Blakeshire (Insight #9)(73)
“Perfect target,” I said under my breath.
“You need to evacuate it, move those people north, quietly,” Aden ordered.
“What are you guys trying to tell me? Some ghost gave you the heads up?” Chrispin asked, obviously gauging what I had been up to.
“Yep,” I said with a wink. “He said to go north, too. I’m not sure how deeply to believe this, but like I said, it would suck if we were wrong and something did happen.”
Marc’s dark eyes raked over me. “What ghost?”
“Donalt. Like I said, you can believe him or not. He said it was one of three omens. To move them north, not here, because if you did the person who set this in motion would know.”
“And who is that?”
“Didn’t ask.”
After a moment of indecision, Marc nodded once. “I’ll tell Drake. Will the two of you go to your wing now? I don’t need anything else to worry about tonight.”
He nodded in Zander’s direction, silently telling him to watch over us.
“You have twelve hours. It’s going to be a long night,” I said in an offer to help.
“We’ll figure it out.” Marc handed me the dress I had taken off. “Do you have any idea how horrible it would have been to tell him that I lost you?”
“I’m not his—not anyone’s. I’m going to bed. This day has been long enough.”
Sorrow engulfed Marc. It killed me to make him feel that way, but I was still on stage, and letting him or anyone else know that I was in love with Drake was a risk I wasn’t prepared to take.
Chapter Fifteen
Drake
Madison Marie had been in my palace for less than a day and already turned it on its heels. Stopping a royal in his path is punishable by death, and she did that when she halted to put whoever was imitating Clara in her place—which still had me grinning on the inside because I knew that meant she gave a damn. She had decided I was worth fighting for.
Madison Marie didn’t stop there; no, she exited a royal dinner without being excused. I almost erupted in laughter, I really did. It took all I had not to fall over with joy that she was brave enough to stand up to every one of those pompous asses. The only thing that stopped that action was when the thought arose that something had driven her to do that. If I found out someone at that table was solely responsible for her reaction—Creator help them—I was going to rip them apart piece by piece.
I was so distracted with that thought that I barely listened to Xavier and Alamos—the real one—when they gave me a briefing of the kingdom. Xavier was quick to point out that the kingdom was breaths away from a civil war, a war where half the souls demanded the reign of any and all Blakeshires to end. Half was an improvement in my eyes. Zander had told me the entire dimension was seeking a hostile takeover up until the moment Madison Marie and I shared that dessert before all of them.
Xavier was shouting words like ‘democracy’ as if that would be hell on Earth; little did he know that when I took my reign, I would ensure that was reached in this world. I had one purpose: to ensure they were all powerful enough to withhold one, that all self-doubt, all self-inflicted pain had ended—and equality was born. I was going to relinquish the dominion to the public. I wasn’t a fool. I knew it would take decades for my people to reach that point, to be able to make a unified decision that would satisfy all their needs, but I knew it could be done within my lifetime—or rather, the lifetime of my heir.
Which made Zander’s comment that I would not rule this dimension, but my heir, painful. This curse that what was haunting me stood to rob me of more than my vessel; it planned to rob me of my dreams. I could shoulder the grief of that realization, but I could not handle that my failure would let down and leave behind billions of souls who saw me as their last hope. This entire time, I had been fighting for them. Now I was fighting for them and the woman that carried half my soul, Madison Marie.
Ever since Zander gave me that flask, I’ve felt off. More on edge. Almost as if I were all too aware of the coldness building deep inside me. I was so focused on that, I barely noticed that his presence, Donalt’s, was absent for a few moments. That caused a warning signal to go off inside my heart. I stood from my desk and started to walk to the wing I knew Madison Marie was in. I was nearly running when the presence came back all at once. I slowed my pace, finding relief for the first time ever that he was with me—for if he were with me, he wasn’t hurting her.
Zander was approaching me now. He came to my side and strolled along.
“You want to tell me what happened at dinner?”
“Whatever could you mean?” he asked with a poorly hidden smirk.
“Was that you, another staged event?”
“I had nothing to do with tonight. I assure you, your queen had complete control of that situation.”
I felt that cold deep inside wave through me.
“What was in that flask?” I asked him in a low voice as we walked through the vacant halls.
“You wanted a remedy.”
“It’s worse.”
“Then I suppose that would cause the remedy you need to heal it to surface.”
I felt a wave of powerful energy move through the air. I stopped in my tracks, then moved on. It was only Landen. Here lately, I could sense him from a mile away. His energy carried that much power. I knew I felt Draven here, too.