Page 6 of A Touch of Gold and Madness

I squeezed my eyes shut, doing my best to fight the urge to slice open her throat. Gods, it was so strong. Yet, a part of me felt repulsed by the idea. I didn’t know which one was true. I ignored them both and focused on the task at hand.

Reaching into one of my pants pockets, I retrieved a syringe, holding it up to the faint sliver of light streaming in through the hole I’d created above me. The vial was full.

I took measured steps toward the assassin, allowing myself to be guided to her waning life force. Each step brought an emotional strike to my chest, one I felt I should know the cause of, but couldn’t for the life of me remember.

She’s a threat to everything. Must die.

“Shut the fuck up,” I murmured to the quiet darkness as I knelt beside her.

She was beautiful. In a hardened and lethal kind of way, but she had a vulnerability to her that I could tell she worked to hide. A little warrior. Too bad she had to die eventually.

Taking the syringe in my right hand, I brushed aside the stray hair that had fallen loose around her neck. The moment my skin made contact with hers, I was bombarded with…peace. The inner turmoil that raged within me at all hours melted away. The voice silenced. A flashback hit me of a little girl in her school uniform with iced-blonde strands, lying in the fetal position on the playground as all the other kids fled from her.

I gasped, snatching my hand away from her like it was a searing burn. It was a memory I didn’t remember.

What the fuck was that? The normalcy of my fractured mind and soul returned at the loss of contact.

She’s a threat. Kill her! Kill her, now!

No. She was a threat tohim, somehow, which piqued my interest in her more. I didn’t trust myself to do something I wouldn’t regret if I sat there and pondered what had just happened. Before I could overthink things, I took the syringe, jammed it into the frenetic vein that clung to life on her neck, and emptied its contents into her bloodstream.

Rocking back on my heels, I shoved the emptied vial into a pocket before rising to my feet, already missing what momentary reprieve I’d experienced. Because now, the affliction was coming back at me tenfold, and I needed to get off the train before I killed my only chance of hope.

I forced myself away from the girl, angling toward the sliding door of the train car. The need to take, take, and take gouged deep cuts into my mind. Pushing it open just enough for me to fit through, I jumped to the gravelbelow. It was time to hunt for a Kinetic to take from this world while I waited for my next run-in with the princess.

Chapter 3

Gray

“Nobody else knows about this, Forest.” An exasperated sigh followed. “I mean, did you expect anything different from her?”

I awoke in my bed. Anxiety seized control of my chest with a vicious hold. Amethyst Freyr’s refined tone rang throughout the King’s Quarters—my father’s personal suite that made up the entire top floor. The luxury hotel housed the Kinetics in this region, or what we called a domain. He gifted me my own suite within the King’s Quarters once I’d turned twenty-one. It was just enough space to afford me privacy, but close enough for him to keep a watchful eye on me.

So many questions raced through my mind.

How did I end up here? How am I alive?

I cringed, remembering the burning pain that had seared my insides. How I’d healed was beyond me. My body shouldn’t have reacted the way it did to the Kinetic blade. As a Kinetic, our bodies didn’t respond to the black-crystal infused in the blades that were meant to harm Elementals—it should’ve been just a typical stab wound for me.

The innate healing abilities of both races should’ve healed the injury within seconds of the knife’s removal. That left me with even morequestions: who’d healed me? And how? Maybe Hazel or Scarlett knew something.

I expected a brutal punishment. It would be long and tortuous, as always. Most likely, my father would take liberties to create his own form of art on my body with different types of blades, but I knew I’d be getting off easy if that were the case. My father’s previous warning promised the worst if I failed my mission.

The weaker part of me wished I was already dead.

I needed my sketchpad and pencils to draw Griffin’s face, wanting to commit to memory the details of the man I’d failed to kill—a reminder to keep the fuel alive regardless of the outcome of my father’s retribution.

Their voices grew louder outside my bedroom door, halting me from grabbing the pad from my nightstand. Drawing was the one thing I had my father couldn’t control, so I’d kept it to myself. I squeezed my eyes shut and pulled in a deep breath to brace for the inevitable. There was no escaping the impending confrontation.

I eyed the cream-colored double doors as they swung open and banged into the wainscoting, rattling the walls. I fought the urge to flinch as King Forest stalked into the room with an energy dipped in malice. Amethyst sauntered close behind him with her dark grace and deceptive beauty.

My father appeared aged in his late thirties. He was much older, but Kinetics and Elementals could slow their aging process at whatever age they chose. We had much longer lifespans than humans–extending for almost two centuries–so most of us looked forever youthful.

The rich green of my father’s beard flinched with a tick of his jaw. His immaculate dark suit was pressed to perfection as he glared at me from the doorway. My stomach roiled. That look was murderous.

I cocked an eyebrow at the verdant-haired king before tilting my head to take in Amethyst, my father’s Hand and mother of the late-Chrome Freyr. Her face held a bored expression. Pulled into a pin-straight ponytail, her deep violet hair stood in stark contrast to my father’s forest-green coif.

“You failed.” The king’s authoritative baritone sunk into my chest.

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