Long Live The King Anthology: Fifteen Steamy Contemporary Royal Romances

by Vivian Wood

  Avery has downloaded these books on her phone about PTSD and repressed memories. She reads them out loud to me, but I’m not really sure if they’re for me or her.

  It takes days before her worry level starts to rise.

  Breaking out of this gilded cage will require more than ordinary worry.

  Over a breakfast of oatmeal and grapefruit slices I say, “He’s not coming back.”

  Her hazel eyes meet mine, panic pure and strangely beautiful. “Penny?”

  I pick up my spoon, wondering about the best way to convince her. Damon is going to crush the last small piece of his humanity torturing his father, who also happens to be after you. No, she wouldn’t rush to Jonathan Scott’s aid. And that’s the way she would see it.

  He’s not the one in danger. What he did to me, the way he violated me, it’s unbearably intimate. He knows things about me, private things, but I know things too. Like the fact that he wants to die.

  He wants to be tortured, for whatever insane reason is in his head.

  “Why did you say that?” Avery demands. “What do you know?”

  “He never said goodbye.”

  She gives me a hard look. “If you mean Gabriel, he’s coming back. Any minute now.”

  “Him too.”

  “Penny. Who didn’t say goodbye?”

  “Damon.”

  She hides her relief. “Do you want him to come back?”

  Only with every cell in my body.

  I want him to come back whole, not as the monster he hunts. I shrug, swishing my oatmeal around in the bowl. Avery is always pushing me to eat more. Doesn’t she realize that I’ve survived on less my whole life? This is what I need her help with—getting us out of this fortress so that we can find Damon.

  “Maybe we can visit the Den one of these days. We’ll get Gabriel to take us.”

  Does she really think that’s how it will happen? That Damon will let us visit him for tea in the afternoon? That her precious Gabriel will come out of this unscathed? No, she wants to believe that. I understand about that. “He needs help.”

  She bites her lip. “Do you ever hear voices? Voices that aren’t there?”

  All the time, but not the way she means. I think she has repressed memories, ones that are coming out to haunt her. My memories live on the surface. They keep me cold company, even when I’m alone. “You definitely can’t trust me.”

  Her eyes widen. “What?”

  I feel a little guilty for this, but I need Avery to be afraid.

  Need her to understand the enemy the men are facing. It’s not that he doesn’t care about their souls. It’s his goal to burn them. I understand Jonathan Scott in a way no one else does, maybe even his son.

  “Run and tell your daddy that Jonathan Scott is here.”

  Sometimes I wish I could push the memories down, the way she does. But that would be such a complete aloneness. I guess they bring me some comfort after all, memories of the terrible Jonathan Scott. I think I’m finally getting through to her when we hear footsteps outside.

  I watch with an aching chest the hope across her face.

  The doctor comes into the kitchen. Hopes dashed.

  He looks as rough and jagged-edged as ever, his shirt sleeves rolled up revealing thick forearms and some kind of pale tattoo on his smooth freckled skin.

  “How are you feeling?” he asks me.

  I like Anders, because I don’t have to pretend around him. Whatever’s in my head, he seems to understand. “I used to dream about trees,” I tell him, but I don’t mean trees. I mean the wild boy who lived in them. The pretend-life we could have lived if he stayed. “About sunshine. And dirt.”

  He simply nods. “Better, then.”

  I am doing better, strangely better than Avery herself. It seems strange, like maybe I should be more broken by what happened. Then again there’s no timetable for recovery. “I know it doesn’t sound pretty—dirt. The smell of it, thick and strong. It means you’re free.”

  Even in my fantasies we don’t live in a castle. If he had stayed we would have lived in the woods, would have fished in the lake, would have walked barefoot and wild.

  The good news is that Avery comes up with an elaborate plan to escape the mansion. That it’s such a secret confirms every fear I’ve had about our positions here. Prisoners.

  The bad news is that she thinks she’s leaving without me.

  I sneak after her and the security guard on her tail, making it into the trunk of the black SUV before the door closes.

  “What are you doing?” Avery whispers, her eyes wide with surprise.

  With a sigh I burrow myself into her body. She knows exactly what I’m doing.

  After a moment her body relaxes, accepting me.

  It’s actually pretty impressive, the feint she set up so they would think she left with a delivery truck from earlier. The security guard drives us off the property himself.

  Less impressive when we sneak onto the streets of west side. That’s where her plan ends, with two young women stranded in the worst part of town with no money. Only a rich girl, honestly.

  “Tanglewood Sober Ride,” I tell a surly bus driver, dragging Avery back with me before anyone can protest. The program is rarely used by people who actually should use it. More by people who want to joy ride on moldy old buses, which tells you everything you need to know about the state of the seats.

  The bus shakes violently as it begins moving, knocking Avery off balance.

  I drag her into the seat next to me.

  “Thank you,” she says, sounding breathless.

  All I have for her is a small smile. We make a pretty good team, though I’m not going to tell her that. I hope we never have to break out of a multi-million-dollar home again.

  “We should go to the Den,” she says. “It’s on Fourth Street, once you go past the train tracks and—”

  I squeeze her hand. These are my stomping grounds. “I know.”

  The buildings get more narrow as we approach the historic district. The alleyways more winding, every building with three secret exits leftover from the prohibition.

  On Fourth Street I pull the cord, making the bus stop.

  We reach the Den to find the door open, the fortress completely dark. Empty. At least that’s how it looks from a few feet away. When we reach the short steps, we see him. Anders. The doctor. Spread out on the stairs like some kind of gruesome warning sign.

  Avery kneels beside him, pressing her hands to his chest, coating her hands in blood. She takes off her sweater and pushes it against the wound.

  He coughs. “Don’t.”

  I can’t help but think pain is a good sign at a time like this. It means he’s alive and feeling. Then again that sounds like something Jonathan Scott would say.

  “You’re losing blood,” Avery says, clearly panicking.

  “Don’t,” he coughs again, his words mangled.

  Panic descends on me like a heavy fog, keeping my feet in the same place, blurring my vision. It feels too much like being underwater, this fear. Too heavy to possibly fight.

  Avery looks back at me, as if I might have the answers.

  “He’s not here,” I say, because I know he won’t be upstairs.

  “Gabriel?” she asks.

  I shake my head. It’s Damon. It’s always been Damon.

  Anders drags her close. “Don’t go to him. That’s what he wants.”

  That is what Jonathan Scott wants, but then he orchestrated this violence. He’s the conductor, keeping all of us playing. We’re all just instruments to him. Even Gabriel, rare and beautiful.

  Avery calls the police while I consider bolting. I want to find Damon, to protect him. At the same time I want to run far away from here, to hide in the trees somewhere, to live off the ruined land.

  The truth is that I will go find Damon. It was always leading to this.

  I only don’t want to take Avery with me. It’s too dangerous. And she’s too innocent.

  Before
I can make a decision, she turns to me. “He sent you to me, didn’t he?”

  There are pieces of her story available to me—the virginity auction that Damon Scott ran that sold her to Gabriel Miller. Her enmity with him, her eventual trust.

  And now her capture in his castle.

  “I don’t know,” I whisper, not entirely sure what connection she has to Jonathan Scott.

  Her gaze is fierce. “You’re going to take me to him.”

  “No,” I say, shaking my head. She doesn’t belong in that mental hospital.

  In the end I know she’ll come with me, the same way I came with her. We’re two sides to the same coin. We both love dangerous men. We both will lose ourselves trying to save them.

  I stop by the diner to pick up a knife—a small weapon compared to the ones the men will have, but better than nothing. I also take the opportunity to talk to Jessica, who looks shocked to see me alive.

  “What the hell did Damon do to you?” she demands.

  I glance down to find blood on my hands, leftover from helping Anders get to a bed so he wouldn’t bleed out. “It’s not mine.”

  Her eyebrows shoot up. “Then what did you do to him?”

  All I can do is laugh, which I know makes me look crazy. “I need to ask you something. How do you know if you love someone?”

  She laughs too, a little disbelieving, mostly relieved. “Jesus, you gave me a heart attack. The only person I’ve ever loved is Ky. And that’s… you know it’s not a feeling. Not for me. It’s just a state of being. Of turning to him, every second. Of wanting the best for him. Of wanting to give up everything for him.”

  Impulsively I give her a kiss on the cheek. “Thank you.”

  “Wait,” she says, already sensing my exit. “What are you doing with a knife?”

  We don’t need to get into details, so I give her a small wave and return to the street. Avery waits for me, looking crazy nervous—which is a legit feeling, honestly. I know she’s older than me, but I have this strange protective feeling. It’s not the love that Jessica described, but it’s something like that.

  “When we get there,” I tell her, “I’ll go in first. I know the layout, at least a little bit. And there’s always a chance it’s rigged to explode or something crazy like that.”

  Her mouth drops open. “So you’re going to sacrifice yourself?”

  “It only makes sense.”

  “Are you kidding me? It makes zero sense. If anyone’s going first, it’s me.”

  “I’m nobody,” I say softly, embarrassed I need to explain this. “The way that royalty would have someone taste their food, to make sure it wasn’t poisoned.”

  Avery James wasn’t born in the west side. She doesn’t belong here. Her father was some famous businessman and politician, and even if he eventually lost everything, that doesn’t change her pedigree.

  “I’m not royalty,” she says, sounding horrified. “And no one’s going to die for me.”

  Maybe it’s only girls like me who can see the class system, ones who know they’ll never rise above it. “Maybe not royalty in the official sense. But in every way that counts. Girls like me, no one saves us in time.”

  “Damon did,” she says, certain in this.

  “He kept me from dying, but that’s not what I needed saving from. What Jonathan did to me…” It wasn’t about my body. It was my mind that he wanted. My mind he broke. Some twisted impulse to repeat what happens in that mental hospital. To make everyone else like him.

  “God, Penny.”

  “So you see what I’m saying. I’m already damaged.”

  “Sometimes it’s harder to survive,” she says.

  She does understand. For the first time I don’t feel alone. “Yes.”

  “I won’t let you martyr yourself for me. We go together, okay?”

  After a long pause I take her hand. Together. That’s how we’ll do this. Some small part of my soul eases at the knowledge. And I realize that even with Daddy, with Mama, I have always been alone. Only now with these people, this group of criminals and fallen heiresses, do I feel like I could have a true family. The possibility hangs in the air as thick as the mist hovering over the streets.

  Chapter Twenty

  The smell of pain fills the air. Jonathan Scott is strung up by his wrists, shirtless and clearly beaten. His skin singed and turned black. How long have they been torturing him? By the dead look in Damon’s eyes, it’s been an eternity.

  “What are you doing here?” Gabriel says when he sees us.

  “Looking for you,” Avery whispers, clearly in shock. “How long have you been here?”

  “You shouldn’t be here.”

  She takes a step forward “Is this…a hospital?”

  Jonathan Scott begins to laugh, a horrifying sound. Blood-tinged spittle flies onto the floor. “Does someone look sick to you, little girl?”

  “You’re not looking very well at the moment,” she says.

  “I’ve never been well, not really. Neither have you.”

  Gabriel takes a step forward. “Don’t speak to her. You don’t fucking speak to her.”

  “Gabriel,” she whispers. “What happened to him? Look at all the open wounds, the burns, the blood. Did you do all of this?”

  Heavy scars mangle Jonathan Scott’s body.

  “Some of it,” Gabriel says. “And don’t look so horrified. He doesn’t deserve your pity.”

  “It doesn’t matter what he’s done, no one deserves that.”

  “If you had a full accounting,” Damon Scott says, emerging from the shadows, “I think you would disagree. However, the stories aren’t fit for polite company.”

  I take a step back, afraid to find out exactly how far gone he is. It’s one thing to know the man hanging from rope is evil. Another to see the man I love, his beautiful smile, his hollow eyes.

  He pauses, as if he doesn’t want to frighten me. Too late, too late.

  “Forty years ago they thought they could cure what was wrong with his brain.” Damon waves a hand at the abandoned hospital. “That enough heat or electricity or water could shock the crazy out of him.”

  “That’s barbaric,” Avery gasps.

  Gabriel examines the poker, its tip red and hot. “And ineffective.”

  “Then why are you doing it?”

  He tosses the poker down to the dirty floor. “I’m not trying to cure him.”

  “You’re torturing him,” she says, her voice thick with tears. “It’s one thing to kill someone in self-defense. Even revenge. Another to hurt someone like this, to destroy them, to mutilate his body.”

  Gabriel looks as cold as Damon. As broken. “Have I shocked you again, little virgin?”

  “Yes,” she whispers.

  I touch the back of her hand, my heart aching. I’ve only just found this family and it’s already breaking apart. “He’s trying to save you.”

  She looks at me, uncertain. “How?”

  “Yes, how?” Jonathan Scott says, looking almost playful. All those years ago I thought it was Damon who looked like his father, who sounded like him, but now the tables have turned. Now it’s Jonathan who looks eerily like his son, jovial and haunting. “Tell her how Gabriel Miller bought her and fucked her and keeps her locked away from the world, all in a desperate bid to save her pretty tits.”

  “Get them out of here,” Gabriel mutters.

  I’m not sure who he’s talking about until Damon steps towards me.

  I take a step back. It’s Avery who says, “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “You really shouldn’t see this,” Gabriel says.

  “It shouldn’t be happening! You’ve caught him. You have him. You can turn him over to the cops.”

  “The chief of police is dear old Dad’s drinking buddy,” Damon says, his tone bored. “They liked to torture animals together while they watched the game on Sundays.”

  Avery gasps.

  “Did I say animals?” Damon says, glancing at me with a dark expressio
n. “Sometimes dogs. Sometimes girls. Anyone who would scream.”

  “Sometimes you,” Avery whispers.

  He looks sharply at her. “He doesn’t deserve your compassion.”

  “Maybe not, but what about Gabriel? What do you think this is doing to him?”

  “You can’t save him, little virgin.”

  “You should get Penny out of here,” Avery says. “She’s been through enough.”

  He takes a step toward me. I back up, but he keeps coming. His hand grips my wrist.

  “Come,” he mutters, dragging me behind him.

  “I guess I was useful, after all,” I say as he leads me down the cracked path, taking me away from the mental hospital for the second time. It’s a small improvement that I can walk this time around. I know without asking that it’s not a coincidence.

  “What?” he asks, his voice curt.

  “I was the bait, after all,” I say, my voice small. “Not the one you used to find your father. The one he used to find you.”

  Damon doesn’t answer.

  It’s hard to say who actually won that battle. Damon may not be the one strung up by his wrists, his body tortured and raw, but his eyes look dead inside.

  Damon brings me to the diner, which is about the strangest thing that’s happened to me in days. Which is really saying something. It’s surreal to see the flickering overhead lights and the cracked linoleum that were once so familiar.

  “Why are we here?” I manage to ask.

  “You must be hungry.”

  “No.”

  “When’s the last time you ate?”

  I’m not sure I’ve actually eaten anything today. I was too nervous about the plan, too busy keeping an eye on Avery in case she tried to escape without me. “I’m not sure.”

  His smile is a perfect baring of teeth. “Then let’s just say I’d like to feed you.”

  He holds the door open for me in a parody of chivalry.

  If he were truly a gentleman, we wouldn’t be in this place. It’s where people go when they’re tired and they can’t be bothered to go anywhere else.

  With a gallant sweep of his arm he gestures to the corner booth.