“I love you,” Ari said, his pained face inches away with his eyes locked on hers.
“Ari, no.” Her mind raced, trying to put together what was happening.
“Take care of Sage, please.” He gripped her hand tight.
Her tears started. “Don’t leave me, Ari. You stay here. A healer will fix this.”
“No, he won’t. I love you.”
His eyes fluttered shut, and his face fell slack.
She scrambled out from underneath him and grabbed his face.
“Ari, Ari, talk to me.” She patted his cheeks and kissed his lips, but he didn’t move.
Strong arms grabbed her from behind. “We need to get you out of here.”
“No!” Zwaantie screamed. “Ari, he needs help. Help him.”
Leo turned her around. She couldn’t believe what was happening.
“There is nothing else we can do. You’re not safe.”
“But Ari.”
Zwaantie collapsed in Leo’s arms. He swooped her up and raced with her into the castle.
“No, no. Ari.” She fought against his arms. “Ari,” she screamed again. Leo held her tight as they made their way into a narrow passageway. She was in the arms of the wrong man. Ari should be holding her. She stopped fighting and sobbed. Ari would never hold her again.
Ari was dead.
The End
I hoped you enjoyed reading King of the Stars. If you’re dying to find out what happens next, check out Queen of the Dawn: www.kimberlyloth.com/queen
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Thank you for reading!
Acknowledgements
*slowly backs away from y’all to avoid sharp daggers and rotten fruit*
Thanks go first to all of you who still love me, in spite of the end of this book. I’m going to first thank those who read early copies of the book. Their reactions were priceless and I will admit that I laughed at most of them. Because really, authors have black souls who live to torment poor readers. (For real) For the record, Ari is my favorite character EVER. His death will forever haunt me.
Will, thank you for telling me that people would call me bad, bad names when they finished. (But also telling me not to change it).
Virginia, I’m so sorry. Especially since I know you will have to field all those bad names Will promised. Thanks for supporting me anyway.
Xandi. I’m really glad you had to babysit after you finished the book, because otherwise, I feared for my life.
AJ, predictable? Really? You have an author’s soul. You see everything coming a mile away.
Tiffany, dear sister, I hope you’re still not mad at me. You did send me an email telling me mom started a food fight at a restaurant, so I’m assuming I’m forgiven.
Suzi, your reaction was the best, also, many, many thanks for encouraging me to keep it anyway.
Peachy, thanks for reading and being my friend. Love you!
Kelley, thanks for helping me flesh out the book. Also, I’m really sorry I spoiled it for you. You didn’t get to have the privilege of wanting to murder me.
Brittany, thank you for your superb proofing skills. You rock.
Jaye thanks for making the books beautiful.
Superfans!!!! You guys are amazing. When Amazon messed up and I felt like no one would ever see this poor book, I relied on your kind words and support. Thank you!!!! Agustina Zanelli, Aleksandra Adamska, Alicia Arana, Alie Morgan, Amanda Showalter, Amber Christiansen, Andrea Hubler, Andrea McKay, Anita Hanekom, Angelica Espejel, Anna Ostberg, Anne Loshuk, Ashley Martinez, Astrid Rudloff, Bev Christensen, Beverly Laude, Brandie Gillian, Brandi Williams, Brianna Snowball, Butterfly Mentions, Caitlin Simmons, Caroline Jenkins, Christine Stokes, Cortnee Hancock, Dawn Foster, Debora Coghill, Darcy Whitaker, Debbie Rodriguez, Denise Austin, Derek Williams, Diane Norwood, Faydra Fuller, Girlie Garcia, Hanife Ormerod, Isis Ray-Sisco, Jai Henson, Jennifer Jeray, Jennifer LaRocca, Jennifer McIntosh, Julianne Hainsworth, Katie Odom, Kaydrielle Pickett, Kaylee Truax, Kristen Rummerfield , Ksandra Unangst; Laurie Murray, Leslee Lusk, Linda Longo, Mary Cline, Marie Rice, Mary Martin, Michelle McLain, Nikki Christensen, Pansy Mesimer, Patti Hays, Samantha Murphy, Sara Groenheide, Sarah Jonak, Seraphia Sparks, Shelby White, Shelly Small, Sherry Beasley, Stephanie Pittser, Suzanne Cobb, Tera Comer, Tina Crist, Veronica McIntyre, Yolanda Johnson, and Zoe Cannon.
Check out this excerpt from Kimberly Loth’s exciting series, The Thorn Chronicles.
Birthdays are supposed to be special like my Kaiser Wilhelm rosebushes. They bloom once a year, huge violet and crimson cups full to bursting with petals. When I part the petals with my nose and inhale, I go weak in the knees from the fruity perfume. But my birthdays are more like the daisies that grow alongside the roses. Ignored.
The sink looked odd next to our front door. My mother had it installed after I kept tracking in dirt and fertilizer from my greenhouse. I washed the soil off my hands with the warm water and used a file to clear the dirt out from under my nails. Then I exchanged one dirty pair of ugly tennis shoes for a pair of clean ugly tennis shoes and made my way into the kitchen. Mother didn’t allow a speck of soil from my greenhouse to dirty her home.
Paint on the cabinets peeled away in white curls. A single light bulb gave enough light to cook but not enough to read a recipe. My mother stood by the tiny window, her bottle blonde hair twisted in a bun on the back of her head. She wiped her hands on her apron then smoothed a stray hair from my braid. I knelt down to tie my shoes, anything to avoid her touch. Physical touch burned, even something as little as a finger brushing my forehead.
“Wash your face. We have guests for dinner.” My stomach knotted. I tied and untied my shoes three times, wondering how to respond. Years ago, my father had closed our home to visitors. No one crossed our threshold. I was allowed to leave only to go to school and to church. Well, if you want to call it that. I’ve watched movies in school and I went to the Baptist church until I was eight. Our new church, Crusaders of God, was a bigger shock than no more pants. But Mother and Father called it church.
“Why?” I asked. My curiosity overrode my memory of the last question I asked when Grandma died and I wanted to know why I couldn’t go to the funeral. I stood and waited for the slap and a lecture.
Instead, she smiled like she was hiding something important.
“For your birthday. They’re friends of your father’s from church. We have a big surprise for you.”
Of course. Friends of my father. Nothing ever happened in our house unless he was the center of attention. Even on my birthday. At least they remembered. The surprise concerned me though, as the last surprise they announced turned out to be a drastic lifestyle change complete with long denim skirts and strict obedience. Oh, and no more birthdays. Until now, apparently. Maybe the surprise would be that my father finally found his sanity. That would be an amazing birthday present. I doubted I’d get that lucky.
Dinner took place in the dining room. The cheap chandelier struggled to fill the room with light as two of the bulbs were out and nobody bothered to replace them. Our mysterious dinner guest turned out to be familiar. And not the good kind of familiar either.
Dwayne Yerdin sat at the table. He was a senior at my school but ended up in quite a few of my classes even though he was two years older. I probably shouldn’t judge him. But with his heavy lidded, half-closed eyes, buzzed head, and classic bully laugh, I had disliked him the moment I saw him. Perhaps he would prove my judgment wrong tonight. Seated next to him was a pudgy man in a suit. He wore a tie, but his neck was too thick to fasten the top button. He had the same heavy lidded eyes as Dwayne.
My father, a tall thin man with thick blonde hair, saw me waiting in the doorway.
“Naomi, it’s about time. Come and meet Dwayne and his father. They go to church with us. Here, sit.”
My father indicated the chair next to Dwayne, but I sat across from him instead.
My head buzzed with the act of disobedience and the air smelled faintly of wisteria. I almost smiled. A look of irritation passed over my father’s face, but he didn’t say anything. Next to my father, the pudgy man stared at me with piercing gray eyes.
My mother served us all pot roast and baked potatoes. She piled every plate high but hers and mine. Hunger kept me humble. And skinny. I focused on my food most of the dinner, not wanting to meet the pudgy man’s gaze. Or Dwayne’s. His eyes shifted rapidly around the room as if he were looking for the nearest exit. But when his eyes met mine he smirked, like he knew something I didn’t.
My father and Mr. Yerdin talked of politics and religion, not once acknowledging that anyone else sat at the table. Of course, I shouldn’t have been surprised since more than one sermon had been preached about the place of women and children. We were inferior and didn’t deserve an opinion that differed from our husbands’ or fathers’, so it was best that we just didn’t say anything at all. As the conversation turned to the medical experiments Dad performed on the dog that had been dumped in our yard last week, I tuned out and tried to think of what I would get if I crossed an Iceberg rose with a Sunsprite. A nice pale yellow and only a few thorns. Could be interesting. If Grandma were still alive, she’d appreciate it.
A quick glance at the clock told me they’d only been here forty-five minutes, but it felt like days. After another excruciating hour, Mother presented the cake. The carrot cake (my father’s favorite) had sixteen candles on it. I had not had a cake with candles since my eighth birthday. On that day, the cake was chocolate, my favorite, but that was before Father went insane. I missed those days, the ones before he went crazy. When he would come home and take me canoeing and fishing. When we would wake up early on Saturdays and go to breakfast at Sheila’s Café. I blinked back tears thinking of the father he used to be.
After the cake, I moved to help my mother clean up, but Father put a hand on my wrist, a signal to stay seated. The skin burned where he touched it.
“See,” my father said, “she’s obedient.”
Mr. Yerdin grinned. “Yes, of course she is. I wouldn’t expect anything less from you, Dr. Aren. Dwayne, what do you think?”
Dwayne shrugged and shifted his eyes. Me, I kept my mouth shut and listened for the words that weren’t being said.
Mr. Yerdin eyed me up and down. “Well, she certainly has the required blonde hair and blue eyes.”
“And she’s a virgin.” My father spoke this a little too loudly and I flinched. My mother paused before picking up Mr. Yerdin’s plate. She met my father’s eyes and nodded. Then the corners of her mouth turned up ever so slightly.
My stomach sank at the thought of what my birthday surprise would be. Although part of me did not want to hear the rest of the conversation, but to escape back into the quiet world of flowers and dirt, another part of me needed to know what my future held, where being a virgin was important.
I cleared my throat. Dwayne smiled a wide toothy smile and my father glowered like I’d done something wrong. Which, of course I had, but it would be worth the punishment if I got the answers I needed.
“Could someone please explain?” There. I asked the question. So out of character for me and yet satisfying in a strange way, like the way I felt when a teacher praised me for a good job. I bit my bottom lip and tasted butterscotch, which was weird because the cake we had, contained nothing of the sort. While I knew asking questions was not an act of disobedience, I also recognized the power in the asking. As if I was taking control, even if that control was small. I took a sip of my water. Father hesitated for a moment and then frowned. He looked up and saw my mother standing in the kitchen, her eyes boring into his. He didn’t look away from her when he answered me.
“You’ll be marrying Dwayne.”
Want more? Click her to read it absolutely free: www.kimberlyloth.com
About the Author
Kimberly Loth can’t decide where she wants to settle down. She’s lived in Michigan, Illinois, Missouri, Utah, California, Oregon, and South Carolina. She finally decided to make the leap and leave the U.S. behind for a few years. She spent two wild years in Cairo, Egypt. Currently, she lives in Shenzhen, China with her husband and two kids as a full time author. She loves romantic movies, chocolate, roses, and crazy adventures. She’s the author of Amazon bestselling series The Dragon Kings.
Also by Kimberly Loth
The Thorn Chronicles
Kissed
Destroyed
Secrets
Lies
The Dragon Kings
Obsidian
Aspen
Valentine
Skye
The Kings
Omega Mu Alpha Brothers
Snowfall and Secrets
Pyramids and Promises
Folly and Forever
Monkeys and Mayhem
Road trips and Romance
Stella and Sol
God of the Sun
Prince of the Moon
King of the Stars
Queen of the Dawn (June 2017)
For Xandi
You’ve been my beautiful princess for so long.
You’re going to rock being a queen.
Chapter 1
The Pain
Zwaantie didn’t pay attention to where they were going. She couldn’t see beyond the tears. A pain settled deep in her chest, and she could barely breathe. Leo led her deep into the castle, the concrete walls crowding in on her. They wove around and around, going up stairs and down. She was certain wherever they were going, she’d never been there before.
Ari would never return. Never again smile at her. Never kiss her. Never drive her crazy with his touch. Never make her laugh. Gone.
She hyperventilated and was unable to move. She sucked in long deep breaths, and sobs overtook her.
“Zwaantie, stay with me. We’ve got to get you somewhere safe.” Leo tugged on her hand.
She jerked her hand out of his, collapsed, and curled into a ball, the pain in her chest too much. She could still feel Ari’s lifeless body in her arms, the way his eyes fluttered shut and how his smile fell slack. The blood on his chest. She howled. Ari was dead.
Leo stooped down, swung her up against his chest, and raced down a set of stairs. She cried into his shoulder, clutching and soaking his vest, needing to hang on to something.
Eventually he stopped, pushed open a door, and set her down carefully on a couch. Her sobs were calming now, an emptiness slowly replacing the pain. Would she ever be happy again? The bigger question was, would she ever be free of sadness? It didn’t seem possible.
Leo locked the door and sat next to her. She stared blankly at him. He wiped at his own tears and dropped his head into his hands. The circular room was small but had couches and chairs scattered about. There were no windows, no pictures or tapestries on the walls, only bare stone. Zwaantie rubbed her arms, a chill settling over her.
Leo’s body was deathly still, and for a half second Zwaantie worried that he might be dead as well, but he turned and stared at her.
“I can’t believe he’s gone.” Leo kept a hand over his mouth, and his eyes spoke of the pain she was certain reflected in her own eyes.
“Me either,” she muttered and pulled her knees to her chest, resting her head on them, her eyes still leaking.
Leo dropped his arms and scooted closer to her, his face stony. “I know this is hard, but I need to know what happened.”
He put a hand on her knee, and she jerked away from him. “What happened? Ari’s dead.” The ache in her chest swelled. How could he ask these questions of her? She didn’t have a clue what happened to Ari.
“Did you see who killed him?”
Pain shot through her body. Surely everyone saw who killed him. “It was Raaf,” she choked out. Her brother killed the love of her life.
Leo gave a slow node. “Okay, just making sure we saw the same thing. I didn’t want to accuse him if my eyes had deceived me. Why would Raaf
want to kill you?”
A sob escaped. “He didn’t kill me.” Raaf loved her. She was closer to him than she was to her parents. Sure, he’d been different when he came home from training, but he was still Raaf. How could he betray her?
“I know, but you were his target. Any ideas why?” Leo asked. She could see the wheels turning in Leo’s head as he took out his disc. “Probably for the throne, don’t you think?”
“I said I don’t know,” she screeched. Panic crept across her veins, and she felt as if she was going to crawl out of her skin. She was nearing hysteria. Ari was dead. Raaf killed him. Who else in her life would betray her? From Phoenix, to Wilma, to Luna, to Raaf. Could she trust no one from Sol?
It came down to the Voice. Whoever or whatever it was, it had to be destroyed because it had killed everyone she loved. Her mind cleared a little. It was good to have something to focus her rage on. As long as the Voice existed, she would be in danger—as well as those around her.
“Raaf wouldn’t want to kill me. It’s the Voice.” Which was her father, or at least that’s what they thought. Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe they were wrong. Did he want her dead so much that he sent Raaf to kill her? How barbaric.
“The Voice?”
She’d forgotten she’d told Sage not to tell him. His mother knew of course, but Zwaantie had asked Lyra to keep it quiet as well. She felt stupid for keeping this a secret. If they’d tried harder to eliminate the Voice before now, maybe Ari would still be alive. This was her fault. She gripped her sides and leaned over, the tears coming in earnest again.
Someone knocked hard on the door, and Zwaantie cowered.
Leo moved to the door and placed his hand on the wood. “Call first.”
Leo’s disc buzzed. Zwaantie curled into herself once again and stared at the stone walls. She heard the king say, “It’s me.”
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