The Queen of Traitors (The Fallen World Book 2) Read online

  But I won’t.

  I leave the medical wing because I can’t bear to look down on her sleeping face and envy her fate.

  I head to the palace’s training facilities, which I share here in Geneva with my soldiers and guards. When I enter the weight room, several of my men are already there lifting. They stand and salute as soon as they recognize me.

  “Out,” I say. It’s all I can manage.

  I wait until I can’t even hear the echo of their boots.

  I don’t wrap my hands or change before I begin laying into the punching bag. It feels cathartic, releasing emotion this way.

  I slam my fists into leather until my knuckles split and my body’s covered in a sheen of sweat. Even then I don’t stop. My grief is turning on me. I never did well with feeling helpless.

  I embrace the rage that’s willing to take its place. This is one of the fundamental ways I understand Serenity. Death makes us both vicious. It burns through us like fuel and we consume it before it can consume us.

  Another hit. I pretend I’m hitting skin and bone and not unforgiving leather. The chains clang and the bag swings.

  Such a little thing, this life we lost. Just a spark of a possibility, really. And that was snuffed out before it could grow into something more. I was warned. I didn’t listen. And why the hell would I? I played God for the past thirty years. It’s a rude awakening to realize I can really be powerless.

  I slam my fist into the bag—left, right, jab, uppercut. The metal chain that it hangs from continues to shiver, the sound echoing in the empty space.

  Eventually I stop and steady the swaying bag. I’m a bloody mess; it drips from my hands, and it’s smeared into my clothes and on the leather.

  I catch my breath, watching droplets of blood and sweat spill from me onto the floor. And then I begin to laugh. Two of the world’s most terrible people lost a fetus—or is it an embryo? Whatever it is, it couldn’t have survived on its own. It didn’t have a gender—it might not have even had a heartbeat. It lived instead off of Serenity’s scarred one. And we mourn for it—us, the two people who have staggering death counts to our names. This grief is madness.

  And yet I can’t shake it.

  My laughter turns to ragged sobs. Not a single tear falls from my eyes, and yet my entire body weeps. I tried so hard and for so long to not feel this way. You can heal your body, but not your mind or your heart.

  And how they bleed.

  Serenity

  Something’s wrong. I know it’s wrong before I even fully wake. As I blink, I try to figure out why I feel so ill at ease.

  The first thing I see is Montes. He grips my hand in his, and he’s kissing my knuckles one by one. He looks troubled.

  I sit up and look around. I’m back in our room, in our bed, and—

  The last lucid hours of my life come back to me. I now have a name for that wrongness; it’s called death.

  The nausea comes on suddenly, and I run for the bathroom. Maybe it’s the grief or maybe it’s the physical aftereffects of a miscarriage, but everything hurts. My back hurts, my stomach hurts, most of all, my heart hurts. I heave and heave, but nothing comes. Even after the nausea passes, I don’t bother moving from where I kneel in front of the toilet.

  I hear Montes make his way in. He places a hand on my back. “Nire bihotza, I need you to get up.”

  I bow my head. Take a deep breath.

  Keep moving. One of the many soldier creeds I learned in the military. So long as you focus on placing one foot in front of the other, your demons can’t catch up to you.

  Reluctantly I stand and turn to Montes. My hair’s in my face. He brushes it away and cups my cheeks. Our eyes meet, and then he pulls me into a tight embrace.

  The king hugs me like I might slip away if he doesn’t hold on tightly enough. He doesn’t say anything, and I appreciate it. When it comes to grief, words have no balm strong enough to soothe the soul.

  His fingers run down my hair, and he buries his face in my neck. I breathe him in. How had I ever thought this man inhuman? He smells real enough, he feels real enough, he bleeds, he hurts.

  I turn my head into him, my lips skimming his jawline. He pulls away and our eyes meet. I can feel his mortality beneath my fingertips, his anguish batters against mine. For perhaps the first time ever, I wish to consume him the way he consumes me.

  His brows draw together as I lean in. And then I’m kissing him, marking him, making him mine. I grab the collar of his button-down and—rip. Seams split and buttons fly. The hard skin of his stomach is bared to me. I touch it, luxuriate in it.

  My monster.

  He nearly died. We all nearly died. I will hurt because of what we lost, but it could’ve been worse.

  So much worse.

  And now I want to savor what I didn’t lose.

  His hands grip my upper arms. He’s staring at me like he doesn’t know me—but he desperately wishes to. I like the look. A lot.

  Montes backs us up, helping me out of my clothes and his. He doesn’t dare speak. This side of me, the one that pursues him—he must think it’s some sort of apparition. Smart man is not going to ruin the moment if he can help it.

  We fall together onto the bed. Neither of us bothers kicking off the top sheets before I slide down onto him.

  I close my eyes and exhale as I relish the feel of him inside me. One of my hands finds his corded shoulder. I run my palm over the muscle. Real. Alive. Mine.

  He holds my hips tightly to his own. We both need to move, but neither of us wants the feeling of being connected to slip away.

  “Open your eyes, my queen.”

  I do.

  His dark, mesmerizing ones stare back at me.

  No one ever warned me about feelings like this. That I could see something worth redeeming in the world’s evilest man, or that he could see something worth saving in the scarred, dying girl he holds in his arms.

  I touch his cheek. My hand looks pale and delicate against his olive skin.

  Had I once despised the way his presence could overwhelm me? Now the way he envelops me, fills me, devours me is what I love most about this life I lead. He is what’s real.

  “Make me forget,” I say.

  And he does.

  Chapter 28

  Serenity

  Long after Montes and I finish, I lay in bed awake.

  Outside our windows, the night is dark. The city gives off no light, and for once it feels like the darkness is pressing in on me, rather than beckoning me away.

  Next to me the king’s breaths are deep and even.

  My throat works as I gaze at the ceiling.

  Event one—the king’s palace comes under siege. I lose my memory in the process. Event two—I catch a strain of plague concocted in one of the king’s laboratories, a laboratory nations away. A strain of plague no one else catches. Event three—the stabbing. Again meant solely for me. Event four—an ambush meant to end my life and the king’s.

  Four events spread over a couple months. All of them took place in areas the king deemed safe. All around people the king trusted.

  There’s a traitor amongst us.

  My heart beats faster. The more I mull over it, the surer I am. No average Resistance member could know where the king’s blast door was, the door Marco and I never made it inside. Nor could an average Resistance member know our movements enough to try to stab me or ambush me and the king. And to acquire and transfer a super virus like the plague—for that, one would need a scientist or, perhaps, a doctor …

  I bolt upright in bed.

  Dr. Goldstein? Is it possible?

  A terrible, terrible thought clutches me. On the evening of my coronation, I had a miscarriage.

  Panic seizes up my lungs.

  What if …
?

  The king reaches for me in his sleep, murmuring something. I move out from under his hand.

  I need to know.

  I slip out of bed, dress, and leave our room.

  My boots click against the marble floors as I stride down the hall.

  I touch the gun I holstered to my side. If what I fear is true, there is no place my enemies can hide where I won’t find them.

  It takes me almost ten minutes to reach the royal medical facilities, which are housed belowground. Even here guards are stationed along the hallways. They look on, impassive, as I pass them.

  Ahead of me are two double doors. When I reach them, they’re locked shut, but next to the door is a fingerprint scanner. I place my thumb against the surface. In theory, being queen essentially grants me access to anywhere I want to go, but this is the first time I’m actually testing that power.

  A light next to the scanner blinks green and the door unlocks.

  I don’t question my luck.

  I flip the lights on, and a moment later the fluorescent bulbs flicker to life.

  The royal medical facilities are some strange hybrid of hospital and palace. The walls have gilded molding and the floors are made of marble, but the smell of the place is exactly what you’d find in any hospital.

  The soles of my boots sound deafening against the floor, but there’s no one here to startle.

  I’m looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack. The chances of finding anything are slim, but I won’t fall back asleep again until I know for sure whether the doctor has been compromised.

  I move through the first set of sterile rooms towards the labs, using another thumbprint scanner to make my way into another room.

  I hear the hum before I see the Sleeper. This machine holds none of the answers I seek. Still, I feel compelled to approach the hated device.

  Over the last several months, I’d been in one of these things longer than I’d been out of it. At the end of this particular Sleeper is a window, similar to a porthole on a ship.

  I hesitate. The machine’s on; I have no idea what I’ll see if I peer through that glass pane, and I’m not here to sightsee. But curiosity gets the better of me. Who else is important enough to incubate in one of these coffins?

  My shoes click as I near it, I tilt my head and peer down.

  I inhale sharply.

  Dear God.

  I recognize the dark, close-cropped hair and that hateful face that’s so serene at the moment. I watched that very face kill my father, and then, later, himself.

  Marco, the king’s former right hand.

  He’s supposed to be dead.

  But apparently he’s not.

  My hands began to tremble. First the king’s immortality, now this—resurrecting a dead man from his grave. Where I come from, things are simple: you live, you age, and then you die—in that order.

  I back away.

  This is unnatural. More than that, it’s wrong.

  “I see you found Marco.”

  I’m reaching for my gun before I fully recognize the king’s voice.

  When I turn, he’s carefully watching me. His hair is swept back; he wears slacks and another button-down, the sleeves rolled to his elbows like he’s ready to get his hands dirty.

  Had he watched me as I dressed? Waited for me to leave before he dared to follow? I keep forgetting that no one can even sneeze in this place without the king learning of it. And when it comes to me, he always wants to learn.

  “You sick bastard,” I whisper. “What have you done?”

  The king steps up to my side, but his eyes are focused on the Sleeper. “He was my oldest, most loyal friend.” He touches the glass fondly, his eyes sad. “When you and Marco were sealed off—and then I found out that at least one of you was dead—” he shakes his head, “I wasn’t willing to lose either of you.”

  “You can’t change these things,” I say.

  Montes is shaking his head. “Do you remember what I told you?”

  I furrow my brows.

  “So long as the brain survives, the Sleeper can save him.”

  “Marco put a bullet in his brain. I saw him do it. By your own logic, Montes, the Sleeper can’t revive him.”

  “You’re right,” the king says, leaning against the machine. “The man you’re staring at is a vegetable. My friend is gone.”

  I shouldn’t be affected by how desolate his voice is. Not after witnessing this.

  I don’t bother asking how Montes secured Marco’s body. The king has his ways; if he wants something badly enough, he’ll get it. I’m firsthand proof of that.

  “Would you do this to me?” I nod to the Sleeper. “Leave me in one of these things rather than letting me die?”

  This is an important question because I am dying.

  The king doesn’t say anything, just continues to gaze down at his fallen friend.

  “Montes, would you do this to me?” I repeat.

  His eyes flick to mine. And then very deliberately, he turns on his heel and walks away.

  I stand there for several seconds, processing that. I hear the far doors open and close. My husband left me with his silence. And in that silence, I have my answer.

  Heaven help me, that was a yes.

  He’d shove me into one of these coffins and prevent my body from dying.

  Now I’m faced with the very real prospect that at some point in the near future, I’m going to need to take matters into my own hands. I rub my eyes. My heart’s heavy.

  After every sacrifice I’ve made, must I make this one too? Is it wrong to not want immortality? That the price I’d have to pay would be too steep?

  My hand drops. I stare down at Marco as unease settles low in my belly. Had he known the king would do this? Had he rejected the idea as well? Was that why he took the bullet instead of the serum?

  I force myself away from the device. I didn’t come here to ponder Montes’s plans. I wanted answers.

  I begin rifling through everything. No one comes back for me—not Montes, not the guards. I’m sure someone’s got eyes on me, but I don’t much care.

  I move out of the lab and deeper inside the facility. Back here the doors have bronze name plates fastened to them. I stop when I come to Goldstein’s.

  Using the thumb scanner, I enter his office.

  Stacks of charts sit in piles around the doctor’s desk. But it’s the one sitting right in front of his computer that captures my attention.

  It’s mine. I read my name clearly along the tab.

  Serenity F. Lazuli

  On the front, a note’s been paper clipped to it. I pick up the folder and begin to flip through it. The first page appears to be a form for a prescription. The only thing that’s written in at the bottom of it are two drugs I can barely pronounce.

  Behind this page are the latest readouts from the Sleeper, mostly x-rays of my brain and body. The doctor’s gone through and circled certain sections. Malignant tumors, by the looks of them. Not that I know anything about this. I was trained to kill, not to heal.

  As I flip through the x-rays, they appear time lapsed. Each gets smaller, but then, the dates get older. My eyebrows pinch together.

  That can’t be right. I spent weeks upon fucking weeks in the Sleeper in an attempt to reduce these. The machine might not be able to cure cancer, but it can remove a tumor.

  I recheck the dates. My eyes aren’t deceiving me; my cancer hasn’t been treated.

  If anything, it’s been expedited.

  Chapter 29

  Serenity

  A shaky hand goes to my mouth. The warm breath of anger is pushing against my shock, and I welcome it. Dr. Goldstein tricked me and Montes.

  An inside man.

  I need
to find the good doctor, but first I have to figure out the depth of the deception.

  I fold the x-rays and scans in half and shove them into the back of my waistband. Carefully I put my file back on the desk where I found it.

  My eyes move to the note paper-clipped to the front of the file.

  I grab a pen and notepad from the doctor’s desk and scribble down the series of numbers written on the note, followed by the medication I read on the first page of my file. Once I finish, I rip the sheet of paper from the notepad and, clutching it in my hand, I leave the palace’s medical facility.

  But I don’t go back to my room. Instead I head to the office I’ve been using here in Geneva.

  I sit down at my desk and boot up my computer. Time to find out what else the good doctor’s been up to.

  The King

  Serenity never came back to find me. I’m pissed, both at her refusal to simply accept her situation and at my own burgeoning dependency on her.

  Two hours after I left her, I leave my office. I thought that work—rather than lying in bed awake—would better take my mind off of her; I was wrong.

  I’m going to find my wife, and then I’m going to make her understand that I am not a monster for wanting her to live.

  I head for the medical facility, almost dreading the possibility that she’s still there.

  She has to know that I won’t give her up to death. For Christ’s sakes, she should be more desperate to live than I am. Why would she want it to all end when she knows I have the power to keep her alive, and that, one day soon, I’ll have the power to cure her of her cancer?

  Another thought chills my blood: what if she’s already tried to kill herself?

  She’s the furthest thing from depressed, but if she got it in her head that she had to take her own life, she would. Without hesitation. It wouldn’t be suicide to her; it’d be a mercy killing.