The Queen

by Skye Warren

  “Please,” I whisper, my lips strangely swollen.

  His eyes focus on me. They widen in shock.

  The next instant he’s off me, standing five feet away from the bed. I gasp in ragged breaths. The air is sharper now, sweeter. I kneel on the bed, panting and shaking.

  “What the fuck?” he says, low, his voice raw.

  “You were—” I draw in another fortifying breath. “You were having a nightmare.”

  He looks incredulous. “I could have killed you.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say, but that’s a lie.

  I’m sorry he’s going through this alone. I’m sorry he feels guilty for pinning me down. I’m sorry for a lot of things in my life, but not waking him from a nightmare.

  He gives a hollow laugh, devoid of humor. “Christ.”

  My lungs don’t seem to work correctly anymore. They can’t bring in enough air. Can’t push the air all the way out. It’s too hard to form words. I can only look at him, pleading with my eyes.

  Then he’s by my side, rubbing my back in gentle circles, holding me with a tenderness I wouldn’t have thought possible. “Breathe, baby. Breathe. I’ve got you. I’ve got you for as long as it takes.”

  Empty nothings. That’s what Mama used to say about words like that. They were just things people say without meaning them, but they don’t feel like nothing. They feel like everything.

  I’ve got you for as long as it takes.

  My breath slows down, evens out. And true to his word, Damon doesn’t leave my side. A final shot of panic eases out of me.

  And just like that I become aware that Damon is naked. That he’s naked and touching me.

  My gaze snaps away from him, but it’s too late. I saw the column of his cock against his thigh. I saw the darker tip. Is it always that big? My cheeks burn hot. Even without looking at him, his cock is all I can see. It’s emblazoned in my mind, dark and hard and intimidating.

  His hand on my back stills. The circles were comforting. Maybe even fatherly.

  When his hand rests against my upper back, there’s nothing fatherly about it. There’s warmth and tension. A beautiful tautness that promises so much more than this.

  My breath catches.

  “Don’t do that,” he says.

  “What?”

  “Don’t want me.”

  Is that what this strange feeling is, like my arteries and veins are tied into knots, my body feverish? Is this desire? I don’t even have to wonder how he knows what I’m feeling. He always seems to know, like it’s written on my skin. Words like naive and hopeless. Words like virgin.

  “I should go,” I whisper without moving.

  I think if he took his hand off my back, I could have left. If he’d been the one to break contact. Instead he sat there, the warm press of his large hand a conduit for this strange electricity between us.

  Dr. Stanhope had held me, and I felt warm and tingly.

  It felt good.

  Damon’s hand on my back doesn’t feel good. It feels like a warning and a prayer. It feels like a thousand volts of lust. There’s no breaking this connection. I can’t imagine wanting to.

  And this is only one-sided, energy flowing from him to me.

  I don’t know where to touch him or whether I should. Somehow my hand lifts, all on its own. The back of my hand brushes his arm. It’s the completion of the circuit, and it sends a surge of sensation through me strong enough to be pain. There’s no time to dwell on that, because Damon uses the momentum to drag me closer. I fall into him, his body catching mine. It’s too dark to see anything but the gloss of dark eyes, the flash of white teeth. The sparks behind my eyelids as his hand cups my cheek.

  His breath touches my lips, a soft exhale that might have been a word.

  Then his mouth closes over mine. A kiss, but that isn’t the right word. A claiming. A question. An unbearable relief after long years of drought. He drinks me down, taking more than he has a right to, but I learn something—that I have more to give.

  A moan escapes me. My whole body leans toward him, wanting more, wanting to give him more. He takes it with greedy presumption, the king accepting his right. And me eager to serve.

  “Penny,” he murmurs. “Sweet Penny.”

  He slides his hand behind my neck, tilting my head back. His tongue nudges my mouth open. It’s a firm demand, one that I’m helpless against. Open. Vulnerable. A stroke against my tongue, that’s my reward. Merciless intimacy so raw it makes my chest ache.

  I make a sound—frightened.

  It seems to wake him up from some wild slumber. He pushes back from me, making the whole bed rock. Slam as the solid wood bed frame hits the wall. “Christ,” he mutters.

  The reprieve bites into me like a cold wind, whistling and desolate. “Wait.”

  “Get back to your room,” he says, his voice sharp.

  Sometimes strength means standing up to your enemies. Sometimes it means standing with them. “I don’t want to go.”

  His hand on my wrist feels completely different than before. Not comforting. Not electric. This is something else. Menacing. He leans over me, making my heart pound in solemn warning. “I’ll fuck you if you want me to, honey. And then push you out of my bed.”

  There are castles inside me, built on hopes I didn’t know I had. Not until they crumble. His words ring with truth. That’s what he’d do to me, and God, what else did I expect?

  He presses close enough to brush his lips against my cheek, a perverse sweetness. “What’ll it be, Penny? Are you going to spread your legs for me?”

  “You’re a bastard,” I say between clenched teeth.

  He pushes me away with a rough laugh. “Guilty as charged.”

  It’s not him I’m mad at when I stand on the cold wood floor in my pajamas. It’s the man who made him this way. Maybe he would have been an asshole no matter who his father was. But Jonathan Scott has left his mark on this man in more ways than one.

  Even the darkness can’t completely hide the scars on Damon’s body.

  “What was your dream about?” I ask softly.

  His cocky amusement fades away. “I think you know.”

  Jonathan Scott is a spider in the city of Tanglewood, spinning webs that can catch any one of us. It caught me once. I remember dark green tiles, black soil. Water rising. “He only had me one night.”

  “One night was too fucking long.”

  And how many nights did a small boy have to endure?

  How many nights did a child suffer at the hands of a monster?

  How many nights does Damon Scott suffer his nightmares by himself? “No one should have to go through the nightmares alone. If you want to kiss me… or if you want to hurt me… you know where to find me.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Damon doesn’t come see me the rest of the night, which isn’t a surprise. The shock on his face had been gratifying, but it doesn’t change anything. He doesn’t want me.

  Or he doesn’t want to want me, which almost feels worse.

  Unable to sleep I go to work on the code and make a breakthrough.

  My stomach sinks when I realize I’m looking at a complex polynomial curve. I feel sick, not because I can’t solve it but because it proves the message wasn’t sent by Avery. And that it was probably sent for me. The letters convert via hex code, which is simple enough, but the polynomial curve they describe is much more advanced. Graduate level math. Who would know how to make this? Who would know that I could solve it?

  The code translates into two words: COME ALONE.

  It feels much more sinister now, and my throat clenches as I imagine all the horrible things that could be happening to her. It feels wrong to have a bed—even a small cot—when she might be in danger. Wrong to eat when she might be hungry.

  Should I wake up Damon? Except he already sent me away.

  And besides, the code isn’t completely solved. There’s still a bottom row of numbers that could mean anything. A signature? A location?


  COME ALONE isn’t something we can act on.

  Come where?

  I fall into a restless sleep and wake up when faint light seeps under the door.

  When I step outside, I find an empty bedroom and a tray of breakfast. French toast made from thick brioche bread, fresh cut berries, a small carafe of coffee. This must be what it’s like for Avery to have room service delivered, I think with a flash of envy. And then immediately shiver with guilt.

  Wherever she is now, she probably doesn’t have room service. Every bite of the delicious breakfast fills me with both illicit comfort and terrible dread.

  I take the empty tray downstairs, half expecting to find Damon lurking in the corner or an army of maids and cooks at his service. It’s eerily quiet, almost like I’m walking through a museum.

  In the kitchen there’s a woman reading a magazine.

  She’s wearing a black T-shirt and blazer with jeans, her dark hair pulled into a strict ponytail. She looks up and smiles at me. “Good morning.”

  “Good morning,” I say, a little wary. She’s beautiful enough to have been one of the women dancing in bikini tops and leather skirts that first night, but I wouldn’t recognize her if she was. Not with my memories of that night hazy, lights flashing, smoke in the air.

  Not with her face scrubbed clean of any makeup.

  I put the tray down on the counter beside an empty sink, wondering if I should do the dishes.

  “Do you need anything?” she asks, her tone neutral.

  It feels strange that I don’t know whether she’s Damon’s guest or servant. Then again it’s strange that I don’t know that about myself. “I’m sorry, who are you?”

  She gives a tinkling laugh. “My name’s Hiromi, but you can call me Hiro. I’m your personal security.”

  Personal security. Does that mean she’s keeping me in the house or defending me from what’s outside? With Damon it’s probably both, the same way he uses the small room to possess me and protect me.

  I sit down across the high kitchen tabletop. “Well, hi.”

  “Hi,” she says back, as if nothing could disturb that calm composure. Probably nothing can.

  “So you work for Damon?”

  She nods. “I’ve done a few jobs for him, but this is the first time I’ve provided bodyguard services.”

  “You weren’t by chance the person who made that French toast for breakfast?”

  “My version of cooking is peanut butter on toast.”

  Who made the tray for me then? “So what other jobs have you done for Damon?”

  “You would have to ask him.”

  Her answer doesn’t surprise me, but I have to try. This is one of the few people I’ve had access to who knows Damon outside of my father and Avery. “Are you the only guard here?”

  “The only one inside the house.”

  “Isn’t it kind of a big property to have only one person?” The security procedures at the Emerald had been akin to an airport, probably tighter. Armed guards on rotating patrol. Background checks. Security cameras. All the things Gabriel Miller had done to keep Avery safe, but it didn’t work.

  “I think Damon Scott has the best security system there is,” Hiro says. “Reputation.”

  No one would dare attack the Den, except the one person I fear the most. His father. But Jonathan Scott is long dead. My last memory is of him strung up, being tortured, Gabriel and Damon’s joint retribution for the man’s misdeeds.

  A shiver runs through me. “Do you know where Damon is?”

  “Yes.”

  She doesn’t offer anything more than that, and it makes me smile a little. “Okay.”

  “If you need to get in touch with him, I can call.”

  The memory of last night’s kiss is too fresh in my mind. “No, thank you. But do you mind if I just… talk to you a little more? I know that probably isn’t in your job description, but it’s a little isolating upstairs.”

  Her expression softens. “Of course not. I get so used to working alone, but there are times it’s hard.”

  I glance at the glossy page of the magazine that I can’t quite read. “I guess you have a lot of time to pass. Then again I guess boring is a good thing in your line of work.”

  “This is related to work.” She flips the magazine back to its cover, revealing the stark letters GUN DIGEST. Something silver and terrifying is pictured on the front.

  My eyes widen. “Wow.”

  “Well, not only work,” she says with a private smile. “We all have our hobbies.”

  We all have our addictions. Drugs. Gambling. My addiction is something maybe more dangerous. Someone with a wicked smile. “I understand.”

  “And the truth is, I prefer action. I don’t usually accept jobs like this, but Damon Scott can be very persuasive when he wants something.”

  My stomach twists in jealousy, even though I have no hold on him. No right to him, actually. “Why did he want you to take the job so bad?”

  “Aside from the fact that I’m the best?” she asks without arrogance. “Because I’m a woman, probably. And I’m guarding the woman he’s keeping in his bedroom.”

  My mind trips on the implication, that Damon Scott might be jealous. “It’s not like that between us.”

  “Maybe not, but it wouldn’t matter. If I wanted to steal you away from him, I could.”

  I laugh out loud, a flood of relief to find normalcy in such a strange situation. She laughs with me, even though I’m pretty sure she’s dead serious.

  “So what kind of information does a gun magazine have. New guns?”

  “New models. New attachments. Firsthand accounts of combat, that kind of thing.”

  “That sounds…” Terrifying. “Specific to your profession. Is there a wide gun enthusiast audience?”

  “Wider than you probably want to think about,” she answers almost cheerfully. “But you don’t have to worry. As long as I’m here, you’re safe. Though you should probably stay away from the windows.”

  I blink at her, thinking of the small room I have upstairs with no windows. Thinking of Nina’s words about it. This room. It doesn’t only keep you inside. It keeps everyone else out. They’d have to go through him to get to you.

  Chapter Seventeen

  I wait until midafternoon before venturing out again. Outside the room there’s a landing with a wide balcony and curving stairs. I follow the scent of roasting chicken, my mouth watering in anticipation. Whatever dish is being prepared in the kitchen, it will probably end up on a beautiful tray outside my door.

  Who’s cooking it? And why have I never met that person?

  Maybe it’s not an important mystery in context, but it pulls me in.

  As I get closer to the kitchen I hear strains of classical music coming from the speakers perched in the corner of the dining room. It’s soft enough that I can still hear a faint clatter of metal pots inside.

  I push open the swinging door, struck silent by what I see.

  Damon Scott, his white shirt sleeves rolled up, his jacket and vest draped over a barstool, stirring something as it simmers on a professional stainless steel cooktop. Proof is tucked into every corner—the fresh parsley chopped on a board, a homemade broth defrosting on the counter.

  “What are you doing?” I ask, proving how very little IQ points actually count for anything.

  He doesn’t turn to face me. “You don’t like chicken masala?”

  “You’re the one who’s been cooking. The French toast. That was you?”

  A quiet laugh. “You finished it off, so I assumed it was to your liking.”

  The fact that this man can cook at all seems strange. This man who once roasted fish he caught from a lake with only dirt and stones and twigs to help him. Then again maybe that’s exactly why he knows how to cook. Because he makes himself delicious food without any help at all.

  “I thought you’d have a chef. Maybe someone famous. With a few cookbooks published, that kind of thing.”

  “No che
fs. I could never trust one enough to eat what they make.”

  That’s some intense paranoia. Then again, knowing the city and its vagaries, it might be a valid fear. “You could hire a tester,” I say, cautiously walking into the room. The whole place seems strange to me, even though I’ve worked in diners and the Emerald’s kitchen for years now. The diner had surly cooks. The Emerald, somewhat snooty chefs. I have no idea how to quantify Damon as a creator of comfort and art. It goes against all my experiences of cooking. He seems… relaxed.

  “Poison isn’t always immediate,” he says to my tester idea. “Besides, what if he did drop dead? How would I ever find someone to replace him?”

  I scrunch my nose at Damon, scooting onto one of the empty barstools that circle the island. “I guess that’s kind of morbid, the whole idea of a tester.”

  “Not any more morbid than a bodyguard. They’re putting their life on the line.”

  “Bodyguards like Hiro.”

  He glances at me. “You met her.”

  “She seems competent. And a little bit scary.”

  “Those are the actual job requirements for her position.”

  “Do you really think I need security? Isn’t the Den secure?”

  “Yes, but there’s someone working for me who I don’t trust.”

  “Who?” Realization hits me before the word fully leaves my mouth. “Oh.”

  “Yes,” he says. “Your father had access to the Den, to my businesses. Access to me. And that makes him a liability now that he’s gone missing.”

  Unease stirs in my stomach. “Something could have happened to him. The same way something could have happened to Avery.”

  Damon sends me a dark look. “Do you really believe that? That your father is kidnapped in some basement, at the whim of a sexual predator?”

  Tears sting my eyes, imagining Avery that way. “No.”

  “I don’t think so either,” he says, a little softer.

  “But even if my father started gambling again, how would that mean I’m in danger?”

  Damon takes his time about answering, seasoning the sauce that he’s working on. After a moment I realize he might not answer at all. Then he dips a wooden spoon into the pot and carries it to me.