Page 33 of Fierce Monarch

“No.”

“Reina?” Grey moved closer as I went to the next spot and the next, getting more frantic with each step, only to be disappointed each time.

Nothing.

“They aren’t here.”

Silence and then, “What?”

Grey gave a good growl when he wanted to, and it slid across my skin like the tip of a knife, leaving goose bumps in its wake. Too bad I was too far gone to enjoy it.

“The journals are missing. They’re gone.”

Chapter Nine

Mari

The last few days had been tiring and awful and more emotional than the entire last year of my life, which was saying something since I’d buried my cousin not that long ago. Hell, maybe that was part of the problem. I was a volcano, pressure building inside me with every irritation, every pain, every second of grief I faced.

This was the last straw, the final push to set me off.

I felt something inside me—something frail, desperately clinging to life and sanity and calm—snap.

I didn’t remember reaching for the first shelf or the feel of the pages beneath my fingertips. All I felt was rage. Bone-deep, blood-boiling rage.

Nate had invaded my home. He’d made me love him. He’d put everything I cared about at risk: my family, my empire, my city. And yet nothing felt worse than knowing he’d stolen my family’s legacy. My brother’s last remaining words.

I watched as I tore the books from their shelves and threw them across the room, like I was having an out-of-body experience. Present, but unable to stop myself as I went to the next to do it all over again. The soft tinkling of glass said that I broke something somewhere, but I didn’t know what, nor did I care. I was too focused on expelling the anger from my body, and the red haze covered the entire room.

Why did I have to lose everything?

Why was nothing mine to keep?

Why did I always have to sacrifice?

Growing up, I’d given up any dreams of love and joy because my father expected me to be a tool in his arsenal, and I accepted it. When I buried Antoni, I gave up a future of my choosing to take over my birthright. I gave up ever feeling safe or living to old age.

I’d given up everything for this city, and all it did was bleed me dry.

Why was nothing I did good enough to keep my family—my heart—safe?

I didn’t know, and the pressure in my chest said I wouldn’t. So I just kept going.

Row after row, bookcase after bookcase, I dismantled the library in a fit of rage that rivaled most other forces of nature: deadly, chaotic, and dangerous to behold.

Time lost all meaning, and the rush of blood in my ears deafened me as I defiled my brother’s favorite space. So I had no warning before I was crushed between not one body but two.

Struggling was second nature because I’d lost my sense of self and I didn’t know these bodies, except…did I?

“Stop, Mari. You’re going to hurt yourself.”

I knew that voice.

Come back, I told myself. It’s time to come back.

It took a long time to stitch myself together after a fracturing of that magnitude, but when I did, the scents of the men I loved surrounded me, soothing me.

Healing me.

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