Queen of The Hill (Knight Games)

by Genevieve Jack

  Everyone stood up. I kept my eyes on Rick as I stepped forward. Step, together. Step, together. With a beaming smile, I endured the flash of novice photographers as I moved in step with Dad toward my destiny. But as I grew closer, I could see something was wrong. Rick was slightly pale and … sweating. I’d never seen him sweat, not ever. His eyes were gray but vacant, and the closer I got, the more his expression looked tortured.

  After what seemed like an eternity, Dad and I reached the front, the point where Rick was supposed to come forward to take my hand from my father, but Rick didn’t move. The pastor cleared his throat. Rick still didn’t move. The music came to an end, and still Rick did not move. I reached out to him through our metaphysical connection, but I couldn’t get inside his head. He was blocking me. That’s when I knew something was wrong, really wrong.

  “Rick?” I said.

  With a deep breath, he shook his head. “I need to talk to you.”

  I glanced at my father, who had a murderous expression on his face, squarely directed at Rick, and then at Michelle and Soleil who looked more confused than angry. Turning toward the now murmuring guests, I said, “Please excuse us for one moment.”

  The pastor looked concerned as Rick led the way into a small room behind the altar. A plate of communion wafers and a goblet of wine rested on a small table with shallow drawers. The rest of the room was plain, aside from a few crosses on stands in the corner and an uncomfortable-looking chair. This was the sacristy.

  “I’m not sure we’re supposed to be in here,” I said reverently.

  “The room will be sufficient.” He coupled his hands behind his back and stared at a water stain on the wall.

  “What’s going on, Rick?” My voice shook more than I wanted it to. I couldn’t help it. A crushing weight settled over my heart, growing heavier with every second he didn’t look at me.

  “I can’t do this,” he said toward the wall.

  “Can’t do what?”

  “Marry you.”

  I laughed, although there was nothing funny about his words. It was my body’s way of dealing with the pressure and pain that threatened to eviscerate my heart. “You’ve wanted to marry me since the day we met.”

  “Not anymore.”

  I swayed on my feet. “What changed since last night?” I asked, my words thready and barely audible. Concentrating, I focused on our connection, forcing my way into his head. Was it Tabetha? A vampire mind trick? Had he made a deal with someone to protect me? I forced my way into his consciousness, and what I saw inside his head turned my blood to ice. As far as I could tell, his thoughts were his own.

  He licked his lips and faced me. “I just now realized how you’ve used me. I’m a tool to you. A means to an end.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “I need time. I need to prove to myself that you don’t own me.”

  “Time. You’re asking for time now, on our wedding day.” Okay, now I was angry. I was the president of the asking-for-time club. I would have been happy to indulge his sincere desire to wait. But this was not the time for doubts. This was the I-am-totally-ready-for-this part.

  He narrowed his eyes at me. “Better now than after.”

  My mouth dropped open. His expression was frigid. “Why are you doing this?” I asked. “Did something happen? Are you trying to protect me?” I’d seen his thoughts. He meant every word he said. I just couldn’t bring myself to believe it.

  He shook his head. “I’m sorry.”

  “But you love me. How could you do this to me?” My words were sharp, meant to hurt.

  Again he shook his head, and this time he walked away.

  “Don’t walk away from me. You owe me more of an explanation than this. Rick?” I tried to follow him, but he exited through the back door and slammed it in my face.

  “Rick? Rick!” I glanced down at the bouquet I was still holding and caught sight of my mother’s pearl bracelet. What a waste of a good gift. What would she think of me now? I dropped my bouquet. Watched the fresh flowers bounce and roll on the wood floor. The head of a white rose broke from its stem and separated, decapitated, from the arrangement.

  My father approached from behind. Good thing, because I collapsed. My tears swelled and spilled, and my body went lax. To the sound of Soleil asking for the attention of the guests in the pews, my father and a swearing Michelle ushered me out of the church and took me home.

  CHAPTER 26

  Fallout

  Time slipped through my fingers. I was in the carriage and then being undressed and helped into bed. Sleep was an escape my mind dove toward, and I embraced the darkness. I willed myself deeper into the abyss. Who would want to wake up? Who would want to live after an experience like that? The surface of consciousness was a painful place. No, I fought to stay asleep, wrapped in darkness and blissful unconsciousness. Was this what death would feel like? To be swept away into the depths of a dark and endless ocean?

  Unfortunately, time and light forced me to the surface. As well as Poe, who stood on my chest with his hooked beak pressed into the bridge of my nose. Michelle sat by my bedside, no longer in her bridesmaid’s dress but in jeans and a sweatshirt.

  “Grateful?” she asked uncertainly.

  I opened my mouth to say something and nothing came out but a sob. She brushed Poe aside and pulled me into her arms. I cried on her shoulder until I couldn’t cry anymore.

  “I’m so sorry, sweetheart,” Michelle said, stroking my hair.

  “He left me,” I gasped. My throat felt bone dry, my whole body drained of every ounce of energy. “How could he leave me?”

  “I don’t know,” Michelle said.

  Poe found his voice. “I, for one, didn’t think it was possible for a caretaker to leave his witch.”

  This only made me cry harder.

  Michelle stroked the back of my head. “Grateful, we can talk about this more, but first you need to eat something. You’ve been asleep for almost twenty-four hours.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “I don’t care, hon. You need to eat.” Michelle’s voice changed from pleading to commanding. She pulled back the covers and helped me out of bed. A bathroom visit later, I was sitting at the kitchen island while she made me Cream of Wheat. Poe stared at me sympathetically, which was as annoying as it was worrisome. If the situation wasn’t dire, he’d be his regular snarky self.

  “Did Rick give you any indication he didn’t want to be married?”

  “No,” I said. A sob erupted from my throat, but no tears fell. Was it possible to run out of tears? “We were together last ni—” I caught myself. I’d been in bed an entire night and day. “I mean, the night before we were supposed to get married. Everything seemed fine.”

  “What exactly did he say before he left the church?”

  “He said I was using him. That he felt like he was my tool. He needs time to figure out if he loves me outside of our magical relationship.”

  Poe straightened his neck. “That does not sound like our caretaker.” His beady eyes narrowed.

  Michelle poured the hot Cream of Wheat into a bowl from the cupboard and added butter and brown sugar. She skimmed the meal across the counter to me.

  “Thanks. Where’d you get butter and brown sugar?”

  “The same place I got the Cream of Wheat. My house. You seriously need to go grocery shopping.”

  My stomach growled in anticipation, and I spooned a heap into my mouth.

  “Something is wrong about this situation,” Poe said.

  “I was just left at the altar by my own caretaker. Everything is wrong with this situation.” I tipped forward and slammed my forehead into the counter, banging it repeatedly. Michelle took me by the shoulders and sat me back up.

  “You. Eat,” she said, pointing at me, then at the bowl. “You.” She pointed at Poe. “Be more helpful.”

  Poe swayed his neck. “I don’t mean to hurt you, dear witch, but I must ask the question. Why would Rick choose the worst poss
ible time to announce his change of heart? Why would he break things off with you in the most painful way?”

  “I don’t know. Wedding jitters.” I shrugged and shoveled in another bite of Cream of Wheat. I was hungrier than I thought I was and made short work of it.

  Poe shook his head. “The magic that makes him your caretaker forces him to protect you. He saved you from Julius in the fall despite thinking you were leaving him for Logan. What he did and how he did it was … uncharacteristic, for lack of a better word.”

  My spoon hit the bottom of the empty bowl with a loud clank. “But he did it, Poe. I was there. He was right in front of me, in the middle of our cemetery. I didn’t think it was possible either, but he stood not two feet away from me and said he didn’t want to marry me. He’s not sure he loves me.”

  “Where is he now?” Poe asked.

  “I don’t know. I’ve been asleep for the last twenty-four hours, remember?”

  “Your dad, Soleil, and I went to his house after the wedding,” Michelle said. “Your dad wanted to give him a piece of his mind. I wanted to show him a close-up of my fist. He was already gone by the time we got there. He hasn’t been back since.”

  “Use your connection,” Poe said. “Call for him.” I’d never seen Poe so resolute.

  Closing my eyes, I reached out, grasping at the magical ribbon that linked Rick and me. But the stretch extended into a misty fog within my mind. “He’s blocking me,” I said.

  “Someone’s blocking you,” Poe muttered.

  “We could check his cottage again? Or call Silas. He’s a detective,” Michelle said.

  I lifted an eyebrow. “No. I have a better way.” I looked right, then left. “Did you bring my purse when you helped me home?”

  “Not initially, but I went back to get it.” She moved across the foyer to the hall closet and emerged with a large shopping bag full of stuff. I saw my bouquet peeking from the top and dug through some decorative items that probably belonged to the florist to reach my white beaded bag. Inside was my phone.

  I poked the Find-a-Buddy app, entered my password, and clicked on Rick’s number while I slowly walked back toward the kitchen island. A map of the United States appeared on the screen while a glowing bar circled a bull’s-eye, narrowing Rick’s location to east of the Mississippi, then to the Northeast, and then finally to New Hampshire and the surrounding states.

  A white flag appeared over Rick’s location. I dropped the phone. My knees gave out, and my ass slammed into the hardwood.

  “Jesus, Grateful!” Michelle rushed to my side, cradling my shoulders and placing a palm over my forehead. “What is it? Are you faint?” she asked.

  I swallowed and licked my lips. With a shaking hand, I swept my bangs from my eyes before answering in an infirm voice. “Rick’s in Salem, Massachusetts.”

  “Tabetha,” Poe hissed. “He was taken, abducted as payment for the damned candle.”

  “He was not taken!” I spread my hands in frustration. “I watched him walk out of the church. I had a lucid conversation with him in Monk’s Hill Chapel. I saw inside his head!”

  “Then some kind of mind control,” Poe said.

  Michelle agreed. “He’d never go to her willingly. I had a hard enough time believing he left you. This is too much. Tabetha did this.” She helped me from the floor.

  I frowned. “How? We were in the middle of Monk’s Hill Cemetery. Even presuming I was too distracted to sense her power, I knew every face in that church. She wasn’t there.”

  Poe sighed. “Perhaps she hexed him before the ceremony.”

  “Or he left me for her.” A part of me yelled that it couldn’t be true, but another part, a large, defeated part, wondered if this was karma calling. Maybe I didn’t deserve Rick. Maybe my long history of failed relationships was repeating itself.

  I squatted to retrieve my phone from the floor, thankful the screen was still intact. The red bubble next to my messages icon displayed a number in the double digits. I tapped it absently and scrolled through the names of wedding attendees expressing their condolences and offering encouragement.

  He’s a dick! Kathleen from ICU wrote.

  You can do better, Silas fumed.

  I didn’t open all of them. When I reached the end of the list, my eyebrows knit.

  “Rick sent me a text the morning of the wedding,” I said.

  “What? I thought you said he didn’t know how to text?” Michelle asked.

  I blinked at the screen, disorientation making my eyes blur. “He doesn’t.” I tapped on his name. “It says, ‘Gracias, mi cielo. I adore new beginnings only slightly less than I adore you.’”

  “What was he thanking you for?” Michelle asked.

  Perturbed, I shook my head. “I have no idea.”

  Slowly, I stood from the floor, a hot, hungry nebula of rage forming inside me, demanding to be fed. Why was Rick with Tabetha? Why did he leave me the way he did? I wanted to believe Tabetha had made him do it, but how?

  “I’ve got to go to Salem.” I started for the stairs.

  “She’ll be stronger than you within her territory,” Poe said matter-of-factly. “Perhaps a spell or incantation to draw him out?”

  I shook my head. “She’d never let him go, even if he wanted to leave. No matter how she lured him there, if I know Tabetha, she’s sunk her claws in and won’t let go until I cut them off.”

  Michelle widened her eyes. “After everything you’ve told me about her, you can’t just walk up to her front door and ask for Rick back. She’ll kill you.”

  I took one more look at Rick’s text. He hated to text. Despised it. That text proved that at nine ten on the morning of March twentieth, Rick loved me. I had to know what happened between then and now. I had to know if the disaster that was my wedding day was real or manipulated by my nemesis. It was worth my life to know the truth.

  I paused, one foot on the steps, and met Michelle’s eyes. “I am going to Salem, and I am confronting Tabetha.” I shook my head. “I have to know if what happened to me in that church was because of Rick or because of magic. If it’s magic, you better believe I will take my caretaker back or die trying.” My voice cracked.

  “But—”

  I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters until I know why, one way or another.”

  CHAPTER 27

  Things You Can’t Unsee

  I parked in the street and walked to the gate of Tabetha’s residence, the same way Rick and I had. Only, I didn’t have Rick to give me a ride over this time.

  “Poe, fly over and see if there’s a button or something to open the gate.”

  He flew from my shoulder and circled around inside. Without thinking, I placed my hands on the bars and gave the gate a little push while I was waiting. The wrought iron moved easily under my hand.

  Poe flew back to my shoulder. “It’s open,” he said with concern.

  “She’s expecting me.”

  The gate squealed as I allowed it to close behind me. I didn’t think it was possible for the driveway to be creepier than it was the last time, but the tendrils of fog that wrapped around the trunks of the fruit trees writhed like they had a life of their own. The animals were back. To my left, the herd of albino deer stood like ghosts, half buried in the fog and partially concealed by the trunks of the grove of trees.

  Closer to us, an albino buck was feeding on fallen fruit. He raised his branched horns to look at me, lips stained purple from his feast, a harsh color against his bright white coat. The deer’s red eyes bore into me. It looked dead, or undead. The pulse in its neck throbbed as it trotted a few feet away inside the tree line in response to my presence. Not a vampire deer. Still, weird. It stopped a few feet inside the tree line, not far enough to be safe if I was a true predator, but then the deer seemed to know I wasn’t a threat.

  “Is this stuff good?” I asked the deer, crouching down to wave the fog away from the half-eaten fruit. The peel was bright red, but inside was purple with green se
eds. I’d never seen fruit like that, although something about it gave me déjà vu. What would it taste like? I stood and reached for a low-hanging specimen, breaking it open between my fingers. The smell of sex wafted to my nose and blood rushed to my crotch.

  “Hmm,” I said to the buck watching me. “Is that why you like this? Does it make you horny, baby?” I did my best Austin Powers impression.

  Poe leaned over for a whiff. “That is definitely genetically modified.”

  I inspected the fruit, the leathery red skin, the kiwi-like texture. An odd tingling began in my palms where the juice touched my skin. I dropped the fruit and wiped the juice on my pants. Better.

  “It makes you horny and numb,” I said to Poe. “No wonder the animals love it.”

  “May I suggest you focus on the task at hand?” Poe said. “The gate was open. She knows we’re here.” I nodded and turned back toward the house, refocusing on my mission

  “Poe, I don’t want you to come in with me. I need you to wait and watch at a safe distance, in case I need you. This could be a trap.”

  He took to the air and circled over my right shoulder. “If you insist.”

  I couldn’t blame him for not arguing the point with me. Tabetha’s house was terrifying in an abandoned-insane-asylum way.

  “I insist you back me up if I need it,” I said firmly. We’d reached the end of the drive, where a few feet of yard stretched to the wide steps of the stone veranda.

  “You know what’s weird about these trees?” Poe asked from the air.

  “The fruit smells like sex and the juice numbs like lidocaine?”

  “That too, but what I see from the air is it looks like she’s staggered the time of the planting.”

  “What?” I narrowed my eyes at him.