The Royal Pursuit (26 page)

When the door opened, she turned to
it. She recognized Captain Reed but hadn’t expected to see him. She
thought Pallid was coming for her. Her heart lifted. “Did Kent and
Stacey send you?”

Reed looked at her as if she was
crazy. “No. I came to take care of your child.”

She backed away from him.

“
I’ve been ordered to give
you the abortion. The sooner we do it, the sooner I can inject you
with the amnesia fluid so you won’t remember it. William has also
ordered that you forget about Hathor. There’s no need to put you
through needless suffering.”

“
No.” She rushed behind the
couch.

He followed her movements, making her
feel like a caged animal. “You don’t want to fight me. I don’t mind
hitting a woman,” he warned.

She continued to shake her head and
walk around the couch. Her mind raced through her options. She had
to try to get away. Without warning, he leapt over the couch and
grabbed her hand. She screamed and pulled her hand back.
Fortunately, he slipped and let go.

She didn’t waste any time. She bolted
out the door, her heels clanking against the tiled
floor.

“
Get back here!” he yelled
as he chased her.

She glanced at the walls around her as
she ran. What could she use for a weapon? Nothing suitable
presented itself, so she continued to run down the corridor until
she reached the library. She quickly raced up the steps to get to
the second level.

He was quickly catching up to
her.

She groaned as she fell on one of the
steps. She had tripped on one of the heels. How she hated
high-heeled shoes! She kicked them off when it occurred to her the
heels made a good weapon. She bent to pick the shoes up just in
time for him to reach her. When she threw one shoe at him, the heel
hit him on the side of his face.

“
Hey!” he screamed,
alarmed. The heel broke his skin and blood seeped from the wound by
his eye.

She turned to run up the rest of the
steps, but he grabbed her ankle and pulled her down. She struggled
against him, using the other heel to stab his hands. He managed to
snap the shoe from her and threw it across the room. He slapped her
face as hard as he could. Too frightened to stop, she pushed him
away by kicking him. He groaned and clutched his stomach. She took
the opportunity to use a move she was familiar with, thanks to her
many combat lessons. She kicked him in the face and punched him in
the nose when he leaned forward to grab her.

Seeing that he was down for the
moment, she ran out of the room and back down the corridor. As she
left the room, she saw an unconscious Pallid on the
floor.

She turned a corner when someone
knocked her down. Before she could get up, William took out his
stun gun and froze her in place.

Reed ran over to them, his nose and
temple bloody.

“
Do I have to do everything
around here?” William snapped. “Take her to the lab and dissolve
the pregnancy. If she gives you any more trouble, kill her. I don’t
care how much she’s done for me. She’s not worth all this
hassle.”

Reed picked her up and nodded his
agreement. He took her to the lab where he strapped her into a
white chair.

The effects of the stun gun was
finally wearing off, but she couldn’t get out of the straps. The
more she squirmed, the tighter the straps got.

He wiped the blood off his face then
turned to the set of shots laid out on the table next to her chair.
“The first thing I’m going to do is inject you with something to
put you to sleep. It will take a few minutes to work, but you won’t
feel a thing. Once you are asleep, I’ll inject your uterus with a
solution to dissolve the pregnancy. And, because I’ve been ordered
to, I’ll inject you with a solution to make you forget this ever
happened.”

Tears fell from her eyes as he
injected the anesthetic into her arm. “Please don’t do this,” she
begged.

“
After what you did to me,
I should do worse,” he growled.

Within seconds, she could feel her
body relaxing as the fluid rushed through her body. She doubled her
efforts to escape, but it was no use. Her muscles were becoming
lax.

Please, somebody get me out of here,
she silently pleaded. Hathor. Hathor, where are you?

***

Meanwhile, Gaius and two other Augurs
walked to the room at the top of the arc. No one noticed them. They
were careful to remain undetected. The room was currently empty,
and it was the right moment to do what they needed to
do.

Amalia handed Gaius a crystal similar
to the one that possessed Ann’s Razian magic.

Gaius climbed the side of the large
machine and balanced his weight so that he could remove the crystal
already there. He quickly replaced the holder with the crystal they
had brought with them. This crystal would sustain Atlantis long
enough for the queen and her allies to escape before it sank back
into the ocean.

“
Now we give Hathor the
crystal with Ann’s magic in it,” Gaius said.

They nodded their agreement and
followed him.

***

Kent and Stacey waited until it was
safe to go back to the room where Hathor was trapped.

As soon as they stood in front of the
doorway, Hathor warned them not to enter the room. “The room’s set
to self-destruct in three minutes, and once you get in here, you
can’t get out,” he explained.

“
How can we get you out?”
Kent wondered.

“
Is there something along
the door that looks like it might be a bomb?” he asked.

Stacey motioned to the red button.
“There’s a button here.”

“
Press it and see what
happens.”

She obeyed.

“
Get out of the way. I’m
going to test the doorway,” Hathor said.

They stepped aside and watched as he
picked up a chair and threw it. It effortlessly passed through the
doorway. Breathing a sigh of relief, Hathor ran to the doorway. As
soon as he reached it, he received another shock and flew back
across the room.

Kent groaned. “We should have known
that would’ve been too easy.”

“
What should we do?” Stacey
asked Hathor.

“
Do you have any idea where
William took the people who gave me the Book of Spells?” Hathor
replied.

“
No.”

“
I’m going to see if I can
find William and demand to know how we can get you out,” Kent said
as he ran down the hall.

“
Hurry!” she called after
him.

They continued to scan the doorway for
any clues to free Hathor.

“
Why didn’t you just leave?
After all, I did let you believe we had never met before today,”
Hathor finally asked.

“
Well, it’s like Kent said
after we left the room. We never would have met if it hadn’t been
for you. You didn’t have to introduce us at the music store, but
you did, even though you wouldn’t benefit from it. So you are a
good friend.” She smiled.

He smiled back. “You were just
pretending to be upset then?”

“
We couldn’t follow
William’s script. We knew better than that.”

“
Thanks.” He groaned. “I
don’t see a way out.” He stopped scanning the doorway and focused
on her. “I need you to find Ann.” He quickly looked around the
room. “I can’t believe I didn’t see this before. Here’s a gun. Will
you use this to kill anyone who tries to harm her?”

She nodded as he threw it to her. She
caught it. “I’m sorry, Hathor. I wish we could have gotten you
out.”

“
I’m not ready to give up
yet. Anything can happen.”

She hoped he was right. She quickly
turned and ran down the hall, anxious to find her
friend.

Chapter
Twenty-One

Ann felt so incredibly sleepy. She
tried to fight the effects of the injection, but it was getting
harder and harder to do. She blinked, staring at the door in front
of her. She would love to be able to get up and leave the room, but
she could barely lift her foot. Her concentration was weakening,
and the room began to blur around her.

“
Queen Ann? Can you hear
me?” someone asked as he came into the room.

She turned her head to the source of
the voice. It was the man in white. Pallid.

“
I’m going to get you out
of here,” Pallid whispered. “Then I’ll take you to Hathor and you
two can leave this place.”

His words registered through the fog
clouding her mind. She managed to focus on the door long enough to
see Reed running down the hallway towards them. “Reed,” she
whispered. She tried to speak louder, but it took all of her effort
to utter the name.

Pallid glanced behind him then
prepared to defend himself from Reed.

Her mind wove in and out of awareness
as the two struggled over her fate. Her eyelids felt heavy, and she
was beginning to no longer care what was going to happen to
her.

“
He’s no match for me,” she
heard Reed say.

She forced her eyes open. She saw Reed
pick up a needle. “In a couple of minutes, you won’t be married or
pregnant anymore.” He smiled, as if he enjoyed her anguish. “Sleep
well, Queen Ann.”

She tried to protest but couldn’t. The
desire to sleep was too great, so she finally closed her eyes.
Somewhere in the back of her mind she heard someone else enter the
room. It couldn’t be Pallid. Hathor, she thought. I hope it’s
Hathor. That was her last thought before she fell
asleep.

Suddenly a rush of energy flowed
through her. She opened her eyes and sat up. She fought against the
straps of her chair, but then she realized she was no longer
strapped into anything. Then she felt someone’s arms around her and
soon realized Hathor was holding her.

Crying with relief, she kissed
him.

“
Are you alright? Is our
baby okay?” he asked as he continued to hold her close to
him.

“
Yes. We’re okay. Thanks to
you.”

“
The Augurs gave me your
magic, and I put it back into you.” He helped her stand up. “I was
afraid I was too late.”

“
William told me he’s going
to kill you. He has a trap set up for you.”

“
I know. The Augurs got me
out of it just in time. Then they left to do something else. They
didn’t explain it, but I didn’t expect them to.”

She hugged him, loving the feel of him
against her.

“
Pallid and Reed are no
longer a threat. I killed both of them when I came in here,” he
replied. “Now I need to take care of William.”

“
Wait. Hathor, Pallid had a
change of heart. I don’t know why, but he was trying to rescue me
right before you entered the room. He said he was going to take me
to you and send us away from here. He must have seen something in
that mirror he had. The mirror was a way for him to see what would
have been if things were done differently.”

“
Oh.” He winced. “I thought
he was going to kill Amanda.”

“
Don’t worry about him.
Like the Olympians, he can’t die because he has a Stone of
Immortality.”

He kissed her again. “Whatever changed
Pallid’s mind, I’m glad it did. He might have bought you the extra
few minutes you needed. When I first saw you, I thought I was too
late.” He shivered at the memory. “I don’t want to think about
it.”

“
What do we do
now?”

“
I sent Stacey to find you.
Kent was looking for William. Jaz, Falon, and five Nicals are in a
cubed prison somewhere in this place.”

“
I can find them. As soon
as I do, then I should be able to use Raz’s magic to release them,”
she offered.

He glanced up and saw Stacey and Kent
running to them. “Please take them with you. I know you’re the
queen, but it would make me feel better if you had them with you to
help you in case something should happen.”

She smiled at him. “Okay.”

“
I’m going to find William
and kill him.”

“
Hathor-”

“
Please don’t stop me from
doing it this time. I can’t keep having that guy coming into our
lives and trying to destroy you or our children.”

“
I wasn’t going to stop
you,” she quickly assured him. She used her magic to produce a
Razian sword. “I just wanted to give you this.”

Again, he kissed her.
“Thanks.”

As he ran to the top of the arc, she
ran to meet Kent and Stacey.

***

The man in white groaned in pain as
the Stone of Immortality worked on healing his fatal wound. He
hardly recalled Hathor coming up behind him and strangling him. He
glanced over and saw that Reed was dead. Hathor must’ve killed him,
too.

He closed his eyes and tightened his
grip on the cane. As long as he held onto it, he would recover. If
he let go of it, he would die. The healing, as usual, took several
minutes. He learned long ago that if he stayed still, he would heal
faster. When he sensed that his healing was complete, he opened his
eyes.