blinked the horrors of her adolescence away, but her mind would not allow her to blink away the truth of the situation. The flowers in Kayn’s wine earlier that evening had been to sedate her so she wouldn’t fight back as the King violated her. If she fought back, he would have her entombed as he’d done to many of the Ankh that resided in this realm as slaves. She found herself trying to check out the palms of the man who was directing her to the Prince’s quarters as his arms swung back and forth. His chest was covered by golden half-top length armor. She couldn’t tell if he was Triad because she couldn’t see the brand on the flesh above his heart. If he was Trinity or Ankh his brand would be on the palm of his hand. After paying attention for a few dozen swings, she was pretty sure both hands were free of marks. This is probably why the third tiers had this guard wearing armor. It was to hide his identifying mark.
Was that a key hole on the back of his armor?
Lexy balled her fist that was branded with the symbol of Ankh. This symbol was a part of who she was now. To have their mark hidden away would surely mess with a second tier’s mind. They’d always disguised their marks under fingerless gloves while back home so the mortals wouldn’t see them. They could probably get away with the marks as some kind of body art on earth but if one of them was seriously injured their symbols would all begin to glow and a group of people with glowing hands tends to freak those mortals out. She padded along barefoot on the cool marble floor behind the guard that was probably Triad, while taking in the brightly colored woven tapestries that adorned the walls on either side of her. Lexy wondered if they told a story but didn’t have the time to stand there and stare at them for an hour in an attempt to decipher the plot. She’d have to ask the Prince about them someday. There would always be a someday even if at the end of this day if she found herself entombed. She was immortal and this cause was a worthy one. It was time to take some kind of stand against the dictatorship, even if it was a mini stand that nobody would ever know about if everything went according to plan.

Lexy was led past the door to the room Kayn was in and into the next room that belonged to Prince Amadeus. She was ushered inside and the door was closed behind her. Lexy couldn’t help but smile as she thought of the first night she’d been ushered into his room. She’d assumed he was going to try to defile her in some way but instead he’d befriended her. Prince Amadeus was a truly miraculous being. He’d been young and handsome when they’d first met but he’d allowed himself to age so he would continue to appear older than his children. He was a seriously good man and she was about to drag him into this plan of theirs. Lexy sat down on the bed and touched the silken sheets beneath her fingertips.
This had to work.
She got up, wandered over and stood in front of the closed door that joined the rooms. Lexy placed the branded palm of her hand against the door and willed Kayn to feel her presence close by. She knew Kayn wouldn’t be afraid of what the King was going to do to her, she’d just survived a simulation of hell. There was just no dignity in this situation and even though Kayn was like her in so many ways, she didn’t have to be like her in this one. The beginning of her true afterlife did not have to be tainted by her defilement as her own had been. Lexy was a Healer and that was her ability. She’d healed from so many things over the last forty years with Clan Ankh but she’d never been able to fully repair the damage that being a victim of this heinous form of abuse had caused within her. Lexy turned to look at the door as it opened and was relieved to see that it wasn’t the three Triad. She wanted to warn Amadeus of their plans, she didn’t just want to spring it on him. Her royal companion strolled into the room, closed the door behind him and made his way across the room towards her.