Chapter Nine
Nine
Hushed whispers trail in our wake, heads turning, eyes tracking our every move. Or rather, his every move. I won’t waste time kidding myself—they’re not looking at me. They’re looking at Alder.
A group of scantily clad guests gather near the far wall, bare skin gleaming with a faint sheen of silver glitter. Their laughter is soft, coy, and their gestures entirely too suggestive as they watch him with unguarded hunger.
“We’re in over our heads, Alder,” I whisper, barely audible over the sensual hum of music, conversation, and wet ball slapping.
“Good thing I’m such a strong swimmer,” he drawls and plucks two crystal goblets from a tray offered by a silver-painted attendant. He hands one to me without looking, swirling his own as though we’re at a fundraising gala instead of in the middle of a sex cult.
My fingers tighten around the glass, the delicate stem pressing into my palm.
Alder drapes his arm across my shoulders and leans down. “You’re thinking too hard again, sweetheart.”
I exhale, my shoulders relaxing before I can stop them. I swallow down the instinct to regather my defenses, to argue, to resist. Instead, I let myself sink into his warmth.
If he’s not afraid, I don’t have to be either.
Plus, he’s right. Again.
Every fear clawing at me, every horrible possibility racing through my mind, is more likely to come true if I don’t play along.
The crowd parts as a man in a dark waistcoat strides forward, his polished shoes clicking against the stone. His presence commands attention, and the entire room shifts, quieting to a hush as he nears.
“Lord Lockhart,” he begins, his voice smooth and rich. His piercing gray eyes flick to me briefly before they fully settle on Alder. “I am Victor Rothmore. Welcome to my kingdom.” His dark, wavy hair brushes his tanned forehead as he inclines his head.
I stiffen and lean into Alder. “Should we kneel?”
“I kiss no man’s ring.” He winks down at me, and my stomach flips.
“Your Majesty,” Alder replies, nodding slightly. “You know how to make a guest feel…welcome.”
Victor’s black brow arches and the corner of his bearded mouth quirks upward in a faint smile, but before he can respond, another voice cuts in.
“Yes, I do.” The words slither over my skin, wrap tight, and squeeze.
I turn, my hackles instantly rising as a woman steps out from behind us.
I know her.
Petite and poised, her dress clings to her slight curves like liquid silver. Black curls frame high cheekbones, and three freckles form a triangle beneath her left eye.
Mackenzie?!
Wine red lips smooth into a grin, and there’s an edge to her gaze that lands like ice in my veins.
No. Not Mackenzie. Not my Mackenzie. It can’t be. Can it?
My heart stumbles, my brain locking up as it tries to reconcile the impossible resemblance. Same face. Same body. Identical down to the last freckle, yet utterly different. Where my Mackenzie is warm and open, this woman is cold, every inch of her a weapon.
I’m so distracted that I barely process the shift in Alder—the tightening of his grip, the way his breath slows just slightly.
He has to see it too. Has to recognize her. This is his best friend’s wife.
But if he does recognize her, he stops short of showing it.
“Queen Delphara Rothmore.” Her name slides off her tongue like venom, her smile all teeth.
She stops beside her husband and tilts her head as she studies Alder. “My scout watched you and your men enter the boundary of our kingdom this morning. And you, Lord Lockhart, made quite the entrance.”
Alder doesn’t miss a beat. “I’m usually the one doing the watching.”
A flash of amusement flickers in Delphara’s dark eyes. “I had to ensure the same fate did not befall you as befell our Lord and Lady Ashwood when they journeyed to Pentacles.”
Alder’s smirk doesn’t falter, but I swear I feel the air around him shift.
They’re two predators circling, testing, sizing each other up. A game is being played, and I have no idea what the rules are.
“Although,” she adds, her gaze finding mine, “the scout neglected to inform us you were…accompanied.” Her lips curve just slightly, like I’m a bug she’ll delight in crushing under her heel.
I recoil, my shoulders drawing in, my grip tightening on Alder’s hand.
Nope. This is not my Mackenzie. This is Wrong-Mackenzie. Evil-Mackenzie. Possibly-Murderous-Mackenzie. But somehow, she’s here.
Oh fuck. Alder’s multiverse theory bullshit is true.
“Perhaps,” the king interjects as he raises a glass to his lips, “if you had used Wolrick as I suggested instead of one of Droskyn’s men—”
“I trusted Droskyn,” Ice-Queen-Mackenzie snaps, her composure cracking for the briefest moment.
“Bedding someone isn’t the same as trusting them,” Victor replies coolly, not bothering to hide his disdain.
My hand gets sweaty in Alder’s, and my cheeks flush with the effort to keep my expression neutral. I know exactly what he means.
“You’re one to talk, aren’t you, husband?”
Okay. Wow.
I clear my throat, desperate to break the tension before this turns into a Game of Thrones spin-off. “We appreciate the warm welcome, but—”
“As I was saying,” Rude-Bitch-Mackenzie continues, not bothering to even look at me as she tramples all over my sentence, “you made quite the entrance.”
She gestures around the room, her attention lingering on the dark, unlit chandeliers and the massive dormant machine at the center of it all.
“The devices activated the moment you crossed the border into our kingdom.”
Alder raises an eyebrow, taking it all in stride, but I feel like I’m sinking deeper into quicksand.
“Everything came to life. The bulbs illuminated, the machines thrummed, the air itself felt…restored. I am disappointed that, since your carriage arrived in town, it has all gone dormant again.” With a shrug, she twirls her fingers through the air.
“But that is of little consequence. It only reaffirms what I’ve known all along—a partnership between Cups and Pentacles is destined for greatness. ”
Alder takes a deep breath, and his broad shoulders seem to get even broader. “Usually, after I wake something up, it stays awake.”
Oh, for fuck’s sake.
I’m not a huge fan of wine, but that line makes me down a giant gulp as I will myself not to roll my eyes so hard I see into the past.
“They make a pill for that, you know?” I mutter.
Delphara’s gaze cuts to me. “Do you have something to add?”
The emphasis on “you” sends a jolt of anger through me. “I was literally speaking, so—”
“Excellent.” Wicked-Witch-Mackenzie returns her attention to Alder.
“I do so look forward to discussing the details of our…alliance.” Her voice drips with suggestion, and I don’t miss the way she trails a single, teasing fingertip along the inside of Alder’s arm as she says it.
She has all the subtlety of a loaded gun.
I down the rest of my wine in one long pull.
Whatever’s written on my face must be clear enough to see from space, because King Victor clears his throat, his glossy gray eyes flicking toward Veiled-Innuendo-Mackenzie. “My wife forgets herself.”
Oh, I do like him.
“And, it seems, she has also forgotten your recent losses. Your father’s passing was so sudden. And what with your advisor’s machinations and beginnings of what I could only call a coup—”
Delphara waves a manicured hand. “We all agree Four got what he deserved.”
Victor’s nostrils flare. “The man was killed, Delphara.”
“And we’ve all since moved on.” She silences him with another dismissive flick of her wrist, her sapphire rings catching the light. “Enough of the maudlin, Victor.”
She pivots before I can blink and hooks her arm through Alder’s. “Come, Lord Lockhart. While I show you the pleasures Cups has to offer you must tell me what life has been like since abdicating your throne. I do hope the sentiment isn’t catching.”
Alder’s thumb grazes the back of my hand once, twice, before he releases it and lets her pull him into her orbit.
“No, you go on ahead. I’ll stay right here,” I mutter to absolutely no one.
And, like I’m back at my Mackenzie’s wedding reception, I exchange my empty glass for a full one as another silver server drifts past.
A hand brushes my shoulder, and I turn to find King Victor watching me with an expression I can only describe as sympathetic.
“Don’t take it personally,” he says dryly, offering me his arm. “My wife has a…singular talent for alienating even the most patient of us.”
I hesitate a beat, but hunger, exhaustion, and the sting of being so easily discarded win out.
“I did notice that,” I say, my gaze zeroing in on the queen, who’s leaning so far into Alder’s towering frame she might as well start taking notes on his molars. “I assume you’ve been dealing with that talent for a while, then?”
“Long enough to know when to stop fighting it and just let her tire herself out.”
I take a long sip of wine, purely for survival. “Like a toddler having a tantrum.”
“Except with more jewelry and sharper claws.”
I snort laugh before I can stop myself.
“It’s refreshing to speak with someone who isn’t afraid to say what they’re thinking.”
That sobers me slightly. As much as I want to laugh this all off, to let myself get swept up by this decadent setting, by a literal king, the truth settles like lead in my stomach. Alder isn’t the only one who needs to tread lightly.
I force a placid smile and lift my glass in a mock toast. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“It was meant as one,” Victor replies, leading me toward a gilded table draped in midnight blue silk and arranged with platters of food so decadent it would make a Michelin chef weep. “No one should endure Delphara’s company on an empty stomach.”
I eyefuck the table, then side-eye him. “You say that like she gets worse.”
He plucks a grape from a bunch and pops it into his mouth. “She hasn’t even gotten started.”
The double doors groan open, and a cloaked, masked figure barrels inside, their robes flowing behind them like dark water with the force of their strides.
The hush spreads like a ripple, the party’s soft laughter and music strangled by the steady clink of their metal-tipped boots against polished stone.
They move with purpose toward Victor, and I don’t realize I’m holding my breath until the masked guard whispers a hushed message to the king.
The energy shifts the moment they speak.
Victor stiffens. His grip tightens around his glass, knuckles white. His jaw locks so hard I swear I hear the grind of his teeth before he finally speaks. “How did he get past the water?”
Awareness prickles against my skin.
The cloaked figure gestures sharply, their gloved hands slicing through the air with quick, clipped movements. Whatever they’re saying, it’s not good.
Victor exhales through his nose, his fingers flexing against the goblet before he sets it down. His gray eyes cut across the room, scanning, hunting.
I don’t know what he’s looking for. Or who. But I do know what it feels like when the air shifts before a storm.
The floor vibrates, a low, ominous hum that slithers up my legs and coils tight around my chest. One by one, the chandeliers flicker to life, spilling golden light across the room. The pipes lining the walls hiss in unison, releasing spirals of steam that twist toward the ceiling.
Partygoers gasp and squeal, but the sound is brittle and too sharp around the edges to be anything close to delight.
“What fresh hell is this?” I suck in a breath, my gaze automatically searching for Alder across the room.
His broad frame is rigid, his expression composed, but even from here, I catch the slight shift—the faint crack in his mask as his eyes dart from me to the massive machine at the center of the room.
With a grinding screech, the contraption lurches forward. Gears turn, metal grinding against metal in a shriek that sets my teeth on edge. Its once dormant mechanics roar to life, sending energy pulsing through the castle walls, shaking the very foundation beneath us.
Near its base, the lovers untangle in a frantic blur of limbs and silk. A woman stumbles backward. The silver chains draped around her bare waist and cascading down her legs like a decorative gown catch in the machine’s grinding gears with a sickening snap.
She freezes. Her wide, terrified eyes dart to the chains as if disbelief alone could stop what’s coming.
The machine jerks. The chains pull taut.
A scream tears from her throat as she’s yanked off her feet. She flails, grasping desperately at the hands that reach for her. They grip her arms, her legs, straining against the machine’s relentless pull. But the gears devour the chains inch by inch, dragging her higher, tangling tighter.
Another jerk. Another cry.
And then her final, desperate wail is cut short, swallowed by the wet crunch of bone snapping beneath the relentless grind of metal. The machine roars, a guttural, mechanical growl as it pulls her under.
Blood sprays in a wide arc, warm and slick. It splatters across the polished floor, streaks the pristine walls, beads along the silver pipes. The copper tang fills my throat, clogs my nostrils.
The machine moves again. It lumbers forward, seeking its next kill.
The room explodes with panicked cries, the screech of grinding metal, the pounding of frantic footsteps as bodies shove and stumble, each person fighting for escape.
I whirl, searching. Where is Alder?
He promised to save me. And here, in this kingdom, the value of a knight in shining armor outweighs any deposit into my bank account. Right now, survival isn’t about power or money—it’s about protection. His protection.
The hum beneath my feet intensifies, climbing up my legs, spreading through my body like a fever.
Run, the thought screams in my head. Run now!
And for the first time since this nightmare began, I listen.
I run.