Page 29 of Royal Lies

"I can't have you going around looking like a rat who'd just crawled her way out of the sewers now can I?"

The boy had tossed the blue glittering gown at me last night all the while glaring like I was some thorn under his paws; slamming the door in my face the moment he finished his 'task'.

He couldn't just leave without insulting me, could he?

Still, he was far more preferable in my opinion to the melodic smiles, and crazed eyes of his other half. That girl, she's never been right in the head. Quite frankly I'm sick of how many secrets she keeps around her. It was too much, even for a fae.

Then yesterday after that annoying first meeting, we all agreed to have a more formal greeting with the king in his study as the “ambassadors”of Dracool.But if you ask me I couldn't care less. I hated everyone here, but for some odd reason, that boy needed me to attend.

I looked down at the atrocity that was my dress. For one I knew he gave me this on purpose. All that bright blue and sparkles, hasn't he heard of being modest or decent? The V-neck basically reached my waist showing off my cleavage and silk-like maroon skin. At least the dress was long, cutting off near the end of my ankle. As for the jewelry, he didn't offer me any. I would have been happier if he'd given me some jewelry instead of this dress. I even had to find some heels on my own. I could have talked to Flynn and found a more decent dress. But, I didn'twant to talk with him yet. Not until I finished what I needed to do.

Speaking of Flynn I wonder if he remembers everything now, but then again was this really the Flynn I know? He seemed different. Same body, and intelligence, but something was off about him. I can't quite pinpoint it, yet the feeling won't go away. His obsession with the girl on the other hand was still the same as always.

Taking a small glimpse from my peripheral vision I spotted the blond-haired beauty. I scowled at her piercing golden eyes as she just stared at me. Creepy as always, even without her memories, she's still as slippery and slimy as a snake. I'll never understand what Flynn sees in this girl. If only he didn't get involved with her then, perhaps things would have turned out differently.

Upon a second glance, I noticed something odd. It was faint but there was a blue layer of magic coating her body. Did she always have that blue hue around her or was this an after-effect of what that boy has been doing to her? Because only an idiot wouldn't know that the boy, despite all his claims of wanting to protect her, was most definitely doing something to the girl.

Is this the after-effects of messing with her mind?

Returning my gaze to the blond ahead of us, or to be more precise at his back, a view more pleasant to look at than his obnoxious face if you ask me. His face was always too arrogant for my liking, too much like my brothers. A brother I had no intention of seeing until the heavily guarded double doors opened, and deep red tourmaline eyes looked straight back at me.

Scowling I wished I hadn't thought of the bastard. Perhaps it was my thoughts that had manifested the man. There he stood in his tailored black suit and red tie. The only untainted thingabout that man would have to be his pressed-down white dress shirt.

What is he doing here for gods sake? Was he not supposed to be our enemy? Wait, wasn't he the one in charge of those blasted shadows? Is this some kind of mind game he was playing?

Glaring at his charming and fake smile I knew he knew that I knew he also had all his memories. Of course he would, that was to be expected. I don't know why I hoped he wouldn't after all like me he was a true Phoenix . As such we will always remember our past lives. No matter how many times we reincarnate we will always remember. It was more like a curse than a blessing.

Which was strange, because I have no idea how I first died. In all my other lives, I have always remembered my last breath. Yet, I can't seem to recall the first of my many deaths since. All I remember was a flash of light then nothing, and suddenly I was a baby again. But I know who killed me that deadly light couldn't have come from anyone else but her, the girl, she must have done it. Or perhaps my brother was the one to have killed me in my first life as well. In many of my past reincarnations, before these two bastards found me again, he was the one to kill me time and time again.

Glaring daggers at the man who was once my most trusted ally.My brotherand agreatbrother he was.

I struggled to keep my sneer inside as I averted my gaze from my so-called brother.

He, on the other hand, didn't hesitate to toss me aside like a ragged doll the moment something caught his fancy. I learned that fact in my first life.

In my first reincarnation after my first death, I was killed by him, a man I'd known since my very birth whom I'd sworn my life to protect and guard as he would me, stabbed me in the back.Which only made me feel even more foolish. If he had been so willing to murder our parents for power, why not me?

Even if I did kill our mother as he killed our father, I was at least more merciful and ended her existence quickly. Besides the whole idea was his, so in truth it was he who truly killed both our parents. Not that they didn't deserve it but still my brother could have shown some mercy toward our father. He did not have to drag out his death to such an extent.

But my brother wasn't called the King of Blood for Nothing. He didn't want to end my father's life so mercifully. No, not to the father who'd tormented, beaten, and abused him. Not to the man, who hadn’t even shown the tiniest of kindness to his heir. Who had mercenaries and assassins on his payroll to kill off his own son. No, my brother dragged our father's soul, his body, mind, and heart, if he had one, to the furthest extent that he could. My brother tortured it. Ripped it to shreds before he finally ended it all some seven hundred sun cycles later.

Magic can do wonders, once you know the right spells and ruins.

I remember that one time, he dragged our father's breathing limp body around like a puppet in the Phoenix Court royal arena. At that point, my father's body was so famished and torn it was like paper ribbons drifting in the wind. The crowd had watched as they cheered on my brother's madness. As he revived our father's corpse time and time again with ruins only to tear it all down again over and over, and over. He must have killed and resuscitated our father's flesh more than a hundred times.

I would be lying if I said I never indulged in watching the scene. After all, our father beat me too. Whips, canes, or belts, I remember those days. How I would plead for my father to use his belt instead of his spike-ridden leather whips. Those were the better days when he used the belt and not hisdiscipline tools.

I always wondered how he was planning to sell me off with all those scars on my back, but he always healed me. He made sure I was the perfectdoll. My mother, the compliantbitchthatshe was, always looked the other way. But looking away wasn’t good enough for her. No, my father might have been my brother's tormentor but my mother was mine. In other words, she wasn't any better. I can't remember the times before they became so cruel.

I guess my brother sold me off too. The difference was my brother asked me, and my father didn't. Of course, I did agree at the time, when I still loved him as a brother.

A marionette, I suppose that's all I was to anyone, a pawn people could use then toss away when I wasn’t needed anymore. I wasn't a sister or daughter. I was a doll with strings to pull me right and left.

My brother told me I had to charm my way into a man's pants, a king's heart. And I did, I willingly did so, for what? Power, of course. Was it even a question, in a world of fae and glamour, what else is there to gain?

Aside from my brother I cared for little else, at the time.

He was my best friend.

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