by Susan Harris
Handsome as always, his uniform clung to his toned body as if molded to him. His eyes twinkled in the dim light, his smile as bright as the sun. Placing a hand across his torso, he formally bowed to me, holding out his hand as he straightened.
“May I have this dance?”
“No, you bloody can’t!” I exclaimed loudly.
Twitters of nervous laughter escaped the people around us, and I shot daggers at Nickolai for embarrassing me in front of everyone.
“How can you decline your crown prince?” he asked calmly.
I quirked my brows, a rebellious smile threatening to appear on my lips. “Is that an order, My Liege?”
“If it means you’ll dance with me, yes, goddamn it, it’s an order.”
Nickolai didn’t wait for me to respond, and the next thing I knew he’d lifted my arms to his shoulders and placed his hands on my waist. The music changed tune, and we disappeared into the crowd of bodies.
When no one surged forward to pry us apart, I rested my head against his chest, his heartbeat a comforting pulse against my ear. I ignored the pointed stares and murmured comments as we passed by, allowing him to sway his body against mine for the length of the song before I uncoiled my arms from around his neck and placed my hands to his chest.
“I’m not done yet,” Nickolai purred as he spun me toward a darker corner of the room and my pulse, bloody hell, it raced.
I tried to move away from him, only to find my back against a pillar.
Nickolai crowded me, oblivious to those openly gawking at us. He lowered his head as if to kiss me, but I ducked at the last minute and Nickolai got nothing but air.
His chest rumbled as he spun to me. “I’ve been wanting to kiss you all damn day.”
And by Eve, I wanted him to kiss me, too.
Instead, I said, “Why did you ask your mother to let you choose your queen?”
Nickolai jerked back in surprise, his eyes darting to his brother and Nattie, who watched us with vastly different expressions on their faces.
“My little brother enjoys pillow talk far too much,” Nickolai groaned, trying to steer us back to our previous positions.
I quickly shook off his advances. “Nicky, you know we can’t. I can never be queen.”
“Laws are made to be broken, Ryan—especially by kings.”
I threw my hands in the air. “You don’t get it—I don’t want to be queen.”
“Is it that you don’t want to be queen, or you don’t want me?” Nickolai asked, bracing himself as if he expected me to reach out and remove his heart from his chest if I told him I didn’t want to be his.
That was the problem, though. No matter how much I denied it, I wanted him, I just didn’t want all the baggage that came with it.
My phone chose that moment to ring, Krista’s name appearing on the screen as I pressed end, but the ringer sounded again as soon as I tried to slide it back into my pocket.
Pressing the green button, I quickly muttered, “Krista, not really a good time. Can I call you back?”
Laughter, cold and heartless, stopped me dead in my tracks as the voice rang down the phone. “Having a little spat with your prince, my butterfly?”
My heart dropped into my stomach as my eyes scanned the room. Someone was spying on me for Maxim.
“Well, you know what they say, Maxim—the make-up sex is nearly worth the argument.”
At my words, Nickolai lifted his hand to cut off the music, and the entire room fell silent. As Jack and Atticus came over, I turned on the loudspeaker on my phone so everyone could hear what Maxim was saying.
“I believe you look radiant tonight, my love. Even fiercer than you were when you nearly stabbed me through the heart.”
“Tell me where you are, Maxim, and you can see how fierce I am this time when I do not miss,” I purred.
“You know where I am, darling,” he chortled. “Krista is keeping me company.”
“I swear by Eve,” I yelled into the phone, my knees threatening to buckle as I heard a whimper in the background, “if you so much as lay a finger on her, you bastard, I will gut you like a fish!”
“All you have to do is say you’ll be mine, Ryan. Say it, and I leave Krista as pretty as I found her.”
“I’ll do it. I’ll go with you. Just let her go. Please.”
His laughter deepened, sending chills across my flesh. “If I thought you meant it, I would walk away this moment. But alas, I cannot trust you. Now you will know I am serious.”
“Let me talk to her, Maxim. If you want me to trust you, then let me speak to her.”
There was a moment of silence, and then Krista’s voice came on the line.
“Ryan?”
“Krista—you stay alive, you hear me? I’m coming.”
Krista was silent for a minute, and I was terrified she was already gone and everything I wanted to say would remain unsaid, just like with my parents. Then I heard a crack, and Krista yelped in pain.
“I think someone turned off his humanity switch.”
I laughed as my heart blew apart into a thousand pieces.
“Ryan?”
“Yes, my friend?” I replied, my voice so low I was surprised Krista had heard me.
“He wants me to tell you it’s all your fault, but it’s not. I don’t regret being your friend—you have to know that.”
“It is my fault, Krista. I dragged you into this.”
“I wouldn’t change a thing, Ryan. Please, tell Conrad I love him, okay?”
I swallowed hard, then promised her I would. “I’ll make it in time, Krista. I’ll make it. You stay brave for me, okay? Don’t give him a fucking thing.”
“Say goodbye to Ryan, Krista.”
I screamed at Maxim so loudly I almost missed Krista telling me goodbye. Just before the phone call ended, Krista’s last words hit me like a sledgehammer.
“Kick his ass for me, Ryan.”
The line went dead, and I dropped my phone and bolted across the floor, Nickolai chasing after me. I waited for no car, simply using all the strength Eve gave me and praying to my ancestors I would get there in time. I outran the boys out of sheer anguish. I promised her I would get there in time.
But I was too late. I’d asked her to be brave, to hang on for me, but I didn’t make it in time.
Pushing open the door to Krista’s dorm, the scent of blood overwhelmed me, leading me on a trail to where I knew my friend lay dead. Shoulders squared, I entered her bedroom and cried out, horrified.
Krista’s blonde hair was soaked in blood from a gash across her forehead. She lay on the bed, naked, with a diamond-encrusted dagger stabbed through her heart. Her eyes stared blankly at me, filled with the horror of what she’d endured. The dagger was overkill, merely there for dramatic effect. The various fang marks covering her entire body betrayed her true cause of death. The bastard had let every one of his lackies take a bite of her.
Swallowing down bile, my eyes fell to a folded piece of paper nestled between Krista’s uncovered breasts.
Tentatively, I took the paper off her body, my eyes scanning it for a clue as to where Maxim had gone, but the scrawl on the paper simply said A butterfly for my butterfly.
I glanced back at Krista’s torso, and the sight of her butterfly tattoo wrenched sobs from my body as I went to the bathroom to empty the contents of my stomach. When I was finished, I splashed water on my face and came back into the room.
Nickolai stood in the doorway of the bedroom, the horror in his eyes mirroring my own. I was drowning in grief and needed my anger to stay afloat. Striding over to Nickolai, I slapped him across the face so hard his head snapped round.
Jack tried to step in, to stop me from essentially committing treason, but Nickolai stopped him. I beat my fists against his chest until my strength left me.
“This is on you. You get that, right? I told you I didn’t want friends, but you and your mother just couldn’t let me be. I was safe. These emotions couldn’t cripple me. But you dug yo
ur heels in and decided what was right for me. I despise you. Do you hear me, My Liege?”
Nickolai said nothing.
“Ryan,” Jack said, stepping in, “I get you’re upset, kiddo, but the only one responsible for your friend’s death is Maxim.”
“No. Maxim may have ended it, but he told me to make friends. And now she’s dead. Are you happy now? Are you fucking happy?”
Just like that, any tentative relationship we’d built over the last few months was gone; suddenly, we were strangers again.
I took my anger with me as I turned back to Krista. Using my fingers, I gently closed her eyes, pressing a quick kiss to her forehead. I crumpled the piece of paper in my hands and dropped it to the floor, clenching my jaw as I stormed past Jack.
Nickolai caught me by the elbow, and I jerked my arm from his grasp. “You don’t get to touch me anymore. Don’t speak to me; don’t even breathe in my direction.”
“Ryan, please… I’m—”
“If you say you’re sorry, I will stab you. You and I are done, Nickolai.”
Too exhausted to run back to the compound, I let myself be driven back, ignoring everyone as I climbed the stairs to my room. Once inside, I slid down the door and cried until my lungs burned and my cries turned into screams of agony against the press of my fists to my mouth.
I allowed myself time to grieve, and then I dried my eyes, packed some clothes, and gathered my weapons. Opening the safe that was on my dresser, I stashed a couple grand in my bag and then strapped my sai on.
Standing on my bed, I pushed the small window above me upward and hoisted myself onto the roof as rain began to pelt down on me.
I would kill every single person who’d dared to lay a finger on Krista.
I would get vengeance for her if it killed me.
I would hunt down every single rogue in Ireland if I had to. Blood would spill; they would fear me.
There was a new kind of rogue in town, and her name was Ryan Callan.
Epilogue
“She’s gone.”
“Good work.”
The vampire at the other end of the phone sounded so proud it was hard not to let her heart swell at the sound of it.
“It’s time for phase two, my dear. Time to use those feminine wiles of yours.”
“I won’t let you down, I promise.”
The call ended, and she stashed the phone under the sink in her bathroom. Exiting the bathroom, she let her silk robe drop to the ground. The vampire in her bed gave her a lustful smile as he crooked his finger at her.
“Come to bed.”
“As you command, My Liege.”
Kristoph’s husky laugh sent bile rising from her stomach as she crawled into bed, switching off her mind as Kristoph rolled on top of her and Natalia focused on what her prize would be at the end of all this.
A crown of her own.
You don’t have to wait to get book 2; available now on all platforms!
Butterfly Effect
Also by Susan Harris
The Ever Chase Chronicles
Skin & Bones, book 1
Collateral Damage, book 2
Smoke & Mirrors, book 3
Night of the Hunter, book 4
Never Back Down, book 5
Shortcut to the Grave, book 6
Arsonist’s Lullaby, book 7
Defy The Stars
A Tale of Two Houses, book 1
Until Death Do Us Part, book 2
In Defiance of the Stars, book 3
Shattered Memories
The Sanguine Crown
Chaos Theory, book 1
Butterfly Effect, book 2
Wicked Game, book 3
Playlist
Ryan’s Personal Playlist:
“Devotion” (ft. Cameron Hayes)—Dimension
“Loner”—YUNGBLUD
“Song About You”—Mike Posner
“ME!” (feat. Brendon Urie of Panic! At The Disco)—Taylor Swift
“Don't Hurt Like It Used To”—Grace Carter
“Hold Me While You Wait”—Lewis Capaldi
“Who Will Save You”—Katie Garfield
“Love Me Anyway” (feat. Chris Stapleton)—P!nk
“Punch Bag”—YONAKA
“90 Days” (feat. Wrabel)—P!nk
“Tell Me How”—Paramore
“Feel Something”—Bea Miller
“F.I.N.E.”—Too Close to Touch
“Will We Talk?”—Sam Fender
“You Need To Calm Down”—Taylor Swift
“All Day And Night”—Jax Jones & Martin Solveig Present Europa Jax Jones
“Time”—NF
“Death of Me”—PVRIS
“Mad Love”—Mabel
“You’ll Never Find Me”—Korn
“I Caught Myself”—Twilight Soundtrack Version Paramore
“Poison”—Freya Ridings
“Time In A Bottle”—YUNGBLUD
“What’s It Like”—You Me At Six
“Wishbone”—Freya Ridings
“Love Is Fire”—Freya Ridings
“One-Minute Man”—Missy Elliott
“Move, Bitch”—Disturbing Tha Peace
“Salute”—Little Mix
“When the Lights Go Out”—Radio Edit Five
“If Ya Gettin’ Down”—Five
“Pony”—Ginuwine
My Writing Playlist:
Feral Love—Chelsea Wolfe
Hurts 2B Human (feat. Khalid)—P!nk
The World We Made—Ruelle
Hollow Crown—Ellie Goulding
Medicine—The Pale White
Nunchuk—SAINT PHNX
Flake—FIDLAR
Crowbar—Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes
Adrenaline—Simple Creatures
Turn on Me—The National
Lose Our Heads—YONAKA
God Was Never on Your Side—Motörhead
That Dress—The Pale White
Legendary—Skillet
Don't Wait 'Til Tomorrow—YONAKA
Sick Thoughts—Lewis Blissett
Gun in Your Pocket—Sick Love
bad guy—Billie Eilish
Find the Water—The Coronas
burning bridges—Bea Miller
Rockstar—YONAKA
Be Someone—CamelPhat
Dance in the Dark—Au/Ra
Further Than The Planes Fly—Eves Karydas
Good Intentions—Too Close To Touch
Antisocial (with Travis Scott)—Ed Sheeran
She's Not There—YONAKA
Waves—YONAKA
In Dreams—Ben Howard
You Need To Calm Down—Recorded At Abbey Road Studios, London—YONAKA
hope for the underrated youth—YUNGBLUD
Acknowledgments
First and foremost, I need to thank my parents, for always believing in me and pushing me to achieve my dreams. If I am resilient, it is because you guys taught me to never give up. I love you both so very much.
LJ and Taylor- You two bring so much happiness into my life that being an auntie really is the best thing in the world. I love you both to infinity and beyond.
I have to thank the amazing ladies of Clean Teen Publishing, Rebecca, Courtney and Marya, for their continued belief in me as an author. We have experienced so much together that it can only make the bond stronger, and we worked hard and never stopped believing that, together, we could be unstoppable.
Melanie Newton- By Eve, words cannot describe just how grateful I am to have you in my life! You kick my ass when I doubt myself, you listen when I need to vent, spark my creativity when I need it the most. I mean, Ryan and Chaos Theory would not be possible if it wasn’t for your invaluable input. I mean, you vetoed half the names for the main character but I can totally forgive you for that…
Marya- Thank you again for such an amazing cover and bringing Ryan to life in such a gorgeous imagery.
Special thanks to Chelsea Brimmer for taking such good care of Chaos Theory
and making sure this book is ready for readers to sink their teeth into.
Jaime Cross- My trusty beta reader…thank you for all you do!
Krista Meyers Gill- Thank you for letting me use not only your name, but your personality to create such a great character. You may not have known that you were going into the book but you are, and book Krista is just as awesome as real-life Krista!
To my friends, Michelle, Helen, Orla and Susan, thank you for keeping me sane and supporting me.
To Melanie’s Musers- you guys are the best group of people ever! The love and support that you give not only me, but other authors is amazing and I heart you all for being such amazing human beings.
To Greg- thank you for the music recommendations, the shout outs and for the inevitable side eye from Mel when you say something inappropriate on the live shows every Sunday! Comedy gold!
And last, but certainly, not least, thank you to the readers, whether you have been with me since the start or have recently joined the family, I thank you for reading because I am not an author without you guys…Slainte, go raibh maith agaibh go léir.
About the Author
Susan Harris is a writer from Cork in Ireland. An avid reader, she quickly grew to love books in the supernatural/fantasy genre. When she is not writing or reading, she loves music, oriental cultures, tattoos, anything Disney and psychology. If she wasn't a writer she would love to be a FBI profiler or a PA for Dave Grohl or Jared Leto.
Susan LOVES connecting with her fans!
www.susanharrisauthor.com
Thank you for reading Chaos Theory; I hope you enjoyed my book!
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If you loved Chaos Theory, please tell your friends about my book and consider leaving a review. Reviews are like vampire novels; you can't ever have enough of them. Thanks for reading my book!" ~Susan Harris