That won’t happen.

I lick my dry lips. “I’ve never … done this.”

“This?” the king repeats like he’s confused. His fingers brush between my legs.

The small burst of pleasure tightens my stomach, and I glare at him. “Yes, that.”

His hands slide out from under my skirt. “What have you done?” Curiosity smolders in his eyes.

“I’ve been kissed.”

“That’s it?” Again, his words are inflectionless. He lays a hand on my hipbone

“That’s it.”

He swears under his breath, his grip tightening. I can tell conflicting desires war within him because he’s looking through me more than at me. I also know the moment they resolve themselves.

He hesitates, then rises to his feet. “Leave.”

I don’t move. This is not how it’s supposed to play out.

“Move, Serenity, before I change my mind.”

Slowly I stand. The fear is fading, replaced by confusion. I consider the man in front of me. Logic is telling me that he’s letting me go because of some moral compass he carries. My emotions are telling me any moral compass he possesses is so warped and eroded he wouldn’t know a good deed from a bad one.

“I’m giving you tonight,” he says, not looking at me. “Enjoy the company of your father. Tomorrow, you’ll be at my side, not his.”

Chapter 10

Serenity

A year ago I discovered I was dying.

First my appetite diminished. I’d skip breakfast because in the morning I couldn’t keep even the tasteless oatmeal down. Better to leave the food for people whose bodies wouldn’t reject it.

Life continued that way for a couple months—long enough for people to notice. Long enough for them to assume I was pregnant despite the fact that I’d never even been kissed. Will took a lot of heat for that. But when months passed and no baby came, people forgot.

All save for me.

The nausea fled as quickly as it came. For a while I could pretend my health issues away, until one morning when my nausea returned. I made it to the bathroom in time, only what I retched up wasn’t simply food and bile. Blood tinted my vomit red.

I breathed heavily as I stared down at the irrefutable evidence that I was sick. I never told my father. I never told Will.

The sickness never fully went away.

The next morning, I watch my father leave the room, worry creasing my brows. I hardly slept last night, I was so worried about what today’s outcome would be. I half waited for the knock of the king; I’d assumed that he’d change his mind and collect on my side of the deal before he approached my father today.

But the knock never comes. Strange enough, my worries morph from what the king will do with me once the treaty’s signed to what will happen if the king decides that whatever I have to offer isn’t good enough.

The WUN soldiers watch me as I pace. When their stares become too disconcerting, I move to my bedroom and begin to organize my dresses by color, then make my bed. It takes twenty minutes in all, and it does nothing to calm my nerves, so I stretch and do several sets of pushups and sit-ups.

Once I have a nice sheen of sweat along my body, I hop into the shower, letting the water calm me. But even that can’t relax me, not when I start to feel guilty about wasting clean water while my friends in the bunker share a dismal basin’s worth each day.

I dry off and change, pulling on one of the more bearable dresses I’ve been packed. Today I was supposed to board a flight with my father. Now, in between fretting over what waits me after the sun sets, I wonder how I will possibly let the man who raised me go.

I’ve just finished applying mascara when the door to our suite is thrown open and my father storms in. “Grab your things, Serenity.”

“What?”

“We need to go, now.”

I switch to soldier mode. “What do I need?”

“Shoes you can run in and anything you can’t live without. You have three minutes.”

I don’t waste another second. I grab the gun my father gave me long ago and load it before turning the safety on and shoving it down the bodice of my dress. It’s not the safest place to carry a loaded gun, but my guess is that being unarmed in the king’s palace at the moment is even less safe.

I pull on my combat boots, wondering just what words were exchanged between my father and the king. Clearly, the king hadn’t made good on his promise to be honorable. Otherwise, my father wouldn’t be acting this way.

I don’t have time to change out of the ridiculous dress I’m wearing, but I rip off most of the skirt so that I can run better. The sound of tearing fabric is unbelievably satisfying.

As I finish getting ready, I can hear the WUN soldiers gearing up around me. There’s a buzzing excitement in the air, the thrill that comes before battle.

“We’re going out the rear windows,” my father says, “and then we’re going to cross the gardens and exit through the back of the estate, where a car will be waiting to take us to our jet.”

My eyes widen. I hope I’m one day half as good as my father at these things. He’s had our escape plan prepared way ahead of time.

My father glances at his watch. “Okay soldiers, your three minutes are up. Let’s move to the back of the room.”

The words are barely out of his mouth when there’s a pounding on the door. I glance at my father.

“Don’t answer that,” he says, his voice deadly serious.

“Wasn’t planning on it.”

The pounding gets louder, and then I hear a key inserted into the lock. My eyes go wide as I look at my father. The soldiers fan out around us, covering us just as the door opens and Marco comes in with a dozen palace guards.

What could’ve possibly gone on during negotiations?

“Ambassador Freeman,” Marco says, “the king has ordered me to retrieve your daughter.”

My heart pounds at the mention of my name.

“I did not agree to the terms of the revised peace treaty, so he does not have that kind of authority over her,” my father says.

I glance between Marco and my father. He didn’t agree to the king’s proposal. Why?

“You can agree to the peace treaty or not,” Marco says. “Either way, the king is not going to let Serenity leave here.”

I hone my attention on Marco. The king thinks he can keep me around despite the negotiations. Of course, this is his back up strategy to make sure he gets what he wants.