by J. N. Baker
Cody.
“Josh, no,” I protested, pushing him away much to my body’s dismay. “We can’t. Not yet. Not here. If Baldric catches us, he’ll kill Cody.”
“No, he won’t.” The confidence in his voice was chilling. “We won’t let him.”
“What are you—” The words died on my lips as a sharp pain exploded in my chest, making me cry out.
“One day you’ll understand,” he whispered against my lips, kissing me one last time. He yanked the bloody dagger from my heart and the darkness crept in. “One day.”
I gasped, sitting up in the bed. My hand instinctively went to my chest where the dagger had been only moments ago. The dagger I hadn’t seen in months.
I hadn’t had a vision of Josh killing me since before I’d come to stay in Baldric’s castle. It was the longest I’d gone without having one. It may have been foolish of me, even downright stupid, but I’d kind of allowed myself to believe that was the end of it. That maybe the vision was a metaphor for how Josh’s betrayal was like a knife to the heart. Talk about wishful thinking.
There was a time I’d longed for the visions, back when they were still impossible dreams and Josh was still “dead.” I’d cherished them. They were a way for me to hang on to his memory. To spend a fleeting moment with him, even if it wasn’t real. And even if it did end with my death. At least I was able to be with him.
Now that I had Josh back in the flesh, the visions reclaimed their ominous feel. Once a vision is seen, it will always come to pass, William had told me…repeatedly. Cody didn’t believe him. He felt the future was in our hands to shape and mold. As much as I wanted to believe that, William had extensive experience with seers. And now those visions were back.
Which meant Josh was going to kill me.
And the vision made a lot more sense knowing he was one of the Chosen now. A human Josh running a blade through my heart, while it would have hurt like hell on a multitude of levels, wouldn’t have killed me. But now that he was one of the Chosen…a blade through the heart by his hand was a surefire way to send me straight to the bowels of Hell.
It just didn’t make sense. It never had. Josh wouldn’t kill me. Right?
A key slipping into the lock had me nearly jumping out of my skin, a reaction that was very un-Chosen of me, and one William surely would have reprimanded me for. The heavy wooden door creaked open, and despite the vision, I found myself desperately hoping it was Josh.
I should have been used to disappointment at this point in my life.
Baldric stepped into my room, his black eyes weighing heavily on me.
“Are you okay?” he surprised me by asking. “You sounded as though you were in distress.”
Had I cried out while in the vision? And, more disturbingly, how close was Baldric’s room to mine that he was able to hear me?
“My chambers are just above yours,” he said and a smile danced on his lips. “Do not look so alarmed, my dear. I do not read minds. As I told you once before, you are very easy to read. While we should probably work on fixing that, it is rather refreshing.”
I shifted on the bed, holding the blankets tighter to my chest. I wasn’t sure what bothered me more, that Baldric slept literally above me or that I could have cried out something much more incriminating during my vision—something more intimate.
Or maybe it was that his hearing was that good. Damn hybrid spawn of Satan.
I had to get on Baldric’s good side—or his less evil side—and get more freedom if I was ever going to be able to speak to Josh freely. I wasn’t sure how the hell I was going to do that, but I knew for damn sure I couldn’t spend the rest of forever living an arm’s length from the man I loved.
After all, forever was a long-ass time.
“I’m fine,” I finally told him. “Just a flashback of the battle.” Being one of the originals, he’d know a seer didn’t dream. But it was true that sometimes when I closed my eyes, I could still see the faces of my dead people. Namely Cindy and Ryuu. Both of which Baldric had a hand in killing.
The once-general-now-self-proclaimed king took another step into my room and then another until he was no more than five feet from the bed. I forced myself to hold his gaze, staring into those endless pools of black. I’d once asked him what color his eyes used to be and he claimed he didn’t remember. Part of me was disappointed by that.
“You still hate me.” It wasn’t a question. “Have I given you a reason to do so?”
I almost snorted, once again thinking of the people I knew who had died because of this monster. “What haven’t you done?” I shot back.
“This is war, Zoe,” Baldric replied simply. I wasn’t sure he’d ever used my given name. It made the conversation too personal and left me feeling unsettled, to say the least. “Sometimes we have to do things in war that we do not like in order to achieve what we want—the greater good.”
It wasn’t much different than what Lindsay had told me. Only there was no greater good with Baldric. The bloodsucker had betrayed his people, killed the woman he claimed to have loved, destroyed the entire human race, and murdered people I cared about all so he could claim the title of king. World domination was all he wanted. And he was well on his way to getting it.
Those jet-black eyes shifted to the bowl of untouched rabbit stew and I thought I saw hurt flash across them. I guess that answered the question of who had sent it. When his gaze returned to me, he’d hardened his expression once again.
“I am not the villain William has made me out to be,” he said, his voice soft but low. “I only wish you could see that. I hope in time you will.”
Doubt it, I wanted to say as he turned to leave the room. “I want more freedom,” I said instead, stopping him in his tracks. “I don’t want to be treated like a prisoner anymore.”
He turned back to me, watching me for a long minute.
“Make me change my opinion of you and your people,” I rushed to say, already seeing the no forming on his lips. “You want me to stop hating you, well, keeping me locked up isn’t going to do it.”
“You make a valid argument,” he said after another long, uncomfortable minute. “I will consider it.”
And then he slipped out of the room, locking the door behind him.
The next time someone came to my door it was Lindsay coming to tell me Baldric was ready for our training session. After he’d left from checking on me during the night, I’d had trouble falling back asleep. Something about knowing he was so close was unnerving. I should have known he’d want to keep me nearby. You know, in case I suddenly decided I was madly in love with him instead of despising his traitorous guts as I did.
I rolled my eyes as she entered the room, turning my back on her while I got dressed. As juvenile as my behavior was, it felt good. And seeing as killing her was off the table, this was the best I could do.
“Look, I’m sorry I called your friend a whore,” Lindsay finally said after an awkward stretch of silence. I looked up at her from lacing my boots, trying to determine if her apology was sincere or not.
“You have to understand this isn’t easy for me either,” she continued, holding my gaze. “The way you see me and my people as the enemy, that is the same way I view you and yours. I lost friends in that battle, same as you. Some by your hand from what I’ve been told. I am trying to put the past behind me as the king requested, but sometimes it’s difficult—especially when you continue to villainize us.”
I took a moment to process her words and then nodded, standing from where I sat on the edge of the bed. “I can appreciate that. But if you ever say a single bad word about Annie again, I’ll cut your tongue out with a rusty butter knife. That woman is a saint and this goddamned world doesn’t deserve her. If you met her, you’d understand, and I guarantee you’d like her. And, just to be clear, her heart doesn’t belong to William any more than mine belongs to Baldric.”
Lindsay’s brown eyes had grown two sizes bigger by the end of my little tirade. “She isn�
��t with William?”
“That’s what you took from all that?” I didn’t bother to hide my shock. I would have thought the tongue comment would have had a bit more effect. Then again, she was likely used to brutality being in Baldric’s kingdom.
“With what I’ve heard of her resemblance to William’s late wife, I’d just assumed…”
“Don’t assume,” I told her, “it only makes an ass out of you and me.”
With that, I walked to the door and waited for her to open it for me. After all, I was a prisoner and she was my “lady in waiting” or whatever the hell Baldric had deemed her. It was her job to let me in and out of my “cell.” But she didn’t move to open the door.
“We could be friends again, you know,” she told the floor. Was she blushing? “If you only gave this place a chance, maybe we could be close like we used to be, back before there were sides. Cody wasn’t the only person it was hard to leave. You were my best friend.”
I wanted to tell her that would never happen, that I’d never be friends with the enemy, that she’d burned a bridge that could never be rebuilt. Only, that mentality wasn’t going to help me gain more freedom here. And I couldn’t lie, it would have been nice to have someone to talk to, an ally other than just Josh. “Yeah, maybe.”
Lindsay flashed me a guarded smile and then opened the door, leading me through the castle and out into the darkness to where Baldric and I trained along the snowy cliffside. Baldric was waiting for me. With his long dark hair pulled back and his solid black ensemble, he looked like the night itself.
“Let us begin,” he said upon my arrival. When I glanced back, Lindsay was already making her way into the castle.
“Did you consider my request?” I asked.
Those black eyes bored into me and I tried not to squirm under his heavy stare. “I did” was all he said.
“And?” I drawled.
“How about we make another deal,” he said with a smirk that made my skin crawl. The last deal we’d made led to my being here in the first place. “If you can strike me, then I will give you a bit more freedom.”
My jaw dropped. “Are you serious? I haven’t been able to hit you yet.” I didn’t like how whiny I sounded but he wasn’t playing fair. The fact that I expected Baldric, of all monsters, to play fair at all was a sign of my desperation. “You know I won’t be able to do it.”
“Then I suggest you get better.”
And then he lunged for me.
One week. Seven damn days of training and I’d yet to hit the bastard.
Baldric smirked from where he stood in the center of the illuminated training grounds, not a drop of sweat on his smug face. At this rate, I’d never get more freedom. Was this his way of keeping me locked up without taking the blame for it? Maybe he liked keeping me sealed away in his little castle. The thought made my blood boil that much more.
On top of that, I hadn’t seen Josh other than in passing the entire week.
“I want a weapon,” I breathed, hands on my knees as I sucked in air. We were in our fourth straight hour of training. My skin was on fire, my hands were blistered and taking too damn long to heal, and I wanted to shock the smirk right off Baldric’s smug face.
“You are a weapon” was Baldric’s response. Damn him for being so much like William.
“You have a weapon,” I countered.
“I have control of my abilities. You do not. Giving you a blade would defeat the purpose. Again.”
Baldric lunged at me, his sword raised to strike. I dodged his attack, swiveling out of the way and tossing a hand out at him, feeling the power within me swell until the bolt of white-hot lightning ripped through my palm…missing him yet again as he teleported away.
“Son of a bitch!” I shouted, collapsing to my knees and cradling my burned hands to my chest.
“That is enough for today,” Baldric declared, sheathing his weapon.
“No,” I said, struggling to get back to my feet. I was quickly learning that tapping into my new ability was rather draining. It was getting better. Like working a muscle, the more I practiced with it, the longer I could go. “Let’s keep going.”
“Do not be ridiculous. You can hardly stand.”
Baldric appeared beside me, offering me a hand up as he normally did when he knocked my ass on the ground. And just like normal, I didn’t take it. You’d think after the first ten times he’d stop trying.
But then I had a thought. I’d have to time it perfectly. I had only one shot.
Before Baldric retracted his one remaining hand, I lifted mine, accepting his help. His eyes softened, a smile touching his lips as he took my hand in his, the gesture clearly touching him. Too bad for him that wasn’t my intention.
The electricity shot through me, out my hand, and up his arm. The way his eyes bulged as my power enveloped him was beyond satisfying. I hadn’t hit him with my power since our time on the castle watchtower, back when he’d revealed that Tiffany was his spy. Oh, and that he wanted both Josh and me for his own. He’d sworn he would have us too.
And he was right.
Baldric snarled, his fangs extending as he yanked his hand free of mine. He was lucky I was running low on juice. That same move had put William on his ass.
“Gotcha,” I sneered up at him.
His chest heaved with his ragged breaths. “I said we were finished,” he bit out.
I climbed to my feet, noticing how Baldric didn’t dare offer me a hand this time. I cocked an eyebrow. “Wasn’t it you who told me I needed to be prepared for anything? That in battle, people will use whatever advantage they have to win? War has no rules.”
Just when I thought he’d blow his top and strike me, he smiled. Not some small sneaky smile. No, a smile that lit up his whole damn face, highlighting the features that made him more handsome than he deserved to be. And then he threw back his head and laughed.
Had I somehow fried the man’s brain?
“Well played, my dear,” he said once he finally stopped laughing, his eyes smiling down on me with pride I didn’t want. “I am impressed.”
“Will you stop treating me like a prisoner now? We had a deal,” I reminded him.
“A spitfire, just like she was,” he said more to himself than to me.
I hated when he compared me to her. Seraphina. She was one of the original seven Chosen, the one he claimed to have loved and the one he’d killed in the end. Apparently, I looked exactly like her, just as Annie was a spitting image of Gwen, William’s late wife.
There was something so wrong about being coveted because you looked like a man’s dead ex-not-lover that he’d stabbed through the heart when she’d rejected him for another. Super romantic.
“I will uphold my end of our bargain,” Baldric finally said. “You will no longer be locked up like a prisoner. But I would caution you, do not betray this new trust.”
I resisted rolling my eyes. Trust. Right. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
“You know what the consequences would be,” he added, stepping closer, the intensity returning to his eyes.
“Yeah, yeah.” I waved him off. “Death to all my people and all that. Got it. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to go wash up.”
As I turned to leave, Baldric reached out, his metal hand blocking my path.
“I would be honored if you’d join me for dinner tonight.”
I looked out at the turbulent waters just beyond the seaside castle, angry waves crashing against the icy cliffs below.
“Fine,” I said, walking myself back into the castle without the need of a guard. It was a step in the right direction.
After an uninterrupted bath, someone tapped on my bedroom door.
“Dinner is about to be served, my lady,” an unfamiliar female voice called through the wooden door. Whoever it was needed a lesson on informality if she continued coming to my room with messages. And where was Lindsay?
I moved to the door, hand hovering over the knob, wondering if Baldric was true to his
word. My fingers wrapped around the cold metal and twisted, hearing the satisfying click of the handle turning. It was almost as satisfying as seeing Baldric’s eyes bug out of his head when I’d lit him up.
I pulled the unlocked door open, savoring the first taste of freedom. As I stepped out of the room, I nearly ran into Josh’s back. He turned, his beautiful eyes locking onto me and my blackened heart skipped like a lovesick teenager. It took everything in me not to leap into his arms. The joy I felt over seeing him quickly turned sour.
“Why are you here?” I asked, taking a small step back. I had a feeling I already knew why Josh was standing outside my door like he was, and I didn’t think it had anything to do with him hoping to catch me naked in the tub again.
“Nice to see you too,” he whispered, narrowing his eyes at me. Then a little louder, “I am here to accompany you to the dining hall.”
“Baldric!” I shouted, my voice echoing off the stone walls.
It took no more than ten seconds for Baldric to materialize in front of us. “What is wrong, my dear?”
“We had a deal, did we not?” I asked, raising a brow, hands falling defiantly to my hips. Josh took a step back—he knew this look even if Baldric didn’t.
A smile danced on the edge of Baldric’s lips. “That we did. As I am sure you have noticed, you are no longer locked in your room.”
I pointed a stiff finger at Josh. “And instead you are having my door guarded?”
“Of course,” Baldric replied. “He is here to make sure no one unsavory enters your chambers.”
I huffed a sardonic laugh. “What, like you? Let me guess, he’s also here to make sure I don’t leave the room?”
“Not at all.” I hated how nonchalant he was being. This was my freedom we were talking about. Then again, why should he care about my freedom? “He will take you anywhere you wish to go within the castle walls.”
I saw red. “For fuck’s sake. I don’t need a damn babysitter,” I raged.