Rule
Roam Series, Book Five
By
Kimberly Stedronsky
Text copyright © 2013 Kimberly Stedronsky
All Rights Reserved
Rule (Roam Series, Book Five)
Kimberly Stedronsky
Text copyright © 2013 Kimberly Stedronsky
All Rights Reserved.
This is a work of fiction. The Author holds exclusive rights to this work.
Unauthorized duplication is prohibited.
No part of this book can be reproduced in any form or by electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without the expressed written permission from the author.
To My Mom
… for giving me my love of music
The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be.
-Socrates
Prologue
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
Prologue
Icepond, March 15, 2014
“Your majesty, she calls for you.”
Will lifted his eyes from the documents before him, watching as the page’s somber face reddened.
“I’ll come now,” he agreed, sliding his chair back and following the young man. His personal guards joined him, quickening their pace to match their king’s long stride.
Candles lit the dark chamber, and as Will entered the room, he focused immediately on the small woman in the bed. His mother turned weakly to face him, her thin lips curving into an attempted smile. “Come, William.” Helena’s voice, barely audible in the vast room, tightened his chest.
He crossed to her, kneeling at her bedside. “Mother.” Gathering her hands in his, he lifted her fingers to his lips. “I am here; rest.”
“The time for rest has gone, my son,” she spoke thinly, her eyes now dark, shadowed slits. Her bottom lip had curved inward, her chin creased.
“You will rest… with God,” Will closed his eyes, lowering his face.
“William… you must bring the child. Bring her here. I know your struggle,” she coughed, and a maid rushed to her side with a glass of water. After a diminutive sip, she fell back against the pillow. “If she possesses the strength and kindness of her mother, then she will come. I grew to love Roam very much… in our small hours together.”
He thought back to the last time he’d seen Roam, remembering Eva’s frightened cries, and her tear-streaked face as clung to him after the kidnapping. “The choice is the child’s alone.”
“You must sway her,” she gripped his fingers in her feeble grasp.
“I will do everything that I can,” he promised.
“Your sister, I fear, is molded in her father’s image,” she licked her lips, swallowing slowly.
He thought of Meredith, with her cunning eyes and wicked smile. “Meredith will not attain the throne.”
“Her struggle for sanity was lost long ago. You’ve freed her, and though banished from Icepond, she will try to return.”
“She requires healing, not imprisonment. Father’s cruelty has driven her mad.”
“Nevertheless, keep a close eye on Meredith.”
“Yes, mother.”
She closed her eyes, and he watched her chest rise and fall in shaking breaths. “I so desired to see you wed Gabrielle.”
He lowered his face to stare at his mother’s wrinkled hands. “You will be with me on that day,” he promised. He thought of his fiancé, her fair features and soft voice comforting to his fretful mind.
“You shall have beautiful children.”
He let her rest. At three o’clock the following morning, he was awakened by his valet with the news of his mother’s passing.
The funeral was held that night. As the haloed sun finally lowered in the sky, the overheated waters of the ocean simmered in the distance, beyond the castle. Will stared at her pyre, closing his eyes as the torches were lowered to his mother’s body.
Gabrielle stood close to him, her black gown of mourning tossing in the humid wind. “She was kind to me, my lord. So very kind to me.”
“She loved you as a daughter.”
Gabrielle nodded, delicately dabbing at a tear with a lacy, white handkerchief. “You’ll go now for her, won’t you?”
He knew she was speaking of Eva.
I’ve waited long enough. They’ve had another child; between Eva and Christopher, the two suns are burning this world. Taking a steadying breath, he turned to his personal guard and closest friend. “Eric, I will travel tonight. We can wait no longer. The death toll is rising; she is our only hope.”
“Yes, your majesty.” He bowed slightly, but nodded in whole-hearted agreement. “You are a wise king. You’ve sacrificed many lives to wait for her. You’ve done all that you can.”
“I cannot fault them for having another child. But they must understand my haste.”
“They will. From what I remember of the queen, she was an intelligent ruler. She will persuade her daughter to help us.”
He sighed deeply. “I wonder if I will find her world much changed since last I traveled. Fourteen years have passed.”
His changeable eyes flashed amber for fleeting moment. “A world changes slowly; a child grows quickly. Take care,” Eric replied. “Asher has told you that she is… a challenge.”
Will remembered her fiery, red hair and bright, green eyes, smiling fondly.
“She is a challenge… that I must accept.”
Chapter One
October 2029- Emerald Isle, NC
“Aw, yeah… hold up… time for me to go home…DJ Eva in the house!”
I grinned at the explosion of hooting excitement, making my way into the flashing blue lights of Booters.
“Eva,” Liam dropped his mouth to my neck, his hands roving over my tiny skirt. “Give ‘em what they want,” he urged, swaying with me to the cadenced beats of whatever house music Xavier was spinning behind the podium of the club. I waved to Emma, who elbowed her way to me through the crowd. Her girlfriend Cara carried a drink that sloshed over her hand, and she licked at it, grinning.
“How in the hell did your daddy let you out in that outfit?” She shouted over the music, tugging on my short, hip-hugging black mini skirt and sequined halter top. The black, western-style, calf-high boots worked perfectly with the outfit, and a wide, matching glittery belt rested at my hips.
“I’m almost eighteen,” I fired, spinning in Liam’s arms to flatten my chest against his. “And I need a drink,” I purred into his ear.
He gave me look, shaking his head. “No fucking way. Your dad will kill me.”
“He already wants to kill you,” I pouted, raising my hand high in the air. Everyone screamed excitedly, and Xavier laughed into the microphone, backing away from the electronic equipment.
“It’s all yours, baby!”
I waved my hand in a circle above my head. The high-pitched, screaming frequency cut through the house music, and after several seconds, the stomping beat of J-Kwon’s Tipsy swallowed the club whole.
>
“Ha! Old school tonight,” Xavier tucked his headphones back over his ears, working to spin something into my song choice.
“Where are you taking us tonight?” Emma asked excitedly, and I closed my eyes.
Somewhere deep in the back of my mind, I pulled from a power I still didn’t understand. When I opened my eyes to the excited roar of the club, I smiled as droplets of electric blue rain fell from the ceiling. The floor beneath our feet lit to a pool of watery indigo and green, and I could smell cocoa butter and sand and sunshine. Palm trees swayed and seagulls trilled above our heads, and I turned to the bar.
Someone, bring me a drink.
Liam pressed against me from behind, and I dropped against him before sliding up his length as provocatively as possible. He wrapped his arm around my waist, and I could feel his hard-on pressed against my lower back.
“You’re amazing,” his mouth tugged at my earlobe, and I shivered, glancing in the mirrored wall across from us. The skirt barely skimmed the middle of my thighs, and my mass of scarlet curls tumbled over my shoulders and reached the middle of my back.
My playlist tonight weaved through the years, from as far back as 1982 all the way to 2029. At one point, all the walls fell away, and we danced in a dark basketball court in the rain to a Naughty by Nature song. I was on my third complimentary shot when the St. Louis arch burst through the floor to reach the night sky as Nelly’s Country Grammar rapped through my drunken thoughts.
Everyone loved me. I was their high, their drug, their abandon from the laws of reality and the constraints of what they knew to be truth and possibility.
And I was breaking every one of my father’s rules.
“Outside,” I ordered Liam, and we made our way through some kind of industrial warehouse with spotlights flashing and Cypress Hill’s whining lyrics blackening the walls. The moment I crossed the threshold from the club to the cool, fall air, the club returned to its normal state, and Xavier took over the music- much to the crowd’s disappointment.
We made it as far as the darkened parking lot. He hoisted me up on the hood of his car, shoving my skirt up to my waist.
“Get off me, I’m drunk,” I protested. He wrapped one of my legs around his hip. His hand spanned my chest as I threw my head back to stare at the starry sky. His mouth was moving over my neck as his hand jammed up my skirt, but all I could feel was the cold, hard car hood.
And boredom.
“Take us somewhere,” he muffled against my skin, his tongue lapping over my stomach.
“Go away, Liam,” I argued, giving him a half-hearted shove.
“Come on, Eva,” he grunted pathetically, and I touched my chin to my chest, looking down at his swirling figure as he worked his mouth over the stud in my belly button.
He was cute- in a pretty, preppy way- like the poster boy for a Georgio Armani Boy Scout camp. He packed way too much hardening gel onto his blonde head, and I giggled, making a fist to rap on his helmet.
“Eva, what the fuck are you doing?”
“Knocking on your hair.”
He cursed again and tugged my skirt down over my thighs, pressing his forehead to my abdomen. “You’re drunk.”
“I told you.”
After a moment of contemplation, he glanced around.
Finally, he jerked my skirt upwards again, and I narrowed my eyes. He fumbled with his pants, and I kicked at him. “Get off of me.”
“You’re not playing me like this again,” he snapped, his fingers curling over the band of my panties. “You just spent two hours dry-humping the shit out of me in that club.”
“Maybe I just like to dance.”
“Maybe I’m sick of playing your games.”
When I heard his zipper pull, I sobered.
In a fraction of a second, I arched my back and planted my hands behind my head, flat. The kick I delivered to his chest that sent him to his ass in the middle of the paved parking lot. Before he could blink, I retrieved the knife from my boot, straddling him and aiming the blade at his neck.
“You really think I’m going to lose my virginity on the hood of a car?”
His wide hazel eyes met mine as he shook his head carefully. I jumped to my feet, and he scooted back, rising. The fierce rage in his gaze did little to impress me.
“Walk the fuck home, Eva.”
I laughed, straightening my skirt. “I didn’t hurt you. Just your pride. Your hand on your zipper after my ‘no’ was your one free pass. Try that again, and I won’t be so kind.”
He moved to the front seat of his Camaro, nearly running me over as he peeled out of the parking lot.
The street lights flickered when I passed beneath them, sizzling and popping.
Calm down.
I’ve got him by the balls, and he’ll be blowing up my phone before I get home.
The lights finally stilled, and I sighed, waving my hand over my head and opting for Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Free Bird. My house was less than three miles away from Booters, and I didn’t mind the time to calm down and sober up. For immortals, the effects of alcohol lasted for about as long as my dad’s favorite Iron Butterfly song. I had to drink twice as much three times as fast as everyone else to get buzzed, even with my petite, 5’3” frame.
Liam. Liam Riley, his handsome face even more Irish than his name, once had the ability to turn me into brainless twat. When I met him, I was a thirteen-year-old freshman who’d skipped eighth grade, and he was a junior… and I completely lost all focus on anything that didn’t involve Liam. My notebooks were covered in my girly scrawl, proclaiming Eva loves Liam, Eva + Liam 4Ever, Mrs. Eva Riley, and all of the other variations of my married name. He was the quarterback of our football team, and me the head cheerleader, and I eye-fucked him from the sidelines of every game while dancing in my too-tight-too-short uniform.
When he dumped me for some college skank after he graduated, I shorted five power lines near my house. His excuse? I didn’t have enough experience.
The fact that I wasn’t a whore was his whole reason for breaking up with me.
My ability to manipulate frequency, electricity, and sound amazed- and scared- the piss out of him. When he begged me to come back to him on my graduation day, I had already spent my senior year plotting his death- and rebuilding my self-respect. I decided to take him back with one purpose- to break his heart like he broke mine.
I touched him and teased him, putting my mouth all over his body, letting him put his mouth all over my body, taking him to the edge again and again- only to tell him no, no I can’t go there, not yet, no, I’m not ready.
Smirking to myself, I pulled my hand in a generous circle above my head, opting for some Dusty Springfield.
By the time I got home, it was twenty minutes after midnight- and twenty minutes past my curfew. The lights in the window of the house made me sigh inwardly, fishing for my phone from the back pocket of my skirt.
He picked up after three long rings. “Aw, it’s my sister, the magical slut.”
“Christopher! Come on, please turn the alarm off and unlock the back door.”
“Where’s your leprechaun? He only wants you for your lucky charms, you know.”
Don’t threaten him, he is your only hope at this point. Breathe. Breathe. “Liam isn’t here.”
“Dad’s sitting in the living room. There’s seriously smoke pouring out of his ears.”
“Listen. If you sneak me in, I’ll give you twenty dollars.”
“Thirty.”
“Extortionist.”
“Make it thirty-five, ‘cause now I have to waste my time Googling the word ‘extortionist.’”
“Chris.” I took a deep, settling breath. “There will come a time when you will need a favor from me. Think carefully about your decision right now.”
I could hear his video game in the background through my phone. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, Eva, I don’t break curfew. I follow Mom and Dad’s rules.”
“I’ll talk Dad into getting you a car.”
/>
“I’m fourteen.”
“Next year,” I stressed, my eyes flickering to the light in my brother’s upstairs bedroom.
After a jostling sound, I heard Chris’s voice distantly…
And then my father’s.
“Eva.”
Oh, damn. Here we go.
“The longer you stand in the driveway trying to convince your brother to help you, the longer you’re grounded. And don’t think I didn’t notice that you walked home.”
I exhaled through my clenched teeth, recognizing the controlled anger in my father’s voice. “Okay, Dad. I’m coming in.”
“See you downstairs.”
Glowering, I shuffled my feet toward the house and mentally began to piece my case together. Technical problems in the movie theater caused a delay, so the movie ended later…
By two hours?
I cringed down at my outfit; I’d left the house in a Mary Sue sundress that was now discarded in a ball in the back seat of Liam’s Camaro.
Don’t lie. He hates when you lie. I tugged at the band that I’d wrapped in my hair during my walk home, letting the wild, red curls surround my face.
I sighed, rethinking my angle.
Dad, I started thinking, really thinking, about the prophecy and the gravity of the choice I’ll face in only four years. I became so distraught, I needed Liam’s comfort.
I blew at a curl hanging over my eye. No way he’ll buy it. Sounds more like Mom.
He waited for me at the door, hugging me first before launching his tirade. The false hope from his comforting arms always distracted my lies, allowing him to detract the truth from me and dole out a swift punishment before I had time to protest.
“Were you drinking?”
“No… well, a little, but…,”
“Did he drop you off?”
“Not really…,”
“What are you wearing?”
The lecture lasted less than ten minutes, and in the end, I was grounded for two weeks in addition to having to pay the thirty-five dollars to my brother for trying to bribe him.
Dad and his creative punishments.
Rule (Roam Series, Book Five) Page 1