King of Me (The King Trilogy #3)(17)
Author: Mimi Jean Pamfiloff

The woman and I exchanged several awkward glances, but she didn’t speak.

I carefully swung my feet to the dirt floor. “I’m Mia. Mia.” I pointed to myself.

Her eyes lit up. “Kitane.” She pointed to her chest.

“Kitane,” I repeated. “I need to find a phone.” I made a phone shape with my hand and held it up to my face. “Phone?”

She shook her head.

Crap. No phones. Well, there had to be one somewhere, maybe in the nearest town.

I tried to stand but staggered on my wobbly legs.

She protested and made me sit, quickly plucking a small twig from the dirt floor and drawing a picture of a snake.

Great. A snake bit me. I unbandaged my foot and leg, relieved to find them red and swollen but nothing more. I didn’t know a lot about bites, but I knew that people generally got worse, not better.

She disappeared into the adjoining room and returned with a white tunic, very similar to the one she wore, only without the stains and dirt.

“Thank you.” The fact that she didn’t have much but was generous enough to clothe me meant a lot. She then handed me a scarf made of roughly woven burlap and placed it over my head.

“My hair. It worries you.” I wondered why, of course.

She helped me to my feet, slid the tunic over my body, and then tied the cloth around my head, tucking in any loose strands.

She called out, and within seconds, the man—her father, I assumed—appeared and walked me outside. Their little home was surrounded by a stone wall with a few weird-looking chickens and three white goats running around the yard. I didn’t see the ocean, but I smelled the salt air wafting through the trees that surrounded the clearing.

Just outside a small gate stood an old, scraggly-looking gray ox attached to a little cart. The man pointed for me to sit.

I hoped to God he was taking me to a town with a phone.

“She coming?” I asked and glanced at Kitane.

He pointed to the cart and then sort of pushed me into it. If I were in any better shape, I would have pushed him back, but as it was, I could barely walk.

I mentally said my goodbyes to Kitane and watched the little house fade through the trees—an orchard, I realized.

Olive trees. Where the hell am I?

Over the next hour, we passed several more primitive homes and rustic-looking farms along the narrow dirt road, where I still saw no signs of civilization. Seriously, no signs, no electricity, no telephone poles. Just lots of trees, animals, and curious people who stared as we passed, me facing backwards, sitting in the rickety little cart.

Jet helicopters to this. Well, I would take this, any day, over where I’d been.

When we approached a bustling market filled with merchants selling animals, grapes, and piles of olives, I was convinced that we were on some remote Greek island. Had King dumped me into the ocean, and I’d miraculously drifted to this place? Maybe. There were many islands in Greece, one of which was King’s horrible house of pain. This place, however, had people. Lots of people, and I’d never been anywhere like it.

The man tied up his ox and pulled me up from the cart, mumbling at me.

“You know I don’t understand you, right? I mean, you can keep talking, but I won’t understand a single, frigging, goddamned word.”

He gestured for me to follow him toward a high wall on the other side of the market.

“Phone?” I asked, again making the shape with my hand.

He shook his head and brought me to a thick wooden door, where two shirtless men, wearing blue and red skirts—yeah, skirts—stood with long frigging knives strapped around their waists.

Okay. This keeps getting stranger.

The man said something to them, but they didn’t seem to want to let us in. That’s when he snapped the scarf from my head, and the two guards gasped.

What the hell? What was the problem with my hair? Yes, I knew it looked like a curly blonde pile of turds, but this situation had crossed all lines in the sand where pretty hair seemed like a priority.

The guard slipped the man a coin, took hold of my arm, and thumped on the door.

“Wait. Did you just…sell me?” I said to the man who’d brought me.

The guard pushed me through the doorway, following closely behind, and quickly slammed it shut.

“You can’t sell me! I’m a person! An Ameri—” Wait, that might not win points. “I want to go to the police. A phone!” Once again I held my hand to my ear, but the man just stood there looking at me as if I were some crazy animal from another planet. Then he shoved me and pointed for me to walk.

“Fuck you!” I spat, not that he could understand, which was why I probably didn’t hold back with the swear words one little bit. At least they made me feel better.

Sorta.

The guard grabbed hold of my arm and dragged me up a set of stone steps toward a temple with large pillars and bright red and blue paint on the walls.

Once inside, the smell of incense and sage hit me. He threw me down, pushed my face into the floor, and began screaming at me.

“Get the f**k off!” I fought and dug my nails into his hand, but he held tight to a ball of my hair.

I imagined he was telling me to shut the hell up, but I was not about to let him or anyone treat me like this.

“I’ll kill you!” I belted. “I swear I’ll f**king—”

When I heard that voice—deep, commanding, and uniquely masculine—my flesh tightened around my quaking bones. I stilled.

Again the voice spoke, and I slowly lifted my gaze to the menacing man standing before me and glaring down.

“King?” I gasped.

His eyes narrowed as he took me in, scowling as if I were some despicable bug he might squash for entertainment.

“I take that back,” I said to the guard. “I’ll f**king kill him!” I broke free from my captor, leaving behind a clump of hair in his fist, and lunged for King. He fell back, and we both slammed into the floor. The crack of his skull hitting the ground was like music to my ears.

“You piece of shit!” I managed to get my hands around his neck as he stared at me, apparently shocked as hell. The moment lasted for only that—a moment—before two large men pulled me off.

King sat up, broodingly taking stock as he watched them drag me off.

“I’ll kill you! Do you hear me? Do you f**king…” My voice trailed off as my brain began to register the bizarreness before me. Green? His light…was that…?

What my eyes saw couldn’t have been real, which meant that I had cracked and King had successfully broken me. Because the man wasn’t King. I mean, he was, but he wasn’t my King. This one didn’t glow red, blue or even purple, but green. Bright, vivid green.