Savage Reign

by Melody Locklear

  SAVAGE

  REIGN

  SAVAGE

  REIGN

  THE ZODIAC CHRONICLES

  MELODY LOCKLEAR

  Copyright © 2019 Melody Locklear

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN-13: 9781707234530

  DEDICATION

  To Angelina, for being the first to finish my book and for demanding to know what happened next, even when I didn’t. Welcome to the Rebellion.

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE—

  CHAPTER SIX—

  CHAPTER SEVEN—

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY THREE

  CHAPTER FORTY FOUR

  CHAPTER FORTY FIVE

  CHAPTER FORTY SIX

  CHAPTER FORTY SEVEN

  CHAPTER FORTY EIGHT

  CHAPTER FORTY NINE

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  EPILOGUE

  —CHAPTER ONE—

  AMARA

  DEATHBRINGER

  I can feel death all around me.

  It gives life to the low thrum of magic twisting underneath my veins, begging to be released. This place, Vakrov, death is everywhere. I see it in this palace, in this dungeon, and I saw it in the villages I was dragged through to get here.

  Not I. We. Me and Haven.

  I shudder to think of what the poor princess of Limacore is being put through right now. Prince Bastian is a devious and clever prince. He stole me away at the exact moment Theon Beleros was attacking the Limacoran palace looking to rescue his sister and take me and Kara captive. Everyone will believe I am with him. No one will suspect the powerful prince of Vakrov, still grieving over the sudden death of his father.

  King killer. That is what they call him here. If the rumors are true it would not surprise me. Nothing really does anymore. The worst has happened. The boy I once loved has betrayed me, again, and this time I cannot forgive him. Worst of all, he does not care for my forgiveness. He wants nothing from me, but my blood.

  Surprisingly enough though, the dungeons do not suppress my magic. There is no bracelet on my wrist to lock my magic inside me. I am free to use it as I please. Of course, the dungeon is my home now so there is no need to remove it. The door locking us in is immune to the elements. All six of them.

  Thank whatever god is looking out for us for small mercies. I am not alone. It is a shared cell, which comes with its benefits and its drawbacks. It’s nice to have companionship, especially since everyone in this cell is here because they are different. Still, it’d also be nice to not have to share one room with fifteen other teenagers.

  A gentle hand on my shoulder lurches me out of my own head and nudges me forward.

  I panic as the floor rushes up to meet me.

  Or, rather, I rush down to meet it.

  I land with a painful thud on the cement floor and take note of three different spots that will surely be bruised later. With one quick thrust forward I am on my feet and cutting Finn Porter a look of disapproval.

  “Sorry, Boudelaire. I told you to wait for me.” He inclines his head to me with a smirk, his dusty dark hair falling down in front of his equally dark eyes.

  “If we had to wait around for you, Porter we’d never get anything done.” Missy Fitzpatrick winks one of her pale blue eyes at Finn from where she stands up in the rafters, the same spot she had just nearly thrown me to my death.

  “I’m not even sure how throwing me off the rafters is going to strengthen my core anyway.” I say, anchoring my neck to the side until I hear the crack.

  “It’s all about balance.” Missy responds cheerfully.

  “Of which she has none.” Finn says dramatically.

  I take the jibe in stride, though it speaks to an insecurity within me I cannot deny. Balance. If I’d been able to do that, balance my duty at the Limacoran palace with finding out what Theon Beleros wanted from me maybe I would have seen the other conspiracy going on around me. Maybe I wouldn’t be here, in his cell, his captive. I suppose I have been a captive of Keenan Volterra for a very long time. Only now he has prison bars to keep me caged.

  His betrayal still stings and I suppose what stings even more is he doesn’t even come to see me. He avoids me at all costs. But I wish he would come, just so that I could spit in his face. But he doesn’t. He’s forgotten me, the pretty village girl he doted on for years. His best friend’s sister. His sister’s best friend. None of it matters to him. Not even me.

  Finn waits for me to laugh at his joke as I always do. When I don’t he pulls back, dark eyes watching me as I go to the back of our cell to the row of cots divided only by a few feet of space. I lay out on mine. Thoughts and memories have tainted what joy I do find in the comfort of my new friends. Missy moves to console me, but Finn grabs hold of her arm to stop her.

  “Leave her be.” he tells her. Missy casts one more look my way before accepting Finn’s decision to let me work this out on my own.

  When we hear footsteps then I expect it to be a servant with our breakfast or an armed guard to take us all down the hall to the showers. Three times a week we get a five minute shower with water cold as ice and a change in our prison attire, which isn’t much. Gray cotton pants and a white T-shirt. Plain black shoes. Still, it’s more than Clea ever got back in Limacore. But it isn’t a servant or a guard. And when I see the face appear in the small little window in the solid oak door locking us in this forsaken place, I wish it were any of them. Anyone, but him.

  Missy slaps my hand from where she’s perched beside my bed. I move to slap her back, but electric blue eyes peering in at me stop me. I freeze in a half-seated position on my cot. Those eyes, those familiar blue eyes that could pierce even the darkest of nights, stare right through me all the while meeting my own, once an intense indigo blue. Now faded and bloodshot.

  Keenan has come to our cell exactly three times since I landed myself here. The first was to put me here. The second he hadn’t even come for me, but for Missy. The third was to take a few vials of my blood, for his king killer no doubt. Every time he comes the prisoners know what to do. Keenan is known well in this prison and it makes me wonder what position the traitor prince has given him here.

  As instructed, all of the prisoners move to the back of the cell, creating one perfect line against the wall in between each cot. I don’t move though. I’m frozen by that electric gaze, but Missy grabs my hand and yanks me to the spot between her cot and mine just as Keenan enters the room.

  My eyes fly to Keenan’s wrist, to the bracelet made of the same magic a
s the door, making him immune to the elements while still being able to use his own against us. It’s a clever twist to the bracelets that have been used on me in the past, to suffocate my magic. Why suffocate our magic when they can just make themselves immune to it?

  When Keenan’s eyes fall on me I know he’s here for me. I know it in my bones. I know it in the way he stares after me with that smug smirk on his face.

  “Mysteria Fitzpatrick.” Keenan finally speaks, his eyes lingering on Missy’s face, avoiding mine. “Griffin Porter. Amara Boudelaire. Step forward please.”

  Finn moves first from the other side of Missy. Missy starts to move next and when I don’t follow suit she tugs me along with her. I don’t look at Keenan’s reaction because I know my stubbornness will only amuse him.

  “Put these on and then follow me.” Keenan produces three bracelets from his pocket, three bracelets like the one I wore from Baal to the Limacoran palace only months ago. There to suffocate our magic so that we cannot hurt anyone who doesn’t have a nifty bracelet like Keenan does.

  My friends again act first, taking a bracelet from Keenan’s hand. Missy tries to take the third for me, but Keenan pulls his hand back so she can’t. “Ah, ah, ah.” He shakes his head at her, moving his eyes to me. His eyes are made of the coldest of stares, yet how hot they burn. “Miss Boudelaire, if you want out of this cell I suggest you do as you’re told.”

  I remain perfectly still. The only thing that stands on the other side of this cell is more captivity, more blood donations, more of him. Keenan Volterra, the only boy with the power to break my heart.

  “Haven would really like to see you.”

  That makes me act. Haven Novak, princess of Limacore, betrothed to the new king of Vakrov. She’s the only one in this whole place that I can trust apart from Finn and Missy. Ironic since it was only a few months ago when I could barely trust her family with a letter written to my father, let alone my life.

  Finally, I reach out for the bracelet and when I do he takes the opportunity to grab hold of my hand. A strangled gasp of surprise escapes my throat when Keenan yanks me forward so that his lips are at my ear. His breath on my neck makes me cringe inward.

  “There is no one coming for you, Mara.” His former nickname for me stings and he knows it. “So if you don’t want to live out your days in this cell with these criminals it would be in your best interest to obey me.” When I don’t respond he shakes my arm roughly. “Are we clear?”

  “Crystal.” I say firmly, finally meeting those eyes head-on. It cripples me.

  “Good girl.” He grins cockily and I rip my arm from his iron grip.

  When I pull my wrist back I see the bracelet there. Out of habit I run a hand over the leather material as my magic locks up inside me. I shut my eyes for a brief moment, letting the sudden separation of me and my magic set in. Before I can open them again I am wrenched out of the cell ahead of Finn and Missy.

  The palace in Vakrov isn’t anything special. A palace is a palace. The colors are different, the king is different, but everything around him and his people is relatively the same. Gilded paintings of unfamiliar kings, chandeliers made of twinkling dark crystal, guards who stand like statues, each of them with their own lives, their own children. I watch each of them as I go, trying to imagine what is running through each of their minds. Do they miss their family? Do they even like their king? Would they lay down their lives for the king killer or do they just pretend like they would for the sake of their job, their lives?

  Keenan seems content to let me admire everything as we go. It’s the first thing I’ve seen outside the walls of the dungeon in weeks. Even the room we shower in is in the confines of the cold, dark depths of the dungeon.

  Missy curls her fingers around my hand from my right side, stopping my wandering eyes from admiring anything more. Her hands are unusually warm and I know it’s that bracelet, cutting her off from her magic, her ice.

  Missy Fitzpatrick has opened up a world of questions for me. She is nothing I have ever encountered in my time in this Zodiac world of tricks and lies. She can turn water to ice and freeze every drop of blood in your body in under a minute. It’s also the reason she found herself in a cell, having been there only a few weeks longer than me. For having unexplainable magic. Like me.

  I give Missy’s hand a gentle squeeze to assure her that she is going to be fine. We are not being led off to our execution. Though I can’t know that for sure. Not for her or Finn, but me, I know whatever waits for me on the other side of this palace is not death. My blood is far too valuable to the Vakrovian prince.

  I expect our destination to be the throne room to see the mourning prince still faking grief over his father’s untimely death. But instead we find ourselves in what appears to be a dressing room. There are a few different stations with a woman at each one. There’s one for changing where a row of dresses and suits hang. Then there’s one with an abundance of makeup supplies, some stuff I’ve never even seen before. At the last one a woman stands in front of a chair set before a large mirror. Hairdressing station.

  “What are we doing here?” Missy asks hesitantly.

  “What do you think, Miss? Heaven forbid Prince Bastian have to subject himself to the ugliness that is his dungeon rats.” I say, my voice dripping in sarcasm. “Half of court life is pageantry. They want us to die pretty.”

  “You think I’m pretty?” Finn jokes, batting his big brown eyes at me.

  I wink at Finn playfully. “Come on, Finn. You know you’re pretty.” I say it to get under Keenan’s skin and, to my great surprise, it works.

  “Enough.” Keenan hisses, grabs onto my shoulder, and shoves me toward the dressing station. “Ladies, keep it subtle.” he says to the three women waiting to paint us into whatever it is they want us to be. “One hour.” he adds and then he’s gone. I can’t help, but watch him go.

  The first thing the women do is lead all three of us to a back room where we are instructed to shower. Only this time we’re provided with more than soap and one temperature. When it’s my turn I crank the hot water up so high even a fire user would flinch at such heat.

  After our showers all three of us are directed to different stations. In my bathrobe I am seated in the chair in front of the woman at the hairdressing table. “Good evening, my Lady. My name is Ellery and I’m going to take care of your hair. Do you have any requests?”

  Her question throws me. I was fairly certain what we wore today would be a dictatorship. Keep it subtle, Keenan’s words come back to me. I have half a mind to make it as big and loud as possible. Instead I look into the mirror.

  My blue eyes have paled some since my incarceration. My long hair, once wavy and bronze, has also flattened out and lost some of its vibrant color. I look at my face and I hate what I see. Aaric is what I see. Aaric. Kara. Tristan. Kol. Keenan. All of the people I have loved and lost. We wanted change. We wanted to change the world, or at the very least, change the king’s opinion on my kind. We failed in all of it, but if there is one thing I can change it’s this.

  I grab the scissors off the table in front of me and hold it up to Ellery. “Cut it.”

  By the time Ellery is done my hair’s got some of its old bounce back, stopping at my shoulders. My next stop is the dressing area where Marlee there picks out a simple pale violet gown for me. My last stop is the makeup area where Daya paints me up, getting rid of the dark circles under my eyes and putting some color back into my skin.

  When the three of us escape the three women’s clutches Finn wears a sour look and it takes only a moment to see why. His long dark hair that usually reaches his chin has been cut back some so that it hangs just past his ears. Missy grabs a handful of his hair as we both giggle at his expense.

  That’s when Keenan returns and both our smiles fade. Those electric blue eyes fall on me, scanning me over. He reaches out for a strand of my hair and I hear the compliment he wants to give, but doesn’t. Some of his resolve, this mask he wears where he pretends
to hate me, I see the cracks in it. But they seal back up after a moment and the Keenan I know is gone once again.

  “Let’s go or we’ll be late.”

  “Late for what? Our own execution?” Missy says, panicked.

  I just grab her arm and yank her along with me, just behind Keenan. It gives me a chance to look at him, really look at him. His dark hair, almost black, is shorter than the last time I saw him. He’s a little slimmer, but still just as toned as I remember. He’ll be twenty one soon. I’ve always known the age difference between us, but sometimes I forget just how young he really is. Maybe that’s why he turned on me. Maybe he got sick of the pressure of being the oldest. Maybe I should have returned his affection that night at the beach, the first night I encountered Theon Beleros. Maybe then we wouldn’t be here, but back in Baal. Maybe there would have been a white dress. Maybe.

  The closer we get to our destination the more guards there are. When we finally reach two closed doors there are at least two dozen gathered together. They make me nervous. This many guards can only mean one thing. We are, in fact, here for an execution. Missy’s, Finn’s, mine. Maybe all three. Would Keenan really just lead me off to my death without a second thought? Could one fight, one refusal of affection warrant this? You can’t know that anymore, that inner voice reminds me.

  He told me many times that our pyramid would hold, but he was wrong. The pyramid did not hold. It has crumbled in on us and it will take a miracle to rebuild it.

  Keenan communicates a look with one of the guards and then the doors open. Suddenly we’re inside an amphitheater. It’s a large circular arena with tiered seating rising up ten rows on all sides, surrounding the central point of the room. But, while executions are very common in amphitheaters, it isn’t our death we are led to, but a row of seats. There are thousands of people seated patiently, awaiting what? I simply don’t know. I find out when I spot someone carrying out a twinkling crown. It’s a thick, black headpiece with gilded jewels set into each spike. It looks heavy, though it probably only weighs seven to eight pounds. But the gaudy-looking thing is what tells me what we’re all gathered here for.