The Queen's Mark

by Tori Smith

  And was even more intense.

  Jet-black eyebrows narrowed hard in the direction of Dirty Blond, the man’s short, dark hair pushed about. He kept it cropped on the sides, long on top and the scruff on his face told he hadn’t had a shave in a little while. This might have been purposeful and gone with his overall look and style that consisted of a dark jacket and gray hoodie underneath. After opening the door, he folded his arms and revealed biceps nearly as big as Dirty Blond and that was saying something considering the man with dark hair wore a jacket.

  They were both huge, massive dudes and they argued like mythical giants, the guy with the dark hair the most foreboding despite being slightly smaller. His eyebrows descended like storm clouds after something Dirty Blond said. I didn’t catch the words and the response only made Dirty Blond pull his hair down in a fit of frustration. The spool of golden waves tumbled across the man’s shoulders like a Pantene commercial, momentarily causing my breath to catch.

  “You know what yesterday was,” Dirty Blond said, forcing thick fingers into that beautiful hair. He shook his head. “What would you have done?”

  “The opposite.” The man with the dark hair leaned in and though, really, he kind of terrified me I found it hard to look away from him whenever he spoke, something about his eyes… his voice that made me pay attention. I was paying attention to both of them, unable to move. I couldn’t see beyond them in those short moments and as if choreographed both men lifted their hands.

  The Dirty Blond’s went to his arm, his bicep, and Dark Hair’s went to the left side of his chest. He pressed like he was feeling something. Dirty Blond squeezed his own arm, then together, they panned in my direction.

  They stared at me.

  The swallow in my throat was thick. I should have been shaking with fear.

  Not being turned on.

  But they were striking, the pair of them, both of them equally. It’d been Dirty Blond to make the first move, his gaze drinking me in like he had at the club. I’d been the one to approach him then, but honestly, I didn’t know how I had the strength at the time.

  The guy was so… big.

  Like every part of him huge, the only relief I gathered he wouldn’t hurt me was that he hadn’t before and actually helped me, that purse-snatcher thing and all. He approached me looking… nervous for some reason. His hands balled and untightened like he didn’t know what to do with them and actually looked back to Dark Hair at one point as if for guidance. Whatever he sought he chose not to wait for in the end, stopping in front of me.

  His eyes were like literal magic, so blue and prettier than most women. His head lowered, almost like he was… bowing.

  “Your Highn—” he started, a blink to my eyes at whatever he started to say.

  He pursed his lips.

  “Miss,” he chose in the end, again, looking back at the dark-haired guy. He’d come from the door at this point too, waiting a few feet behind Dirty Blond.

  I just didn’t know what for.

  Dirty Blond’s hands came together. “Are you okay? You were asleep for a while.”

  Asleep…

  “You hit your head.”

  I hit my head.

  I touched the back of it, the knot on the back apparent.

  As well as the ache.

  “Son of a bitch—!”

  His hand came up after what I said, cupping the back of mine so quickly I doubted he took the seconds to rationalize it. He’d just done it, as if instinctual.

  And I let him.

  His hand fell away too soon, words on his lips he tapped away with the air. Turning, he retrieved something I’d forgotten I didn’t have.

  “Your wallet and half the insides are gone unfortunately,” he said, handing me my purse. He pushed a hand behind his neck. “I think that guy looted it and left the purse when you ran off.”

  Ran after him.

  I remembered that too, but what else happened?

  What else. What else. What else.

  It was hard to think in his space, his heat, and his hand moved up again.

  Again in my direction.

  “Lucas?”

  Our audience, the dark-haired guy, approached. He had a warning in his single word, even more in the darkest eyes I’d ever seen. There was no clear distinction where his pupils started and his irises began and I noticed he wouldn’t look directly at me, only at the dirty blond, Lucas.

  His expression silenced all words.

  “You should let her go about her way now,” he said, looking at him. Again, he wouldn’t look at me. His eyebrows narrowed. “I mean, you basically fucking kidnapped her.”

  “It wasn’t like that.”

  We’d actually said it at the same time—both of us, Lucas and myself. I mean, he’d helped me out, right? Attempted to keep my purse from getting snatched. Bringing me back here after I hit my head was only a nice thing to do. Though, I might have chosen a hospital…

  He took up my space again, crowding in on me.

  I didn’t… hate that.

  The why I ended up tossing away, his smell all male and a wash of the soap he’d showered with. I detected no honeysuckle, no amber, but let it go, his blue eyes like beacons I couldn’t release if I tried.

  His lips twisted up a little, a small smile on them.

  “I did bring you here. This is my space,” he said, looking around. He lifted a hand in the direction of the dark-haired guy. “My less-than-pleasant roommate.”

  The guy looked away. I’d say almost rolling his eyes at what he said. Lucas had been frustrated before with their exchanges whatever they were, but this guy seemed to have the frustration now. He pushed a hand behind his neck, heading toward the door and a tug at my insides forced words thickly to form on my tongue. Like I should tell him not to leave. Like he should stay because each step he made away ripped something at me.

  Ripped something away.

  Like he heard my internal struggle, he stopped, his head turning. He looked at Lucas who in turn looked at me.

  “I hope it didn’t scare you,” Lucas said pushing his hands into his pockets. He rocked up on his feet. “It’s just you hit your head and…”

  He reached for me again, but stopped this time. His jaw moving, he chose to place steps between us instead.

  He swallowed. “Anyway, it wasn’t like Derek said. I didn’t live far away from the club. I figured I’d call someone for you, but you never woke up. You had no phone. Like I said, I think that guy took it.”

  He’d said a lot, but unusually, all I took in was what he’d said early on.

  Derek.

  I looked at the guy, still standing there not looking at me. Facing away, he chose the open door as a better option and again, I had unusual thoughts. Like his name fit him.

  Like it was perfect for him.

  I felt the same about Lucas too and really, that hit to the head must have been worse than how I imagined.

  I touched it.

  “No harm done,” I said. Though, I might not have a job after today. I clearly hadn’t made it to Marcine and there most assuredly would be hell to pay because of it. Working my bag on my shoulder, I caught sight of my bandage again.

  I looked at it, eyeing it.

  Lucas noticed.

  “Looks like you really got into something,” he said, seeming almost sad when he said it. He stared at me, so focused and I stopped breathing. It was like he looked through me more than at me.

  His eyebrows drew in.

  “Can you tell me what happened?” he asked, those blue eyes so bright. In the club they looked as if they’d been glowing. I remembered that. They’d been so mesmerizing, hypnotic even.

  He breathed harshly. “Can you? Was it a burn? Something else?”

  Something else.

  My brain pushed, my head swimming as I filtered through my thoughts. I attempted to pull from them, a search for a memory and something I needed but I couldn’t currently find within the confines of my head. Eventually, I res
ulted to giving up, as I couldn’t remember what I even searched for in the first place.

  What had he asked me again?

  I let up from the process of the search entirely and once I had, it’d been as if I was breathing again. Like the whole time I’d been thinking I had been holding my breath for some reason.

  Maybe whatever it was wasn’t important.

  “I’m sorry. You asked me something?” I asked him, his eyes still focused on me. In fact, I’d say he didn’t even hear me. Eventually, slow blinks brought him out of it and when he stepped away, he put his hands in his pockets.

  “It wasn’t important,” he said, looking down. He lifted his hand to his bicep, squeezing.

  “You’re okay, though?” he asked eventually, his gaze returning. “You seem to be at least.”

  I was on two feet and didn’t seem to harbor any emotional damage presently. He had taken me here, but that didn’t scare me. It probably should have.

  But it didn’t.

  A lot of things should scare me. Like how the room suddenly felt so small within his distant presence and even smaller and more intimate when all he did was take another step in my direction. He reached out again. Like he had when he cupped the back of my head and not only was I about to let him do what he had again…

  I wanted him to.

  A strong and firm, “Lucas” had us both guiding our lashes up and from behind, Derek stood at that door, which was still open.

  He widened it like it hadn’t been open enough.

  “She needs to go now, Luke,” he said and not in a nice way. He wanted me out of here.

  He wanted me to leave.

  Lucas’s lips parted, on the urge of saying something, but when he didn’t, I figured he didn’t disagree with his roommate.

  Feeling weird all of a sudden, about all of this, Lucas, everything, I gathered my things, myself, and brushed my way past Lucas, then Derek. It was hard to miss the blatant turn of his head when I passed him.

  Or the fact that neither one of them cared to know my name.

  Three

  Arden

  “Bitch, where were you last night?”

  My co-workers crowded my cubicle, looking way past hung over, which I especially felt as my cube faced directly in the sun.

  Breathing, I rubbed my temples, the sun not making recalling certain points from last night any easier. I got the highlights, the club, dancing, drinking.

  Lucas.

  But there were a lot of blanks, the majority of which surrounded the guy whose loft I ended up in this morning. I remembered seeing Lucas at the club. I remembered seeing him out of the club after being called away by Marcine and, of course, I remembered my interaction with the purse-snatcher, but after all that… it was fuzzy and that honestly terrified me. I never got wasted like that.

  I must have had a good time.

  And that was the only thing I could conclude, as every time I thought back to the missing pieces of last night my head clouded, a dark overcast coating my brain. The painful pressure that followed was enough for me to settle on what last night had clearly been—a good-ass time. The bandage on my arm had also been peculiar until the awareness of why I had it pushed into my brain mere moments after leaving Lucas and Derek’s loft. I had indeed burned myself with my flat iron just the morning before, the memory hitting me like a freight train the minute I left the guys’ place. The thought came in a whoosh and I nearly lost my footing it slammed into me so hard.

  I burned myself. I burned myself.

  Even now, the thoughts bordered on the line of intrusive and I attempted to rub them away as well as this damn headache.

  “Let’s just say it’d been one of those nights,” I told my co-workers, answering Bria’s question about where I’d been. There’d been a few others that followed but as I didn’t have the current mental capacity to answer them. I requested they lay off me for at least the rest of the morning. I had damage control to do with Marcine, something I was well aware of as the first thing they told me when I got in today was I only still had a job because one of them actually did come in and cover for me, Bobby actually. Marcine couldn’t get a hold of me so she called each of them, all of them volunteering, but I guess Bobby’s luck was the one to run out last night. He detailed all that with the four of us now, frowning after every word.

  “I’d be vigilant around her today, Arden,” he said, sighing when he took a seat on the edge of my desk. “I may have covered for you, but I have no idea what she’ll do to you once she finds you. You should have taken a sick day.”

  Sick days were honestly worse than not showing up at all. At least, if one didn’t show up she could at least theorize a possible catastrophe, no illness bad enough to keep anyone from the office when she herself came in with strep throat. We’d all wore masks that day. That was until she made us take them off and half the office got sick.

  But we all loved our boss though. Again… sarcasm.

  The group ended up theorizing my “good time” obviously had been the reason for my escape with my question evasion, and beyond tired, I didn’t fight them. I merely went with them to our weekly office meeting, no way to take a seat “in the back” as the table was round. Marcine hadn’t come in yet and I lowered my head after I took my chair, sandwiched between Bobby and Bria. Gemma and Ruthie sat around us. Our fearless leader was taking a little more time to arrive than usual—something all of us noticed and, absentmindedly, I gazed around.

  I nearly choked on my Evian water.

  A familiar face found mine through the glass window of the conference room, fierce and with a depth to his gaze that not only made me pay attention but rise up in my chair.

  Derek’s eyes managed to darken more than before, intense and harsh under his equally dusky eyebrows.

  As soon as I caught his gaze through the window, he released me, sweeping into the hall with a quickness to his step that summoned me to lift completely out of my chair, my co-workers grabbing my hands.

  “Two seconds,” I mouthed to them. Whoever had grabbed my hands I lost with my stumbled steps toward the door, nearly tripping my way through the gulley of interns prepping the room with coffee orders.

  The office’s hallway was a small circus on my way into it. I supposed this was how it always was at the busy magazine, but I spotted the outlier just the same.

  It didn’t matter if he wore a suit.

  And did he wear that thing, the seams hitting the dimensions of his stocky frame as if designed for him, the suit pinstriped and two pieces, his vest tapering in at the waist and his pants hugging tight to his thick thighs. I had a pull toward him again I recalled that morning, that moment when I hadn’t wanted him to leave, which honestly, hadn’t made sense.

  He’d been a complete dick to me.

  Even still, I had questions, why he was here, and stumbling more, my awkward steps took me into the sea of activity. Elbowing, I managed to navigate pretty well, gain on him, but soon, he made the pursuit so much easier.

  He stopped. Right in the mass of people busily doing their jobs, he stopped, a single star in the vast universe around us. His head lowered. He turned around and when he lifted it, he had his hand on his chest.

  I’d seen him do that before, a rub to his hand like he was feeling something beneath.

  More than curious, my steps continued on toward him, but I eventually found myself caught in the dance of the hallway, people nothing short of striking me they were trying to get to whatever destination they had in mind. I had one too and pushing, I continued to pursue it.

  Derek simply stood there in response, his hand lowering from his chest. He made no move to come toward me and each step I made in his direction put me off-kilter, but not in the way one would think. The pursuit actually pushed adrenaline through my limbs, edged me forward on a path that felt… right. I was supposed to travel in this direction.

  I was supposed to be closer to him.

  “Hey—!”

  This felt so familiar.
Like last night with Lucas, but I had eventually caught up to him.

  Not so lucky with Derek apparently.

  I spun around twice before I realized this was exactly where he’d been standing and, confused, I placed my hands on my hips.

  What the hell?

  I stepped back, hitting a brick wall.

  Or just a really big guy.

  “Why are you following me?”

  Razor sharp, just like this morning.

  Turning, I traveled the length of him with my gaze, in awe by the sheer force of him. He was big, tall like Lucas, but had an intimidation factor that raced quick beats into my heart. I hadn’t been this close this morning.

  I hadn’t experienced him this way.

  His chin tilted. The man had a full head on me and was well aware of it. Eventually, he looked up, looked around and then we were doing a dance in the hallway, each step he took forward, two I took back. We ended up out of the fray and in the hallway housing the majority of the interns’ desk, which just so happened to be conveniently empty of interns. I never got a chance to just sit, let alone the people who got to do the bitch work around here.

  Noticing that, the emptiness of the room, Derek put his arm out, blocking the only way out aside from the other end of the hallway.

  He observed me, his head tilting as if he was trying to figure me out.

  Or I guessed gain the answer to his question.

  “I wasn’t. I mean…” Fucking Christ he wasn’t that big… or hot. I shook my head. “I wasn’t following you.”

  “You were,” he said, but then a gracious gift came in the form of interns from the opposite end of the hall.

  Derek lowered his arm, pushing his hands into his pockets and looking casual when the people strode into the room, and to my surprise, the interns not only stopped talking in our presence.

  But stiffened.

  “Did you need something, sir?” one asked, swallowing hard. He adjusted his tie. “We were just taking our breaks, but if you need something…”