“Okay,” I mumbled against his breaking hand. When he lowered it, I stated honestly, “I’m okay being here now.” I paused, my chest aching fiercely. “Or, I was before. But, either way, I’ve come to grips with being here in this time.” Another pause as I peered down at the cuffs I still wore, and back up to the Kings. “Now that you know why I have no past, or why I don’t exist, what type of Mystical I am, and I’m not here with any damn malicious intent toward any of you, can you get me and the Prodigies out of these freaking cuffs?”
The Kings concurred, but King White ordered gruffly before moving to do so, “Everyone stays. Don’t even think about leaving because we’re not through talking.”
Hell, I still couldn’t move, and it wasn’t because of the cuffs, so I had no clue how anyone was going to move with the drugs in their system…until I saw each Prodigy slowly stand as the cuffs were removed from their wrists, Fergus yanking the gag from his mouth, tossing it on the ground before cracking his back to lean back against the wall, arms crossed, ankles spread, green curls dangling down around his hooded eyes, hiding his gaze, and expression further as he stared at me across the room…exactly as each of the Prodigies did. Dark gaze, golden gaze, blue gaze, all three hooded and cold on me. King White removed my cuffs last, and I instantly felt my Core flare to life…but dammit, I still couldn’t move, and I asked quickly, “What the hell did you drug us with?”
“Just a mild sedative,” King Bridges muttered, waving an absent hand as he began pacing.
Instant. “For a Mystical or a Com?”
Everyone stopped to look at me, King Bridges eyebrows puckered, and he stated slowly, “A Mystical, of course.”
“Of course,” I muttered under my breath, and tried pushing a bit of my power…and nothing.
Tried again…and nothing, the drug overpowering my system, not having been exercising the use of my power unless it happened in bed with Cain, my body already drained from the broken bones, and such.
“Is there an issue?” King White asked calmly as he threw the handcuffs into the silvered cabinet.
My voice was bland, blasé, even if a little raw, tears still choking me. “I’ll be fine.”
King Bridges forehead crinkled. “I gave her an even smaller dosage than the other four because of her weight.”
“I’ll be fine, so please move along in whatever you’re going to say, because, as everyone here I’m sure knows, mum’s the word for a spirit Elemental,” I stated coolly, keeping the answer relatively simple.
And…everyone in this room was breaking my heart all over again as they peered at me…like a stranger from under hooded lids…everyone, absolutely everyone.
So, sitting frozen on the couch for the next hour while I slowly started to move bits of my body, trying not to burst into tears as they continued staring at me as they were, the Kings talked endlessly about the perils of knowing the future, trying to change the future, the temptation to know the future, and ordering each of the Prodigies to never tell another soul I was from the future. Then the danger my life could be in with the information I had inside my brain, to the point, the Kings then stalled, going into a discussion themselves about spelling me to forget the future, but since it wasn’t a Law, and when I kindly interrupted, threatening to make them forget they even knew this information—in a roundabout way—they instantly moved past that issues when King Samson said I was telling the truth, and continued on in their long discussion of the threat that was…me.
At the end, when each of them ran out of things to say and dismissed us, the Kings probably sporting a few new wrinkles from their impassioned speeches, I stood on shaking legs, gripping the arm of the couch carefully, making sure I could stand alone, because that was what I was, alone. I lifted my black purse with the pink skull on it, placing it over my shoulder, and walked calmly, and carefully, from the mansion to my car. No one stopping me as I went.
Chapter Eight
Two weeks.
In the two weeks after that dinner I had seen no one, except for the multiple tails I now had, not only Elder Jacob’s men following me, but King White’s as well. Everyone had forsaken me in the light of my lies. I couldn’t say I blamed them, my actions inexcusable to those who trusted me. My nights now empty, only filled with a routine I made myself do to not fall too deep in a slump, but always ending in the bathroom, enjoying the scalding water to wash away every damn tear my body could shed as I sobbed, my neighbors probably worrying it was the return of the old me.
I had finally come to terms no one was coming to see me, and written letters to the Prodigies, placing them in the outgoing mail at work that day, apologizing again and hoping for something more in the future with the subtlest of hints…but Elder Cain Alek Merrick was another story. Our relationship had been different. I wasn’t sure what I would say to him, but I planned to sneak onto his property the next day to apologize—again—in person. If after covertly probing him on what I feared, hoped, wasn’t true, that I could have been that stupid…again…the two weeks being alone without him somewhat clearing my head.
A worry that had begun to creep in on me three days after the dinner.
A weakness he may have played off of, being my inexperience in sex, a gateway to someone’s trust. His subtle questioning. The way he always left to move his car every evening, a chance for the tails to see him enter…then leave…only to sneak back inside unseen. The real probability of why Elder Jacobs and Elder Merrick hadn’t told the Kings they had met me before. Possibly…another beautifully played game at my expense…their own study.
I prayed I hadn’t been played. Not that way again.
So, late that evening, returning from watching a movie all by my lonesome at the local movie theater, I was less than pleased to walk into my apartment to find it somewhat filled with uninvited guests. King White was sitting at my small dinette, reading through a magazine I had purchased. Elder Jacobs was half dozing on my recliner. And Elder Merrick was sitting on my couch, feet propped on the table, the room only dimly lit by the kitchen light I had left on while he studied…my gun…he held in his hands.
“You forgot to lock your door, Ms. Farrow,” King White stated merrily into the quiet as he flipped a sheet of my magazine.
No, I hadn’t. “To what do I owe this pleasure?” As if I didn’t know, my voice void, while I closed and locked the door behind me, moving past all of them into the kitchen to retrieve a Coke from my fridge, dropping my purse on the counter.
“Since you turned down my invitation to a private dinner—”
“Your dinners are so pleasant; after all, I imagine it was shocking I rejected the invite.” Yeah, I had turned down an invite—another formal affair on old stationery—a few days ago, not about to trap myself into being drugged again…to possibly disappear.