Page 176 of Enchanted Kingdom
“You found Jorah?” the king asked.
Krew brushed a piece of my hair behind my ear while looking into my eyes. “Found her? She was with me the whole time.”
I couldn’t even see him, but I could somehow feel the king’s shock.“What?”
I didn’t move a muscle, though my chest was heaving with fear and desperation. I just kept standing where I was, barely outside the hedge, in Krew’s arms, hand still gripping his shirt.
“She’s with me now,” Krew informed his father as he leaned back in to kiss me again.
“Excuse me?”
Krew finally tore his eyes from me and gently turned us so I could face the king, keeping a hand on my waist. “She was upset about Aiyana. It was the last straw for her. So I told her she could pack her things and switch Assemblages if she wanted to. Actually, I had offered it to her before tonight, tonight was just the first time she wanted to take me up on it. I told her to meet me down here.”
He was lying. All of it was a massive lie.
It was dark, but my eyes must have been acclimating now too, because I could see the king shaking his head in disbelief. “You want her for your Assemblage?”
Krew shrugged. “Have I not been obvious about that? Why else would I dismiss her when she isn’t in my own Assemblage? Why else would I offer her the chance to switch Assemblages weeks ago?”
The king groaned. “Dammit, Krewan.”
“Sorry for the confusion,” he offered. “She wasn’t sure Raikes should know. I didn’t realize it would cause such a stir.”
The king looked to me. “You disappeared from Keir’s rooms to head to Krew’s?”
I gave him a nod. “Yes, Your Majesty. He told me to meet him out here. We just didn’t quite make it to his wing yet.”
I may have sounded like a harlot but at least I was a breathing harlot.
The king rubbed his forehead. “How has one girl from Nerede managed to mess up both of my sons so thoroughly?”
I felt Krew’s magic flaring, but either his hand still around me or his own self-control stilled it. “I’ve wanted her for a long time, father. You know that. If Keir wanted to ruin it, then I only offered her the chance to switch.”
The king threw up his hands. “Fine. You tell Keir. And also give him one of your girls so the numbers aren’t bungled. I’ll call off the guards, so they stop going door to door. I’m going to bed. We were starting to search the entire castle looking for her while you two were playing us all for fools.”
More than he even knew.
“Goodnight, father,” Krew offered the king as he spun to leave.
He took two steps and stopped. He didn’t turn back toward us, he just stopped. “Should I find out this is another ruse and not real, this will not go well for either of you,” he warned.
So I wasn’t out of the woods yet. Literally and figuratively.
He began walking again and with every step the king took, my panic rose. I had gone from Keir’s Assemblage to Krew’s. I wasn’t free. And yet, I also wasn’t where I had been either.
Krew embraced me and said softly into my ear, “It’s not immediate freedom, but I will help you get it, just give me some time, okay?”
I rubbed my temples, realizing what we had just done. “So I’m in your Assemblage now? And your father needs to think you are in love, or in the very least lust, with me?”
“That would about sum it up, yes,” Krew stated.
He bent over to grab my jacket and then his.
“Why the jackets?”
He shrugged. “It needed to look like we’d been here a while.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “Keir is going to kill you. And me. Both of us, really.”
