The Queen of Traitors (The Fallen World Book 2) (5 page)

Chapter 7

Serenity

It’s over. For
now.

But it isn’t, because I have to live with a past I might’ve been better off forgetting. My memories are horrifying. I’m a woman remade—but into this
thing
.

I’d asked myself what kind of person married the king. Now I know. Now, I know.

I straighten, drawing in a ragged breath, my hand just above my stomach.

The world around me sharpens. The green hedges that rise up all around us, the cyan sky beyond, the marble statue of a woman holding her loose robes against her body.

“Serenity.”

I focus on the voice. Montes stands in front of me, his brows pinched together. For once he doesn’t appear overconfident. He reaches out for me, but lets his hand drop.

What feral expression must I be wearing to scare him off?

“What do you remember?” he asks.

“That I hate you.” A hate so deep and vast that it’s blackened my soul. Even now I fight the urge to lunge at him and make good my age-old vendetta.

“Ah, yes,” he says, sliding his hands into his slacks, unaware of how close I am to snapping. “I’m well acquainted with your hate.” He’s not even fazed.

We’ve done this before. Traded words like we’ve traded wounds. That puts me at a disadvantage because I have more memories to unearth, and he knows how to handle me.

I don’t like to be handled.

Montes doesn’t remove his hands from his pockets, but he does extend the crook of his arm towards me, like I’m some kind of lady.

I dropped that ruse the moment my father died in my arms.

I’m about to reject him when I notice our audience. People have planted themselves everywhere—at windows, on benches, strolling by. They act as though they’re not transfixed by us.

I have a duty to uphold. I married the king to save my land. My hate is a vulnerability, one the Resistance preyed upon when they took me. I can’t let these people see it. The king and I have many, many battles ahead of us, and our relationship is the least of them.

The world’s still in turmoil and the king—the ruler of it all—has used fear to win his subjects over. I know quite a bit about fear. It pulls people into line, but it also draws in the predators. The moment he shows weakness, they’ll attack.

I can’t let that happen, even now when I’d like to see him suffer. So I take his arm and let him lead me away like I’m a frail, dainty thing. All the while, I flash hard looks at those that catch my eye.

For I, too, am something to fear.

“Do I finally have my Serenity back?” the king asks, leaning his head towards mine.

“I am not yours.”

“You are.”

“No.”

He stops us in front of a bubbling fountain, our audience still pretending not to watch.

His hand glides out of his pocket and captures my arm, reeling me in. “Yes, you are,” he breathes. He brushes a lock of hair from my face. “Hello, Serenity.”

“Let me go.” I give his hold the barest of tugs, aware of the eyes on us.

“I’m glad to have you back.” He smiles at me, and it’s almost too much. “I missed you and your anger.”

I narrow my eyes on him. “I never left.”

“You did, and now you’re back, and I want a kiss.”

I look at him like he’s mad—he
is
mad. I’m still trying to get over the fact that I have to kiss him at all, and now he wants me to freely give him affection amongst an audience?

Up until now, I’ve been careful dolling out my affection. That won’t change today.

He must see that I’m not going to give in because before I have a chance to respond, his lips descend on mine and he takes matters into his own hands.

This is something
else that the king does—he seizes what’s not freely given. You could say it’s a strength of his.

And now it’s a kiss.

None of my memories could’ve prepared me for the sensation of being enveloped by the king. I taste him and breathe him in through my nose. How I’d forgotten his scent. It’s unnamable, but I enjoy it nearly as much as the glide of his lips. Lips that took something that wasn’t his.

I bite his lower lip. That only serves to ratchet up his hunger. His hands secure me closer to him, and he unleashes more passion, his tongue sliding over mine.

Montes’s hands knead into my skin, coaxing me to give in further. If he had it his way, he’d probably strip me bare, ravish me here in the gardens, and then order everyone who saw us killed.

Like I said, he’s good at instilling fear.

Someone whistles, and then I hear clapping. I break away from him at the sound, and he flashes me a triumphant grin.

The crowd continues to cheer, praising the king for what? His vigor? The ease with which he commands everyone, even his wife? That he’s human enough to enjoy a kiss?

My money’s on that last one.

Montes tucks me under his arm, and with a parting wave to the crowd, leads me back inside his palace.

We’re still not alone here, but I’ve burned up the last of my patience. There’s appearing weak to the outside world and then there’s appearing weak to yourself.

I push his arm off of me and stride away. I’ve only taken a few steps when I realize this is yet another palace of his that I don’t recognize. I know that I still have some memories left to remember, but I’m pretty sure I’ve never been here before, regardless.

“Where, exactly, are you planning on going?” Montes asks. I can hear the smirk in his voice.

“It doesn’t matter so long as it’s away from you.” I can’t do this with Montes right now. Not with all those memories so fresh. Even now they crowd my mind. The dead want vindication, and I can’t deliver it.

“You have to kill him, Serenity.”
It’s just an echo of a memory, but the voice and the vehemence of the words has me placing a shaky hand on a side table.

“You work for the king; you can’t say things like that anymore,” I whispered.

“No one man should have that much power,” Will said.

“And what happens once he’s dead, huh?” I asked. “They’ll kill me too.”

I finally remember Will, General Kline’s son. We’d been friends, but something happened … something I still haven’t recalled. Now having had a taste of my memories, I dread that one.

The last remnant of memory echoes through me.

Perhaps I will be the WUN’s Trojan horse. Perhaps I will kill the king.

I rotate to face Montes. I’d planned on killing him. Me, the dying girl, thought she could execute the immortal king.

“I wanted to see you die,” I murmur. I don’t know why I say it.

Montes flicks a glance at the people that linger in this area of the palace. “Leave us.”

The servants and an aging couple vacate the room. The guards hesitate.

“Unless you’d like to be relieved of your duties,” the king says, “I’d suggest you do as I say—and tell the men we are not to be disturbed under any circumstances.”

Reluctantly, the guards leave. I see them eye me as they do so.

Once the room’s emptied out, the king returns his attention to me. “You were saying?”

Not for the first time, I’m taken aback by this man. If his goal was to unsettle me, he’s accomplished that.

“You’ve already forgotten? And here I thought I was the one with the memory loss.”

“You wanted to watch me die,” he says.

“Yes.” Admitting this is high treason. Should he feel so inclined, the king could have me killed. It doesn’t stop me from continuing on. “I wanted to be the one who killed you.”

“And would you?”

My skin’s crawling. I remember the horror of my situation as though it befell me yesterday. “
Yes
.”

Montes strides forward much faster than I back up. I hate it that I can’t help but flee this man. Maybe once all my memories return, I will wear them like armor so that he cannot get under my skin. But right now my emotions are raw, and I feel everything—my intense hatred for him, my budding feelings.

He corners me against the wall, and then there’s no escaping him.

“You can’t kill me,” he says, and in this moment he looks every bit as unnatural as he claims to be.

“Can’t I though?” I say, peering up at him. “You bleed the same as every other man.”

He slides a leg between mine. “This isn’t about my immortality. It never was. See,” he tips my chin up, “I don’t think you
would
kill me. I think you like me too much.”

“Ask me that again when I’m armed, Montes.”

“That won’t change anything, lonely girl.” He rubs my lower lip with his thumb. I swat his hand away, and he smiles.

“I’m all you have left,” he says. “Your family is gone. The last of your people gave you up.”

My hand strikes him before I even think twice about it. The slap snaps his head to the side. Already I can see the beginnings of my handprint forming.

It’s not enough.


You
are the reason my family is gone,” I say. “You are the reason I’m here. You forced everyone’s hand and I will never, ever let you forget it.”

He rubs his jaw and his cheek. “And you think that bothers me?”

His mouth lies, but his eyes don’t. I’m starting to think that some of the things he’s done do in fact weigh on his conscience.

The king leans in close. “If you wanted to scare me off, you went about it the wrong way.” His breath brushes against my cheek and chin. “I love your anger and your hate, and I have many regrets, but marrying you is not one of them.”

I’m glaring at him. I try to move, but his body pins mine to the wall. His lips skim my jaw, heading for my mouth. I turn my head away from him.

He places a kiss at the corner of my lips. “And if you think your reluctance will stop me, then you’ve read me wrong.”

I have read him wrong, but not in the way he thinks. My mind needs him to be wholly evil, and he’s not, and my spirit does not have the iron will that it should to keep him at bay. Even now, I react to his nearness. I want more of him, and that shames me. It is one thing to enjoy the mechanics of sex, another to enjoy this—our power plays, our magnetism.

He steps away. “I have something for you.”

I straighten. “I don’t want anything from you, Montes.”

“Not true. You want many things from me; my body, my power—”

“Your head.”

“Between your thighs,” he finishes.

A flush crawls up my neck. It would help not to get embarrassed about this.

“On a stake,” I amend.

He clucks his tongue. “I thought you said you didn’t want anything from me.”

I’m at a momentary loss for words, and that’s precisely when he strikes. He takes my hand and drags me out of the room.

I would fight him, but a million different memories crowd my mind. I haven’t had time to process the multitude of them, but now I do.

The hours leading up to my memory loss, the Resistance attacked the king’s coastal palace. We’d been cornered, I’d been close to escape, but I never made it out. Marco, the king’s right-hand man and my nemesis, and I had been left to face the enemies with the last of the king’s soldiers.

With my free hand I rub the skin over my heart. That’s when I lost my memory. The king hadn’t administered the serum, Marco had—right before he blew his brains out.

I suddenly have context to attach to all the memories I acquired from that point on. The Resistance took me to one of their outposts, held me as they would any important prisoner of war, and tried to leverage me to their advantage.

General Kline … he’d been a part of it. Now knowing what I do, I can’t decide how to feel about seeing him. He was my commander, and had my life not unfolded the way it had, he might’ve one day been my father-in-law. I respected him, and I was close to him. That makes the role he played during my capture that much worse. And yet, I’m not without blame either. I did something to his son, and he still managed to be civil with me.

Then there was that final day of my imprisonment. Had the king not firebombed the outpost, I would’ve died.

“How did you find me?” I ask Montes as he walks us down the hall. The guards posted along the corridor eye me warily as we pass. I have a reputation among their ranks. I remember slaughtering them after my father died.

Montes doesn’t turn around when he replies, “The Resistance isn’t the only one with spies.”

“You bombed the place,” I accuse.

All those bodies, all that carnage …

“And?”

“Were you trying to save me or kill me?” It’s real rich of me to be critiquing his efforts right after I admitted I wanted to execute him.

But I never pretended to be a saint.

Montes stops and swivels to face me. “You were five floors belowground, and when my contact came to retrieve you, you put a bullet in his thigh. By the time my back up came to free you, you were gone.

“Death, Serenity, is the last thing I want from you.”

Montes resumes walking, tugging me after him. He leads me to an office much grander than anything I ever saw in the bunker.

I enter the cavernous room. There’s a wall of books to my left and a giant oak desk towards the back of it.

“Why did you take me here?” I ask, stepping away from him.

Now that I’ve got my memories back, the last thing I want to do is continue to tour the king’s palace. Once you’ve seen one palace, you’ve seen them all.

Montes saunters in after me. “You’ll figure it out for yourself soon enough.”

I give him a dark look. The king and his games …

I meander towards the desk. When I reach it, my fingers trail over the wood surface. There are several photographs resting on it. I lift one of them up. It’s a wedding photo of me and Montes. Not one of the official ones. Those I particularly relish—I’m glaring in most of them.

This is one of us outside at the reception. I’m smiling at something outside of the photo and Montes is beaming down at me. You would’ve almost thought we were happy in that moment.

I was terrified.

I set it down only to lift another. As soon as my eyes fall on the image, I drop it like it burns me. The heavy metal frame hits the carpet with a dull thud.

“Where did you get that?” I ask, my eyes locked on the photo. I don’t want to look at it, it
hurts
to look at it, but for the life of me I can’t tear my gaze away.

“Where do you think?”

Staring back up at me is a younger version of myself. In the picture I’m giving my father a side hug. He used to keep this photo in his office.

I can’t breathe. I’m not sure I can keep that photo here. Seeing his face makes my soul ache in terrible ways.

I miss him, but that’s not nearly a strong enough word to describe life without him. He was the sun; how do you go on living when something that huge gets extinguished?

And now to have him sit there day in and day out and watch this mockery of my life unfold. I don’t know if I can stand that.

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