Chapter 21
I crouch before the throne steps and eye the faded red of his eyes and the dribble slipping from the corner of his mouth. I glance at his lips, noticing the lipstick stains across the corners and the dense scent of perfume lingering on his silken clothes.
My focus moves away from the stains and to the presentable hole in King Ragan’s head.
Another wound grazes his right neck, and red hair sticks to the injury, caked with blood.
It oozes down, soaking into his clothes until the King, who claims he is flesh and crimson, is nothing more than what he set out to be.
My focus trails to where the culprit likely stood, and my gaze narrows with suspicion before I rise and turn to Alad. He marks the spot where the second bullet exited his head.
Then I turn towards the five sex workers off to the side, wearing thin, lacy robes and leather materials that hardly cover their breasts and tight, crotchless panties. A heavy scent of King Ragan comes from them, and it’s hard to mask the lingering stench of stale sex.
I turn away from them and lean down to examine King Ragan again when the Throne Room doors open with a panicked, resounding shudder as they hit the walls. My frown deepens at the sound of his choking, horrific gasps, and he stumbles like a fool coming toward me.
From the corner of my eye, Alad moves in front of Walkyer to calm him down and keep him away from me, but my brother is a water element, acting like an earth elemny.
I stare at King Ragan, my eyes darting to every hair follicle, crevice of skin, open scab, dirt under my fingernails, and skin flaking away.
But Walkyer makes concentrating difficult, as he becomes a blubbering, incoherent mess.
The closer he gets to me, the harder it becomes for me to focus on what happened here and to let the story unfold until it makes sense.
“What the fuck happened, Reen!” Walkyer cries. “Why is…I just saw…”
“Why did you go into my room?” I drawl. Rising from my crouched position, I fold my arms across my chest and grimace at Walkyer. “No one’s allowed in my room.”
Walkyer points to the throne room doors and exclaims, “Because Mother’s room is on fucking fire, and the trail leads to your damn room!”
He’s a mess. Bloodshot blue eyes waver with shed tears, clenched fists yearning to harm me but waiting for a reason, and a rigid, stiff form that suggests someone lacking order in his emotions.
I want to rest my hand on his shoulder and comfort him, as a brother would, but everyone here would consider it out of the ordinary. I will not start now, as it would only raise further questions about why I am acting with more affection than usual.
“Did you meet up with that unawakened woman?” I say as I face away from Walkyer and the mess he has become.
“No…No, I was looking for her location at the taxi bay when I noticed smoke coming from the castle.”
My eyes narrow. “I see…”
I sense Walkyer moving closer. “Did they…did they do it?”
“No,” I admit, frowning.
“But who else would come here and risk their lives?”
“King Ragan has a list as long as the fucking dictionary, brother. There are thousands of reasons someone would want him dead. It’s more about skinning the dead flesh to get to the heart of the cause and reasoning. When I have my answer, it’s easier to narrow down the endless list of suspects.”
I face King Ragan. My frown deepens at his corpse.
“But they were in here around the same time. It must be them,” Walkyer says, and he takes a step towards them from the corner of my eye.
I take a deep breath, irritated by how ignorant Walkyer is about this. He should be…
I look at Alad and say, “Prepare Walkyer for his crowning. A throne without a king will weaken Flesh. It’s best to let Eraminia focus on a new king while I handle this.”
“What! Now? You’re thinking about crowning me now, after Mother…I thought that, if anything, our mother would be the one to draw some emotion out of you, but I was wrong. You’re still a robot following a dead king’s orders.”
“Indeed,” I say hoarsely. “Now fucking leave so I can do my job, brother.”
Alad escorts Walkyer out, and the doors slam shut.
Once the fog clears from my mind, I crouch by King Ragan’s corpse, and my finger circles the hole in the centre of his head. If Alad or even Astin were here, they would stifle a cry of frustration at my tainting of the evidence.
But who else would figure out what happened to King Ragan? Who knows him better than I do? I was the one who got closest to the King. While everyone feared him, I grew closer out of concern for those around me.
No one else knew him better than I did.
“You didn’t hear any gunshots as you all dressed in the other room?” I say to the sex workers when I turn my attention to them.
Veronica Soldado shakes her head, and her short, red hair in a bob style bounces with her trembling quakes of hyperventilation. “No…we d-didn’t hear t-that.”
“But you heard noises?”
“Y-yes,” she says. “K-king R-Ragan was becoming aggressive towards the end…”
“After Layla left?” I prompt.
Veronica swallows before saying, “Yes.”
Ma Yang speaks in her common tongue, “She comes in near the end of the session to finish him.”
“He summoned her from my mother’s chambers?”
Ma Yang inclines her head. “Yes, he always does.”
“But she fled earlier, which aggravated him?”
Ma Yang turns her back to me and lowers the glittery purple robe to reveal third-degree burns across her shoulder. Blistered pus and blood swell across her back, rippling with heat and throbbing a dark red. “He grew angry and began hurting his dolls.”
“Do you know where I can locate Layla?”
They shake their heads.
“And you didn’t see the water elemny maid scheduled to clean the mess?”
Veronica furrows her brow. “Water elemny? Not Bethany?”
“Bethany?” I say flatly.
“The earth elemny. King Ragan never sends a water elemny in after.”
“Why?”
“We exhaust him too much. Therefore, he requests an elemny weak to fire.”
I sigh with frustration. “You may go, but I prohibit you from leaving the castle grounds until I say so. If any of you leave, I’ll kill you.”
They leave the room in silence. As they do so, I eye the hole in his head.
Silence. It’s the keyword throughout everything.
I will rule out rifles. The range seems a short distance from the murder.
There are also no holes through the arched glass windows.
Besides, shooting three times in the same spot would lack accuracy, given the direction they fired.
It’s awkward enough carrying a sniper rifle around.
I can’t imagine someone standing over King Ragan and aiming it downward in that motion.
So…it was a pistol. Most pistols can hold a silencer, but it’s all about the quality that makes the difference.
Some can even make slight noises that the sex workers might hear.
A Beretta M9A4…It handles well enough and shoots accurately.
Or there’s a chance it could already be a gun with a suppressor attached.
The FNX-45 Tactical is also an option if that’s the case.
Alek and Ri would likely know more. I’ll send the information upon their return to the Kingdom of Flesh.
I cancelled their investigation into this Pandora girl because I needed more hands-on help when hunting with Astin. Walkyer will be the king, and I need him to have more protection while I am gone. He will be the first water elemny king ever.
Riots and uproar may arise once we announce the crowning.
I examine King Ragan again and grimace.
The maid and Layla seem to play in my mind…
especially the maid. A water elemny instead of an earth elemny entered the Throne Room after he had his way with the sex workers.
It never occurred to me that King Ragan would put orders like that in place, but it makes sense now.
King Ragan’s dolls were of more use than I ever would have expected.
I move my hand toward his head as if I’m holding the gun, and my frown deepens when I pull the trigger.
It skimmed the side of his neck, where the first lot of dry blood on the ground had occurred. It spurted out until King Ragan placed his hand over the wound.
Makes sense. Blood covers his hands, and there’s a burn mark lining the injury. He attempted to seal it shut.
What happened next?
My focus trails across the floor, and I follow the drips of blood that spilled from his neck. He moves toward the throne until the culprit shoots him again. King Ragan falls across the steps, so they move toward him, stand over him and shoot again.
My finger moves as if I’m pulling the trigger. A flutter rises, stirring when I pull the trigger. So, I do it again. Another flutter stirs, clenching my heart with excitement. And so I do it again, and that time, it’s fucking satisfying.
Revenge. The motive was revenge. That satisfying feeling caused the culprit to pull the trigger five times. The first was reactionary, the second for death, and the three others were pure, relishing satisfaction with the elemny’s revenge.
The doors open, and Alad enters with a bemused look. “Walkyer’s not happy with you.”
“I’ll deal with him later. Can you put the surveillance up around the Left Wing, where the maids’ quarters are located?”
“What time?”
“Eleven thirty onwards,” I answer. “Where’s Layla?”
“In the dungeon. Ziri found her and put her down there.”
“At least Chloe will have someone to communicate with until I deal with Layla.”
“You don’t want to question her now?”
I shake my head. “No. I want to understand the maid’s movements before anything else.”
Alad moves closer to me and simultaneously shows the surveillance cameras on the Right-Wing and Left-Wing.
My brows furrow, and I point to the two guards talking to an earth elemny in a long floral dress that reaches her feet. I then arch my brow and scoff a laugh when the fire elemny walks away from his post.
Leaning closer to the phone, my grin broadens at the structure of the woman’s face.
A glimpse, but I’ve imagined my hands around her throat ever since I became interested in hunting her down.
Her sleek jaw, sharp cheekbones, pointed nose and doe eyes hold a menacing gaze beneath her come-to-bed eyes.
My heart beats faster, and this excitement burns inside me. She dressed as a maid, opened the door, and entered without fear. She has her destination set—she desires to kill King Ragan.
“Fast forward to eleven fifty-five onward,” I demand, unable to contain my excitement any longer.
My shoulders tremble with amusement when she leaves as an earth elemny.
Stepping away from Alad’s phone, I chuckle darkly under my breath at the thought of this being the most enjoyable hunt.
To think I can kill the unawakened brat I’ve wanted my hands around since seeing her at Ebon Hall Entrance is a blessing in disguise after the horror I had to endure today.
I can imagine tasting the crimson spilling from her heart when my hand slides into her chest, breaking her ribs and clutching at what keeps her alive.
“Where are you going, Prince Reen?” Alad asks.
“We have a crowning to prepare…and then,”—my grin broadens—“I can hunt the woman who makes my heart beat.”