King of Me (5 page)

Cold hands shoved deeply into my jeans’ pockets, I stopped to gaze out across the endless stretch of blue ocean, the wind whipping my face. To be frank with myself, I wasn’t sure what felt more disturbing about the morning’s events: the weird and very real vision I’d had of Vaughn hurting my mother, the ease with which I’d killed him, or the relief and satisfaction I’d felt afterward.

Definitely, the lack of remorse.
Because, holy hell, it felt goddamned euphoric knowing this world had been rid of Vaughn. Now, if I could only get my hands on the rest of 10 Club.

You’re going to go on a killing spree, Mia? Really?

No. But I wanted to, and my mind didn’t know what to make of it. These were not the emotions of a decent person, but of a ruthless criminal. And if it weren’t for my confusion over that fact, I would be off looking for King.
Sadistic pig. I bet he got a kick out of locking me up with Vaughn.

“You look like you had a rough day,” said a deep male voice.

I turned my head to find Mack, King’s right-hand man and personal pilot, staring with a warm, boyish grin. Mack’s messy blond hair, big blue eyes, and unshaven face gave him the appearance of a rugged, sweet, all-American guy. Handsome as hell, too. On the inside, however, lived a deadly, ex-military-something, and a damned pit bull—as fiercely loyal as he was ferocious. There wasn’t anything Mack wouldn’t do for King. Anything. Including throwing me under the bus, lying to me, and placing me in danger. All because King had freed him from being the whipping boy of another 10 Club member—Vaughn’s psycho wife—
Christ
—widow. In any case, I didn’t trust Mack and never would.

“Hey, Mack.” I jerked my head.

“You still mad?”

Mad?
I assumed he referred to all of the lies—too many to count—he’d told me over the last few months.

“This isn’t about being mad.” I walked away from him and the ostentatious estate.

“Of course it is,” he called out.

“Idiot,” I grumbled under my breath, just as Mack caught up and stood in my way.

How dare he? “Move.”

His blue eyes narrowed, and with the bright sun shining over us, I noticed the red highlights in his dark blond hair and a few white whiskers sprinkled throughout his stubbled jaw.

“We need to talk,” he said in a cold voice that reminded me of King.

“No, we don’t.” I tried to step around him, but he pushed me back.

“What the hell is the matter with you?” I barked.

“I need to talk to you.”

Feathers fully ruffled, I stared for several moments. A guy like him wasn’t going to leave until he got what he wanted, and I desperately needed to be alone. “You have ten seconds.”

His eyes focused on my white tee shirt, which I now noticed had splatters of blood on it, along with my jeans. “Christ, Mia, you did kill Vaughn.”

I hissed, “That’s what you want to talk about?”

“No, actually. I was only curious about that—it’s not like you.”

I shrugged. “Yes. I did the world a giant favor and ended him. Your point?”

“You really have become a cold-hearted bitch. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t heard you say it.”

I lifted my brows. “Are we done now? Because this ‘bitch’ isn’t in the mood for small talk.”

“No. We’re not done.” He glanced over his shoulder back at the house. “I need to tell you something, but it’s not safe to talk here. Someone might hear us.”

I shook my head. Obviously, he wasn’t worried about any Spiros sneaking up on us; we could see those “someones.”

“You mean King,” I stated.

“Yes.”

“I don’t have time for this, Mack.” Anything he had to say would only serve to advance some twisted hidden agenda of King’s. I turned to head back toward the house, only to be yanked by my arm.

“Mia,” he growled, “I know you don’t have a reason to trust me, but I swear on my life that I’m trying to help you.”

I stared into his vivid blue eyes as he towered over me. “What are you up to?”

His gaze moved to my lips as if he were contemplating doing something he shouldn’t. I instinctively stepped back.

“Fine,” he said. “If you won’t come with me so we can talk privately, then I’ll tell you here. Just know that if he overhears, I’m dead.”

Again, I didn’t believe a word the man said, so I shrugged.

“You really have changed, haven’t you?” He shook his head.

“You sound disappointed.”

“I liked the old Mia. As annoying and whiny as she might’ve been, she genuinely cared.”

“You’ll get over it.”

He scratched his chin, and the wind picked up, pushing his blond hair back. “Already am.”

“Good. So what did you want to tell me?” I asked to hurry the chat along.

“Something is wrong with King.”

I burst out laughing. “Yeah, no shit.”

“Goddammit, Mia. I am serious. He’s not himself.”

My laughter trailed off, but I couldn’t help still smile. “Really, now?”

“You need to be careful.”

“Are you trying to warn me that King is dangerous?”

Hilarious. Tell me something new.

“No. Not like before. I mean…” He looked down at his leather sandals, searching for the right words. And, as off topic as it might be, I thought to myself how odd that was, Mack wearing sandals. Handmade, worn, brown leather sandals. So, so out of character for a lethal, ex-military assassin type who flew private jets and had his muscular arms covered in tattoos.

But what do you really know about this guy?

Nothing.

“I don’t know how to explain it,” he said, frustrated, “but you need to be careful. Don’t be alone with him.”

“That’s pretty impossible, given I’m supposed to marry the guy so that we once again avoid his property being seized by the 10 Club. And, might I remind you,
you
are considered his property, too.”

“Mia,” Mack leaned in and whispered, “he got Miranda put in charge of 10 Club.”

“What?” Miranda was Vaughn’s wife—
Christ…widow
—and Mack’s ex-owner. She was just as cutthroat, demented, and vile as Vaughn had been.

Mack nodded. “He asked me to deliver this to her.” He held out an envelope.

“What’s inside?”

“I don’t know,” he said, “but I have a feeling I’m not just delivering a letter; I’m delivering myself.”

King had saved Mack from Miranda. It was the reason Mack remained loyal to King from what I could tell. That, and King had once “found something” he needed. God only knew what that was.

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“It’s a gut feeling.”

If I were him, I’d open the damned thing and find out. But that was Mack: loyal to a fault even when his own neck was on the chopping block.

“As fucked up as King is, he would never do that,” I argued.

“That’s why I’m telling you. The King I know—
we
know—wouldn’t do that.”

Maybe this was a trick. Maybe this was simply paranoia. Frankly, I didn’t care. Mack had made his bed, and I wasn’t about to lie in it with him or get anywhere near those sheets. Not after everything he’d done, including pretending to be looking after me while really acting as King’s pawn. He had made sure on several occasions that I moved myself across the chessboard in a direction behooving to King. The last straw, the
final
straw, had been when he’d allowed me to be taken by Vaughn. Later I’d discover that King was Vaughn’s prisoner, too, only the bastard was there on purpose so he could get closer to the Artifact. King had hoped, erroneously, that Psycho-Britches had the cursed rock in his possession. Luckily, I’d gotten free, but not without paying a steep price. One I didn’t care to relive.

“All right. You told me. What do you want me to do?” I asked.

“Nothing.” He reached into his pocket and held out a silver cuff bracelet. “But I won’t be back, no matter what, so I want to give you this.”

“What is it?”

“Your freedom.”

Huh?

“It’s—it’s…” Mack cleared his throat. “You have to run this time, Mia.”

I’d heard that advice from him before and hadn’t listened. Too much had been at stake to walk away. And, unfortunately, the same rang true in this very moment. “
Now
I know you’re up to something, Mack, because you know I can’t run.”

“Forget your brother, Mia. He’s gone, and frankly, your life is worth more than his, anyway.”

Asshole.
He didn’t have the right to pass judgment on my dead brother. And why did everyone think this was only about Justin? My mother and father would be devastated without him, and that alone was worth trying to bring him back.

“You will move on eventually,” Mack said, anticipating my argument.

“You’ve apparently never loved anyone, because if you had, you’d know that no one ever moves on. Not really.”

His eyes narrowed. “Quite a bold statement for a woman who knows so little about me.”

“I know everything I need to; you can’t be trusted.”

“Mia, I can be trust—”

“Why would I believe that? Because you say so?”

“No. Because I’m risking my life to save you. King won’t hesitate to end me for telling you to run.”

“You’ve told me to run before.”

“This time is different,” he said.

“Why?”

“Because before, it was
King
who wanted you to run.
He
wanted you to have every chance to leave, and I wanted you to stay.”

His words shocked and confused me. “Why?”

“You think I’ve never loved anyone, but you’re wrong. It’s what got me into this fucked- up mess to begin with. It’s why I’m standing here now.”

Something itched in the back of my head, but I couldn’t quite reach it. “I don’t unders—”

“For fuck’s sake,” he barked, “you don’t need to, Mia! Take the damned bracelet and run.”

“Even if I wanted to, he’d find me.” I held up my wrist and showed him the “K” tattoo. With it, King had not only staked his claim on me with the 10 Club, but he could find me, too. It connected us—permitted him to hear my thoughts, and allowed me to see him with little effort on his part. When he wanted to be seen, of course.

“Thus the bracelet.” He shoved the silver cuff into my hand. “It’s from King’s arsenal. The catalog says it has the ability to ‘hide’ a person. It ensures there are no traces—physical or otherwise.”

“Otherwise” meant whatever weird magic King used to track me down.

“Wear it over the tattoo and never take it off,” he added.

I stared at the thing. Was it possible that this small, curved hunk of metal with odd symbols could prevent King from hunting me?

“Where would I go?” I asked purely out of curiosity. After all, it wasn’t like I had money to travel because King had made me quit my job. Also, any friends or family I had were no secret to a man who knew every corner and crevice of my mind.

“If it were me,” Mack said, “I would try thinking of someplace I’d never been before. Somewhere far away from this.”

I had to admit, the idea of escaping for good sounded very tempting. “You really think it works?”

He nodded. “Yes. For fuck’s sake, run, Mia.”

I held the bracelet in my hands, thinking. I needed to get Justin back. No, I absolutely didn’t believe a word anyone said about him. I knew my brother. They didn’t. But more importantly, I needed to end my parents’ suffering. “I can’t.”

He sighed and shook his head. “Stubborn, stubborn, Mia. Maybe you haven’t changed.”

I cocked my head. “Trust me, I have. Which is why I’m not trusting you.” I held out the bracelet.

“No. You keep it. In case you change your mind.” He turned to leave, and I watched his shoulders sag a bit as his strong frame strode away. I had to admit, a tiny part of me wanted to believe he cared, but he’d shown me differently.

Then why the hell is your stomach knotting up?
The nausea was threatening to make me hurl.

“Where are you going?” I yelled out.

“Back to hell,” Mack replied. “See you there.”

He shot a smile over his shoulder, and in that very moment, an image flashed inside my head. It was of King standing over a body, a bloody sword in one hand and the head of his twin brother dangling from the other. It was the image I’d seen in my mind when King had made me read a translated copy of Hagne’s journal. She had been his queen, but hated King with every fiber of her being. She loved his twin brother, Callias, though, and it destroyed them all. I suspected it was the cause of the Minoan civilization’s downfall. No, I hadn’t had time to do any heavy research, but archeologists said they mysteriously disappeared between 1500 and 1200 BC. Some say it was an earthquake, some say it might have been a volcanic eruption or foreign invasion, but I thought it was war. A civil war sparked by King’s executions of his own traitorous brother and of Hagne.

I shoved the bracelet into my jeans pocket, planted myself down in the sand, and let my mind cull through the random bits and pieces it had gathered up over the past few months. So many questions, so few answers. And lucky
mio
had another one to add to the heap:
Is this another trap?

“What do you think?” I heard King say.

My head whipped around, but I saw no one.

“Over here, Mia.” The sound radiated from the deep blue waves. Like a mirage, King emerged from the water, completely nude.

My jaw dropped.

I hadn’t really seen King naked since he’d lost his tattoos (compliments of Vaughn when King was
his
dungeon guest). One tattoo, in particular, was of a sundial that gave him a few hours each day to walk among the living with little effort. The other tattoo had been an elaborate Egyptian-looking collar that circled the base of his neck all the way down to his pectorals. I never did learn what it had been for, but now that his body was free of any ink, I more clearly saw every exquisite inch of the man.

Yes, I wanted to look away and be bigger than my physical feelings for him.

Yes, sometimes I failed. Miserably.

Like now.

I so don’t get it.

Unable to pull my eyes away from the chiseled perfection of every muscle and his deep olive skin glistening with drops of water, I simply stared. His long thick cock hung low between his thighs as he ran his hands through his wet black hair.