“See, there’s where you’ve got it wrong,” I say. “Surgeries require this—” I raise the scalpel, “—and they leave scars. Most importantly of all, they don’t take two weeks.”
“My doctors have access to the latest technology. You were placed in a device called the Sleeper. It removed the cancer and regenerated healthy tissue.”
The king has equipment that can do that?
Before I can respond, the king wraps his hand around the base of the knife and tries to pull it from me.
“Hey—” I can tell I’m about to lose the scalpel, so I give it a good yank and slide it against the king’s skin.
The king curses as the knife cuts into the flesh between his thumb and forefinger and blood pools.
I let go of the scalpel just as the door to my room is thrown open. Marco comes in, gun drawn, a group of guards spreading out behind him.
I roll my eyes at Marco and very slowly relax my coiled muscles. Despite appearing indifferent, I’m not. I’m staring down the same gun barrel that my father had. The one that might’ve killed him.
“Your Majesty,” Marco says, taking in the scene, “is everything alright?” His eyes flick to the king’s bloody hand. “You’re bleeding.”
The king holds out the scalpel for Marco to take while studying me. “I’m fine,” he says as Marco takes the knife from him. “I just cut myself while I took the scalpel from the queen.” The king’s giving me a strange look. I get the impression he’s trying to figure me out.
“Your Majesty?” Marco says, not buying the story.
“That’s all Marco,” the king says.
“But sir, your hand …”
“Later Marco,” the king says, his eyes never straying from mine. “Leave us.”
Marco hesitates, piercing me with a look that says just what he’ll do to me if more harm befalls the king. I flash him my most nefarious grin as he backs out of the room.
“Must you terrify everyone you meet?” The king asks, grabbing some paper towels out of a dispenser to cauterize the flow of blood.
“Yes.”
The king comes back to me, and that strange look is back in his eyes. “Why did you cut me?”
My skin prickles, not because of his question, but because he’s not angry at all. He’s curious. It’s the wrong reaction, and it makes me worry that there indeed is something very, very wrong with the man I married.
“I wanted to see if you could bleed,” I say. My words sound cruel and calculating even to my own ears. There is also something very wrong with me.
“No, you didn’t,” the king says. “You’ve already seen me bleed.” He comes closer to my bed. “You want to know how I heal, don’t you?” he says, his eyes ever so inquisitive.
My heart thumps. “Yes,” I admit.
The king nods slowly. “You thought because I refused to tell you how I died before, I’d always refuse to tell you.”
“How you died before?” I go completely still. Already he’s admitted so much more than I expected.
“Perhaps ‘died’ is the wrong word.” He sits on my bed and cups the side of my face. In his eyes I see something I hoped not to. I don’t know what love is, and I doubt the king does either, but the expression he wears seems awfully near the mark.
“You really want to know?” he asks.
I nod.
He lets out a breath, then making a decision, he says, “All right. I’ll tell you the whole sordid story—it’s a long one.”
This moment strikes me as terribly anticlimactic. King Lazuli, the feared ruler of the entire globe, is about to tell me his biggest and most well kept secret. A secret men have killed and died for. A secret that used to bring goose bumps to my skin.
He presses his mouth to my ear, exhales, and breathes the first line. “But not here—”
The sound of shots ring out.
The king pulls back, and we stare at each other for a moment. Then we’re moving.
Ambushed. Someone knows we’re at this hospital, and we’re being ambushed.
On the other side of the door, I hear Marco’s voice. “Montes, Serenity,” he shouts, dropping our titles, “stay inside.” Then his footfalls move away from us.
He expects us to hide in this room like sitting ducks, but I’ve had too much military training to ever act like a civilian again. Oddly enough, Montes seems to have the same idea. He tries to push me behind him as he approaches the door. Instead I brush past him.
The king catches my hand. “Serenity—”
I turn and look at him. “I know what I’m doing.”
He opens his mouth, then closes it. Montes tugs me to him and kisses me.
“I’ll follow your lead,” he says when he breaks away. “Just don’t get hurt—that’s an order.”
I pull away from him. “I won’t.” I just hope I’m right.
Chapter 21
Serenity
I crack the door open and peek out. Just as I do so, my guard, who has been stationed at the door, turns toward us.
“Get back inside,” he commands.
“You and I both know we’re outnumbered,” I say. That’s the only way a group would be ballsy enough to infiltrate the hospital. “We need to leave this place.”
The guard hesitates, and in that span of time, a series of shots punctuates the silence.
Now is the perfect time to kill the king or, at the very least, severely injure him. It’s an unpleasant realization that I don’t want him to meet his end here.
“Can you help me get the king out?” I ask.
I can feel Montes press in behind me.
The guard’s eyes flick from me to the king. “There’s a back way out of the hospital where a car should be waiting,” the guard says. “I can get him to it so long as the enemy isn’t waiting there to ambush us.”
Having been in communication with the Resistance for so long, I know how these groups work. They probably jumped on the unusual opportunity to attack the king while he was in a vulnerable position. It’s a toss up whether they know the layout of the place or not.
“I’ll go first,” I say to the guard. “You’ll have to navigate.”
“No.” Montes’s hand falls heavily on my shoulder, like he’s considering physically restraining me.