King of Me (12 page)

“I don’t know this million.”

I scratched my head. “Well, say you have one revolution of the sun, winter, spring, summer, and fall.”

He stared.

“Okay,” I said. “Cold weather followed by planting, growing, harvest?”

He nodded.

“Good. That’s one cycle. One year. If you had ten of those,” I held up my fingers to show ten, “that would be a decade. If you had ten decades,” I flashed my fingers ten times, “a century. If you had ten of those, that would be a millennium. So try three millennium.”

He frowned. I think he got the picture. “This is impossible. People do not live that long.”

I nodded. “You’re right.”

“Get to the point, woman.”

Mia. Why is it so hard for him to call me “Mia”?

I took a deep breath. “Sit.” I patted the bed next to me. Hesitantly, he did as I asked.

His big body next to mine made me feel like a fly sitting next to a Venus flytrap. I could be gobbled up at any moment.

“Hagne doesn’t love you,” I said.

His straight black brows pulled together. “Of course she does not.”

“Then why are you marrying her?”

“Her lineage is powerful and her family is feared and well respected by our commoners. Our union will ensure peace for many generations to come.”

Okay. That was good. He didn’t expect love from her. On the other hand, I clearly remembered Hagne’s journal. King had it translated and made me read it so I’d understand how he’d become cursed and why he did the things he did. I admit, his story had made me see him in a different light. I understood his pain. But he’d written his thoughts in that journal (I supposed he wanted the last word), and I sensed he’d cared for her at one point. Therefore, I could leave no doubt in his mind about Hagne. She was a psycho, backstabbing bitch. He had to believe it.

“But she does love your brother, Callias,” I said.

“This is impossible.”

“No, it’s not. She loves him, and sometime after your wedding, she turns him against you. He challenges you publically to a fight and you kill him.”

King stood. “You lie.”

I held up my wrist. “Ask me if I’m lying.”

He glanced at my tattoo. He got the point, and a wounded look appeared in his hypnotic blue eyes.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “Really, really sorry. But maybe that’s why I’m here; to change your fate.”

“What happens to me?”

“Hagne happens to you,” I replied.

“I become aware of her betrayal?”

I nodded. “She’s pregnant with Callias’s baby—I think—so you spare her at first, but not her family. After she loses the baby, you kill her, too, but not before she curses you to walk the earth for eternity.”

He stared coldly ahead at the wall, his broad, bare shoulders perfectly square like a proud soldier taking a beating.

“And this is when you meet me, a cursed man?” he asked.

“Yes. But…”

“But what?” he snapped.

“You’re not a man.”

“What am I?”

“You’re a ghost, a spirit.”

“I do not understand.”

“Neither do I. But you have the ability to make yourself real. You talk and walk and eat and drink, but you’re dead.”

He nodded. “And I was not the one to send you here?”

I shook my head. “No. I was running from you. You were going to”—I couldn’t say the real words aloud. I just couldn’t—“
hurt
me.”

He looked like he’d just been punched in the gut. “And my people? What becomes of them?”

“No one knows for sure,” I said quietly. “They disappear.”

He stared at the floor for a moment, scratching his thick black whiskers.

“What are you going to do now?” I asked.

“I must think on what you have said—it does not seem believable nor possible.” He turned toward the door.

“So you don’t believe me?”

“I do not know.” He was almost out the door and then stopped. “You said I behave cruelly towards you. Do you despise me, then?”

I wasn’t expecting him to ask that question, but I answered honestly. “Yes. It’s why I attacked you a few days ago.”

“Then why tell me any of this?”

“Hagne is the one who creates the monster. And her decision destroys a lot of people. Including someone very important to me.”

“I see.” He turned away.

“But I think—I
know—
that you’re still in there somewhere, inside that monster, trying to get out.” Otherwise, why would he have saved my mother? Or attempted to save Justin at one point? There had to be someone good living inside.

Without another word, King disappeared into the night. I hoped he might return in a few hours and declare that he believed me and had a solution. Because I sure as hell didn’t see one. Not one without any pain and suffering, anyway. If one sat down and moved the pieces around the chessboard, the outcome didn’t look so drastically different from the original version of this story. King could preemptively incarcerate Hagne, or even kill her, but this might incite a civil war if her family was in fact powerful and respected among the working class. Another option might be to let her run away with Callias, but that might undermine his position if the people saw him as weak.

I simply didn’t see any good solutions aside from warning Callias, which I intended to do at the first chance.

I lay back and closed my eyes, hoping that when I woke, I might see a clean way out of this.

CHAPTER NINE

At sunrise, I was woken by a very insistent Mela, who shook me by the shoulders. “You are late, mistress. You must rise and get to the temple immediately.”

I groaned and rubbed my face. “What does King want?” I asked, assuming that he’d summoned me.

“Today is the ceremony of the harvest.”

I cracked one eye open. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what that is.”

Mela had her dark eyes outlined with thick black charcoal, making them appear exaggeratedly large. “The non-slave women must make an offering of grain, fruit, and wine to the gods so they will bless our crops in the next planting season.”

“Oh. Sounds lovely,” I mumbled and rolled over. My body felt like it had been through a blender. Twice.

“You are a Seer and must be there. It will anger the gods if you are not.”

Ai-yai-yai
. I was pretty sure that boat had already sailed. Case in point, my crazy, fucked-up life.

“The gods hate me,” I grumbled. “I should stay here out of sight.”

“Please, mistress, you cannot shame the king like this. You are his guest and a Seer. If you do not attend, it will cause a horrible uproar.”

“If it was so important, why didn’t he mention it last night?” I muttered.

“I’m sure our king was quite…
occupied
with other thoughts.”

Oh hell.
I sighed. Yes, I understood that Mela meant “occupied” in the sexual sense. I had, after all, woken up in the king’s bed. Nevertheless, her comment wasn’t so far off. King’s mind had been engaged with some very, very troubling news.

“Please, mistress,” she begged.

Oh…dammit.
The poor man already had enough on his plate, and I didn’t need to be the cause of any more heartburn.

I sat up. “Fine. I’ll go, but someone will have to tell me what to do.”

Relief twinkled in her big brown eyes. “Of course. I will tell you everything you need to know, but first you must dress.”

She held up an odd-looking orange dress. The only way to describe it was chestless—like the neckline was intended to be a belly line.

“I think someone forgot to sew in the front,” I said.

She looked at it. “No. This is what the women must wear to the ceremony.”

“But…”

“The bosom is the symbol of fertility and life. It is blasphemous to offer a gift to the gods with your chest covered.”

My head sagged in disbelief. This absolutely had to be some male-contrived bull-crap designed specifically for getting a free peek at all the women’s boobs.

“I’ll come to the ceremony,” I said, “but I’m not going topless.”

Fear washed over her face. “Please, mistress. You must. Or I will be punished. It is my responsibility to have you appropriately dressed.”

She couldn’t be serious. “Don’t you mean undressed?”

The young woman looked like she was about to faint from a nervous attack.

I tilted my head. “All this fuss because I refuse to show my breasts to a bunch of horny men?”

“I do not know this word ‘horny,’ but your body is a gift from the gods. There is no shame in showing it to anyone. And this is the way we have performed the ceremony for generations.” She pointed to a large painted vase standing in the corner, depicting several topless women holding wine jugs.

Ugh. Dammit.
I knew my modesty was a product of my times, but…“Are you sure everyone is going to be naked from the waist up?”

She nodded.

“Fine. Give me the dress.”

~~~

After I took the world’s fastest sponge bath and Mela did my hair, we were out the door and speed-walking our way through a labyrinth of temples and lush gardens toward the opposite side of the compound. Yes, I wore the dress, but I’d strategically wrapped a festive-looking piece of red and orange fabric I’d found in King’s room around my shoulders like a shawl. Mela, too happy to have me wearing the dress and attending at all, said nothing.

When we arrived to a football-field-sized, overly crowded plaza situated in front of an elevated temple—about twenty feet up—I spotted King almost immediately. He sat on a stone carved throne at the top of the steps, underneath a red and orange sail.

I glanced down at my shawl.
Great. I’m wearing his backup sunshade.
I could only hope no one noticed.

Mela ushered me over to a long line of bare-chested women amidst the crowd, holding everything from baskets of grapes to stacks of flatbread. No one seemed to give a hoot about their state of dress.

“What do I do?” I asked Mela.

She shoved a basket of mixed grains into my hands. “It is simple. When it is your turn, you raise your basket to the sky, wait for the king’s nod to confirm the gods have seen your offering, and then you lay it at the foot of the temple.”

I tried to see through the crowd, but the bodies were dense with men of every age, even children.

Okay, Mia. This is not a porn festival. No big deal.
I nodded politely and took my place in line. The crowd, almost exclusively men—with long black hair tied back, deep brown skin, and brightly colored fabric around their waists—watched each “donation” with a seriousness that indicated the importance of this ritual. They really, truly believed that the offerings would bring them good luck the following year.

After almost half an hour, I was one body away from making my very innocent, topless offering to the gods.

The woman ahead of me offered a pastry of sorts, raised her arms, got the nod from King, and laid it on the giant, growing heap of food.

When I stepped up, I was sure my face matched the red in my “shawl,” and I froze up.

“Well?” King said. “What are you waiting for, Seer?” His face held a hint of a wicked smile I recognized to mean he enjoyed watching me squirm.

All eyes were on me, and the silence in the air was palpable as King and I stared at each other. I tried not to react to the strange feeling in my stomach and much lower down, but it was impossible. The thought of showing him my breasts combined with the lustful, hungry look in his eyes triggered an unexpected arousal. He wanted to see me, and I wanted to show him.

Oh Lord, what’s wrong with me?
But even as I thought those words, my mind couldn’t help focusing on those hypnotic, fierce blue eyes sinfully drilling into me. Then there were those wide, strong shoulders, his chiseled tan chest, and a set of abs so perfectly defined that I could easily count eight little squares even from my distance. The man was just as sinfully tempting now as he he’d ever been. Even without the fine Italian suits or expensive cars. Even without radiating that seductive, supernatural power that seemed to ooze from his every pore.

Get a hold of yourself, Mia. Seriously.

I was about to get on with it and bare myself when a man to my side—older, hairy, with a bitter scowl—reached for my shawl. “Make your offering properly, bitch. Before you bring down the wrath of the gods upon our heads.”

Instinctively, I tugged back my shawl. “Get your hands off me.”

The man slapped me hard.

I blinked away the pain, and before I could react, King marched down the steps of his temple, sword unsheathed. The crowd drew a breath, and the man instantly fell to his knees.

“You strike my guest?” King growled, raising his sword into the air.

I reached up and gripped his arm, knowing that I would not and could not watch this man lose his head. Yes, he deserved an ass whooping, but losing his head?

“Please, King.” I begged with my eyes. “It’s okay.” No it wasn’t, but we had much bigger issues to deal with, versus some asshole chauvinist from 1500 BC.

King’s eyes drifted down to my chest. Yes, I’d let go of the shawl. A look of brazen lust washed over his face.

“Get a good look? ’Cause it’s your last,” I whispered.

King dipped his head, amusement flickering in his wickedly handsome face. “We shall see.”

He lowered his sword and bent down to retrieve my “shawl.” He inspected it for a moment with a confused face—
Yes, it’s your sunshade
, I thought before wrapping it around me.

He turned and marched up the steps of his temple with defiant, confident strides. At the top, he turned and sheathed his sword while looking out across the shocked, silent crowd. “This woman,” he pointed to me, “is my guest. She is not from our lands, yet she has decided to make an offering to our gods today. I consider this a very great honor, as do they. If anyone should lay a hand on her,
anyone,
the gods would surely see it as an insult, one that I will be forced to address.”

The nervous crowd dropped to their hands and knees, the looks on their faces telling me they feared him as much as they trusted him.