My King (Two Prince's Book 1) (20 page)

No matter how much time passes, if you remember, you must return to him – to us. It could be days, weeks, years – if you remember you return. He’ll be waiting for you and we’ll all be praying for your return. Without you he will spend the rest of his life alone and mateless. Please, you must –

I freeze and a shiver races down my spine. Those thoughts are most definitely not my own. My body comes unstuck and I whirl around on the front steps searching for the person who the thoughts belong to.

No one.

Nothing but an empty, quiet street greets me.

No one.

I’m all alone and going fucking crazy.

No matter how much time passes, if you remember, you must return to him – to us.

Yes, definitely crazy.

There’s no one out here but me.

Something occurs to me. Just because it’s not the thoughts of a person right now doesn’t mean it wasn’t at some point in time. Like, say, a month ago perhaps. Maybe the shit filling my head that’s not my own is really part of my missing memories.

That would mean… that would mean I hadn’t really been attacked by an animal. If not an animal then where had my scars come from? A person? Could a person have caused them?

With trembling fingers I feel along the base of my neck.

Yes, I think. Absolutely.

Again, I shiver. This time for an entirely different reason.

Deep down inside I knew, I freaking
knew
, I had not been attacked by an animal. No way, no how. It never felt right to me. But thinking I’d been with people for weeks and I don’t remember is a whole lot worse than thinking I’d been attacked by an animal and don’t remember it. A whole lot worse.

What people? Who? How? And what the hell had really happened to me? Did they do… things to me? Do they know where I am right now, where I live?

On this horrifying thought I snap out of my trance and quickly move through the front door. Unlocked, as always.

Half way up the stairs to my apartment the door to the main floor apartment bursts open. A man leans out staring directly up at me.

“Hey,” he softly calls out.

I don’t want to but I stop. It would be rude of me to blatantly ignore the man and continue on my way. And I don’t want to come off as rude if this man is my new neighbor.

“Hey,” I reply just as softly as he had.

“I’m Raylen.”

I nod, not bothering to give him my name in return.

“And you’re Shayne.”

My body locks in place to keep me from bolting up the stairs. I don’t like the way he says my name, like he’s familiar with me.

Something about the man reminds me of someone else, but for the life of me I can’t place who. I know I’ve never seen this man before because if I had I would remember him. He’s by far the shortest man I’ve ever laid eyes on, and yet somehow the burliest. Wide shoulders with a thick chest that reminds me of a tree trunk, thick and sturdy. His body seems at odds with his short stature. Shiny bald head. Warm eyes the color of chocolate. He’s dressed in a well-worn flannel button up, dark jeans, and scuffed up work boots.

The warmth in his eyes has an odd soothing effect on my body. I find myself relaxing when moments before I had been ready to bolt up the stairs.

“How do you know my name?” I find myself asking.

He shrugs and a steel door slams down over his eyes hiding their warmth from me.

I don’t know how but I know whatever answer he gives me will be a lie.

“The landlord told me when I filled out my rental agreement. He thought I should know who my neighbors are.”

Plausible. Absolutely. I might have even believed him if it weren’t for that guard he’d brought down over his eyes.

“Right,” I mutter disbelievingly.

He shrugs it off, stating, “Lovely to have finally met you.”

Something about this strikes me as odd as well. What does he mean by finally? The man just moved in. It’s an innocent enough sentence and perhaps I’m reading too much into his choice of words, but for some reason it does not seem right to me.

“Be sure to lock up after you get safely inside your apartment, Shayne.”

My body jolts at his words and immediately I start moving back up the stairs. I want to ask him why he’d say such a thing to me but his eyes are glued to the front door and he looks to be concentrating hard on something I cannot see.

“Will do, Raylen,” I call out. “Have a lovely night.”

Then I do just as he told me to do and lock up after me once I’m safely behind my closed door.

Those words coming from someone else would have creeped me right out. For whatever reason I cannot understand I feel like he meant them in a way where he was looking out for my wellbeing, wanting nothing more than for me to have a care and be safe.

Though, I would have done it anyway without him telling me to do so.

Exhaustion hits me like a slap in the face. The past month of nights filled with restless sleep chasing dreams I don’t remember, my night out with Anna May ending disastrously, just life in general, has left me profoundly tired.

All of it will still be here waiting for me to deal with when I wake up, I tell myself and get ready for bed.

*****

I jolt upright in bed and look around my room in confusion. I was having the most wonderful dream about sleeping next to someone with strong, powerful arms wrapped lovingly and protectively around me. I’d felt safe, happy, whole. Then all of a sudden the arms were forcefully torn away from me and I’d woken up. When those arms were torn from my body I had felt something awful tear through my heart, something heart wrenchingly devastating. Almost as if that’s the cause of the absolute emptiness I feel.

He’ll be waiting for you and we’ll all be praying for your return. Without you he will spend the rest of his life alone and mateless.

He’ll be waiting for me.

But, he who?

The man whose arms had been around me in my dream? A dream or a memory? Real or some kind of fantasy?

Loud moaning fills my room snapping me out of it. From the sound of it Anna May had no trouble finding a man to bring home with her after me and my Debbie Downer ass left the bar. No surprise there. Even blind men are attracted to her.

Her bed starts squeaking in earnest and the headboard bangs against the wall.

Ugh.

Flopping back on my bed I reach for a pillow to bury my head under.

It’s going to be another long, sleepless night.

*****

The next day

The worst fucking job ever belongs to me. I would rather be scrubbing toilets for a living than put up with this crap. A slight exaggeration on my part about my job being the worst one ever because I’m sure there are plenty of jobs out there that suck a whole lot more than mine, but I’m sure this is the worst one I will ever have to work. Or, at least, I hope it is.

“Like I said,” I repeat for the third damn time, “already had last call. Now the bar’s closing and it’s time for you to be on your way like everybody else.”

The belligerent drunk has the gall to grin at me, unrepentant.

I hate him.

I hate my freaking job.

Because it’s worth repeating, worst fucking job
ever
.

Latching on to my elbow he drags my body forward until my front brushes against his.

“Let me go,” I hiss while shoving at his chest trying to free myself.

His grin spreads wider and he leers at me.

“I’ll thank you kindly to remove your hands from Ms. Gracey’s person immediately,” a quiet voice filled with rage hits me.

Standing directly next to my side and the elbow the drunk man still clutches on to is Raylen, my new downstairs neighbor.

Now where had he come from?

The bar is half empty and growing even more so by the second. I would have noticed the small man’s entrance.

“Well, fuck me, it’s a bald midget,” the drunk grins cruelly.

Suddenly he lets go of my arm and shoves me back. I stumble on unsteady feet. Thankfully, Raylen is there to catch me before I fall.

“Thanks,” I mutter in embarrassment.

“Yo, what the fuck?” an angry female voice lashes out. “You need to leave or I’ll have the big man behind the bar forcefully eject you.”

The tiny force that is Rachel barrels up beside me opposite of Raylen.

The drunk man ignores her entirely, his sole focus on Raylen.

“The circus in town, midget?”

Squeezing my elbow gently Raylen gamely ignores the drunk, murmuring, “Come away from here, sweetheart.”

Sweetheart.

A horrible pain slices through my chest and suddenly I find it hard to breathe. That one word from the wrong man’s lips causes me to go light headed.

I can feel his concern for me radiating off him. I can
feel
it.

Concern mixed with quiet devotion and an unhealthy amount of rebalance.

Looking down into his brown, brown eyes I can remember looking into eerily similar ones set in a different face.

Darkness creeps in at the edge of my vision as a different man comes to life in my mind.

Comes to life just to die.

“You’re not a midget, you’re a Dwarf,” I whisper accusingly right before blackness consumes me and I’m swept away in it.

                            *****

“Shay, wake up.”

“Give her some space, Rach.”

I don’t want to wake up. I don’t want to open my eyes. I don’t want to face reality. I want to go home, crawl into my bed, curl up in a ball, and cry for eternity. Since I know I don’t have eternity, and if I did I sure as heck wouldn’t want to waste it on crying forever, so I figure I will just have to settle for the next six to eight months or so.

“Shayne, honey, can you hear me?” Ray asks in a sweet, but worried, voice.

It’s the worry that does it for me. I open my eyes to appease him.

They both rear back in shock at the look on my face. I can only imagine.

“Girl, what happened?” Rachel whispers.

What happened is I remember. I remember everything.

The thing I remember most is Ian telling me I had to leave and essentially ripping my heart right out of my chest, stabbing it multiple times, then forcefully shoving it back into the bloody hole he’d ripped it out of.

Oh yeah, I remember.

Fuck yeah, I do.

I need to find that Dwarf so he can tell me just what in the fuck is going on.

Ian, he let them take my memories of him, our time together away from me.

Anger boils just below the surface of my skin, looking for an outlet or a means to escape.

“Are you alright, Shayne?”

No, I am not.

Absolutely not.

Had I ever been alright?

I don’t think I have save for my brief time with Ian, and now even that’s gone, too.

I wish I could shove my memories back into the void they’d flooded out of because they’re too painful for me to bear.

A bitter laugh escapes past my dry lips.

I’d so badly wanted to remember and now I would give next to anything to forget again,

It’s not just my job that sucks, it’s my whole freaking life.

Shayne

One Week Later

I quit my job.

Half an hour later I withdrawal every cent out of both my savings and checking accounts. Then I closed them. I’m left with a whole twenty-three hundred dollars to my name. Not much but it will definitely get me where I’m going.

Ten minutes after leaving my bank I buy boxes and packing tape from a hardware store. Fifteen minutes later I haul all the shit up to my apartment.

Then I pack my meager belongings. Five boxes. My life fits into five boxes and a backpack. Five boxes and a freaking backpack.

What a joke.

Then I haul my now full boxes and backpack down the stairs and load them up in the back of my Jeep.

Back up in my apartment I sit down at the kitchen bar with pen and paper and write Anna May a quick note. I tell her I won’t be back and she can either keep or sell my furniture, it makes no difference to me. I take my house key off my keyring, stuff it and the note inside an envelope, seal it, then I get the heck out of here. I lock the door from the inside on my way out.

And now, with my fist high ready to knock, I find myself standing in front of the door to Raylen’s apartment, hoping to all that’s holy I’ve made the right decision.

For the past week I’ve spent every waking moment going over every detail of what has transpired since that freak Sunglasses banged on my door. I went over everything over and over again, the good, the bad, and everything in between.

I dissected all of it. I kept coming back to the last time I saw Ian, what he’d said, and then Collette’s words after. Despite my lack of fondness for the Vampire I know she’d spoken the truth. I didn’t entirely understand her words, but I know in my bones they were honest.

Then I spent an ungodly amount of time (two days) weighing the pros and cons of returning. There were a lot on both ends. If I return I will return the mate to a King and essentially (I’ve no idea how it works because it’s never been fully explained to me) I would become a Queen to a whole slew of Supernatural beings. In fantasy being a Queen sounds like a pretty awesome job title. But reality is a far cry from fantasy. That route lay an unknown future holding the potential for pain and disaster. Hell, I’d only been there a handful of days and I’d experienced both in spades. And it had left me bleeding, both physically and mentally.

On the upside, I would get to spend my life at Ian’s side. This would be no hardship because I love him, and other than the last time I saw him, he’s shown me nothing but beauty. But I don’t think a life with him would ever be easy. A relationship between us would come easy, natural even, but never our life.

Another benefit would be being around people I wouldn’t have to hide my telepathy from, and if I stay I would have to hide it from everyone for the rest of my life. I don’t mind hiding it. It’s a skill I’ve grown quite good at over the years. It would be nice not to have to hide it, though.

I went over everything. Everything that had happened to me. Every person I’ve met since Sunglasses assaulted me and rocked my world on its side.

Then I thought about my deteriorating friendship with Anna May. The only real friendship I’ve ever had. I thought long and hard on this. I thought about how it really wasn’t all that hard to leave her behind the first time around. Yeah, it had sucked and I’d felt bad about it, but after a couple of days she’d rarely, if ever, crossed my mind.

Looking back on our friendship over the years I got why, it became glaringly obvious to me. Anna May is a spoiled rotten brat, and me, not having any real friends to my name when I met her, I made the perfect friend and roommate for her. I was always at her beck and call because she was my only friend. She never hesitated to manipulate me or guilt me into doing what she wanted me to do. And I went along with it because I had no one else in my life that gave a shit about me. I do now though, have people who give a shit about me. They may not be here with me now but they are out there. Out there and waiting for me.

Anna May had thought I’d been attacked by an animal and in the hospital for weeks recovering from said attack. I know she only thought this because someone had played around in her head, putting those thoughts there. But the fact remains that she treated me like a burden to her afterwards, and she didn’t even bother to ask me how I was dealing with any of it. She got pissed because I didn’t want to go out and party with her two days after I got home from the hospital.

I spent half a day coming to terms with the fact that all Anna May cares about is Anna May. It killed. If I’m being honest, it still does and probably will for a good long time. Eventually I will get over it. Or, at least I hope I will.

After every negative point I found myself counteracting it with all things Ian. Every word, touch, and smile he’d given me.

I barely knew the man but at the end of the week this didn’t seem to matter to me.

I’ve endured a lot in my short life and I’ve survived it all. But I’ve never really
lived
.

The way I see it now’s the perfect time to start. And my life will start and end with Ian by my side and Riley on the other.

There’s no other choice right for me other than Ian.

The door opens and the wide eyes of a surprised Dwarf greet me.

“Shayne-”

I cut him off and share, “Pack your things. We’re going home.”

*****

“Wake up, my Queen. We are stopping for the night.”

Firm hands gently shake my shoulder stirring me awake. Groggily I open bleary eyes and glance out the window into the dark night.

In thick voice laden with sleep, I ask, “How long have we been driving for?”

“Six hours,” Raylen chirps happily.

I want to kick him in the shin.  The damn Dwarf has been nothing but ecstatic since we left. I don’t think I’ve ever met a person so full of energy before. It was driving me nuts. Finally, after an hour of “my Queen” this, and “my Queen” that every other sentence, I faked sleep. Somehow after faking it I must have drifted off to sleep for real. Thank goodness, because I couldn’t have put up with six hours straight of his mouth going on and on and on.

“Let’s go, my Queen.”

My Queen, my Queen, my Queen. It’s like he forgot my freaking name or something.

Mutely, I reach behind my seat, grab ahold of the strap of my backpack, and climb out of my rusty Jeep. He’s beside me the moment I close the door and he doesn’t leave my side as we enter the hotel.

“Take a seat while I check us in,” he instructs me.

I open my mouth to protest this but the look on his face stops me short. It’s a look that clearly tells me to shut up and not argue with him.

I close my mouth. If he wants to pay for our stay here, however long that may be, more power to him. If it were up to me we would be staying at crummy, more in my price range places that wouldn’t suck my funds dry and leave me to starve.

And I have no desire to starve. Besides, it’s good to be able to hold on to my meager funds in case everything backfires on me and I end up jobless, homeless, and broke as a joke. That would more than suck. It would also mean I’d end up alone with no Ian.

Hell, they might even mess with my head again and who knows where that would lead me.

A shiver steals up my spine. I do not want someone messing around in my head taking precious memories from me when I don’t know if I’d be strong enough to get them back a second time around. I am, however, very uncertain if I would even want them back a second time If Ian allows someone to do that to me again I’m not sure if I would ever be able to forgive him. I don’t forgive him
now
for the first time around.

“That
will not
be happening to you again, I give you my promise.”

“Stay out of my fucking head, Dwarf.” I angrily hiss.

Unapologetic, he shrugs, stating simply, “You need to put up a better shield in your mind.”

“I don’t know
how
,” I bite out.

“Why, you are an odd one, aren’t you?”

Oh my freaking God.

I can
not
believe him. Raylen, the Dwarf, calling me an odd one. A freaking Dwarf.

“Come along now, my Queen.” Grabbing ahold of my hand he pulls me to my feet. “We can discuss this further once we are safely in our room behind closed doors.”

We won’t because I no longer wish to discuss this, not that I did in the first place.

Still, I snipe at him, “Yes, sir.”

Shaking his head he drags me behind him to a row of elevators.

Instead of taking the time to peruse my surroundings like any normal person would I’m stuck in my head, completely oblivious to the elegance around me.

“Can you teach me?” I blurt out.

“Teach you what, my Queen?”

We step into an open elevator car. I don’t answer him until after he presses the button for our floor and the doors slide shut.

“How to build a shield in my head. How to guard my thoughts against others. How to keep the thoughts of others
out
of my head. Can you teach me how to do that?”

Those warm brown eyes stare up at me in wonder.

“You can hear people’s thoughts?” he asks.

“You don’t already know that?” I reply in confusion. Doesn’t everyone know my secret? It had been made public knowledge in front of everyone in the throne room.

Clearly reading my thoughts, he states, “I was not present at the time. However, my brother was.”

“Your brother?” I stupidly repeat.

“Yes,” he murmurs. “My brother. Neelan.”

Oh God. Oh God. Oh no.

My chest seizes and a lump forms in my throat.

“I’m so, so sorry,” I force out past the lump.

Neither of us speaks for the remainder of the elevator ride. Finally there’s a
ping
and the doors slide open. Raylen steps out first into an empty hallway and heads left. I follow behind him in silence.

What does one say to someone whose brother died because of you? Sorry seems like such an empty sentiment even though I very much mean it.

Does he know it’s my fault his brother is dead? Does he blame me like I blame myself? Does he hate me?

Panic hits me full on, stopping me in my tracks.

Had I willingly left with this man whom I know next to nothing about other than the fact that he’s a Dwarf? I didn’t just leave with him, oh no, I told him I was leaving
then
I told
him
he was coming with me.

How stupid could I possibly be? What if he meant to harm me? What then?

I had stupidly assumed he moved in to the apartment below mine, Riley and Ian’s apartment, because of me. He knew who I was even before I knew what he was. I guess when I found out, when I remembered everything, he’s a Dwarf and living in the same place as me I figured he was there to keep an eye on me or something along that line.

But what if I’m wrong? What if he’d been sent by someone like Roland? What if he’d been sent to hurt me to get to Ian?

Everything happened so fast that I didn’t even think of the possibilities.

What’s the matter with me?

“No one sent me, my Queen. I sought you out of my own free will. I did this not to harm you but to help you and to protect you if need be. No one but Lars and Daisy even know I went looking for you. Now if we could please get inside our room we can order something to eat and we can discuss anything you like. I don’t know about you but I’m starved.”

It could be a trick. He could be lying to me. I have no reason whatsoever to trust him. But I do. Then again I’m stupid and naïve so what the hell do I know.

“Please.”

Hesitantly, I nod and continue to follow him. He stops in front of a door, pulls a keycard out of his pocket and swipes it through. A light flashes green and he pushes open the door.

A simple but very nice room greets us. Two beds. Flat screen television. A desk and chair. Mini fridge and microwave. The usual fare only a higher quality than cheap motel shit.

I could care less about any of it so long as there’s hot water when I take a shower and clean sheets on the bed for me to sleep in between.

“Yes, definitely an odd one.”

I don’t know whether to be insulted by this or to take it as a compliment. The damn Dwarf needs to stay the heck out of my head.

“What would you like to eat for dinner, my Queen?”

I think dinner had come and gone hours ago but I feel no need to voice this sarcastic thought out loud when I already know he’s snooping though my head.

“Don’t care,” I mutter. “I’ll eat whatever so long as it’s not a salad and doesn’t have onions in or on it. I also don’t drink diet or clear pop.”

We stand there awkwardly staring at each other before he hesitantly asks, “Do you eat meat?”

“Is that even a real question?”