The Last Queen Book Three Read online

  But obviously Spencer sees it differently as he turns, one hand on the door, and nods at me. “She’s being attracted to me, even if she doesn’t realize it. So I need to move while I can. Before the goddamn party starts, and the end of the world follows.” Though his voice starts off triumphant, it quickly dips low in loathing, and, quite possibly, fear. It’s a fear that marks his face as well as a blast of anger as he finally jerks his head toward the passenger seat. “Get in the damn car.”

  There are a trillion and one reasons not to get in the damn car, not least of which I know I can’t control my body in Spencer’s presence, let alone when I’m seated directly next to him.

  But there are two very compelling reasons to ignore my fear.

  One, he offered to take me back to his base. Not his office, not one of his multiple abodes – but his base. And I can’t help feel that it’s not just a code for one of his ordinary haunts.

  No. It would be somewhere I’ve never seen before. Somewhere he runs his operations from. And if I want to find out more about Spencer Gates, then I need to know where that is.

  But the real reason I walk around the car and get in is the comment about the end of the world.

  Spencer Gates is a lot of things, but underneath, he’s still a king. That wouldn’t have been a throwaway comment.

  I close the door just as he jumps into the driver’s seat and closes his.

  He pauses before he turns the ignition on.

  He could just be thinking of something, maybe mentally reminding himself that he has something urgent to do, but for some reason that pause sets my heart speeding.

  I can’t even reach a hand up and do my seat belt up. But when he doesn’t bother to do his and just speeds out from the curb with a screech of tires, I hope my inaction isn’t conspicuous.

  My silence is.

  Spencer glances at me a few times.

  This was the worst damn idea of my life. I start to calculate just how much magic I’ll need to get the hell out of here.

  Spencer appears to ignore me for a little as he concentrates on driving.

  Or maybe he’s not concentrating on driving, my desperate mind tells me. Maybe he’s locking every single one of his magical senses on me and trying to figure out if I’m in a disguise.

  Shit. Shit. Shit.

  I have to find some way of getting out of here now. I totally underestimated my ability to hold my cool when I got in this car. I dramatically underestimated Spencer’s growing power over me, too. For the longer I stay in his presence, the hotter my arm becomes until all I want to do was whip off my jacket and pry at the skin.

  “How’s your secondary mission going? I need an update now,” Spencer snaps out of the blue as he takes a corner way too fast and almost runs straight into a guy on a bike.

  I can’t hold in my terror, and buck in my seat as I grab hold of the passenger-side handle above the door. “Watch out!” My voice goes up way too high.

  Spencer doesn’t watch out. He runs straight through the bike. Or at least he looks like he does, but at the last moment, the bike jerks to the side as if a massive invisible hand has just swooped it off the road.

  The guy tumbles off his bike, sure, but he hits the pavement and rolls. I twist my head all the way around to watch him jump to his feet and shake his fist.

  Then I turn back around in my seat. That guy on the bike hadn’t gotten lucky – Spencer had just pushed him out of the way with magic.

  And now Spencer is looking at me out of the corner of his eye, his expression unreadable.

  If I was terrified that Spencer was suspicious of me before, now that terror isn’t just paranoia. There’s a definite narrowed quality to his eyes. And his brow is marked with one or two deep lines. “I said update,” he snaps again, breath a sharp hiss.

  I swallow, trying so damn hard to ensure the move isn’t too obvious.

  “It’s going...” I trail off. What the hell am I meant to say? That it’s going well? Who the hell knows what the third’s so-called secondary mission was? It could have been to track me down, for all I know.

  I realize I can’t just sit here and wait for Spencer to grow bored. Because, with the exact penetrative quality to the attention he’s shooting me, the world would have to end before he could pull his eyes off me for a second.

  I dart my gaze to the side on the premise of checking my arm and the bruise around my neck. I lock my eyes on the window beside me, trying to judge how strong it is and just how much magic I’ll have to expend to jump out of a speeding vehicle and onto a car-filled street.

  “It’s going well,” I force myself to say before the silence can become too thick and oppressive.

  Spencer doesn’t say a thing. Which is wrong. Spencer always has something to say.

  Now he’s as silent as the grave.

  He also reaches a hand into his pocket.

  He pulls something out.

  It’s his phone.

  I stiffen as if someone has grabbed both ends of my spine and pulled with the combined might of an army. I’m now sitting so rigidly, it’ll take a king and all his combined magic to move me.

  Which is no overemphasis.

  Spencer makes a call on his phone. “Give me backup,” he says simply. “I’m being tailed.”

  With that, he chucks his phone over the back seat and moves quicker than I’ve ever given him credit for. I’ve seen John sprint across a room to me. But this is worlds apart from that. This is like facing a film that’s been sped up to maximum fast forward.

  The next thing I know, Spencer yanks so hard on the wheel, the car starts to spin on the road. Before I can freak out that we’ll hit the other cars around us and cause a major car accident, there’s a screech of tires, and we wind up parked on the opposite side of the street.

  Then Spencer reaches for me. His hand is electrified, glowing with so much magic, it looks like it can light up the city.

  It’s more than enough to illuminate the car, pushing back every shadow in every crook and cranny. And, more than anything, pushing deep into my eyes as I once again contemplate the unique hot, erratic gold-yellow of Spencer Gates’s magic.

  He rounds his hand into a fist and tries to punch me across the jaw, but, even though there’s hardly anywhere to move in this cramped vehicle, I still manage to yank my head to the side. His fist sails into the headrest, burning the leather and sending a sickening singed smell through the car.

  I don’t scream. Don’t even make a noise.

  It’s my turn to fight back. I don’t send magic spilling over my body though. If I do that, I just know that Spencer will be able to figure out it’s me, the Last Queen. Maybe it’s something to do with the unique powerful blue glow of my magic, or maybe he can just recognize it or something.

  Point is, I have to rely on my strength for now. Because, even though it’s the hardest thing to do, I can still rationally think my way through this fraught situation. And that reason tells me one thing – Spencer Gates’s face is twisted with hatred, not recognition.

  In other words, he has no idea it’s me.

  I manage to twist around, slamming my hip into the passenger door as I get leverage to bring up my leg and kick.

  I keep forgetting how large this body is, and though the kick would have been easy for my ordinary diminutive form, it’s awkward and ineffective for this body.

  Spencer takes advantage of it and grabs my leg, sending a pulsing charge of violent magic into my ankle.

  It snakes up my body and slams hard into my chest, and it’s more than enough that I let out a shriek of a scream.

  Maybe there’s something about that scream – maybe I momentarily let go of my disguise spell, and I scream with my real throat. But for the first time since the fight began, Spencer stops. His eyes blast wide, and he jerks his head all the way to the side as confusion sends his brow lurching high with a snapped move.

  Shit. He’s about to find out who I am.

  I need to get the hell out of this car
now.

  I stop fighting him and turn around, elbowing the door. But while the move is more than strong enough to see an ordinary door crumple like rolled up paper, I’ve forgotten this car belongs to Spencer Gates. The door dents, but it isn’t ripped off its hinges.

  Spencer launches over the gear stick, trying to lock a hand on my shoulder.

  He’s no longer fighting me.

  Oh god no.

  I catch a glimpse of his eyes – see the beginnings of that terrible recognition starting to flatten his anger, start to flare in his eyes like a fire that’s getting ready to consume everything in his path.

  I try to elbow the door again, this time realizing there’s no point in hiding.

  He’s seconds from figuring out who I am anyway.

  So I finally let the magic spring over my arm as I hit the door. This time the car can’t defend itself against my move, and the door crumples and blasts off as if it’s been shot by an RPG.

  I shift to get out of the car. Except I don’t. My rational mind tells me to move, but at the last moment, my heart holds me in place. It’s such a strong reaction, it’s like being tied up.

  Except Spencer isn’t the one locking me in place, even as true recognition finally floods over his face.

  No. It’s me.

  It’s the same reason I got in this car in the first place. It’s the same reason I’ve been shadowing Spencer for the past several weeks.

  It’s the same reason that now I turn to face him.

  I make eye contact.

  And Spencer Gates spreads his hand over my shoulder.

  I don’t even try to hold onto my disguise as it melts under his magic.

  With a flicker, I go back to being me.

  Silence.

  Stillness.

  Just for a second. Neither of us does a thing as we look at each other.

  I no longer want to throw myself out of the car. My whole body yearns to find out what he’ll do next.

  Spencer could do a lot of things at that moment. He could fight me; he could try to pacify me; he could just wrap a hand around my neck and try to knock me out.

  He doesn’t.

  He kisses me.

  The move’s sudden. No warning. No preamble, no nothing.

  Just the fight and then his lips against mine, his hot breath spilling over my cheek and darting hard over my face and down my neck. It sends heat blasting through my throat, down my shoulders, into my chest and stomach.

  I’m locked still with the fear of the fight, with the suddenness of his move. But not for long.

  My body moves of its own accord as a pulse of desire explodes from my heart with all the force to see me lurch forward into him.

  I’ve never been a particularly lustful person. I’m not the kind to let passion rule my life.

  But I’ve never kissed a king before.

  Something happens to my body as I push into him, locking my lips against his.

  He pushes back.

  Just as I’m overcome by the desire in my body, so is he.

  He locks a hand on my hip, his hard, searching fingers pulling at my top and spreading over my stomach.

  I don’t shiver away from his touch. Hell no, I just push harder into him.

  But this – this can’t last.

  It’s not me that pulls away, though, and it sure as hell isn’t him.

  The car suddenly lurches to the side, almost tipping over.

  Spencer is thrown off me, even though one of my treacherous hands reaches out and tries to catch him.

  He hits the driver’s side window, an immediate, animalistic snarl splitting from his lips. It’s the kind of primal shout of someone who’s just had something they consider theirs taken away from them.

  He starts to charge with magic. But the car tips again. This time, it tips away from me, and I tumble right out.

  I hit the pavement and roll.

  This street is full of pedestrians, but not a single one of them reacts as a small, surprised woman covered in blue magic comes tumbling out onto the street.

  They just walk around me as I manage to overcome my surprise to tilt my head up.

  I see people’s shoes and legs as they shift around me. I jerk my head all the way up and around as I search desperately for whoever the hell cast that spell on Spencer’s car.

  I can still hear Spencer snarling away as if he’s a wolf that’s just had its catch stolen from it.

  But he’s not jumping out of the car – the car is still rocking back and forth as if it’s a toy that’s being shaken by an enthusiastic toddler.

  It’s such a surreal experience to be able to hear the groaning metal and rubber of the car matched with Spencer’s fervent shouts, and yet to have no one else on the street react. A woman dressed in business attire strides right between me and the car, casually sipping at her coffee and looking bored.

  A man in a long coat suddenly darts out right behind Spencer’s bucking vehicle and calls a taxi. The taxi darts in right behind Spencer’s car, and the guy gets in.

  I push to my feet, trying harder to figure out what the hell is going on as I rely on my magical senses.

  I send them out in every direction as I try to connect to the energies of the Earth, too. As I try to let anything and everything tell me what the hell is going on.

  But though I can sense magic – and a lot of it – I can’t figure out where it’s coming from.

  Sweat starts to slick my brow and desperation spreads through my veins like ice as I take a jerked step back, then another. I dart my head up and start to scan the horizon line, realizing that my enemy might be on top of one of the buildings surrounding us.

  Nothing.

  The buildings are too high and the morning too hazy to see the tops of the towers. But that’s not the point. I can narrow and focus my magical senses, sending them anywhere, but no matter where I send them, I come back with nothing.

  I’m terrified now.

  Spencer is glowing with so much magic, it starts to burn through his car. The next thing I know, the roof springs right off the top of the car, spins through the air, and slams into the building by my side. Before I can become terrified at the fact the hailing chunks of stone will strike the passing pedestrians, they all seem to seamlessly move around them as if dodging death is no big thing.

  No one looks up from their coffee or donuts or phones. They just continue on nonplussed as a massive magical war goes on around them unseen, unheard, and unfelt.

  But I can feel it. And the exact exquisite feelings of fear and desperation pounding through me probably make up for the fact that everyone else is clueless.

  It’s honestly as if I’m feeling the combined fear of everyone in the city, all of it pumping through my little heart, all of it racing through my nerves.

  It’s enough to cripple me.

  It’s... it’s also enough to warn me.

  Because this fear isn’t natural.

  Spencer tries to pull himself out of his car. It’s hard, but he finally manages it. He lands on the street. He briefly makes eye contact. He opens his mouth. But he doesn’t get a chance to say whatever’s on his mind. Just as the words start to form on his hard, white lips, the car flips, headed right for him.

  This time I react. And though I have no goddamn reason to save Spencer Gates, I can’t just stand here and do nothing.

  I send a massive charge of magic sinking into the car. It doesn’t just flip away from Spencer. No. I send it arcing up high into the air. And then I send one more blistering charge of power at it, and the damn thing explodes. Not into burning hot chunks of shrapnel that cover the street, mind you – into dust.

  I pulverize it like I have the power of a meteorite striking the earth.

  Spencer staggers to his feet, slack-jawed as he watches the magic-laced dust that was once his expensive car hail down from the sky like snow caught on a gentle wind.

  He has just enough time to turn to me, to look at me with genuine wonder. And that genuine wo
nder does the exact same thing to my heart as his kiss did.

  It... it fills this deep need for recognition. The same need that’s fulfilled every time a king sees who I truly am.

  But Spencer’s surprise at my power can’t last.

  I feel something rush through the street. It takes me a moment to realize it’s wind. And yet, it’s wind unlike any I have ever experienced. It’s not just the way it slams into my back, tugs hold of my hair, and tries to wrench my leather jacket clean off my shoulders. Oh hell no, it’s the way it tries to grope at my throat, the way it feels like hard fingers latching onto my legs and arms and butt.

  It’s trying to catch me.

  Though the last thing I think Spencer will do is let me go, his eyes suddenly blast wide with so much fear, it looks as if his inherent arrogance has cracked, never to return. “Run!” he screams, all lust gone. All anger, all everything. In that moment, he’s whittled down from Spencer Gates, the powerful, rich king, to a man who genuinely cares for my safety.

  I’m so drawn in by the power of his reaction that the last thing I want to do is run. I want to lurch toward him, stare right into his eyes, and see if his feelings for me are genuine. But then Spencer Gates says five little words that send my world crumbling around my feet. “The new king is here.”

  The new king.

  The same king that the desperate horse auctioned me off to.

  He’s here. Now. Making his first move.

  I... I turn on my foot.

  There’s nothing that can stop me. Not misjudged loyalty for the confused Spencer, not the desire to stick around to protect the civilians blissfully walking along the street.

  Nothing.

  Nothing at all can pierce the sudden pall of true fear that swirls around me and blocks out every other sensation and thought as I push into a run.

  The wind is still snagging at my clothes, still trailing down my legs and abdomen as it tries to latch hold of me.

  So I just run faster.

  I concentrate everything I have on getting away. I push my magic into my body, bolstering it with every charge of power I have spare.

  I don’t bother leaping on top of buildings, I just stream through the city streets, faster than the slow traffic as it winds through downtown.