Cursed Queen (Once Upon Ever After #2)

Chapter 1 – Sebastian

SEBASTIAN

Ihave no idea how long I’ve been trapped in the darkness.

Hours, days, weeks, months? I’m honestly not sure.

The only knowledge I have that I’m not dead or stuck in some forever purgatory is that it’s interspersed with occasional sounds.

Pockets of light. Hints of other people.

But the weight of the darkness is pervasive, luring almost, and I’m helpless against it as it drags me back under.

Pain. I do feel that. Followed quickly by numbness. Hot and cold. I get plenty of that too, alternating in arrhythmic waves. Right now, I can’t tell where I am. I’m not awake. At least not fully. I know that. I can’t open my eyes and I can’t move my limbs.

But…

Lips on my forehead. Touch on my face.

“Sebastian, can you hear me?”

“Bellamy, you’re not supposed to be up right now,” Rowan orders. “You lost a lot of blood and the doctor said you need extra rest.”

“I’m fine. I’ve been feeling much better since the transfusion. I don’t like not being here with him. The kids are scared, and I can only give them so many smiles and words of encouragement.”

“His vitals are improving. He’s doing better.”

A heavy sigh. “He still looks so pale. It’s been over twenty-four hours since the surgery, Rowan. Why isn’t he awake yet?”

“The doctor said he’s lucky to be alive.

He too lost a lot of blood, but he also punctured a lung, nicked an artery or two, and had surgery.

Those things take time to heal. Trust me, no one wants him to wake up more than I do.

I hate being regent. You try battling the world of press over the prime minister being a crazy, murderous son of a bitch and the fact that the king is in a coma as a result. ”

“Oh, you mean like battling the world because you’re the much younger American nanny engaged to the king who exposed said prime minister and was attacked by him?” she deadpans, sarcasm dripping from each word. “Yeah, I can see how you’d think they’re totally different.”

I try to force my eyes to open and my lips to smile but to no avail. Their words are cloudy and before I can stop it, I’m back under.

“Phaedra, there you are,” Bellamy whispers, relief in her tone. “You can’t wander like that. I couldn’t find you.”

“I wanted to be with Papa.”

“It’s the middle of the night, sweetheart. Sabrina woke up scared that you were gone.”

“Tomorrow is Christmas Eve. What if Papa isn’t awake by then?” She starts to sniffle, and no. Don’t cry. My big, brave princess. Samil already took so much from her. I have to beat this. I have to wake up. I have to.

“What is that? What’s that noise?”

“His heart rate. It’s going up a little. It’s nothing to be worried about, but I’m going to get the nurse.”

“Papa, you have to be okay. The curse is gone now so you have to be okay.”

“Come on, Phaedra. Let’s get you back to bed.”

Blinding sunlight singes my eyeballs and immediately I scrunch my eyes closed.

I’m foggy. Disoriented. Stiff. And in pain.

Slowly, ever so fucking slowly, I shift, grimacing as a sharp flash of agony rips through me.

I push past it and raise a hand to my chest where the pain stems from, and suddenly everything slams back into me.

The ball. Getting engaged to Bellamy. Samil.

The library.

The knife.

The window.

My grip slipping.

Samil falling.

Then something else hits me. Something infinitely stronger than all my memories and all my tragedies combined.

I can’t describe what this feeling is. It’s…

it’s life flowing through me. A new energy source I’ve never experienced.

It’s overwhelming in its manifestation. Something that blooms, grows, thrives from the marrow of my bones to the hairs now raised on my skin.

I’m alive. Bellamy is alive.

The curse is broken. It must be for that to be true. It required more than falling in love with Bellamy and having her love me in return. It required excising the evil that threatened to destroy us from within.

I smile. I fucking exult.

Forcing my eyes open, I squint, peering around the empty room. I’m alone and in the palace, but the room is unrecognizable. If it weren’t for the ornate woodwork and ancient oil paintings on the walls, I’d think I was in the hospital.

I’m shirtless with tubes and wires coming from my arm and chest. A heavy white bandage covers where Samil stabbed me. I can feel one on my back, too, and with every slight move I make in the bed, it hurts like a son of a bitch.

I close my eyes, breathing out a mournful sigh.

Vaguely I remember hearing Bellamy and Rowan.

Phaedra. Was that a dream? A hallucination from whatever drugs they’re pumping into me through the IV?

Struggle as I might, I can’t recover what was said.

I just know they were here with me, and when I open my eyes again, I see I’m not alone.

“You’re awake. How are you feeling?” Bellamy gives me a watery smile as she slowly approaches the bed. She looks rough. Beautiful as always, but rough. Her cheeks don’t have the same pink glow to them, and her eyes lack their usual luster.

Then there’s her neck.

A track of more stitches than I want to count snakes up the side of her skin, starting at the center of her throat and ending just beneath her jaw. The side of her face is bruised, deep and purple. It makes me want to kill Samil all over again.

“You look worse than I do,” she tells me, clearly reading my expression for what it is.

“He hurt you and I wasn’t there,” I rasp, my voice rough and crackly. I lick my dry lips and swallow, but it’s as if my mouth is filled with sand.

“He hurt you too and Javier is right. Next time, don’t think you can take that by yourself. You should never have tried.”

“In fairness, I was holding the knife at that time.”

She rolls her eyes at me, utterly unimpressed.

“He was mine to deal with,” I say, my voice carrying an edge. “I was the reason it all happened in the first place.”

“Was that worth your life?” Her chin drops to her chest, her arms wrapping around her chest, holding herself tight.

“I can’t lose you, Sebastian. I love you and this love…

it’s not a normal love. It’s a love that goes beyond this lifetime.

It’s a love that never dies, but that doesn’t mean I want to go the rest of this life without you only to hope I find you again in the next. ”

“Come here, baby.”

Trembling, her gaze meets mine again, and I see it. The dark purple stains beneath her eyes. The fear and strain this has put on her.

“I’m going to get the nurse,” she says.

I don’t want her to go. I want her here, and I don’t want to get poked or prodded by the nurse and doctor. “Not yet. Have you slept?”

She shakes her head and looks away. “Some. Not much. I’m taking a page out of your playbook with that.”

“You have healing to do, too. You need rest as much as I do. Now, come here.”

She shakes her head again, pushing down her emotions with her hands as they scrub over her face and through her hair.

“I can’t have you over there where I can’t touch you and comfort you, and unless you want me to get up, come here.”

Ever so gently, she sits on the side of the bed, but it’s not close enough. She gives me a reprimanding look when I gesture for her to lie beside me. “No. I don’t want to hurt you. I should get the nurse.”

“You won’t. Please. I want you. The nurse can wait.”

Slipping off her shoes, she scoots herself beside me, resting her head on my good side and closing her eyes.

“I’m worried about my girl. Are you okay?”

“I am now,” she tells me.

“What happened before I got there?”

Her eyebrows crease. “It’s not important. What’s important is that we’re here, safe, and he’s gone.”

I don’t want to press her for answers. Not now. Not yet. But the time will come when I need them. “Your necklace?”

Her fingers tap against her blouse over her heart. “It’s here. Rowan found it on the ground and got me a new chain for it.”

I press my nose into her hair, breathing in her scent. Home. I couldn’t imagine ever going without her again.

“I didn’t think you were going to make it.” Her voice hiccups. “You nearly died right there on the library floor. Incidentally, the third floor of it is no longer my favorite part of the palace.”

I attempt a smile, but it falls flat. “We’ll renovate it,” I promise. “You can make it anything you want it to be so when you walk in there, you don’t see what happened and you don’t think about it.”

“Sounds good.”

“Are you all right?”

She sighs, her finger on the flat of my stomach resting there, and her touch is everything.

Zapping life back into me the way it always does.

“It was a lot,” she admits. “That entire night with him and with you after. It was a lot. But you’re awake and okay, and I’m okay, and I’ll get where I need to be.

I always do. Nothing holds me down or back for long. ”

“It’s not something you have to do alone or be brave about.” I kiss the top of her head.

“That goes for you, too, Your Majesty.”

Another kiss, though I’m losing steam already. “What have I missed? What are they saying about Samil and his death?”

Her fingers start to move, touching me with gentle caresses and strokes. “That you are the bravest king this country has ever known.”

“Are there any questions about how he died? My role in it?”