Into His Command (38 page)

“You heard our guest’s request, gentlemen.” Rune Kavill snapped his fingers, like
a king calling for wine—except his men brought only menacing strides, determined grunts,
and the smell of stale beer. “She’s more comfortable at the table. So make her…and
her brother…
comfortable
.”

His regal drawl of the word tumbled raw panic through my senses. My lungs, heaving
now, saved enough for a scream—

Silenced.

Suffocated.

Buried by the smell—
don’t breathe don’t breathe don’t breathe
—sweet, clean, chemical—that pulled me all the way down to darkness.

‡

“R
un it again.”

Samsyn flung the snarl at all dozen people in the Palais conference room, including
Shiraz, Jayd, and half the High Council. That was twenty-four hands. Two hundred and
forty fingers—every one of them capable of tapping the big green button on the digital
playback.

Yet no one heeded his command.

Perhaps because your command is stupid? Because you can push any international news
feed on the laptop in front of you and see every minute of that recording, complete
with callous commentary?
Fucking talking heads. “Analyzing” and “interpreting” and “probing” the images of
his evisceration in the name of almighty ratings.

At least he could control the delivery method of the torture.

“Dammit.” He pounded a fist to the table. There had been more compliance when he
hadn’t
been king. “Somebody run it again!”

He was aware of movement to his right. A shadow, small and soft, just beyond the crack
now fissuring the table. He vowed to split the fucking thing down the middle if someone
did not punch the play button again.

“Samsyn—”

“Shut
up,
Jayd,” he snarled at the shadow.

“You are driving yourself mad!”

Madness. Fuck, if it were only that easy. If he could only succumb to that blistering
darkness, holding the promise of final escape. Wooing him with sanctuary from the
rage butchering his composure, the anguish ripping his guts, the helplessness turning
him inside out, a carcass baking in the glare of his stupidity.

His stupidity…that had driven hers.

He had been a complete ass. Had been so strangled by his fears, begun the moment he
slid the ring onto her finger, tightening every moment he was lucky enough to call
her wife. The happiness had been too good to be real, but he had kept going back for
more, approaching the feeling like a caveman with fire. It was strange and new but
it was good,
so
good—right until the moment he was burned. Logic had fled. Compassion was impossible.
He had only wanted someone to pay for his pain, and she was the target that made sense.
The one person who could take his ugliness, and still love him.

Loved him…and needed to show him. Felt that she needed to prove it…by stepping into
the lion’s den for him.

He had fucked up. Beyond measure. And now, fate was poised to exact the highest price
for it.

But if he watched the footage one more time—endured the torment all over again—maybe
the Creator would think twice about that debt.

“Run. It.
Again
.”

Someone—finally—moved to obey him. Everyone in the room groaned softly. He lifted
his head to give weary thanks to the brave soul. Wasn’t stunned to meet Jagger’s determined
gaze—though one of those eyes was still half-swollen beneath black and purple bruises.
He did not begrudge Jag his feelings—what man could logically
not
fall in love with Brooke?—he only had a problem with the bastard acting on them.
They were square now. More than square. Jag was the only one who’d watched this playback
with him, every damn time.

And endured the agony of her face on the screen—eyes wide and terrified, skin streaked
and clammy, teeth gritted, bottom lip spliced open. Her jaw looked puffy and red,
as if it would start to swell soon.

Because they had hit her. Hard. Likely because she had refused to sit before their
camera like a puppet. His chest swelled, so fucking proud of her. His gut wrenched,
chopped apart in horror. If he learned they had touched her in ways beyond that, they
would all enjoy a meal before he killed them. Their own cocks, stuffed down their
throats.

On the playback, an off-camera voice spat a direction. “Please begin,
Your Majesty
.”

Brooke sucked in a quivering breath. Her eyes moved, obviously reading a cue card.
“I—I am Queen Brooke Cimarron. I am here, as the guest of the Arcadian Pura movement,
and their new leader—”

She sobbed. And broke his heart.

Dropped her head. And shattered his soul.

The camera wobbled, yanked upward—to focus on a face that still made everyone in the
room gasp. Except Jagger, who growled. From his own lips, there was no sound—but from
his nostrils, the violent huffs of wrath were strong and violent.

“Oh, look. Her Majesty is verklempt with the joy of seeing me again.” Rune Kavill’s
sneer was stretched on a canvas of smooth. No comic book cackle as conclusion. The
worm only smiled as if newly slithered from a hole in the gardens of hell. “Hello,
world. You had all written me off, hadn’t you? Thought I’d politely disappeared into
the baseboards, to stop bothering you with my menace?” He swirled a hand up, a magician
with evil up his sleeve. “Surprise, surprise. I’m not in a cute little cave anymore.
I have been invited as a guest myself, of the good Pura of Arcadia, to help…let us
say…
guide along
their important cause. Though I’ve been here for a few months now, things have certainly
gotten…
interesting
on the island lately.”

He punctuated that by clenching a hand to Brooke’s hair. With a savoring growl, forced
her head back up. Though her face twisted in pain, she jerked and spat. The shot landed
across Kavill’s black T-shirt. “
Don’t
fucking touch me, you bowl-haired freak.”

Kavill shoved her away. The sharp snap of her head and the pained press of her lips
confirmed another observation: the vermin had her tied up, pretty damn tightly. “Isn’t
she
charming
? Can you imagine what a thrill it was to learn all the Valens didn’t disappear, either—and
that the Cimarrons had kept them snug and safe for me all these years? What an interesting
time we are
all
going to have now.”

Everyone in the room tensed. The hardest part of the playback was now here.

As Kavill paused, inserting a stare for “dramatic emphasis”, he was butted clear from
the frame. Brooke reappeared, snarling and hissing, her face desperate and wild. She
peered frantically into the camera lens…the look of someone who knew they were damned,
seeking meaning before the ax fell over their neck.

“No! Don’t listen to him! Syn! Don’t you dare give in to this fucker. I don’t care
what
he demands! Syn, I swear to God, if you love me at all—”

And then she was gone. Dropped by the plunge of a needle in her neck.

He was half-grateful for it. If she had finished the sentence, he would be bound to
promises he could not keep.

If you love me at all…

She
was
his all.

His
raismette
.

On the screen, Kavill reappeared. “Only sleeping,” he said smoothly. “But next time,
we may not get the dosage so correct.” He shrugged. “Oopsie.”

“Fucker,” Jag muttered.

Kavill signed off with an assortment of bowing and postulation and bullshit, but that
part was useless. The damage had been done now. The price had once again been paid.
He had been drawn, quartered and gutted, and now fought through the process of trying
to jam himself back together again. There was nothing else to do until Kavill and
his worms contacted them again. The footage did not lend one damn clue about where
they held her. Tryst and his team had already tracked her cell phone signal—to a trashcan
at the Palais’ own main gate. Kavill hadn’t missed a single opportunity to ram his
victory into all their faces.

All they could do now was pray.

And he did.

On his knees in the Palais chapel, he could almost smell her on the air, floral and
soft. He gazed at the stained glass stars and saw the shining lights of her eyes.
He watched his fingers in the streaming sun, pretending it was the silk of her hair—

Before bowing his head, and whispering words from the depths of his heart.

“Creator mine, keep her safe. Keep her whole. Keep her alive.

I need her.

Créacu yardim met
…I need her.”

He jerked to his feet when someone burst into the chapel.

“Majesty!” The page looked like she could be Brooke’s little sister, with huge bright
eyes and a choppy blonde haircut. But unlike Brooke, she moved like a frightened fairy,
approaching him with mincing steps. “There are—errrr—there are
men
here to see you, King Samsyn.” She whispered “men” as if blurting a profanity. “They—they
arrived on a private jet. They were searched by the airport guards, and were not armed.”

He blinked. Her words made no sense. “A…private jet?” Bearing
unarmed
men?

What the
hell
was Kavill up to?

“Yes, Your Majesty,” the fairy returned. “They said they needed to see you at once.
Demanded to, actually. The main gate guards informed them you are not available because
of the crisis, but—”

“They did
what
?” His voice throttled to a bellow. Fuck.
Fuck
. Kavill was a cocky fuck, sending emissaries straight to the Palais, but he did not
care. It was action.
Some
kind of action he could take, instead of sitting around with his dick in his hand
and his guts on the floor. “Are they still here?” he demanded, stomping toward the
visitor rotunda. “If they have been sent away, Creator help you all. Do you have any
idea who the hell we are dealing with—”

He skidded short on the rotunda’s marble floor. Gawked at the two men planted in front
of him, flanked by a pair of Palais guards who grimaced like bulldogs. He had no idea
what kind of
soldasks
to expect from Kavill’s camp, but these two were definitely not it.

The first stranger looked like one of the dolls Brooke had told him about from her
childhood: neatly combed hair, chiseled face, too-perfect posture. He wore tailored
business pants and an equally fitted white shirt. The second man was just as perplexing.
Though he wore a plain green T-shirt and camouflage pants stuffed into combat boots,
he appeared more appropriate for a rainforest loincloth and a poison-tipped spear.
Regardless, they both notched their jaws higher despite his menacing glower, earning
them a new degree of his respect.

“King Samsyn.” The suited one spoke first. “My name is—”

“I do not want to know your name,” he gritted. “Just tell me what Kavill wants then
take your leave.” He nodded toward the doorway, where fairy girl had been joined by
Mishella, Jagger, Grahm, and Shiraz. “Once they are gone, somebody ensure the halls
are disinfected.”

“We’re not with Kavill.” The darker man cocked his head. “We’re here to help you catch
that fucker.”

As he eyed them with fresh bewilderment, the suited one stepped forward. “Maybe we
can try again. My name is Daniel Colton—”

“Of Colton Worldwide!” Shockingly, the fairy spoke with confidence. A lot of it. “I
knew
he looked familiar. You just purchased Bortel and SpecOptical, officially expanding
Colton Steel beyond just steel.” She flashed a sheepish look. “I…like following the
global business pages.”

Colton gave her a quick smile. “Impressively so.” His composure hardened. “But I’ve
flown here because you need help—and I want to give it. That purchase she just mentioned
has given me access to some very special software.”

Jagger eyed him, openly skeptical. “What kind of software?”

“Programs that will help us tear apart Kavill’s video footage, frame by frame, and
isolate all the tactile elements of it.”

“Tactile…elements?”

“Everything from lighting sources to wall paint to background noise,” Colton confirmed.
“In order to piece them all together, to determine exactly where that bastard is holding
your bride.” When disbelieving silence reigned, the man fanned both hands. “The program
will work, Your Majesty. Before I ran Colton Worldwide, I was CIA—and damn good at
it. I was in on the ground floor of testing for this stuff.” He cocked his head, showing
that he wasn’t the pretty boy Syn had originally assumed. A burn scar mottled a swath
of his face from forehead to jawline. “And I know a thing or two about being in deeper
than you originally intended.”

He found himself as wary as Jag. “Why?” he charged. “Why have you come all this way…to
help me?”

Colton’s head jerked the other direction. Clearly, the query puzzled him—at first.
After a second, his logic clearly clicked. “Because we’re on the same side, Your Majesty.
Because terrorists don’t get to win.”