King for a Day (The King Trilogy #2)(30)
Author: Mimi Jean Pamfiloff

It has taken me many years to write these words, to acquire the powers that grant me a piece of the life I once had. But despite all that I have, I cannot overcome the pain and regret, the deep sorrow you have cursed me with. It has robbed me of the emotions I once felt for those I loved or anything else of value in this world, just as your curse robbed me of my body. However, I will not allow you to win, Hagne. I will search the ends of the earth to find a way to raise you from the dead so that I may enjoy watching you die once more. Meanwhile, I will hunt and kill every last Seer on this planet to which my spirit is bound, and I will take delight in knowing that I am killing a piece of you.

I will not be a ghost forever, Hagne. And even in death, I am still your king.

Oh my God. I closed the book and stared at my trembling hands.

King is Draco. And he’s…dead?

“But how is he still walking around?” I whispered to myself.

Oh God! And he’s killing off the Seers? My blood pressure dropped to the floor. Oh God. King is a ghost. A goddamned ghost. Who wants to kill me!

I shook my head in disbelief while my mind started sliding those little loose threads into gruesome knots, forming a ghastly and implausible tapestry.

Oh my Lord…it can’t be. He can’t be.

But there they were, the strange, undeniable facts staring me in the face. The way he appeared and disappeared. His ability to get inside my head and know what I was thinking. The way he behaved—like a barbarian from another time who followed only one set of rules: his. Then there were his other strange “gifts,” like killing a person with the flick of his hand.

My heart hammered away inside my chest. My temples throbbed. This is what he wanted me to know.

“A ghost, King?” I whispered aloud, nearing hysteria as I tried to accept these clashing realities. King wasn’t some eccentric, powerful, mysterious billionaire with a private jet and face of a god. King was a king. A ghost. A man cursed, looking for an end to his torment. And clearly, he’d lied about not wanting revenge, as he’d once told me. He wanted it, all right. He wanted to bring back Hagne and kill that bitch all over again. He wanted to wipe any remnants of her off the face of the planet. It wasn’t just about ending his curse.

I leaned forward in King’s armchair and rubbed my swollen eyes. A ghost…a ghost…King is dead. The saddest part of all was that I wanted King, or Draco, to find peace. Not revenge, but peace. That horrible, insane woman—who, apparently, Draco loved deeply—pushed him over the edge and broke him. She’d orchestrated Callias’s death by Draco’s own hand. Then she cursed him to live with his pain and guilt forever.

I had tasted that pain. It was the kind of sorrow and anguish that could bring a person to his or her knees and beg for death. It was the kind of torment that would make any normal person crazy enough that they might burn down the whole world simply to end the suffering. I just wished I could tell King that I understood. That part of me couldn’t blame him for wanting salvation so badly that he would kill to get it. And I had been right; he wasn’t a monster, but a beautiful man who’d been hurt.

As much as I hated myself for feeling sympathetic, I couldn’t help but want King’s suffering to end. I just…I just didn’t want to die to give it to him.

My cell phone rang, but I didn’t recognize the number.

“H—hello?” There was nothing but static on the line. “King? Is that you?”

“Mia, it’s Mack.” His voice sounded like death warmed over.

Oh my God. “Mack.” My voice was nothing more than a shallow croak. “Are you and Arno somewhere safe?”

“Yes. For now.”

Vaughn had kept his end of the bargain. Another shock for the day. “Run, Mack. You have to run with Arno.”

“We can’t abandon you,” he said.

“It’s over, Mack.” At least I could free him and Arno from this nightmare. But they had to run. Perhaps if he believed King was gone, he’d have no reason to stay and try to save me. “King is…dead. Really, really dead.”

“Yes, I know,” Mack replied.

That wasn’t the answer I’d expected. “W-what? What do you mean?”

“I mean, he died a long time ago.”

“You knew?” I asked.

“Yes. And so did you on some level. Think about it, Mia.”

I swallowed the bile crawling its way up my throat, realizing that this was what had been giving me the headaches. This was the conflict my mind couldn’t sort through and had been making me sick. It had been King all along.

“How can he seem so…real?” I asked.

“Because he’s very old and very powerful and…because he is real. I understand that you have a lot of questions, Mia, but we need to—”

“Did you know that he wants to kill me?”

“That’s not true, Mia. He doesn’t want to hurt you.”

“How do you know?”

“Because, I do.”

“Really? How many Seers has he killed?” I asked.

There was a long pause. To me, that meant “a lot,” but I’d been hoping Mack might’ve said “none.”

Oh Lord. Draco’s journal entry said the curse would last as long as Seers roamed the earth. How many were left? How many stood between King and his freedom from hell?

“I’m not the last one, am I?” My voice came out scarcely louder than a whisper.

“Yes. I mean—probably. We think so.”

Fuck. No, King. No. It would explain why King latched onto me like he had. I was his ticket out of his hell. That’s why I was so goddamned important to him. My only question was why hadn’t he killed me yet?

He wants revenge first. He wants the Artifact to raise Hagne and kill her. What other reason could there be?

I felt that tiny spark of hope I had for King, that something good lie dormant inside just waiting to be awakened, die a cold, miserable death.

“I see,” I said coolly.

“He doesn’t want to hurt you, Mia.”

But I couldn’t believe that. He was loyal to King. And in Miranda’s own words, only a fool would trust anyone.

“Do what you need to, Mack. Goodbye.”

I ended the call and didn’t answer when Mack rang again. And again. And again. I had nothing to say. I was going to die one way or another. King, Vaughn, 10 Club…

Die. I’m going to die. I began to cry and laugh at the same time, feeling a ludicrous sense of relief that the end of my life would at the very least put an end to this tragedy. My big fat Greek-tragedy death. After all, hadn’t Arno—or Draco—said they were both from Crete?