The Last Queen Book Three Read online

  Shit.

  Oh God.

  I have to move now. If I don’t move now – this very second – then I won’t get away.

  I shift forward.

  I scrabble toward the tunnel.

  But just at the last moment, as my eyes widen, as I can feel the breeze coming in from the tunnel system far beyond, the tunnel closes.

  There’s no snap, no crack, no grating of earth – it just goes from being there right in front of me – beckoning my salvation – to disappearing entirely.

  It’s as if it was never more than an image, one that’s just been scrubbed from reality.

  Though I know I shouldn’t make a sound, I can’t help myself, and I gasp. It’s enough to rattle through the air, enough to be picked up by the echoing ceiling, enough to sound out through the cavern.

  The footsteps stop. For a fraction of a second.

  I hear something right beside me.

  I jerk to the side, turning just in time.

  There he is, Rogers.

  He’s not standing on the mezzanine level – he’s standing on the railing, right behind me. He’s leaning forward, almost as if gravity doesn’t mean anything to him. He has one hand in his pinstripe pocket, the other resting casually by his side as he tilts his head toward me. His eyes aren’t human – they’re glowing with power, a power that’s directed right at me. “Didn’t expect any witnesses,” he said.

  I don’t look at him. Even though my heart tells me to make eye contact and do it right now. It tells me to make more than eye contact, in fact. It tells me to stare at Rogers and let him imprint me.

  I was wrong before, wasn’t I? Before, when I said that I don’t feel the same heat and desire around Rogers that I do around Spencer and John, it was something I was making up.

  Because here, in Rogers’ presence, the effect is undeniable. It’s as if something is hooked around my gut and wants to control every muscle until I finally fall at his feet.

  But you know what?

  Fuck that.

  I will not be controlled by this desire.

  And I will not be acquired by this man.

  Just at the last moment, I dart my head to the side. I also do something else.

  I’m no horse, but I have the impression that if I’m ever going to have a hope of getting through this, I need blinkers.

  So with the slightest flick of my hand, I force my disguise spell to spread over my face.

  I fix the blindfold right over my eyes.

  Yeah, it means I can’t see anything. The view of Rogers half floating there, leaning forward over the stone railing, his whole face lit up by magic is cut out.

  But the desire to stare into his eyes and show him who I really am is cut out, too.

  I hear him make a strange hissing noise. “That will not stop me from figuring out who you belong to,” he says with a hiss.

  And then he moves forward.

  Right at me.

  The only reason I can tell that is that I suddenly force all my mind into the energies in the room.

  The flow of magic.

  It’s just enough to see me dart to the side as I feel something slash past my face. It’s electrified, hot, and darting. Almost as if it’s a sword that’s on fire.

  And hey, maybe it is a sword that’s on fire. I know for a fact that kings can create magical weaponry with nothing more than a flick of their hands.

  I have to get away from Rogers.

  Get the space between him and me that maybe I can take off my blindfold, figure out how to fight, and make enough of a distraction to get away.

  But to get away, I’m going to have to punch my way through these tunnels, aren’t I?

  That thought slams front and center into my head as I dodge another one of Rogers’ blows.

  I hear him snarl. There’s a hard, darting quality to his voice.

  It’s obvious he underestimated me initially, and now, as I just remain out of his reach, he’s reassessing how much power I have.

  “Who do you belong to?” he spits.

  I can’t let him know I’m unattached.

  ... But there’s another way, isn’t there?

  I alter my appearance. Just like that. I spread a hand over my chest as I jerk backward several steps, as I continue to keep just out of his reach.

  I change my appearance back to Spencer’s third.

  I spent a lot of time in this guy’s skin this morning, and it’s pretty easy to remember exactly what he looks like.

  What’s more, I allow the symbol that Spencer half burned into my arm to reappear. I don’t actually dig the memory of it back out of my skin – just make the appearance of it flicker over my left shoulder.

  “Spencer Gates,” Rogers spits. “I’m surprised you had the balls to track me down.”

  “We have no intention of rolling over for you, Rogers,” I spit back, voice hard.

  He lets out a hissing laugh and comes right at me. I can feel the magic blasting toward me from here. It’s like standing in the way of a tidal wave. One that’s made out of pure electricity and crackling fire.

  I have no way to get away from it – I can’t dart backward, and there’s just not enough room on the mezzanine level to dart to the side. So I do something brave.

  I know to my left is the railing that runs around the mezzanine level. Though I barely got a glimpse of the room before, I’m pretty sure the drop down to the floor below is about 20 m.

  Who cares?

  I’ve fallen off buildings way higher than that.

  So I plow forward, dodging the brunt of his move even as I feel a few sparks of magic crackle down my arms. I plant my hands on the railing and leap.

  For a split second, I feel air rushing up at me, and my heart opens out with fear. The kind of pulsing fear you very rarely get. The kind of fear that tells you to open your frigging eyes because you’re about to die.

  But I don’t open my eyes – I don’t dare remove the blindfold from my face. I just clench my teeth and at the last moment, calculating the fall perfectly, I allow magic to pulse over my feet. It’s just in time, and as I strike the floor, magic jolts up my legs, protecting me from the brunt of the impact, and it allows me to roll to the side.

  I snap to my feet immediately, running for all my life as I pitch across the chessboard.

  Yeah, the chessboard. I feel it now. Now I’m on top of it, it’s like... it’s like it wants to be a part of me. Literally, I can feel these little invisible hands pushing up, trying to grope at my skin, trying to catch me in place. It reminds me exactly of those invisible white ropes that locked me to Spencer’s throne. The sense is just the same.

  Though I’ve never really had the time or opportunity to investigate those white ropes and the origins of them, now that question strikes me. Because I can’t help feeling that somehow they’re critically important to this world.

  I hear Rogers scream from the mezzanine level. Then I feel another blast of magic. I know he’s sailing down, and a second later, there’s a massive thump as he lands into the chessboard behind me.

  Shit.

  I have to get away. Good God, I have to get away. Though all I want to do is reach forward, wrench the blind off my face, and allow myself to see, I know I can’t do that. And I’m right. Because I hear this kind of click behind me, then I feel him, right there in front of me. Either he jumped or he somehow magically transported, but the point is, I have to plant my feet on the floor, and I skid, coming to a stop right in front of him.

  I can feel his arm dart toward me, practically see his fingers snaking toward my throat. I duck under the arm just in time, lurching backward, falling to my knees and skidding to the side. I push into a roll, stop behind him, and spring to my feet. But I feel him whirl, the tails of his pinstripe jacket suit flaring and touching my cheeks and arm.

  “Come back here,” he snaps. “You should never have followed me. Now you’re mine,” he says, and there’s satisfaction running through his voice.

  Fat
chance.

  The only thing I’m going to give Rogers is what’s coming to him.

  ... It takes a second – half a damn second – for that thought to truly sink in.

  I’m not a killer, right? Yes, I have murdered... if you can call defeating pawns murder. But I... I’m not a killer, right? Someone who doles out justice as they see fit, right?

  But what goddamn choice do I have?

  He does it again. In a snapped second, he somehow goes from standing behind me to appearing right in front of me. I seriously need to pull the blindfold back from my eyes for half a second to see what’s going on, but I just can’t afford to do it.

  He slashes at my face again, and this time I don’t quite get out of the way soon enough. I feel his fingers trail along my skin. Not enough that they can catch hold of my throat and finally lock me in place, but more than enough that I feel Rogers’ touch.

  It’s.... Oh God.

  Don’t make me describe it.

  It’s hot. It’s powerful.

  In some ways, it’s everything a part of me wants, and in other ways, it’s something I will never let myself feel again.

  It’s the imprint.

  Crap. Though with Spencer and John it takes me looking into their eyes, Rogers is so damn powerful that the mere brush of his fingertips along my throat is enough to open up my heart.

  But I close my damn heart.

  I will not be controlled by others.

  I hesitate for like half a second, but it’s not enough to give Rogers another window of opportunity to slam into me.

  He tries it, but I dart back, flipping, arching backward, landing on the floor with both hands, and kicking over my head. I drop into a roll and shift to the side just in time before Rogers can land a kick against my side.

  If I had the time to appreciate this, I would’ve been pretty proud of myself for being able to fight so competently despite the fact I have a blindfold on. Better than that – I’m not fighting an ordinary piece here, I’m fighting Senator goddamn Rogers.

  But the last thing I should do right now is pause and clap at my own competency.

  I can also tell one fact – that if Rogers had any inkling of who I was, he’d changed tactics immediately. Maybe he’s saving some of his power, maybe he doesn’t want to go all out, but the second he realizes I’m the Last Queen, the game will change.

  I can still feel the chessboard below me. It’s like I’m permanently aware of it as if it somehow burrowed into my head like a goddamn parasite.

  More than that, it’s giving me this sense of spatial awareness. Though tracking Rogers’ magic is plenty to allow me to dodge his moves, the chessboard is helping, whether I like to admit it or not.

  I have this sense of where I am in relation to the walls, where I am in relation to every frigging square.

  I wonder if this is normal. If an ordinary, attached piece would have this same guttural sense of where they are on the board.

  But I’m not attached.

  So I tell myself something else. Maybe this is me connecting to the chessboard, just like I connected to Rowley’s chessboard. Maybe this is me doing what I came here to do in the first place. To acquire my own frigging destiny and my own frigging gameboard.

  “What are you doing?” Rogers hisses. There’s a completely different quality to his tone now. It’s one I’ve never heard. Okay, I’ve only picked up Rogers’ voice several times now, but my sensitivity to him is enough that it amplifies those few scant experiences and makes them feel like forever. I guess it’s the same as what happened with John and Spencer. Even though, technically, I only met them several months ago, it seems like they’ve been permanent fixtures throughout my entire life.

  It’s the same with Rogers. No, it’s worse.

  Just hearing him breathe, hearing him hiss, hearing him snap at me – it’s like his voice is a part of my head and always has been.

  In a snapped second, I feel his energy change. Become more frantic. He slashes at me far quicker, and I get out of the way just in time, but I feel the faintest touch of his fingertips.

  It sends an electric snap pulsing down my spine, one that wants to hold me in place, but one I fight with all my will.

  I have a kind of out-of-body moment as I wonder what this fight would look like to a witness. Two guys fighting in suits, but one completely blindfolded.

  I’m not doing this to impress anyone, though.

  I’m doing this to keep myself safe. But there’s a problem. The more Rogers touches me, the more the effect of my blindfold just kind of stops working. I can’t see – it doesn’t get rid of my blindfold completely. But the more I feel the hot touch of his fingers, the more I just want to wrench my blindfold off and face him.

  I hate this power. This treacherous seed in my heart that makes me want to open up to kings.

  I wonder why it’s there in the first place. Yeah, I don’t know enough about kings and queens to figure out how this world works, but I start to suspect one thing. What if my desire to open up to a king doesn’t come from me? What if it’s some kind of... I don’t know, virus? One that’s implanted in all queens to keep them subjugated, to keep their power locked to kings.

  It makes sense.

  Awful sense.

  Because even now as I jerk backward, as I just dodge another one of Rogers’ frantic blows, I can appreciate that that yearning desire within me doesn’t feel like it comes from me at all.

  It’s alien.

  And completely frigging untrustworthy.

  That realization helps me to fight the growing force of the imprint.

  I dodge quicker, keeping right out of Rogers’ reach.

  This just makes him all the more pissed off. From the rapid rate of his breathing to the amount of magic I can feel pulsing off him, I realize he’s starting to suspect something.

  “You’re no ordinary piece,” he snaps, voice echoing out through the cavern. “Are you Spencer’s second?”

  Why bother replying?

  “Answer me,” Rogers snaps. As he does, I can feel him bring up a foot and stamp it on the floor. He’s not having a mini tantrum or anything. No, as his foot slams against the floor, a pulse of magic spreads out through the chessboard. It’s like I’m standing on top of a sonic wave. As soon as it hits me, it almost takes my knees out from underneath me and sees me face-plant the floor. At the last moment, I leap, reposition my legs, and shore up my balance.

  A few errant zaps tickle up my legs, dart into my stomach, and make their way to my throat. I can feel them kind of latch on, or at least try to – but the magic is ineffective.

  Rogers pauses. “Why doesn’t my spell work?” he asks, and from the quick, darting quality of his voice it’s clear he’s not speaking to me.

  Shit.

  I’ve experienced this before. It’s obvious that kings have some kind of power over attached pieces, even if the pieces don’t belong to them. They can use some kind of compulsion magic to make the pieces answer their questions. Rowley’s done it to me before, and it’s now clear that Rogers is trying to do it to me too.

  “I’m Spencer’s third,” I answer, forcing the words out, making them garbled, hoping I sound as if the words are being pulled from my throat by magical strings.

  But maybe I don’t say it right, maybe I don’t say it quickly enough, because Rogers doesn’t react.

  Then, in a snap, he reacts. With everything.

  I feel him pulse, almost like he’s no longer a man who can practice magic, but like he’s magic himself. So much power shoots off him, it’s like I’m facing the center of the sun.

  There’s nowhere I can go. Not backward, not to the sides.

  So I have no option.

  I know I can’t let him reach me. If he manages to grasp both of my shoulders, it’s all over Red Rover. Even if I’m not looking into his eyes, I know he’ll be able to feel who I am.

  So I do something brave and possibly stupid – I leap into the air.

  This isn’t
the first time I’ve done this. If I allow enough magic to pulse over me, I can float like I’m Superman or something.

  I do it again. But I don’t let the full brunt of my unique blue-white light pulse over my form, just enough that it keeps me aloft, that it allows me to flip, fly through the air, and then land on the opposite side of the room.

  “What?” Rogers spits. His voice is different again. I haven’t heard this tone before.

  And I know what it is.

  That suspicion. The suspicion that’s finally forming in his heart, whispering in his ear, telling him I’m the Last Queen.

  I waste no more time.

  Can’t.

  I spin on my foot and head straight to the wall beside me.

  My spatial awareness has now kind of spread through the room, and I know the wall is just there, and meter in front of my spreading fingers.

  I let a true charge of magic power into my palm, pulse into my fingertips, and race through my bloodstream. It’s not just my power – it’s my desperation, and they are a seriously destructive mix. As a scream splits from my mouth, the power splits from my fingers. It slams into the wall.

  I feel rock crumble, break, turn to dust right there in front of me.

  I breathe it in, don’t turn my face as it cracks and trails across my skin, as it blasts around me as if I’ve walked inside an explosion.

  “No, come back here!” Rogers screams. He seems to scream with all his body, all his power, too. I suddenly feel as if all of Rival City can hear this, and if not just the city, the country. It’s shaking through everything – through every particle, through all matter, and, more than anything, through me.

  It’s almost enough to hold me in place, and as it tries to, I can tell he’s using manipulation magic.

  But you know what?

  I push him the hell back.

  He will not have me.

  I will have myself.

  Though I blasted a hole in the wall, I’m not stupid, and I know I’m going to have to do a heck of a lot more to reach the drains. Then I’m going to have to run like crazy in order to reach the city street above.

  I concentrate on that winding tunnel, on that dirt path I used to get here.