unForgiven (The Birthright Series Book 2)

by Bridget E. Baker

  I’d rather not take them out together. One at a time is so much simpler.

  I circle back and around, putting them both in front of me, and Nihils and Agate behind me. Agamemnon swings at my face and I let his fist connect to draw him in. I can heal the damage from a half-baked hook quickly. Now he’s close enough for me to hammer quick blows into his ribs.

  Roman calls out from below. “Step it up, guys. This is pathetic.”

  Barrett kicks at my knee, and I leap out of the way, putting space between me and Agamemnon. I’m circling back around though, edging ever closer to Agate and Nihils who are recovering quicker than I hoped. They’re back up on their feet and I’m back to square one.

  “Let’s step this up a bit,” I yell. “Toss us some blades.”

  Roman grins. He likes blood spray. But he’s a punk, so he tosses a blade to Barrett first, and then to Agamemnon.

  I’m stuck ducking and using my forearms to block their slices, and my blood makes the mat slick beneath me. My blade finally sails through the air. I snag the hilt and continue its arc, slicing toward Agate. She tries to leap out of the way but slips and falls in the process.

  I’m about to hit her in the waist with a clean shot that ought to sever her spine when another blade blocks me.

  Nihils.

  I can’t quite stop my smile then, but my training kicks in full force. I pivot, slice and jab at intervals, almost losing sight of my goal. I slide my blade across Barrett’s hamstring and kick him in the chest. He flies into the edge of the ring and I point. He’s out. Roman drags him over the barrier and to the ground outside.

  Then there were three.

  Agamemnon’s shock at Barrett going down makes him sloppy. He thinks I’m distracted by Agate’s frontal assault, so I pull a small dagger from my thigh sheath and throw it at him. It sinks into his chest until it hits his sternum. If my aim wasn’t off, I’d have hit his heart. I swear under my breath.

  I slam my free hand into the pommel of Agate’s sword, knocking it out of her hand, and rush toward Agamemnon. He’s pulling the blade out when I bring my sword down into his chest, severing his subclavian, brachiocephalic, and carotid arteries.

  I kick him over to the edge of the arena so Roman can drag him out to heal. Two to go.

  Nihils’ sword arcs downward and I let it slice into my shoulder before I jump back. Agate has retrieved her sword and approaches from my left. Time to dispatch her so I can apply some pressure to Nihils.

  “Have you two ever dated?” I ask.

  Nihils eyes widen. “Agate and me?”

  “That’s what I’m asking.”

  Agate shakes her head, the tip of her sword drooping. “No, Your Highness.”

  I take my opening and knock her blade wide, and then I strike her in the throat with my free hand, collapsing her windpipe. Then I stab her through the stomach with my blade, the impact shoving her back against the rope. It’s simple to flip her over from there. Her head cracks when it hits the floor below. Should take a big chunk of time to heal all that.

  “So you haven’t made out with her?” I ask quietly.

  Nihils swallows nervously.

  “Not like you did with Cina. Repeatedly.”

  He shakes his head tightly and swings at me.

  I parry easily. “What I find curious,” I say, “is that Cina insists she never kissed you at all.”

  “She’s lying,” Nihils says. “I told you she was upset.”

  I knock his feet out from under him and leap on top, my blade at his throat. “She didn’t pause, or look away. Her heart didn’t race, or her pulse spike. In fact, she was convincing enough in her protests that I believed her, one woman to another. The problem is that, if she’s telling the truth, that makes you a liar, Nihils.”

  His heart rate accelerates. “Why do you believe her over me?”

  “She’s gay, Nihils,” I whisper.

  The blood drains from his face. I let him up and he scrambles to his feet. “Then you know.”

  Now I do. “Why would you do it?” Pain tears through me at the thought of this little worm poisoning my mother, injecting her soap with an agent that weakened her bit-by-bit.

  “I’m not telling you a thing.”

  Fury unlocks the demon inside of me and I play with him. Slicing his left side and then his right. He can’t hope to block as fast as I can carve. Lacerations climb his legs, his arms, and his chest as I circle him patiently. Pain is my oldest friend, but Nihils doesn’t seem to know him. He seems unduly agitated by my tender ministrations.

  “Who made you do it?” I ask. “Who gave you the poison?”

  “Judica,” Roman says behind me. “Enough.”

  “Back off,” I say sharply.

  “I can’t tell you what you want to know.” Nihils’ shirt and pants are so shredded they could fall off at any moment. “Because I don’t know anything else.”

  “Try,” I say.

  “It’s not as simple as you think. Your mother has a lot of enemies, but my master is organized, and not alone.”

  “Who do you report to?”

  He shakes his head. “No way. You’re scary, but not the scariest person on this island.”

  I slow my blows, stepping back. “What about Balthasar? He works for me, you know.”

  “I was worried you’d threaten that.” Nihils pops something in his mouth and grins at me. It’s macabre to be sure, his face bloody, his teeth white. “At least I’m dying with the knowledge that I’ve done my part. Before this year ends, Ni’ihau will burn.”

  He has a kill pill. Rage bubbles over inside of me. “No!” I scream, acting without thinking. He can’t die by his own hand. He deserves worse, so much worse. Torture, punishment, and untold agony before he dies. But now there’s no time for that. Now the best I can hope is to cause his death myself, to deny him the control over the timing. And if I kill him in training, word won’t spread that he took his own life. That would signal his master he’d been found.

  Without any more thought, I bring my sword out and around, separating his head from his body. The body collapses, but the head flies through the air and lands on the ground of the arena.

  Only then do I recall that I’m not alone, not by a long shot. Agate, Barrett, Agamemnon, and Roman I expect. But dozens of faces watch with horror. Not only did I get nothing from Nihils about my mother, but all of these people watched me kill him.

  I don’t care about my reputation, but I can’t have his master go to ground. I can’t lose the one lead I found. How can I fix this mess?

  Roman stares at me like he doesn’t even know me, but the other faces don’t look shocked. They’re vaguely disgusted, but it’s almost like they expected me to behead a random member of the family while training. Because I’m the vicious twin. The insane berserker, some of them call me.

  Fine. If that’s what they think, then that’s my cover. “He supported my sister’s claim to the throne.”

  I hop out of the ring, toss my sword to Roman to clean and stomp from the room. If they want a monster, I’ll give them a bloody monster. Besides, fear is better than pity every day of the week.

  I wasn’t lying when I said I’d do whatever it takes to find justice for my mother. Even if it means that Ni’ihau actually burns.

  13

  The Present

  The nurses flutter around me like mosquitos at first, but I refuse to let them call the cops and I won’t provide any details. Eventually they move along to other patients and leave me here to consider my options.

  Which is exactly what I should be doing.

  “How do we pinpoint exactly where my sister’s compound is located?” I ask.

  Billy borrowed his father’s laptop, thankfully. “Here’s our house.” He points. “And if you look on Google earth, you can follow satellite images north to where you said you came from.” He hands me the laptop. “Now, you can scroll around like this until you find the spot that looks right. Here’s how you zoom in and out. It’s on sate
llite view so you can see actual photos.”

  It doesn’t take long to work out where her compound is, thanks to these disturbing images of the buildings. It’s bigger than I expected. Besides the main house I saw, she has about five other houses circling it. Presumably her people live in them, and who knows how many live in the neighborhood on the other side of the high fence.

  “I can’t go back,” I say. “Not until I’ve avenged my mother.”

  “I thought you said your twin is the queen now.” Billy says.

  I nod.

  “Shouldn’t you ask her what she wants you to do?”

  “Chancery would want me to kill Melina before returning home, trust me on that. She was even more upset by Mother’s death than I was.”

  “Then what would it hurt to call her and check in? Maybe she’ll send you some help.”

  Billy is trying to be helpful, but he doesn’t know me at all. Now that Roman’s coming, I really won’t need help. And I’m not even one-hundred percent sure that I should go back at all. She set me free, so she shouldn’t be surprised or upset if I don’t sit in her shadow like a dog, waiting for orders.

  Maybe I should leave court entirely and live among humans. Chancery considered it, and now that I’ve met some humans, I can see why. They aren’t so bad after all. Not geniuses, by any means, but good in some ways, and insightful too.

  But before I can make that decision, I need to right this wrong. I couldn’t kill Chancery, but I can kill the sadistic, kidnapping, delusional Melina. My father’s shining star who betrayed our mother and then killed her. It’s time for her to go down.

  I spend the next few hours assessing what route I could take inside. I make a list of supplies, and then I develop the first draft of a plan. It’s risky, it’s dangerous, and it’s not a sure thing. But I think I can pull it off. By my calculations, Melina probably has around a hundred and twenty evian guards. I can’t take out that many, even with Roman’s help. But they won’t all be facing me at once.

  I look at this as a multi-opponent fight. I’ll need to circle and attack. Pivot and attack again, keeping them in front of me, keeping my back against the wall. Then I need to get in, eliminate Melina, and get back out.

  “You need a bomb?” Billy’s eyebrows rise. “For what?”

  “You’re reading it wrong,” I say. “I need a flash bomb. I don’t need to destroy anything, but I’ll need a distraction. Several, in fact.”

  He shakes his head. “I don’t want to be involved with that. It sounds like a terrorist attack.”

  “Oh, for the love. I’m not trying to kill anyone but my sister.”

  “Oh good, only one planned murder,” Billy says. “That sounds way better.” He doesn’t sound sincere.

  “No matter your intention, there may be other casualties,” Ambrosia says.

  “There’s always collateral damage,” Judica says, “but it’s worth it in this instance, trust me. The amount of destruction one Alamecha woman can cause is. . . practically catastrophic.”

  “Aren’t you an Alamecha woman?” Billy asks.

  I grin. “Precisely.”

  Eventually Ambrosia falls asleep, and Billy passes out right after her.

  This is my window. It’s been almost six hours since I called Roman. A flight to Austin takes roughly eight hours. Assuming he left as soon as he possibly could, and that our jets are slightly faster than a commercial aircraft, he could be at Maxine’s in the next ninety minutes.

  It’s time for me to ditch my sweet, big-hearted humans. They’re with their dad now, and I don’t want them getting hurt. I’ll send them some kind of note with compensation for their aid when I return home. Even though I know it’s the right thing to do, I struggle with leaving.

  I tiptoe outside the room, and nearly run into a stretcher outside the door where their dad is sleeping. He’s not a bad man, either. Misguided maybe, and too optimistic about his own capabilities, but he means well. I wish my own father had loved me enough to give up his insane causes and be a father, but we don’t always get what we want. In fact, in my experience, we almost never do.

  The sun is just coming up when I walk out of the hospital. No one stops me, or even says a word. Probably because the nurses have changed shifts and the new ones haven’t come to check in with me yet. Ambrosia mentioned the night nurses would be off about half an hour ago.

  I do swipe a Snicker’s bar and two granola bars from the nurses’ station, as well as a bottle of Gatorade. I need food. More than this, but it’ll hold me over.

  I walk casually down to the parking lot before I start running. It’s a solid ten miles to the restaurant based on the map I looked up on the laptop. It won’t take me long, but I want to be waiting for him when Roman finally arrives, even though it won’t be open for hours yet.

  I reach the restaurant and sit down on a bench just outside. I can’t think of any way Melina would know to track me here, but I remain vigilant just in case. The first few moments I look back and forth frenetically, but after that I get bored.

  I’ve never had so little to do in my life.

  My mind wanders, circling back to my human experience. Billy and Ambrosia baffle me. Their father has a job that’s high powered, for a human. He cuts up other humans who are sick—slicing their hearts into pieces and sewing them back together. It must be an agonizing job and a scary one too. He holds people’s lives in his hands every day.

  But he couldn’t save the life of his own wife. She died in spite of everything he could do.

  I’ve only felt a sense of helplessness like that once. When my mother died. Which makes it natural for me to want to right that wrong. Killing Melina will avenge Mother’s death, and then I’ll feel better about all of it.

  Right?

  I shake my head. Of course I will.

  I review my plan backward and forward. With Roman’s help, it should work. I’ll dig under the wall at the weak spot between houses three and four and then follow the line of shrubs they failed to keep properly trimmed. I should only have to kill two, maybe three, guards in order to reach the main house where Melina must be located. The guards will likely be much heavier there, but perhaps not. I’m not sure how well Melina knows me. Will she expect retaliation? Is she expending her resources trying to recover me?

  I don’t know her well enough to have any idea.

  But even if there are twice as many guards as she had the other day, we should be fine. Roman will set the charge out front, just on the outside of her gate. The blast will be large enough to destroy the huge live oak, but mostly it will make a lot of noise and bright flashes. That should draw Melina’s attention to the front of the house, allowing me to sneak into the back with minimal collateral damage.

  Then I just need to find my treacherous sister and end her. Basically my entire life has trained me for that part.

  Getting out afterward will be the true difficulty. Roman will probably offer to create another distraction out front, but any way you slice it, someone will likely notice Melina has died. Escape can’t be planned with my limited knowledge of the setup or personnel. At least I work well on the fly.

  The one thing I won’t do is track back down through the same neighborhood. Ambrosia and Billy have been through enough.

  A red Honda CRV parks on the far side of the empty parking lot. A woman in a dark leather jacket climbs out and eyes me warily. “Ma’am, can I help you with something?”

  “I hope I didn’t alarm you.” Don’t mind me. I’m just a lady with a sword poking out of the back of my shirt. “I’m supposed to be meeting a friend, and I know it’s early, but this is one of his favorite restaurants, so he suggested we meet here.”

  “Oh, that’s fine. But it’s pretty chilly. I need to take inventory, so you’re welcome to wait inside.”

  Why are all these humans so gullible and kind? No evian would buy that story, and none of them would invite an armed person to sit inside with them. “Thank you so much, but I enjoy the brisk air. I’m gr
eat. If it doesn’t bother you, I’ll just wait out here.”

  The lady tilts her head but doesn’t argue. “Alright, but if you change your mind, just tap on the front door, okay?”

  “Absolutely,” I say. “I’ll only be here until my friend shows up.”

  Fifteen minutes later, the woman comes back outside with a plate in one hand and a plastic cup in the other. “I made you some beignets and coffee. I thought you might be hungry out here, all alone.”

  “Thank you,” I say. “But you really didn’t need to do that.”

  “I insist.” She thrusts the plate and cup at me.

  She’s bringing a complete stranger food. . . because she’s worried I’m hungry. The more time I spend around humans, the worse I feel about my attack on China. Are all humans this good? I’m beginning to worry that they aren’t the inferior beings I believed them to be.

  “Do you need to call anyone?” the woman asks.

  I shake my head. “I really am fine, I swear.”

  “Alright, sweetheart. I have a daughter about your age, and I feel terrible about you sitting out here all alone.”

  “Oh,” I say. “I’ll come sit inside if it will make you feel better.”

  “It really would at that,” she says. “I’m Miss Mason, and I own this restaurant. I’ll rest much easier knowing you’re inside where it’s warm and no one can walk right up and snatch you.” I carry my beignets inside, and the coffee too. I eat them all quickly, and my stomach finally stops feeling quite so empty.

  Beignets are delicious.

  “Who’s this friend you’re waiting for?” Miss Mason asks from the other room.

  “Oh, he’s an old family friend. I wasn’t supposed to be here, in Austin, I mean.”

  “You wound up in a city by accident?”

  Hm. It does sound a little strange. “It’s a long story,” I say, “but it was a bizarre set of circumstances that won’t ever be repeated.”