The Queen of All That Lives (The Fallen World Book 3) (12 page)

Chapter 22

Serenity

The king brought
him back to life while he let me waste away.

The anger churning through me sharpens.

My hands fist, and I begin stalking towards him.

Sensing my violent intentions, Marco puts a hand up. “Whoa, whoa, whoa.”

I don’t let that stop me. As soon as I’m within swinging range, I lunge for him.

He catches me around the midsection before I can land a blow, pinning my arms to my sides.

I thrash against him. “You fucking murderer! Why did he let you live?”

Gone is the composed leader I’ve been for the last hour. I’m back to being an angry, lost girl.

“Stop. Serenity,” Marco says. “Please. Stop.”

To hear that asshole’s voice … I’m seeing red.

What I really need is a gun. Any gun—

Something about Marco’s tone has me redirecting my thoughts. Something … not right.

I seek out his eyes. He’s not looking at me the way he used to, like I was just a thorn in his side.

And the way he said my name a few seconds ago … it’s too familiar.

“Let me go,” I say.

“Not if you’re going to hit me again.”

I struggle futilely against him. He’s still staring at me, and it’s setting off all sorts of unwelcome reactions.

The worst thing the king could do was immortalize me. I’m quickly finding I don’t react well to the attention and the adoration.

And that’s what I see in Marco’s eyes. Adoration.

It shouldn’t be there. We hate each other, and unlike the king, there is nothing else to our relationship beyond that.

Marco adjusts his hold on me. He pulls me in close, until our chests are flush against each other.

I bring my knee up, and he only just manages to pivot out of the way. “Jesus. Stop.” He shakes me a little. “Serenity, I am not going to hurt you.”

It’s almost laughable that he thinks I’m the one worried about getting hurt.

“You killed my father, you bastard.” I’m shaking I’m so angry.

It had been justice enough to know that Marco had taken his own life with the same hand and the same gun that killed my father.

But now that he’s so obviously cheated death and lived while I slept … the anger resurges.

“I am not the same man,” Marco says.

This again.

“Screw you and Montes and all of your fucking excuses!” I spit out, jerking against the hands hold me captive.

I’m tired of evil, immortal people telling me this. Like they’re recovering psychopaths. Time can change a person, but it cannot erase their past.

“You will
always
be the person that took the first man I ever loved.”

I swear in Marco’s eyes I see some mixture of surprise and devastation. “Montes never told me Marco did that.”

I rear back, some sick combination of confusion and disgust filling my veins.

He continues on before I can get a word in edgewise. “I’m sorry for you and your father, Serenity, but I am not that man.

“You see,” he says carefully, “I am his clone.”

The revelation is
enough to make me pause.

“You’re a … ?”

I can’t even say it.

Back in the time I left, clones were the things of science fiction, along with flying cars and humanoid robots.

“I am a copy of him,” Marco says. “Same DNA. It’s no different than twins, except that we never shared a womb and we weren’t born at the same time—obviously.”

He says this all as if his existence is somehow normal.

“You’re not Marco?” I say.

It’s still not registering

“I
am
Marco,” he says, “just not the one you knew. I was named after him.”

Suddenly all the pieces come crashing together. No technology could revive the king’s brain-dead friend. So instead Montes made a copy of Marco to keep him company through the years.

That is the saddest thing I might’ve heard yet.

Marco must sense that I’m no longer a threat. His hold loosens on me.

I stagger away from him.

A
clone
. I’m still wrapping my mind around it.

I look everywhere but Marco, and that’s when I remember where exactly we are.

“You were the one watching me,” I say as the realization dawns on me. The noises I heard. I’d been in lingerie one of those instances.

My hands clench. “You
saw
me,” I accuse, my face flushing. I’m ready to throttle him, the pervert.

He doesn’t bother denying it. “I wasn’t
trying
to watch you undress.”

I narrow my eyes at him.

That
voice
. I can’t help but hate it. I recognize that this is not the same man who crossed me years ago. That doesn’t change the fact that everything about him reminds me of the pain his twin put me through.

“I just wanted to see you, and the king forbid me from meeting you until he’d broken the news. So I came here,” he continues. “He doesn’t know that I can access these passageways.”

“Why did he hide you from me?” I ask. I’m still angry and more than a little spooked, but I also feel an unbidden wave of pity. Pity for this creature who will always live in his predecessor’s shadow, and pity for a king who must create his own friends because no decent human would truly and willingly become that man’s companion.

Marco glances at my hands, which are still balled into fists. “I imagine he was trying to prevent this from happening.”

The strangeness of the situation is beginning to wear off. I glance beyond Marco’s shoulder.

“The king’s room is at the end of this hall,” Marco says.

I return my attention to him.

“That’s what you’re looking for, right?” he adds. “You came from the king’s study.”

It’s not good that he knows that. The whole point of being in Montes’s office was to draw as few eyes as possible. And now Marco’s dangling that piece of information in my face. And I don’t know whether he intends to blackmail me with it, but I’ve had enough of men trying to play me.

I lean forward, momentarily setting aside my disgust for the face this man wears. “I don’t know who you are, but I will tell you this: if you threaten me in any way, you will regret it.”

I’ve scared a lot of people in my time. Marco does not appear to be one such person.

He inclines his head. “I won’t tell the king you were in here if you don’t tell him I was.”

I stare at Marco for a long moment, then I turn on my heel and leave.

“I’ll be seeing you around, Serenity,” he calls to my back.

“For your sake,” I say, not bothering to face him, “you better hope not.”

Chapter 23

Serenity

I push the
framed painting softly open. Beyond it, the king’s bedroom is dark. As quietly as I can, I slip through the doorway and close the door and painting behind me. They shut silently.

I tiptoe across the room, removing my clothing as I go.

It’s still odd, sleeping skin on skin with the king. I enjoy it, much to my shame. Too many years spent without touching of any kind has left me famished for it. And Montes is all too ready to provide the contact I desire.

I pull back the sheets and slide into bed.

Several seconds later, the king’s arm drapes around my waist and he pulls my back to his front.

“I am king for a reason,” he whispers into my hair.

Immediately, I stiffen in his arms. He doesn’t sound sleepy. Not even a little bit.

He brushes my hair away from my ear, his touch proprietary. “I will let you have your secrets,” he says, “so long as they serve me.” His hand skims down my arm, then lays flat against my stomach. Idly, his thumb begins rubbing circles into my skin. “The moment they no longer do, my queen, bargain or no, I’ll strip you of your power.” His hand continues down my outer thigh. “And I will enjoy it.”

“And how will you know when my secrets no longer serve you?” I ask.

He presses me even tighter into him, until his body feels like a cage and I am his prisoner.

He’s quiet for several seconds, but not because he’s at a loss for words. He’s toying with me again. I can tell by the way he’s still calmly stroking my skin, building up the tension between us.

“You are not the only one with secrets, my queen.”

“Secrets like Marco?”

The king falls silent again, and now I do get the impression he’s at a loss for words.

“You met Marco?” His tone changes from threatening to shocked.

“Unfortunately,” I say.

He rolls me onto my back so that he can study me. The moon’s bright enough to cast him in shades of blue.

“I was going to tell you,” he says.

“Just as you were going to wake me from the Sleeper?” I say, the comment biting.

He moves a wisp of my hair from my face. “I felt it better to wait until you had adjusted. You hate me enough as it is. Marco was supposed to make himself scarce.”

“Well, Marco has his own ideas.”

Now that neither of us is pretending to be asleep, Montes strokes his finger down my nose and across my lips. “What, I wonder, did my vicious queen do to him?”

His hand finds my own and he rubs his thumb over my knuckles. Even in the dim light of the room I can see the smile he cracks when he feels the scabbed skin. “I’m disappointed, Serenity. Here I was hoping someone else might get a taste of your wrath for once.”

“I thought you had brought him back to life,” I whisper.

He stares at me for a long time. “You thought I had woken him and left you asleep,” he clarifies.

It’s times like this that I seriously question whether Montes was ever human. It’s not just his lifespan that’s unnatural. It’s the way he sees right through people.

“And you thought I’d be mad when I found out,” I say.

“You’re not,” he says it like a realization.

“I was. And then Marco explained it all to me.” Now I’m just disturbed.

The king brushes a kiss along my knuckles. “Your reactions always were so refreshing. How I’ve forgotten.” He presses my hand to his face. “How I wish to remember.”

Now I look away. Even though fighting this magnetism we have is futile, I won’t go quietly into it.

“Give me your eyes, Serenity.” The pitch of his voice his lower, more intimate.

Reluctantly, I do so.

His gaze holds a million things. He was never one to unburden himself with his feelings, but his eyes rarely lie.

Endless want. Hope. Grief. Love. Regret. Disbelief. I see it all.

I could resist him when he had no weaknesses, when I thought he was pure evil.

But this strange, time-wearied Montes who has lived a lonely existence for lifetimes and lifetimes, I can’t fight him. I can’t fight this. Us.

“I love you,” he says.

“
Montes
,” I say. It sounds more like a plea.

He lowers himself to his forearms, his bare skin meeting mine. “I love you,” he repeats. “I know that makes you uncomfortable. It’s made me uncomfortable for longer than I care to admit. But now I’ve gone a hundred years without saying those three words, and I’ve nearly lost the only person I want to say them to. So you’re just going to have to listen to them.”

He’s now petting my hair, combing it back with his fingers. Now all I can see of his face are the sharp slashes of his jaw and the shadows that caress his high cheekbones.

He’s terrible and magnificent. My monster. We are the two loneliest people in the universe, but we have each other.

“Tell me you love me,” he whispers.

I shake my head. “Never.”

“Liar,” he says softly, a small smile playing on his lips.

“I told you a long time ago you’d never get all of me,” I say.

He reaches over to the side of the bed and clicks on a side lamp. “And I have always told you that you’re mine,” he says, returning his attention to me. “Every bit of you. Even your love.”

He bends down, and I think he’s going to kiss me. Instead, he murmurs, “We’re going to play a little game.

His lips skim my jaw. “I’ll ask you a question, and you’ll either answer it honestly, or you’ll touch me where I tell you to.”

It’s an iteration of the drinking game we used to play. Only this one has managed to incorporate our deal into the mix.

“I don’t want to play any of your games.”

He shifts against me, and I feel it all the way down to my core. The bastard knows what he’s doing.

“Too bad,” he says.

I exhale. “I really pissed you off today, didn’t I?” I can’t help the satisfaction unfurls at that thought.

“You caught me off guard,” he corrects. “And I’m glad for it. My wife should be my equal. But now, you’ll pay for it.”

“The king and his games,” I murmur.

“Do you love me?”

He wastes no time diving right in.

I lift my chin. “Pass.”

He grins, his white, white teeth striking in the dim light. “Kiss me.”

I stare at him for a beat, and then, gently, I pull his head down and brush my lips against his. It’s over before it’s even begun. Not that I’m trying to get out of anything. I know how this ends.

“When was the first time you felt something other than hate for me?” he asks.

It’s my turn to play with his hair. I rub a stray lock between my fingers. Montes unconsciously leans into the touch.

“That evening you brought me to the pool house,” I say.

“I remember that,” he says, gazing down at me fondly.

His memory has aged a hundred years. Will that ever stop shocking me?

“You skipped my turn,” I say.

“Tonight you don’t get to ask questions,” he says.

I frown, digging my hand deeper into his hair. “Is it wrong for me to want to know who you’ve become?” I ask.

I’m getting better at manipulating words to my will. It’s what my father was so good at. What Montes is so good at. And it was almost inevitable that I would pick up this habit.

He’s quiet. But then, “Forever is a long time to spend by yourself.”

He’s terrible and terrifying and monstrous and so ill deserving of any goodness, and yet—

And yet my broken heart bleeds for him. I have the strangest urge to run my hand down his back and comfort him as neither of us has been comforted in a long, long time.

“That’s the last question you get to ask,” he says quietly.

I don’t fight him. His past sounds like a dark place, one he doesn’t want to dwell on. I know all about terrible memories; I won’t force him to divulge his.

“Do you love me?” he asks, drawing me back to the present.

My brows knit. “I already answered this question.”

“And I am asking it again.”

I really shouldn’t feel bad for him. He’s up to his usual tricks.

“Pass,” I say.

Another triumphant smile. “Touch me.”

I place my hand at the juncture between his jaw and his neck. My thumbs stroke the rough skin of his cheek.

“Lower,” he says gruffly.

My touch moves down the column of his throat until it rests over his heart.
My
heart. The one he stole all those years ago and now holds captive. I can hear it beating. Long after I die, it will continue to beat in his chest.

His nostrils flare as some emotion overtakes him. “Lower.”

I feel my cheeks heat. I know what he wants. I run my hand down his chest, over the ridges of his abs, and I wrap my hand around him.

This is so lewd.

“Happy?” I ask, raising my eyebrows.

“I will be,” he says.

I release him. “Next question.”

I can tell I’m amusing him. It’s no one feature of his, but all of them—the wry twist of his lips, the shine of his eyes, the way his hands dig themselves deeper into my flesh.

“What is your favorite thing about me?”

I search his face. “It’s always about you, isn’t it?” I don’t bother to add any sting to my words. I’m not trying to wound him. But I’ve taken it upon myself to dole out all the hard truths that Montes needs to hear.

“You follow through on most of your threats,” I throw out.

He shakes his head, his eyes glimmering. “I know for a fact you like certain parts of my anatomy better than my follow through. But I’ll let that one slide.”

How magnanimous of him.

“Do you love me?” he asks.

I give him a hard look. “You’re not going to wear me down on this one, Montes. Pass.”

His hair tickles mine as his lips brush against the skin of my cheek. “Touch yourself.”

“
Montes
.” It’s one thing to be intimate with the king. Quite another to do this in front of him.

“We can stop,” he says. “Tomorrow morning when we sit in on the meeting with my officers, you can inform them that you are no longer willing to follow through with your role in our war efforts. I will not stop you. I want my queen safe above all else.”

He’s goading me, but at this point I can’t tell if he wants me to dissolve all my plans or to continue doing things for him that make me distinctly uncomfortable.

Knowing how twisted he is, I’d say he be happy with either outcome.

I glare at him and reach between us, placing my hand between my thighs.

He tears his gaze from me and his eyes dip down. I hear his breath hitch.

A moment later he extricates one of his hands from my hair and uses it to cover mine. Wrapping his fingers around mine, he begins to move my hand up and down, up and down.

Now it’s my breath that’s picking up; I’m inhaling and exhaling in stuttering gasps.

Montes watches the way he works me. The whole thing is embarrassing and exhilarating all at once. If only I could have one uncomplicated emotion towards this man. Everything he does, everything we do, is mired in complexities.

His gaze returns to mine. “Are you not having fun?”

“
Fun
,” I say, my voice breathy, “is not a word I would use to describe your games.”

He leans in close, dipping both his fingers and mine into my core. “Then you’re not doing it right.”

Montes adjusts himself, so that he’s right at my entrance. “The game’s over—for now.”

He takes my lips then. The kiss is rough, almost abrasive. As he does so, he thrusts into me. I’m gasping into his mouth, arching into him.

Gone is the girl who hated the king. Gone is the man who took everything from her. When we are like this, we’re just two lost souls coming together.

He moves against me and I stare up at him. I bring a hand up and caress his cheek, swallowing as I do so.

“We lost a child.”

I don’t know why I say it. Maybe I’m feeling oddly vulnerable with him. Despite everything he’s done to me, this man has buried himself in the deepest recesses of my heart. And we’ve been through things together, things that pulled us close when they should’ve torn us apart.

Whatever mood rode us a minute ago, it’s been replaced with something far heavier.

“We will make another,” he says.

It’s such an enchanting thought. To create rather than destroy. That even we are capable of it.

I pull him closer. He moves gently against me, his strokes slow and tender.

There is no question how he feels about me. I’m the one holding back, refusing to give in fully. And I don’t want to. God, I don’t.

After we finish, the king tucks me against him, our skin is damp with sweat. He places a soft kiss behind my ear. “Tonight, you win my queen.”

I haven’t won anything. I can see that even if I hold out, there is no way this ends well for me.

Montes shifts, clasping me in close. “Now,” he says, “sleep.”

And I do.