King for a Day (The King Trilogy #2)(23)
Author: Mimi Jean Pamfiloff

Prepare. I looked down at my hands, wondering if I really had the courage to go through with this. “Are you sure there isn’t another way?”

Mack took a moment before he opened his bloodshot eyes. “King ended his partnership with Talia after he found out she was secretly doing deals with Vaughn.”

I wondered what the point was. Seemed that everyone did deals with that despicable monster.

“Talia was trying some new transplant voodoo-crap she acquired and was using Vaughn to obtain young women. They peeled their skin off while they were still alive.”

“Okay.” I popped out of my chair. “Time to go kill Talia.” And Vaughn, for that matter, too. Heck. When I really thought about it, the entire Club needed to be exterminated. They were like cockroaches.

Oh my God. I took a mental step back, shocked by how quickly I’d crossed that line.

Mack looked as shocked as I felt. “Well, I’m glad to see you take the truth in stride.”

“I’m going to hell,” I whispered.

“At least you won’t be lonely.” Mack grinned.

I looked at him and shook my head, but didn’t have much else to say. “Well, I guess I’d better get back to the warehouse.”

“After you find the serum, give it to Arno. He’ll deliver it.”

“Are you sure?” I felt guilty dragging him into this.

See. You still have some morals left, Mia.

I’m going to go kill someone. I’m going to hell. Period.

“Yes, I’m sure,” Mack replied.

“Any recommendations on the other ingredient?”

“King always has hemlock on hand. It’s on the second floor, in the four hundreds, I think.”

Hemlock. How strange. It was the poison that woman mentioned in the book.

“Okay. Get some rest. I’ll call you in a few hours. Or not.” Meaning something went wrong and we were toast.

“Everything will be okay,” he tried to assure me.

I looked down at my feet and nodded. “Thanks for everything, Mack. I don’t know what I’d do if you weren’t here.”

Mack fell silent, and when I glanced at him, his expression was one of shame. Did he think he’d done something wrong? Because this situation certainly wasn’t his fault.

“See ya later, Mia,” he said.

“See ya.”

I left, knowing that I might not see him again.

CHAPTER NINE

Two hours later, I was in possession of everything I needed. King’s organizational system had been fairly easy to figure out once I made a few laps around the second floor, careful to avoid the heads. Most of the items were numbered and classified by function. Poisons, weapons, or anything that could cause death were shelved together next to the nasty-looking spiders in little terrariums.

Items that might influence people’s minds—a bracelet with a “love spell,” inks for tattooing (of course, I frowned when I saw those), and other strange things like snow globes and old newspapers—were right next to the youth and reanimation serums. Most of the items had tags written in foreign languages, along with thick coatings of dust like they hadn’t been moved for decades. Underneath each item, however, were numbers so I could match them to King’s catalog.

“Is it ready?” Arno asked.

I stared at the tiny brown dropper bottle of oil I’d placed on King’s kitchen countertop alongside the poison and vial of Cleopatra’s blood. I found it hard to believe that one little drop of liquid could reanimate a dead hand or that blood could survive this long. This was some pretty weird stuff, and King could say all he liked, but there was no science in the world that would explain any of it. If this wasn’t magic, what was?

“Miss Turner?” Arno asked impatiently. “May I remind you that it is not just your life on the line.”

I glanced at Arno.

“What’s your real name?” I asked.

“Arsenius. Arsenius Spiros.”

I nodded. “Arsenius.” It was an unusual name, but fit the man.

“Why do you ask?”

I shrugged. “I just wanted to know who I’m sharing this moment with.”

He lifted one dark brow.

“You know,” I explained, “the moment I stopped being a good person.” I reached for the small bottle of poison, but Arno caught my hand.

“Let me,” he said.

“That’s sweet, but what difference does it make?”

“It makes a difference to you.”

“Why would you care?” It was an honest question.

“You are King’s…companion.”

Companion. I was anything but that.

“And,” he added, “I think King would want me to shield you from anything that would create such a heavy burden.”

That was oddly sweet and unexpected. “Why are you so loyal to him, Arsenius?”

“I owe King my life.”

“What did King do for you?”

Still gripping my hand, Arno gave it a little squeeze, prompting me to pull back my arm.

I did.

“That is not your concern.” He took the small bottle of hemlock, poured a few drops into the vial of blood—aka the serum—and replaced its top. Arno then took the vial and headed for the steel door of King’s chamber. “I will call you after I’ve made the delivery. But if I do not return, please tell King that I hope to see him in the next lifetime.”

“Uhhh…” Arno’s strange words stuck inside my head. What had he meant? And what had King done for him? Because, as with Mack, Arno was ready to throw himself on the sword for King, and therefore, me.

Once again, the throbbing ignited inside my head. My brain couldn’t stop trying to reconcile the two conflicting versions of King. The good one and the not-so-good one.

I winced and then looked at the time. One hour until Miranda’s delivery deadline. If she didn’t show, we were all toast.

~~

Draco came to me last night, seeking comfort in my arms. He could not believe his own brother, his twin, would betray him with a public challenge. Stupid man. He believes he matters to me even though I have refused him in my bed a dozen times. Can he not see what I think of him? Or that I wish nothing more than to tell him he is weak and pathetic, that he should expect nothing less from fate? Because even fate knows she made a mistake when she allowed him to come first from his mother’s womb. He should not have been king.

Oh, the things I wanted to scream last night. Oh, how I longed to crush his feeble heart. But I could not. Draco could never know that it was I who sparked Callias’s betrayal, that it was Callias’s child now in my belly.