I’m glaring at him. I try to move, but his body pins mine to the wall. His lips skim my jaw, heading for my mouth. I turn my head away from him.

He places a kiss at the corner of my lips. “And if you think your reluctance will stop me, then you’ve read me wrong.”

I have read him wrong, but not in the way he thinks. My mind needs him to be wholly evil, and he’s not, and my spirit does not have the iron will that it should to keep him at bay. Even now, I react to his nearness. I want more of him, and that shames me. It is one thing to enjoy the mechanics of sex, another to enjoy this—our power plays, our magnetism.

He steps away. “I have something for you.”

I straighten. “I don’t want anything from you, Montes.”

“Not true. You want many things from me; my body, my power—”

“Your head.”

“Between your thighs,” he finishes.

A flush crawls up my neck. It would help not to get embarrassed about this.

“On a stake,” I amend.

He clucks his tongue. “I thought you said you didn’t want anything from me.”

I’m at a momentary loss for words, and that’s precisely when he strikes. He takes my hand and drags me out of the room.

I would fight him, but a million different memories crowd my mind. I haven’t had time to process the multitude of them, but now I do.

The hours leading up to my memory loss, the Resistance attacked the king’s coastal palace. We’d been cornered, I’d been close to escape, but I never made it out. Marco, the king’s right-hand man and my nemesis, and I had been left to face the enemies with the last of the king’s soldiers.

With my free hand I rub the skin over my heart. That’s when I lost my memory. The king hadn’t administered the serum, Marco had—right before he blew his brains out.

I suddenly have context to attach to all the memories I acquired from that point on. The Resistance took me to one of their outposts, held me as they would any important prisoner of war, and tried to leverage me to their advantage.

General Kline … he’d been a part of it. Now knowing what I do, I can’t decide how to feel about seeing him. He was my commander, and had my life not unfolded the way it had, he might’ve one day been my father-in-law. I respected him, and I was close to him. That makes the role he played during my capture that much worse. And yet, I’m not without blame either. I did something to his son, and he still managed to be civil with me.

Then there was that final day of my imprisonment. Had the king not firebombed the outpost, I would’ve died.

“How did you find me?” I ask Montes as he walks us down the hall. The guards posted along the corridor eye me warily as we pass. I have a reputation among their ranks. I remember slaughtering them after my father died.

Montes doesn’t turn around when he replies, “The Resistance isn’t the only one with spies.”

“You bombed the place,” I accuse.

All those bodies, all that carnage …

“And?”

“Were you trying to save me or kill me?” It’s real rich of me to be critiquing his efforts right after I admitted I wanted to execute him.

But I never pretended to be a saint.

Montes stops and swivels to face me. “You were five floors belowground, and when my contact came to retrieve you, you put a bullet in his thigh. By the time my back up came to free you, you were gone.

“Death, Serenity, is the last thing I want from you.”

Montes resumes walking, tugging me after him. He leads me to an office much grander than anything I ever saw in the bunker.

I enter the cavernous room. There’s a wall of books to my left and a giant oak desk towards the back of it.

“Why did you take me here?” I ask, stepping away from him.

Now that I’ve got my memories back, the last thing I want to do is continue to tour the king’s palace. Once you’ve seen one palace, you’ve seen them all.

Montes saunters in after me. “You’ll figure it out for yourself soon enough.”

I give him a dark look. The king and his games …

I meander towards the desk. When I reach it, my fingers trail over the wood surface. There are several photographs resting on it. I lift one of them up. It’s a wedding photo of me and Montes. Not one of the official ones. Those I particularly relish—I’m glaring in most of them.

This is one of us outside at the reception. I’m smiling at something outside of the photo and Montes is beaming down at me. You would’ve almost thought we were happy in that moment.

I was terrified.

I set it down only to lift another. As soon as my eyes fall on the image, I drop it like it burns me. The heavy metal frame hits the carpet with a dull thud.

“Where did you get that?” I ask, my eyes locked on the photo. I don’t want to look at it, it hurts to look at it, but for the life of me I can’t tear my gaze away.

“Where do you think?”

Staring back up at me is a younger version of myself. In the picture I’m giving my father a side hug. He used to keep this photo in his office.

I can’t breathe. I’m not sure I can keep that photo here. Seeing his face makes my soul ache in terrible ways.

I miss him, but that’s not nearly a strong enough word to describe life without him. He was the sun; how do you go on living when something that huge gets extinguished?

And now to have him sit there day in and day out and watch this mockery of my life unfold. I don’t know if I can stand that.

Montes picks the frame up from the floor and returns it to my desk. He doesn’t say anything. He lost a father tragically too.

Resting next to the photographs is my mother’s necklace. I pick it up, a slight tremor running through my hands.

The gold pendant catches the light. Montes left me the few items that have any value to me. I don’t have many things to call my own, but what I do, I cherish.

“And my father’s gun?” I ask.

“I’ll give it back to you the moment I trust you not to shoot me with it,” Montes says.

“So you do think I’ll shoot you,” I say, studying the necklace dangling from my hand.

“You’re a woman that loves a good dare. I’m not gambling my life on your ability to prove me wrong.”

He takes the necklace from me and clasps it around my neck. I run my fingers over the delicate chain. My eyes drift around the room.