Resurrected King

by Blue, Kaye

The Commander looked at him and after a long moment nodded.

  “Report back when it’s done.”

  He nodded, not wanting to speak, certain he would slur his words.

  After he was dismissed, he went with that soft, fuzzy feeling instead of fighting against it, and made his way through the motions.

  In a lot of ways, he didn’t need his focus for this.

  Constructing the weapon, searching out the spot, surveilling the area.

  All of it was second nature, as commonplace to him as breathing.

  As commonplace as pulling the trigger would be.

  He took his position and checked his watch, counting down the time.

  As he waited, his attention started to slip, that fuzzy feeling getting heavier.

  Strange, not what he had expected.

  He’d taken this before, along with pretty much every other substance, legal and illegal known to man.

  Not for any pleasure, but for training.

  But he’d never had this particular effect before.

  It was almost as though his body was separate from his mind, like he was floating outside of himself.

  He fought it as long as he could, but the softness started to sharpen, tighten, become heavy.

  So much so, he worried he would fail the mission.

  He fought harder. Even harder.

  But gave in when everything went black.

  * * *

  “Wake up, you bastard!”

  He flinched, the sharp, roughly yelled words bringing him back to consciousness.

  He was groggy, confused, something he experienced very often.

  He looked around, recognized the spot that he had scouted.

  Recognized the weapon that was no more than two feet away from him.

  He smelled the acrid fire, the stench one that was familiar but that made him want to vomit.

  He tried to sit up but was stopped by a boot on his shoulders.

  “Don’t move, dog.”

  He recognized that voice, had listened to it, believed it, more than anyone else’s in his entire life.

  Still, some part of him held out hope.

  Hope that was dashed when he looked up and into the Commander’s eyes.

  Eighteen

  Mikhail

  I looked at her sleeping and felt like my heart had been ripped out.

  The rush of emotion was so strong my skin broke out in a cold sweat.

  I shivered.

  I knew she had fallen asleep, so I got out of bed, unable to stay with her for another moment.

  It seemed impossible, but I didn’t believe in coincidences.

  I loved her, even though I had no idea what that emotion meant.

  I didn’t understand it, but it knew it.

  Just as I knew I had killed her parents.

  Nineteen

  Adora

  Bliss.

  Not a word I would ever use for my life.

  I was mostly happy most of the time.

  More than I dared hope for really.

  So what I was experiencing now was unlike anything I had experienced before, and it thrilled and scared me in equal measure.

  Thrilled me even though I had never dared hope for whatever it was I was building with Mikhail. But it was joyous, made me feel alive in way that I never had.

  Made me fearful because I knew eventually the other shoe would have to drop.

  And it did.

  But not at all in the way I was expecting.

  I was making my way back to Mikhail’s, having taken a special trip to the gourmet grocery store.

  He’d been gone when I woke up and left another pile of cash on the coffee table next to the change I had given him. This time, I didn’t hesitate to take the money.

  I had plans in mind and remembered him mentioning that he liked chocolate mousse.

  I knew that he had never had any as good as mine, and I was excited to share it.

  Was excited about everything now.

  The fire, while sad, no longer filled me with despair. It was almost like it had happened to someone else.

  Because even though building was lost, the things I’d treasured gone, I’d found something just as valuable.

  More so.

  And it was enough to keep me on a high, so much so that when someone bumped into me, pushing me against a building, I didn’t even get annoyed.

  When I glanced at the person who had pushed me, I froze, a sense of unease coming over me.

  I didn’t recognize his face, but something about his eyes sent a shiver down my spine.

  “Take this,” he said, his voice making that shiver intensify.

  He pressed an envelope into my hands.

  I should have refused it, but I felt myself closing my fingers around it on instinct.

  He was gone as quickly as he had appeared, and I started to walk, moving on automatic.

  It took me three blocks realize I was lucky to have been able to walk away, the danger only hitting me far too late.

  I also remembered the envelope in my hand. I should have ditched it but held it tight, didn’t even let it go after I entered Mikhail’s place.

  “Adora? What happened?”

  He had barely glanced at me, but there was no hiding my tumult from him.

  I didn’t answer and instead dropped the bags, letting the envelope flutter to the floor.

  I looked down at it like it was a snake poised to bite me.

  I wasn’t sure why I felt that way but knew that whatever it was, it was something I didn’t want to see.

  “Adora.”

  The way he said my name, with calm, patience, helped snap me out of my stupor.

  “Someone handed that to me,” I said, gesturing toward the envelope.

  “Who?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. It was a man. I didn’t recognize him.”

  I sounded stupid, but he didn’t react to that.

  “Do he say something to you?”

  “He said this was something I might want to see.”

  “What else?”

  “Nothing else.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  He picked up the envelope and opened it carefully.

  Panic suddenly hit me. “That might be anthrax or something!”

  He shook his head, calm as ever. “Not in this kind of envelope.”

  That answer should have scared the fuck out of me, but it actually made me feel better.

  He pulled the thick stack of papers out of the envelope, and though he tried not to give anything away, I saw something in his expression.

  My calm was to be short-lived it seemed.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Nothing.”

  His response was quick, so quick it put me on the defensive.

  “Let me see it,” I said, extending my hand.

  “There’s nothing for you to see,” he said.

  “Shouldn’t I decide that?”

  He looked at me, his eyes pleading, a plea that I wanted to accept.

  One that I couldn’t.

  He looked at me a moment longer, his unspoken words loud and clear, and then he put the papers in my hand.

  I didn’t look immediately, trepidation that I couldn’t really put a name to telling me these papers would change my life yet again.

  But I couldn’t look away.

  So, after I exhaled, I looked.

  I saw a language I didn’t recognize and a picture that I did.

  Him from long time ago, from the looks of it.

  More boy than man, really.

  The red stamp across his face did nothing to obscure who he was.

  And even though I couldn’t read the language, I understood that red word.

  Figured that death was recognizable in any language.

  But he wasn’t dead, and I needed to know what all this meant.

  I flipped through those pages, stacks and stacks of documents in the same language, and
then finally, on the very last page, a picture.

  One that made the blood drain from my head, made me fear my heart had stopped.

  I knew that picture.

  Knew that grassy hill.

  Knew the flaming wreckage that had taken my parents’ lives.

  “Say it’s not true,” I whispered, praying for a quick denial.

  He didn’t answer at first, took a pause, swallowed, that kind of nervousness not something I’d ever seen from him.

  It left me even more shaken, more unsettled.

  “Say it,” I repeated in a voice I barely recognized as my own.

  “It’s complicated,” he finally said.

  “That’s not a denial!”

  “We’ll talk. I can explain—”

  He reached for me, and I flinched. Curled my fingers, ready to claw his eyes out.

  “Don’t fucking touch me!”

  “Adora…”

  His voice was pleading, and pathetic fool I was, I almost fell for it.

  Would have until I looked at the floor and saw that cursed picture and felt the stab of pain that was almost familiar by now.

  I met his eyes again and was sure I literally felt my heart breaking.

  I moved slowly, not wanting to turn my back on him.

  Only turned when I reached the door.

  I ran out, moving like the devil was chasing me, laughing hysterically when I realized he was.

  But the laughter soon stopped, and all that was left was pain.

  I didn’t do what I normally would, didn’t try to fight it back, to squelch the hurt.

  No, I let it come.

  Let my tears fall.

  Twenty

  Adora

  Those first days had passed in a blur.

  After I left Mikhail’s, I wandered the streets and then finally broke down and called Erin.

  She’d sounded happy when she’d answered, but by the end, I could practically feel her worry over the phone.

  I told her about the fire, that I needed a place. Sasha might have told her more. I didn’t know and didn’t dare ask. Just as I didn’t turn down her offer to stay at her apartment.

  How much simpler would it have been if I’d just called her first?

  I didn’t know, regretted that I hadn’t, but there was nothing I could do about that now.

  So instead, I bought the stuff I needed to bake and holed up in Erin’s place.

  Tried to pretend I wasn’t touched when I got a package with replacements for my ID and credit cards and cell phone, nor wonder how he’d pulled it off.

  Instead, I watched shitty television, ate all the pastries and cake I wanted, and tried to pretend my heart hadn’t been ripped out.

  The last was hard, as was my anger at myself.

  I should hate him.

  I did hate him.

  But I hurt too.

  I stayed like that for weeks, until one day, fueled by tiramisu—a recipe I had finally perfected—I resolved no more.

  I showered, washed my hair, brushed my teeth, and determined to get on with things.

  The next day, I woke up feeling determined but with an ache still there.

  And as much as I didn’t want to admit it, I knew exactly what it was.

  I missed him.

  Pathetic but true.

  And also not something that was going to go away.

  So, I made a decadent breakfast and prepared to face the day.

  By lunch, my plans were made.

  The farthest I’d ever been away from home—whatever the hell that meant these days—was three hours.

  I’d been a preteen and my parents had rented a cabin upstate. Said I needed to get into nature, see more of the world.

  I’d hated it, and my dislike of travel had been born.

  It only got worse after I lost them.

  But traveling now, going many thousands of miles away from everything I’d ever known, would give me the clarity that had evaded me so far.

  I hoped.

  I’d lost everything in the fire and knew I had a long way to go before I had anything resembling a life again.

  Erin was there, but I wouldn’t rely on her for longer than I had to. But the uncertainty about the future wasn’t even a thought when I maxed out my credit card to buy the ticket. I even sprung for first class and booked what the Internet said was the nicest hotel in the city. Probably overkill because I would be there for less than two days, but I didn’t care.

  I slept through most of the flight—thank you, Zolpidem—and was in a haze when I checked into the hotel, so much so that the luxury was lost on me.

  Any other time, I would have marveled at its beauty, but I couldn’t now.

  I stayed in the first day, trying to gather my nerve, and the evening before I was due to check out and go back home, I finally found it.

  I had a driver drop me at the closest address I could find and then made my way to the site.

  There was nothing to it, no marker, no memorial.

  No evidence of the despair that had started here all those years ago.

  It was just a grassy hill.

  I wasn’t sure whether I was happy about that or not.

  Wasn’t sure about anything.

  After I stood for a few minutes, I walked over the unimpressive piece of grass waiting for the emotion to come, for the tears to flow.

  And they did. The tears flowed.

  But they weren’t the tears of pain, of the searing grief that I’d come to know so well.

  Pain and grief were there, of course, along with the knowledge that I would always miss them. But there was something else too.

  Memories.

  Great ones.

  My parents dancing front of the Christmas tree in our apartment.

  My father teaching me to bake.

  My mother swearing off the kitchen for good after another near disaster.

  How they had loved me and each other with everything they had.

  That thought pulled me up short. And as much as I tried not to, I couldn’t help but think of him.

  I hated myself for it, but I couldn’t help but remember the way he’d looked at me, the way his expression had reminded me of the way I my father had looked at my mother.

  Reminded me of how much I had always wanted someone to love me like that.

  How I always wanted someone to love like that.

  Those thoughts, as good as they were, raised an undeniable feeling of betrayal.

  How could I even consider it, knowing how he’d been involved, what he’d done?

  I stood there for a long time, until dark, after, until common sense finally pulled me out of my stupor.

  I was no closer to making my decision, but I felt lighter. And I promised myself I wouldn’t push those good memories down anymore, that I would honor the time I’d had with them.

  The flight back was better and passed in a blur of midlevel champagne and small talk.

  And my heart wasn’t twisted into quite so many knots.

  Erin was still letting me stay in her apartment, and when I got there, I was relieved.

  I was glad I’d taken the trip, had known it was long overdue, but it was good to be home.

  I showered, settled, hoping the jet lag would allow me to sleep.

  It didn’t, so I sat on the sofa staring at the TV.

  Wasn’t at all surprised when I heard a knock on the door.

  I opened it, still not surprised when he walked through.

  Not surprised when my heart lifted.

  “How long have you been waiting?” I asked.

  “Since ten minutes after you came back. I wanted to give you a little time to unwind,” he said.

  “How considerate,” I responded drily.

  He didn’t say anything, and I didn’t either.

  I didn’t know what to say, couldn’t give words to feelings I barely understood.

  I couldn’t do anything and thought I would explode with all the emotions racing through me.


  One thing, and one thing alone cut through all that.

  Despite everything, my desire for him was unchanged.

  Might even have been deeper.

  How could I still want him after what I’d found out?

  I didn’t know. I just knew that I needed to do something, anything, with the feelings I could barely contain.

  He watched me warily, like I was worried about how I would react.

  He should have been because I didn’t know how I would.

  But I didn’t try to plot it out, didn’t try to understand it.

  I just went with feelings.

  I crossed the living room and kissed him, lips and teeth and tongues clashing almost violently.

  Even still, I felt better, more right than I had in the entire time since I’d seen him last.

  After all I knew, all I’d experienced, I still wanted him.

  And he wanted me back.

  I knew that, could feel it, feel other emotions that I didn’t dare pay attention to. That was too much, a road I didn’t want to go down, but this, the physical connection between us, was easy, something I understood and could process.

  I ripped my own pants down, stepping out of them. Then I opened his, gripping his cock, ignoring the way my heart quivered as I held him in my hand.

  I looked down at where I touched him, my fingers capturing his girth, the angry-red of his crown slick.

  Before I could process it, I’d dropped to my knees and took him into my mouth.

  His taste was beyond description, as was his reaction when I sucked him as deep as I could.

  I pulled back and looked down at his glistening shaft. I wanted to taste more of him, swallow every drop of his seed, but I needed to feel him inside me more.

  I stood, my legs wobbly, and grabbed his hand and pulled him behind me.

  I stooped at the nearest wall and turned to face it, pulling him toward my back. He followed without pause, settling his hand at the base of my spine and pushing inside me.

  “Oh, God,” I said on a harsh breath, the pain of his entry making the pleasure that much better.

  He fucked me hard, relentlessly, just as I wanted him to. There was no gentleness in this coupling, and it was better that way.

  If he’d been sweet, gentle with me, if I’d looked into his eyes as he took me, I would lose my resolve.