The Book of Olivia

by Paxton Summers

  Was I a clone? Pilot’s laughter filled my head, shaking me to the core. “Do you know what else you are, Olivia? Oh, I know a secret. Daddy’s deep dark secret that he thought he’d kept hidden. Do you want to know what it is?”

  I reached out and touched a wooden rocking horse, setting it in motion. The room had been sealed for a long time, perhaps as long as I’d been around, yet everything looked as new as the day my father placed it here. Never used.

  “Oh.” My legs grew weak and I shoved my hands over my face. I’m a clone. I stumbled back, retreating from the room as fast as I could, my guts knotted.

  My parents were dead. I wasn’t a legitimate heir. The second in line, General Michael Axis was dead. Markus had no claim to Aeropia through our marriage. That would leave one who stood to gain everything by Aeropite law.

  The oldest son of General Michael Axis.

  Pilot.

  I backed through the exit and right into a wall of solid muscle. With a yelp, I jumped and spun around to find Marcus standing there. Alone. Relief washed through me. I didn’t know what I’d have done if he’d brought others with him. For some reason, he didn’t feel like a threat.

  “Olivia.”

  “I know what this looks like, but I can explain.”

  “No need. My brother came after you. I’ve been informed. I know I promised the nanites wouldn’t be used to track you, but I thought you were in danger. Pilot has disappeared, and I worried he might have discovered you’d been treated with them and tracked you.”

  “Your brother is seriously wrong in the head.” I rubbed the chills that erupted across my forearms.

  Marcus gave a slight nod. “That he is.” He lifted his chin, looking up, surveying the large chamber that housed the sunken city. “What is this place?”

  “The underground city.”

  “Those are drains.” He pointed up.

  “They are.”

  “They’re closed.”

  “Yes.”

  “We’ll have to do something about that.”

  I started toward my boat, determined to put as much space between us as I could. I had to warn Axel—even if it might mean my death to go back. My hands shook in reaction to what I’d discovered in that building. Marcus would do something about it, and though Axel didn’t want me anymore, I couldn’t turn my back on him or the family who’d once considered me one of their own.

  “Stop.”

  I ignored him, reaching for the rope tied to the ring.

  Marcus grabbed me and spun me around, backing me against the stone wall. “What’s wrong? Talk to me, Olivia.”

  I flinched from the pain in my shoulder, crying out and looking away.

  “You’re hurt.”

  I shook my head, unable to tell him I’d betrayed my people, that I wasn’t who he thought—that my life was one big fucked-up lie. Only the woman I once thought my mother saw my worth, and had given her heart to save me. I couldn’t grasp the reason she wasted it on me. She’d loved a clone as I had, defied my father’s laws and society by keeping me. We were not so different, and that alone terrified me. But I could not voice those fears.

  The clones needed the time, the parts they could get from the city, but, because of my actions, that wouldn’t happen. Marcus would find a way to open those drains, even if all he seemed concerned about at the moment was my shoulder.

  “Olivia,” he whispered. “Let me see it.”

  I swallowed as he took a minute to examine my arm, carefully lifting it and feeling along my arm to where it joined my body. “Dislocated.”

  Oh how it hurt, but it was a numbness compared to the other pain I felt.

  Without warning, he grabbed my arm and pulled hard. There was a pop. Bright light exploded across my vision. I broke into a sweat, and vomit pushed up the back of my throat. Shoving him out of the way, I dropped to my knees. It hadn’t been far enough. When I opened my eyes, I realized I’d heaved on his boots.

  Marcus squatted down next to me, lifting my hair from my face. He grabbed a canteen from the utility belt he wore and twisted off the lid before handing it to me.

  I hesitated. Even knowing I hadn’t told him about this place, that he hadn’t needed to evacuate the city, he still treated me like a gift. Was this kindness the calm before the storm? I stared at the canteen as if it might contain poison. Did he have any idea who he’d kissed?

  “Take it.”

  My fingers closed on the hard green plastic. I raised it in salute, tipped it, and took a large swig. Once I swallowed, I handed it back and wiped the corner of my mouth with the side of my hand. The canteen was a common item for soldiers in the field. I closed my eyes and sucked in a deep breath when I realized why he would carry such a thing. He’d geared up to go outside the city and into the forest. To search for me.

  Marcus poured the remainder on his boots to wash them off, remaining silent. I shuffled in reverse to sit next to the carved wall, leaning against the cold stone surface. What a mess I’d gotten myself into. Where to begin? I opened my eyes as Marcus took a seat next to me.

  “Sorry about that,” I said without looking at him, hoping to avoid the inevitable. I didn’t want to talk about this place. I didn’t want to talk about the drains, and I most definitely didn’t want to talk about what was in that room behind us.

  And my gut told me he did.

  “I couldn’t warn you. You’d have tensed up. The nanites would’ve taken care of the tenderness and inflammation, but they couldn’t put it back in place. I needed to do it.”

  I nodded.

  “What was in that building you were running from?”

  Here it came. I balled my hands into fists and held my breath. In the short time I’d come to know him, I’d learned he never took the indirect approach to anything. If he wanted something, he told me.

  I bit my lip. How would he feel about being bound to a clone? Or about not being the legitimate ruler of Aeropia? “It’s not important.”

  “I’d say it is. The pain in your shoulder didn’t put the look on your face. I’ve never seen anyone retreat so fast. What’s in there?” He cocked his thumb toward the room behind us.

  “My past. I’m not who you think I am.”

  He reached out to cup my chin, turning my face toward his. “I think I know who you are, no matter what’s in that room.”

  My eyes filled with tears. How to explain my life was one great big, fat lie? “No, you really don’t.”

  He grabbed the hand attached to my uninjured arm and stood, pulling me up with him. “If you won’t tell me, we’re going in there.”

  “Please don’t.” I couldn’t bear to look at that urn again, or the memorial objects of a child buried below the city, replaced by a clone.

  “You keep too many secrets, Olivia. This place, what’s in that room. This is not a good foundation for a marriage.”

  “Marcus.” I twisted my hand free. A marriage. He was still thinking about the contract we’d been forced to sign when our parents were only thinking of themselves. We hadn’t consummated anything; therefore, all we had was a fancy engagement—a handfasting—and part of me was afraid of what he’d do if he knew what was in that room. “You don’t want to see what’s in there.”

  The muscle in his jaw began to tic, and his eyes narrowed. “I won’t have secrets come between us. I’ve finally found you, and I’m not letting anything get in the way of what I want.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Haven’t I been clear? I want you.” He pulled me toward the room, eyed the pad for a second and then reached up to punch in the code. The door slid open.

  “How did you know…?”

  “You wrote the damn thing down on a drawing.” He dragged me inside and stopped in front of the urn. He studied it for several seconds, not saying a word.

  “I…” With a twist of my wrist, I broke free and started for the door.

  “Come back here.” He grabbed my arm and pulled me into an embrace, the last thing I expected
.

  “Marcus, please. Let me go. I didn’t know.”

  “I don’t care. You are who you have always been. My wife. A woman of courage and passion, and I’ve never wanted you more than I do now.”

  “I don’t understand.” I really didn’t. Every advantage a marriage to me would have offered was gone. He couldn’t possibly want the cloned daughter of a dead leader. A woman who’d murdered his people and withheld the truth from him, forcing an evacuation of his city. What could I possibly offer him that he didn’t already have? If he killed me here and now, his secret would be safe.

  “We’re married, and it’s about time I did something about that—finalized the deal. I’m never going to let you go, and when I’m done, you won’t want me to.” Fingers wove into my hair as he claimed my mouth. The kiss was both explosive and soft. The contrast melted the ice I’d encased myself in, freeing me at last.

  His intensity told me more than I could’ve imagined. Marcus didn’t want the power I could have brought. He wanted me, and that was intoxicating. I didn’t fight him because I didn’t want to.

  He kissed along my jaw to my ear. “Say yes,” he whispered so softly.

  “Yes.” There wasn’t any force upon the planet that could stop where our passion took us, or make me change my mind. I needed him as much as he needed me, even though I might regret it later and hate myself for sharing my heart with another. But that was for later. He’d earned a piece of my soul.

  He scooped me in his arms and carried me from the crypt. Stepped into another boat he’d used to follow me. Blankets and packs sat on the bottom. He’d planned to search for me for however long it would take, clearly not willing to go home until he’d found me.

  There are times in your life when you can’t go on, when you need someone strong to carry you. I needed Marcus more than the merging of our flesh. I needed the strength he possessed, a chance to find my way back to my feet.

  He laid me back as he kissed me, worshipping my skin with his hands and lips. My shirt came off first and then my pants. No boots to remove—I’d left them when I fled. And, before I knew it, he was the only man other than Axel who’d seen me undressed.

  His nostrils flared as his gaze swept over me. “You are so beautiful. Desirable. Mine.” His finger traced the scar that ran down the center of my chest, one that had begun to fade once he’d introduced the nanites into my body.

  It was a secret I wasn’t ready to part with, despite his claim he didn’t want any between us. How could I tell him I’d murdered my mother, maybe not directly, but I’d killed her all the same? I slid my hand over the seam, covering it.

  “Mine. Everything.” He caught my wrist and lifted it away from what I’d tried to cover. He studied the surgical scar for several seconds before looking up and into my eyes. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “Yes.” I understood. Once we did this, we couldn’t take it back. I would indeed be his wife, legal and otherwise. Let no man put asunder—till death do us part. He would forever more hold my heart and loyalty, and anything that could come between us must be pushed into the past.

  I swore then it would be so. I could not, would not share my soul with any other. Not like my father had, destroying my mother. This would sever all ties to the man I had loved since I was sixteen. And it was time I did—no matter the pain it brought. I had survived worse. My scars proved it. It was the ones Marcus couldn’t see, though, that worried me. I had seen an ugly side of Axel, but I still loved him. Could I break away, sever the connection?

  Axel had cast me out, and I needed to move on. I grabbed Marcus’s hand and placed his palm over my heart. The beat skipped under the heat of his flesh in contact with mine. I knew what I wanted. “Make love to me.”

  And he did.

  11

  Someone clamped a hand over my mouth to prevent me from screaming as I was pulled from Marcus’s arms. I kicked back with bare heels, but arms like bands of iron held me, preventing me from returning to him.

  “Get up.” One of Axel’s men poked a spear against my husband’s side, not hard enough to puncture, but a jab that brought him fully awake and reaching for a weapon under clothes that were no longer there.

  Marcus cracked an eye and looked at a mob. The weapon retreated, allowing him to move. Slowly, he sat up. He turned to where the clone leader held me. “You must be Axel.”

  Axel nodded.

  “You don’t look much like my father.” He glanced around the boat, certainly searching for his weapon.

  “Because I’m not your father.” Axel let go of my mouth and pulled his sidearm from Marcus’s utility belt, which he now wore. “Don’t bother looking for your laser. It’s right here in my hand, pointed at you. Get dressed.”

  “Axel, please don’t.”

  “Be quiet, Olivia.” There was a coldness to his voice that made me shiver, a warning I’d be a fool to ignore. I was naked around all the men, but I didn’t say a word. Now was not the time to push my luck.

  “Let her put some clothes on,” Marcus said, as if reading my mind.

  “In a minute.” Axel holstered the weapon and slid his hand up my side. “She’s beautiful, isn’t she?”

  Marcus glared back. “Get your hands off my wife.”

  “She’s not your wife.” He cupped my breast and kissed my cheek. “Olivia belongs to me. She’s always belonged to me. Your wife is in that urn. Not my problem.”

  I closed my eyes, regretting I’d taught him how to read. How else could he have known?

  “She’s been my wife since the day she was born.”

  “Created. You forget she’s a clone and not the daughter of Herod and Ana.”

  “I don’t care if she was naturally born or cloned. She’s still my wife, and you threw her away.”

  “I knew she would follow through, lure you out of the city. Olivia’s not a coward. It only took a bit of prodding to get her to act. Why else would she have brought you here, where no one could save you?”

  “She didn’t lure me here. As for prodding her to act—are you serious? You call carving up her face, prodding?”

  “I did that to save her.”

  “Stop.” I reached up and removed Axel’s hand from my breast. “I’m right here. Stop talking about me like I’m not.”

  Axel let me go, and one of his men tossed him a blanket that he draped over my shoulders. I grabbed the edges and pulled them shut. He reached up and captured a lock of my hair between his fingers. “However, I would have preferred this secret stay a secret.” Axel dropped my hair and waved his hand around the underground city. “The fewer people who know about what’s down here, the better.”

  I drew the blanket tighter around me and spun to face him. “Why are any of us doing this? Marcus wants peace. You want peace—at least you claimed to want it.”

  “Not at the price I’d have to pay. I won’t go back to being a slave.”

  “We don’t want to make you slaves.”

  Axel pointed his finger at Marcus and smiled. “Right. Says the man whose father created me for that purpose.”

  My husband bent to get his pack, and Axel shook his head. He pulled the laser again and pointed it. A high-pitched whine emitted a warning that could blast him to dust in a moment. “Leave the pack and get dressed.”

  With a snarl, Marcus reached down and pulled his pants on and then his shirt and boots. When he finished, Axel jerked his chin toward a man standing on his right. “Get his pack.”

  The man grabbed it and tossed it into another boat.

  “You’re free to go,” Axel said with a little too much nonchalance.

  “Like that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?” Marcus reached out to me. “Come on, Olivia.”

  “I said you were free to go. Olivia stays.”

  “You’re mistaken. She’s my wife and coming with me.”

  Axel tipped his head back and laughed. “Do you really think Olivia loves you? You’re a bigger fool than I thought
. She’s a survivor and did what she had to, to stay alive. When you go back to the city, the floods will be the least of your concerns.”

  Least? “Axel, how did you find me?” There was only one way, and that was if I’d been tracked, following an electronic signature given off by nanites. I wouldn’t have in my blood unless he put them there. I leaned closer to Marcus and looked at his irises. Copper specks dotted around the garden green of his eyes. I sank to a heap on the deck. I’d refused to be a carrier, would never let Axel do it, yet somehow he’d managed to make me one, and I’d inadvertently spread his virus to Marcus. The only time I could think I’d become a carrier was when I had been unconscious before I’d gone into exile.

  “You’re infected.” I pressed my fist over my mouth. “No.”

  My husband’s eyes widened. “You gave me the disease? How could you do this to me?” The heat of anger stained Marcus’s face. He balled his fists to his side and looked at me with an expression that would stick with me forever. They wanted him to take the plague back to his people, infect them. I couldn’t let Axel do that. I couldn’t let Marcus do it.

  “I didn’t know I had the virus. He must have made me a carrier when they knocked me out. Please…”

  “It’s a little late for that, don’t you think?” Marcus said. “All of this is a little too convenient. How did they know you’d be here?”

  “The same way you did.” I turned to the man I’d once loved with all my heart. If he cared one shred about me, still felt something, he wouldn’t do this. “Axel, don’t. There are many innocent people in that city. Children. Women. For me. Stop now. Give him the nanites that carry the antivirus. You know you’re doing this for personal reasons.”

  “If you hadn’t had sex with him, he wouldn’t be infected. You made the choice, Olivia. No one in that city is innocent, and why would I help my enemy? Why would you?”

  “He’s not your enemy.”

  “Don’t bother, Olivia. I’m not going back there. I’m going to take your little gift and go into the forest to die. I was a fool to trust you. Is revenge as sweet as you thought it would be? Are you happy you’ve now put Pilot in charge of Aeropia?”