King for a Day (9 page)

I scraped my shaking body from the bed and went over to the kitchen area to search the cupboards for anything non-alcoholic with sugar to drink.

I found nothing except a collection of wine openers and a box of cigars.

Cigars?
I didn’t know King smoked, but I could definitely see him doing it. When it came to King, just about everything he did was old school.

I looked at my watch.
Holy hell.
It was already past midnight, and an entire hour had gone by since Mack left. We had little more than eighteen hours to go, but I had to eat before I passed out.

Christ, King.
He could figure out a way to show up inside my head, have rooms that appeared out of thin air, and put live heads in jars, but he couldn’t figure out how to grocery shop.

All right, I knew there were a few convenience stores-slash-gas stations down the street. I’m sure they’d have some energy drinks and nuts or something.

I grabbed the book from King’s armchair, unwilling to risk losing it, and trudged my way down the stairs, through the bottom floor. When I yanked open the door to go outside, I saw Mack lying face down on the ground.

“Mack!”

CHAPTER
SIX

It is the night before my wedding to Draco, and I know tomorrow will be the worst day of my life. I will stand before our families and take our vows. From that moment forward, Draco will own me. But I hate the man. The way he stares fills me with disgust, and sometimes, I think I would rather die than let him touch my body as his wife. Why did he have to be born first instead of his brother? The other girls on our island say Draco is the most handsome and intelligent, the most kind and thoughtful of all the men in his family, but I think Draco is weak. He is so unlike his brother, Callias, who is truly a man, a man who takes what he wants instead of asking. I wish that he would take me. But that is not my fate. It matters not how many candles I light or how many times I ask the gods, they are determined to watch me suffer.

However, by this time tomorrow Draco may own my body, but Callias will own my heart. I will think only of him when Draco comes to my bed in the night. And I will scratch his back when he bucks on top of me. I will imagine I am scratching out Draco’s eyes.

I wish the man nothing but death and pain.

Mack’s soft groan from the emergency room bed moved my attention away from the book in my hands. I leaned forward in my chair and brushed his blond hair from his forehead. I’d never noticed before, but he had a small scar over his right brow and one on his chin. He was a very handsome man that reminded me of those “all-American” types I saw in the Abercrombie perfume ads I’d worked on once.

Ha.
I chuckled to myself. How long had it been since I’d even thought of my old job? A little less than two months ago, advertising was my life. I specialized in global fragrance campaigns. But the days of Manolo heels and flights to New York, Paris, and Buenos Aires were long gone.

Mack cracked open his sleepy blue eyes. “Why are you staring at me?”

I smiled. “Hi, there. How are you feeling?”

“Like shit.” His eyes began to move around the sterile hospital room. “You took me to the hospital? Fuck.” He struggled to get up, but I pushed him back down.

“No, Mack. You can’t move. You have a concussion, three broken ribs, a fractured arm, and the doctor thinks you have a ruptured spleen.” I still couldn’t believe that the hundred-year-old twig did this to him. “He’s waiting for the test results.”

“He can call me when he gets them. Help me up.”

Damned stubborn man! What is he thinking?
And I knew I never should have let him walk out of that warehouse. He hadn’t even made it to his damned car! He’d passed out cold on the sidewalk for over an hour before I found him.

“I’m just thankful you weren’t flying when you blacked out.” Especially since he always flew alone.

His eyes flickered with pain. “How many hours did we lose?”

I looked down at my hands, already knowing the time because I’d been watching the clock like a hawk. “We have about sixteen hours left.”

“Shit. We’ve lost too much time. Now you have to run, Mia.”

“What? No. We’re not giving up.”

Mack stared at me for a moment. “Of course, you’re right.” He moved to get up again.

“Mack, no. Didn’t you hear me? The doctor said you might be bleeding internally. There’s no way in hell you’re flying a plane. And before you ask, I already checked all of the commercial flights. Everything is booked to L.A. until two p.m.”

“Then we’ve hit a wall,” he said.

I blew out a breath. “I know,” I murmured, thinking. “I had a vision that King came to see me,” I blurted. “At least, I think it wasn’t real.”

Mack simply stared.

“Yeah, I know. It’s strange.”

“What did he say?” Mack asked.

“To run. And that he can’t be saved.”

“Is that all he said?” Mack mumbled, squirming in his bed, trying to get comfortable.

“You sound like you believe it might’ve actually been him.”

“It’s King. Anything is possible. What else did he say?”

“He asked me to read this.” I lifted the book.

“What is it?”

“It’s a story about some horribly mean girl who has to marry a guy she doesn’t want. She’s a Seer, like me.” I shrugged. “That’s the only reason I can think of that he’d want me to read this—
if
he wanted me to read this.” I wasn’t sure what was real any longer.

Mack looked at me blankly. “I don’t have a clue what that book means, but are you sure you want to keep going?”

“Yes! Why do you keep asking me that?”

He looked away for a moment. “I want you to have a chance before it’s too late. Look what happened to me.”

“There’s nothing you can say, Mack. So drop it.”

“Then pass me my phone,” he grumbled.

“Sure.” I got up and dug through his bag of clothes. “Here you go.”

He made a few taps.

“Who are you calling?”

“Arno, so he can fly you to L.A.”

“What?” I stood up. “You want me to go see Miranda?”

“We still have sixteen hours, and if you’re not throwing in the towel, then this is what has to be done.”

“I can’t look her in the face and commit to…” I leaned in; we were in a private room, but I didn’t want to risk anyone hearing what a horrible person I’d become, “killing her husband in exchange for that hand,” I whispered.

“You’re committing
King
to have her husband killed,” he whispered back. “No one said that you’re the one who will do it.”

“You want me to retrieve a hand, figure out how to make it,” I cringed, “alive again, deliver it to some powerbroker guy, then find a serum and kill Talia. All this while looking for King. You see how impossible all of this is, don’t you?”

“Yes, which is why—”

“Don’t say it, Mack,” I barked, knowing he was going to mention I should get out now. “What about killing Vaughn?” I whispered again.

“You need to have him killed to void the deal he claims he has in play with King. You’ll ask Strong to do it,” Mack said.

The powerbroker guy who wanted the hand? “What? You want me to ask him to…” I quieted my voice. “Off Vaughn?”

“Yes. You will make Strong an offer he can’t refuse.”

“What?”

“Anything he wants in King’s arsenal. Give him the whole damned thing if he wants it.”

“You want me to give him everything in that warehouse?”

“It’s an offer he won’t turn down.”

“So this is your plan?”

He winced. “Yeah.”

“And you realize that if we free King, he will kill us for giving away all of his stuff, right?”

“Yeah. Pretty much.” Mack dialed and held the phone to his ear. “Hey, it’s me. Where are you?” He listened. “Because I need you to take Mia to see Miranda.” He listened for a few moments. “Yes, I know, but we don’t have a choice.” Pause. “Thanks. Oh, by the way. Steer clear of Talia if you happen to see her coming.” He listened again. “I’m in the hospital. She broke a few ribs and some other vital organs, I’m told.”

Arno was actually having a real conversation with Mack? I thought he never spoke.
Maybe he just doesn’t speak to you.

Mack chuckled. “Thanks, man. And be careful. You know how Miranda is.” He ended the call and looked at me. “Arno will be outside in ten minutes.”

“He’s ten minutes away?”

“Guess he didn’t want to go far in case we needed him.”

So Arno hadn’t run either? “Errr…okay.” I began wringing my hands.

“You can do this, Mia. Just be firm. Pretend that King is right there with you.”

I looked down at the tattoo on my wrist and rubbed my fingertips over the mark. It made a little tingle, and I guessed, in some weird way, I always felt like King was with me. Not sure that would make this upcoming task any easier, however.

“There’s an ice chest in the belly of the plane,” Mack said, “in case Miranda can deliver right away.”

“Seriously? You keep a hand-cooler
handy
, ‘just in case’?”

“What? You don’t expect me to hold the thing on my lap, do you?”

These people were so very demented. “Air Magic-Hands.” I wiggled my fingers. “Ready for takeoff.”

Mack laughed and then coughed. “Good luck, Mia.”

CHAPTER
SEVEN

3:00 A.M.

Arno, a stout man with curly, dark hair and dressed in a black sweater and slacks, was not the world’s most talkative person—with me, anyway—wasn’t sure why. However, today he was unusually quiet, answering my questions—like, “Hey, I didn’t know you fly. Where did you learn?”—with a scowl and an incoherent grumble in a foreign language I didn’t recognize. Maybe he was peeved because he preferred driving his SUV. Or perhaps he felt annoyed that I made him swing by my parents’ house (thankfully, no one was home—probably at the hospital) so I could change into my red heels and a black skirt suit. After all, I needed to look less like a hobo and more like a representative of King’s if I were to be doing deals on his behalf.

In any case, missing Mack’s more outgoing personality, I decided to curl up on one of the large black leather seats in the cabin instead of sitting in the cockpit, to take advantage of King’s stash of fine scotch. Yes, I’d finally eaten a sandwich at the hospital while waiting for Mack to wake up.

Glass tumbler in hand and wrapped in a warm blanket from the overhead compartment, I flipped open the old journal from King’s chamber. For the life of me, I couldn’t understand why King would want me to read this. That is, if it had truly been his intention. Because, yes, the possibility still existed that I’d been dreaming King up. However, if I hadn’t, what would I find in this story? Was it a journal from someone in his past, perhaps? The woman was a Seer, like me, and I remember King once saying that his last Seer had died for disobeying him. Perhaps this was her family’s story?

I read the next few entries, and the woman went on and on about the hate she felt for Draco on their wedding day. As an act of defiance toward everyone there, she’d decided to look at Draco’s brother, Callias, when she spoke her vow at their wedding. I have to say that I felt no pity for her. It was one thing to love the other brother, but to hate Draco for wanting her? For being a kind person? It didn’t seem right. And it seemed that with every page, the woman’s irrational hatred only seemed to grow. I wanted to stomp on her toes when I read how she did, in fact, scratch her new husband’s back on their wedding night and how she laughed at him when he winced in pain. What a horrible bitch. Was this supposed to be my heritage or something? I hoped not, because the next part of the story brought new meaning to the word “cruel.”

Tonight, the gods have finally answered my prayers. Callias has realized that we are supposed to be together. It was yet another day of outdoor celebrations and festivities to honor the gods before the harvest when Callias cornered me in the storeroom and kissed me. It was everything I had ever dreamed of. And when I held his manhood in my hand and stroked him, I knew it would be fast for him. “Yes,” I told him. “Do it. Plant your seed in my belly before your brother has a chance.” My words ignited him—oh, he is such a fiercely competitive man—and he took me quickly right there. He told me that it was his mistake for not fighting for me. He told me that he would make things right.

Tonight, I will sneak away and meet him again under the stars. I will savor every moment with him, of his ruthless strength, of the fierceness in his pale gray eyes when he takes me. I will make him swear his words tonight, swear before the gods that he will make things right. I will not spend my life tethered to Draco. Weak, disgusting Draco. I don’t care if he is ruler. There can only be one king. King of my heart. King of my soul. King of me. Callias.

“King?” My eyes lifted from the thick beige pages, and a cold chill pounded its way through my body. Was this the story of King and his Seer?

I flipped the book over and looked at the back page, then at the front. But this book had to be over a hundred years old.