Player's Princess (A Royal Sports Romance)(157)

She slows the machine, and the cable. I hang on for dear life. Any moment the strength in my belly and back will give, my feet will drop, and it will have me.

Then the world goes bright as the sun and I press my eyes shut, blinded. There is a great crash and the roof caves in from above, slabs of concrete spiked through with rebar falling like rain in the corner, followed by a thunderous crashing sound as the armor suit lands on the ground in a crouch.

In the middle of all this madness, I’m back at Bible camp. I remember the voice of old Reverend Abernathy reading from Revelations: and I heard as he cried with a great voice as the lion roars, and seven thunders uttered their voices.

Kristoff’s wordless bellow, half a roar and half a scream, echoes through the chamber. He swings his four-foot-long sword through the air and it clashes in a blue arc of sizzling electricity.

The cable stops, and I hang inches above a brutal death.

“Take off the armor,” she says. “Get out of it now.”

“Don’t,” I scream. “Don’t do it! You can’t let her have it!”

“Do it or she dies, my prince. You’re fast, but not fast enough,” Cassandra snarls.

“Release her, free from harm, and you can have the armor,” he says, without missing a beat.

“No!”

“Shut up,” Cassandra barks. “You step out of it first. Lay down the sword and open the armor, get on your knees, and await my mercy.”

“I should have killed you before.”

“You can’t. Can’t hurt a woman, as if I am some lesser creature unworthy of the same consideration you gave your brother. How did that feel, I wonder? Did you enjoy it when that blade of yours bit through his belly?”

“Enough. Take the armor, let the girl go free.”

“I see you have sense enough not to plead for your own worthless life. Very well. Get out of the suit.”

No, no, don’t.

I stare at him, pleading. It’s not worth it, I want to tell him. My life is a small thing, not worth all this. She can’t have that power. No one should. It has to be destroyed, all of it. I’d rather die than let her have a weapon like that. It’s madness.

His armor unfolds and breaks open, spreading apart around him. He steps down, disengaging his feet from the stirrups before he falls into a kneeling position before it.

“The advanced prototype,” Cassandra murmurs, her lusty whisper amplified to a shout by her armor. “Mine now. Give it to me.”

“You shall have it,” Kristoff says, looking at the floor.

“You should have known I wouldn’t let her live.”

Cassandra pushes the button. I fall.

It happens so fast I can barely register it. The tension of the cable holding me up disappears a fraction of a second after the press of the button, and I can feel the blades rushing up to meet my waiting flesh. I close my eyes, telling myself it won’t hurt too long, trying to think of something happy as I descend toward my hateful end.

Behind Kristoff, the armor suit cracks apart into pieces, falling like a marionette with the strings cut, and the individual parts rocket across the room in a cloud.

The first, biggest part, the back, hits me and knocks me away from the machine. As I fall, the other plates close around my arms and legs, locking in place, ratcheting as they adjust themselves to my body. The helmet slams closed over my head and I land in a roll on the concrete floor.

I get up on my knees as a screen blinks to life in front of my eyes. Little icons whir along the bottom, and I wave my hands at nothing, trying to shield myself from the spinning blips on the screen.

Surging to my feet, I stumble.

This feels incredible. It moves with me… No, it moves before I do, like it’s reading my mind. I stumble back and watch in horror as Cassandra comes charging at me in her gleaming white suit, sword raised high, and brings it down to cleave me in half.

It… It moves. It yanks me out of the way.

“Stay back!” Kristoff roars.

The world goes crazy. A second suit follows the first through the gap in the roof and he jumps, enveloped in it in a single motion, rolls, and snatches the sword from the floor. It arcs to life, buzzing with furious energy as he awkwardly swats away her swing, and their blades lock, moving so fast I can barely see.

I edge back, stumbling as I try to plant my feet, and put big cracks in the floor. It’s a struggle until I realize the suit will balance itself, all I need to do is let it. My heart pounds in my chest as I watch them duel.

My God, it hits me like a train.

He could kill her anytime he feels like it. She’s not very good with the sword.

He could bat her blade aside and run her through or slice off a limb, but he won’t, he keeps stopping himself, and every time he commits to a blow and pulls back, she lands one, raking the blade along the surface of his armor. Within a minute his suit is chipped and dented in a dozen places and his left knee sticks, making him limp.

“You pathetic, romantic fool,” she laughs, charging at him. “I hope you die knowing that you could have beaten me but your silly morals wouldn’t—”

“Shut up,” he roars, swinging at her.

She blocks the blow and edges out of the way. I knew she would, he aimed his cut at her sword, not her.

“Persephone go, now!”

My voice echoes across the room. “I won’t leave you!”