The Reluctant King (The Star-Crossed Series) (37 page)

              And recently for me too.

              The club lights were on and bright, but because of the underground location and complete lack of natural light the large room felt gloomy. With only our small group gathered, the two-city-block size of the room felt incredibly cavernous, our voices echoing off the high walls and arched ceiling.

              I eyed the polished bar in the back of the room with envy, wondering if I would be judged harshly for a midday scotch….

              “Thank you for joining us,” Kiran began in his most somber voice.

              This was going to be an awful meeting. My stomach twisted with nerves. I didn’t want to explain to these Immortals what we were up against, how I had failed them. They would want to know how to protect their regions, how to protect our people and I wasn’t sure what to tell them. At this point not even humankind was safe and that was what terrified me the most: an enemy without standards or limitations.

              Completely depraved.

              Footsteps clicked down the tall, winding staircase in the center of the room caught my attention and I lifted my eyes to watch Amelia join our group. I had appointed Bianca Cartier as the Western European Regent, but her flight was delayed in Switzerland for bad weather. If she would have used her private jet like I suggested, she would have been able to make the meeting, but she was a little bit stubborn, which I was beginning to think was a family trait. She had insisted flying commercial was not only better for the environment, but the funds she saved could be used for some charity.

              I don’t know which one since I stopped paying attention at “better for the environment.”

              Amelia’s golden brown hair floated off her shoulders as she hurried down the staircase, her tall high heels ticked against the staircase. She was dressed professional, since she was filling in for her parents and I couldn’t take my eyes off her legs in her gray, knee length, tight skirt.

              I swallowed against a building desire that was shaking me up inside, fragmenting my soul into broken pieces of confusion. Inside my head a voice was shouting to take my eyes off her, to look anywhere but her…. to stop torturing myself with something I couldn’t have.

              Or something that didn’t want me in return.

              But I couldn’t.

              I would rather punish my heart and torture my soul than look away from her gravitational pull.

              My world had narrowed to her. To
only her
. And even if she didn’t want me, I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from wanting her.

              From needing her.

              We hadn’t talked since I opened up to her two days ago. She had avoided me desperately. While I was still willing to play this game her way, with little expectations for our future, or at least letting her think there were little expectations for our future. She turned out to be smarter than me, explaining there was no way we could go back now. I had said it all, said too much and she was officially moved on.

              Her words, not mine.

              She broke up with me in one of those “it’s not you, it’s me” speeches.

              She had wanted to move over to Amory’s old house where Xander, Xavier, Titus and Gabriel were staying, but I convinced her to stay with Eden in Sylvia’s house and I moved over. I hated it. I hated that she didn’t think we could even stay in the same house together. It didn’t make sense to me.

              We hadn’t been together for long, I knew that, but what we had was real and intense and undeniable.

              Only she was denying everything. And it sucked.

              She sat down in the back of the room with Eden and then pulled a tablet out of her purse to take notes on. She looked every bit the classy, studious citizen. She was incredible. And she was doing a fantastic job of looking everywhere but at me.

              Because she was not mine anymore.

              She didn’t want to be mine.

              I sucked in a breath against the black hole deepening the pit of my stomach. This sucked. This was awful.

              And I hated that Jericho was a world away and not here for me to complain to. If anyone understood heartbreak, it was him. And damn it if I didn’t need to capitalize on his experience and get over this hellish feeling.

              I focused back on the other eleven Regents and forced myself to pay attention to the end of Kiran’s welcome speech. We agreed he would take care of all the pleasantries and leave me with the meat of the meeting.

              “You are all invited to stay in Omaha through the weekend and attend Lilly Mason and Talbott Angelo’s engagement part Saturday evening. We can all agree that their union is quite significant and Avalon, Eden and I would appreciate your public support. Now I will hand over your attention to Avalon who will share with you the reason we are gathered today,” Kiran finished and then gestured a hand towards me.

              I stood up. Kiran was way better at conducting meetings from his sitting position on the throne, years of practice and what not. I had grown up standing in front of large groups of Immortals, planning strategically with group participation.

              “There is a situation,” I began not as confidently as I wanted to sound. I needed to be gentle, but not insecure. Damn it. I cleared my throat and began again. “A few weeks ago two Immortals arrived at the Citadel near death. We took them in immediately and gave them the best care that we could. Only hours after their arrival, they died.” I paused, letting this sink in. I held their attention and now I would grab their curiosity. Reigning in their fear would be last on the agenda and what I handled with the most care. “It was not the King’s Curse that killed them, nor was it old age since they were both young and could have been considered in good health once upon a time. They came to the Citadel, knowing they would die, but both of them wanted to die for a purpose. They were victims of some of the most grotesque and inhumane brutality I have ever seen, and with my experience…. that’s saying a lot.” I paused to mentally block out the months of imprisonment I had faced under Lucan’s reign. I was mortal at the time and there were still nights I suffered from the haunting memories of my incarceration. I cleared my throat and continued in an utterly silent room, “Because of their bravery we learned that the evil we are now facing is a man named Dmitri Terletov.”

              “Impossible,” Jack Smith, the Australian Regent scoffed. He was a big, burly man with an extremely awesome handlebar mustache that reached out to the middle of each of his cheeks and he was always wearing a straw cowboy hat lined with crocodile teeth. “Terletov is dead. This happened before Lucan fell.”

              “We were all under that impression,” I agreed, bringing order back to the room. “The specifics of what happened or how he escaped are still uncertain. Eden herself drained him of his magic and we have been working with Titans that arrested him and personally put him in his cell. I want to give you every specific piece of information we have gathered so far, but I have to warn you that we are painfully, even dangerously under-informed. There is something at work that we do not fully understand yet. And as dangerous as ignorance can be, whatever Terletov is planning, scheming…. accomplishing, it is more dangerous than
anything
we have been up against yet.”

              I paused again to gather my thoughts while the Regents looked at each other nervously. They trusted me enough to know I would not exaggerate something like this. The mood in the room, even the current of electricity turned frightful and anxious. I was glad I wouldn’t have to waste time convincing them of the danger we were in, but now I faced the task of catching them up to speed, which was a place I didn’t want to be.

              I swallowed against the bile that rose every time I had to think about Terletov and what he was doing to my people and then continued, “The Immortals that died were…. I don’t know how to explain this to you properly, but they were changed. Their magic was not their own and whatever foreign force was injected into them was eventually what killed them. They gave us a lead to Siberia, where apparently Terletov had been conducting experiments in the old Titan training facility. By the time we got there, there was nobody left except a pile of dead bodies and left over equipment that still doesn’t make sense to us. From there we followed him back to his old Latvian estate. We seemed to have interrupted his scheme there, where we intercepted a shipment of weapons and bullets. If you remember from when he kidnapped Eden, Terletov used guns with special ammunition to incapacitate his victims. These bullets are enough to completely shut down an Immortal. Although it doesn’t kill you, it will put you into a very painful coma. But if you happen to be without magic, drained or otherwise incapacitated, they can absolutely kill. Eden and I seem to be somewhat immune to the bullet by way of her healing gifts, but everyone else needs to be aware of how dangerous just one hit, anywhere on your body can be. You will be unconscious within seconds. During this exchange we captured one of Terletov’s men, only to have him assassinated by his own companion just moments later. From Latvia we followed Terletov to Peru, where we met more of his men in the mountains. We fought and won the battle, but without one living prisoner, we still do not have even a significant piece of information to explain Terletov’s survival, his behavior or his motives. Other than the obvious, that being he is after the crown.” I let the frustration seep into my tone, unable to stop the torrential downpour of helplessness that threatened to drown me. I forced my eyes up to meet my people, my people that trusted me and would follow me no matter what and I continued, “In Peru we found five more Immortals that had been held prisoner, badly beaten and abused. And more than that, we found five humans with them. They were as equally battered. They are all recovering in the Citadel as we speak.”

              “Humans?” Solomon Camera, the West African Regent gasped, standing to his feet. “What could he want with humans?”

              “We think….” I paused to meet each of their eyes. “We think he was trying to infuse them with our magic. We think he was trying to make them Immortal.”

              The room erupted in nervous chatter, all of the Regents demanding more information than I could give them. I took a shaky step back, rubbing rough hands over my face. I ripped a rubber band off my wrist and pulled my unruly hair into a knot on the nape of my neck and let them talk out their fears with each other. This was a lot of information to take in and I couldn’t blame them for needing to repeat my facts out loud so that they would sink in. When their fears started to take over the conversation completely, I stepped back in.

              “Please,” I called out respectfully and immediately the room was silent. “I am going to answer as many of your questions as I can, but I need you not to panic. This situation is frightening, I understand that, but unless we come up with a rational solution we will not get through this. Our first goal is to protect our people, I cannot…. we cannot lose any more Immortals to his sadistic experiments. That much is certain.  We also need to start thinking of ways to protect humans, although it’s not as though we can give them a public service announcement. In order to protect our Immortals and humans alike, we have to protect the crown first. I need unity, stability and I need you to project a united front for the world to see. I will now take questions, one at a time and if anyone has information or suggestions we will also take those. I have a team of Titans, led by Silas hunting Terletov now, but I am desperate for information. If any of you remember working with him, or speaking with him, even the most insignificant detail could help. What we do know is that he is highly secretive and incredibly meticulous. There are hardly any details we have been able to uncover and before we can interrogate his men, they either commit suicide or are taken out by a sniper. Alright, questions,” I nodded my head toward Seiko Lee, the Asian Regent who had been in her position for three hundred years. She was surprisingly very disloyal to Lucan and even though her long, black hair was now peppered with gray I had come to enjoy her crass sense of humor.

              The questions started then and went on for hours. I answered as best as I could but most were met with my own lack of information. The Regents were all tasked with taking the information back to their people and spreading the word. We worked out safety precautions and traveling restrictions, even a curfew, but I wouldn’t enforce any of those. These were precautionary and suggestive. I wouldn’t make my people do anything.

              In the end I realized the most I could do was pray for their safety.

              Terletov was beating us at this game and unless I figured out a way to stop him, my people would never be safe again.

Chapter Thirty-Four

              “Are you glad you decided to have the engagement party at the club?” Sylvia asked me over lunch.

              I met her on her break because she asked me to. There were some people in life just worth dropping everything for. She was one of them.

              “Yeah, it makes it easy for Eden,” I agreed.

              “I thought you were the one planning this shindig?” Syl laughed at me.

              “I am planning it. I plan, and then I delegate. I can’t be expected to do everything,” I winked at Sylvia. Although it was true, my decorating skills were not exactly what people jumped to when they thought of my strongest qualities. But I had a twin sister, that’s what she was for. “Besides, ever since Eden got knocked up, she’s been super lazy.”

              Sylvia gasped and then narrowed her meanest glare at me. I cracked my charming smile to let her know I was joking, but the daggers she was shooting at me did not disappear.

              “Don’t let me ever hear you say something like that again,” she threatened and I held my hands up defensively.