Page 106 of War and his Queen

Katsia’s leather boots hit the wooden dock, her red sundress dancing through the wind.

She turns over her shoulder, her green eyes resting on mine. “Wanna go burn some time?”

Katsia and I had grown up around each other over the years, as did the other boys, but she and I were… well… a little different. She sprawls her hand out to me, her eyes flashing with rebellion. “Come on… I can almost guarantee you’ll like it.”

“Because you forget that easily?” It’s not that I fuck around with a lot of people, but the ones I do, all know that I give nothing but my dick. If they start showing signs of wanting even a smidge more from me, I’m out.

Katsia and I were each other’s firsts. We were thirteen.Doesn’t matter that we continued for years after.She never asked shit, never expected shit, and more importantly, I thought she didn’t feel shit. The first time I noticed her flinch was when a Lost Boy’s sister was on my lap.

Well, shit. That was over a year ago. Had I made an exception without even realizing?

I ignore her. “They only took out two of ours?”

She sighs, folding her arms around her waist. She never gave up those damn sundresses. A complete contrast to the girls we hang with. Halen would shoot you before she’d allow you to put a dress like this one on her. It’s long and flows down to mid-calf. The material around her chest is tight, making her tits spill over the seams.

Priest has had his share of toxicity, and shit, I’ve had mine. Unfortunately, mine are always holding a pair of tits and a bad attitude, where his are always leaving a trail of bodies behind. Vaden’s golden boy status should be classified as one on its own.

“Young soldiers. Good kids. Kind of reminded me of us at one point. But they did that before they were gunned down.” Her finger points to four statues that tower over the gardens of Perdita, each of them carved to represent the Founding Kings. That’s not what catches me off guard, it’s the four bodies strung up and hanging by their feet from each sculpture.

Poetic. Typical.

“I hate to say it, but we did create them…”

I ignore her rambling and pop the trunk, lifting the hidden compartment to reveal the array of weapons. Semis, knives, grenades, whatever the fuck we might need offhand.

I pluck out the military knife and Desert Eagle.

Katsia glances down at the equipment with unease.

The wall she keeps up to hide all the emotions she condenses slips. She must feel my gaze on her because just as quickly as it fell, it’s back up.

“Time to change your taste in men?”

She bristles. “God no. I have my ways of doing things and you have yours, Malum.”

The trunk slams closed. “Just like the old days.”

She smiles but it doesn’t reach her eyes. Since Halen and I have been fucking around, I’ve ignored Katsia. It wasn’tpurposeful, but I can’t be fucked with the girl drama. Not that I owed Katsia an explanation to my ghosting, but even bad habits die hard. It just so happens that she’s been one of mine for a fucking long time.

“You stay here. Get in the car.”

Her brow lifts. “Um, just because I don’t want to use guns to pull this island back together, doesn’t mean I’m a child, War.” Her shoulder taps mine when she passes me.

We pass store after store, where bodies lay sprawled over the pavement. I pause a moment at a chocolatier shop with cursive writing on a sign that readssugar and blood.The lights flicker inside, illuminating red stains over the glass display. A Lost Boy lays lifeless on the floor with a gaping hole in his forehead. Gary and his wife own this place. There’s no doubt in my mind that they would have shot anyone who they deemed a threat, but I’m glad there was a Lost Boy here to help anyway. Even with the cost of his life.

Perdita has a particular scent that I haven’t smelled anywhere else. I could never put my finger on it. It was the perfume of pine and something sweet like floral. I now know that the unfamiliar note is the herb we drank at the ritual.

Flames from the small pockets of fire release embers through the silence. There’s not a single sound except for the crunching of my boots over the loose gravel.

The deeper we walk down Main, the worse it gets. It’s like a damn bomb site.

“Tell me everything.” The sensitivity of my vigilance doesn’t waver, as my head swivels from left to right. The rest of the Kings would have no doubt heard by now, as much as I tried to ignore it.

Ignorehercoming here. I don’t even want to allow my mind to wander to Halen. I may have pushed her away a little too hardtonight. Let’s just hope I don’t end up with a matching bullet in my head like that Lost Boy.

The soles of her shoes clap against the cobblestone the farther we move through the street. We’re only a couple hundred meters from the end, where her mansion is.

Moments later, we reach the high-wire fence that’s slightly ajar and unprotected. I’ve never seen this place left unprotected before.

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