Chapter Seventeen
“S he collapsed…”
Get rid of her .
“I don’t know what happened…”
Knock her out .
* * *
A harsh voice pulled me out of another nightmare.
“I already said I don’t know what happened. That’s why I called. Obviously.”
Another responded, overflowing with fear. Brimming with pain. “What do you mean you don’t know what happened? Why weren’t you with her?”
I tried to open my eyes at the sound of his voice.
I didn’t understand why he was here.
They were both here… My Knights.
“Oh, I’m sorry, Golden Boy. Did you want me glued to her hip? Or stuck between her fucking legs?”
Growls. Two growls lashed out, gunning for each other. Like dogs trapped in a fight, and if I’d had the energy to do it, I would’ve laughed. But only because I wanted to cry. Their hatred made my heart ache, but I couldn’t remember why.
Everything still felt so heavy.
A third voice broke through the haze, the calm breaking through the storm. “Please, stop. Both of you.”
I recognized it, too. It charmed me—somehow real and also like a dream—enchanting me like it had so many other times before.
Only I was so affected.
“We were arguing outside,” the surly and gruff one explained. “She got pissed and ran off into the woods. And since I was also pissed, I stormed back into the house.”
“What were you arguing about?”
“That’s none of your fucking business.”
More growls.
But the third voice remained calm. “If it helps us figure out what happened to her, then it might be very important, Max.”
Max…
He was angry. Flaring with frustration, simmering with…it tasted like rage. But that didn’t make sense. And it didn’t explain the underlying regret.
Why did it taste like me?
“I already know what happened, Kingston, I told you?—”
Kingston…
Hands brushed my hair back from my face, electricity crackling under my skin wherever they touched. I recognized his touch and moaned, fighting to open my eyes.
“Wait, was that her? Is she awake?”
His name was on the tip of my tongue, embedded in my skin, written in places no one else had touched…
Why was he in so much pain?
My heart ached.
Throbbing in my head came next. The bed shifted beside me. Their voices faded in and out as I fought to stay awake.
Max spoke, yanking my attention back to him. “My father will be here soon.”
Déjà vu washed over me.
“You called your father?” The mattress jolted. “What the fuck, Max?”
I groaned.
Soft, long fingers brushed my cheek as Kingston spoke, his tone commanding. “No, I called his father. I know you’re concerned about your Maiden, but you need to settle down. Landon, please.”
Landon…
Max growled. “Yeah, or leave.”
I moaned in protest. I didn’t want any of them to leave. I wanted them to stay.
More soft caresses on my face, hands I recognized, stirring up wave after wave of emotion I’d been fighting so hard to keep at bay. He drowned me, drawing circles on my skin like whirlpools, dragging up things I didn’t want to remember.
Did he remember what he’d said…
What we’d done…
Did he remember all of it like I did?
Had it all been a lie?
The chill in Landon’s voice made me shiver. “When I get my hands on the person responsible for this…”
I wanted to believe him.
But Kingston reined in his need for blood. “You’ll do nothing and let me handle it.”
Landon’s touch retreated, leaving me empty.
“That’s right, doggy. Be a good boy and sit.”
Why did Max bait him? Couldn’t he see Landon’s pain?
A scuffle sounded before the voices disappeared completely. And I wanted them to come back, but I was still so tired.
Citrus lingered in the air. And I caught a hint of spice.
What had he done?
Why couldn’t I remember?
The answer wouldn’t come before it all faded away again.
* * *
Hands stroked along my back, trailing heat over my skin. I shifted my body, my skin burning everywhere.
I didn’t understand why I was on fire.
But I’d regained the strength to open my eyes. Prying my heavy eyelids apart, I blinked past the haze in my vision. Shocked by what I found.
Max, asleep beside me.
My eyes widened, my body tensing in his hold reflexively. That only tightened his arms around me.
His rough hands rubbed my back while he slept, soft, gentle breaths coming from his slightly parted mouth. Peeking up at him, I bit back a grin at the expression on his face.
So surly, even in his sleep.
But he hadn’t lied on our first day here.
He ran hot in his sleep.
I blinked at him, unsure how I’d gotten into bed beside him. An odd mix of relief and disappointment swirled in my belly as I confirmed we were both fully clothed.
Blazing like an inferno in his pajamas, every place he touched my skin overheated. But confusion stifled any desire his touch ignited.
Like a bucket of ice water over my head, fear gripped at my inability to remember the night before. We’d had the wine, sure. But this felt…different.
And my dreams had been so strange.
As carefully as I could, I extricated myself from his arms. His brow furrowed and he grunted softly, but my hand on his arm eased him back to sleep. Once he settled, I eased back toward the opposite side of the bed.
An even bigger shock waited at my back.
Landon Scott.
Fast asleep in the same bed as Max Dread.
My eyes nearly bugged out of my head as they fell on the empty space where I’d rested between them.
For a second, I wanted to crawl back into whatever twilight zone had opened up and made it possible. I expected moments like it would be hard to come by, if they ever happened again. I had no idea how or why it had happened now.
As reality slowly filtered in, the long list of why I couldn’t have more of this came back to me.
It wasn’t just their past—their hatred.
It was his choice.
Landon blinked awake slowly, his eyes shining in the light when he found me beside him, and he exhaled my name like a prayer. “Quinn. You’re alright.”
He sat up, running his gaze over my face and body. Searching for every place I might be hurt. Shifting on the mattress, he reached for me.
I scooted back, wincing at the pain that slashed across his face. “What are you doing here?”
Frozen by my retreat, he stared between me and his outstretched hand. Drawing it back, he dropped his eyes and opened his mouth to explain.
But Max beat him to it.
“Disrespecting boundaries, that’s what. I said you could sleep on the couch, asshole.”
Landon glared past me at Max. “You also said you’d leave Quinn on the couch. Not bring her back to your room. Alone. You’re out of your mind if you thought I’d leave you in here with her. Especially with the state she was in.”
“The state I was in?”
Landon and Max shared an uncomfortable look, and my confusion only grew when Max forced his eyes to the mattress. Landon’s hand twitched on the bedspread, stilling as Kingston walked through the bedroom door.
He answered my question. “You were drugged last night.”
Piercing blue-gray eyes met mine from across the room. With his soft brown curls slightly mussed from sleep, it looked like he’d slept on the couch.
Although, the dark circles under his eyes made me wonder if he’d slept at all.
I looked closer at all of them, finding similar signs of a fitful night’s sleep on each one.
Max wore pajamas, but his eyes were bloodshot. Landon had on old clothes, a black shirt and pants, as usual, but so like his pajamas, my brain hadn’t registered it. Kingston’s pants and collared shirt were wrinkled.
And also unbuttoned, exposing his lean, muscular chest.
I tried not to stare at the well-defined ridges of his abs, given that what he’d just said shot off alarm bells in my head.
But for fuck’s sake, I was only human.
Confused or not, the three of them were in my bedroom. Two of them in my bed and one partially undressed. When Kingston came closer, my audible gulp didn’t surprise me.
I just prayed they didn’t notice.
Refocusing, I tried to formulate a question, but my brain still felt waterlogged. I frowned at the bedspread.
Why were they all here?
Was I hallucinating? Still trapped in a dream? That had to be the explanation for why they were all around me.
Maybe it was a side effect of the drugs.
Drugs?
I couldn’t wrap my mind around the word.
My thoughts fluttered through my brain like confetti scattered in the air, my attention catching on one glimmering strand before being pulled to another.
But I circled back to what Kingston had said as he walked fully into the room. “I was drugged?”
He nodded. “Yes. You were found with high doses of flunitrazepam in your system.”
“Fluni—what now?”
“It’s the drug more commonly known as Rohypnol. Or?—”
“Roofies?” I whipped my head to Max and shot backward on the bed. Away from him. “You drugged me?”
Max glared at me, shaking his head in disgust as he digested my accusation. “No, Quinn. I didn’t drug you. You can think whatever else you want about me, but I have more honor than that.”
Confusion knitted my brow, but Max offered no further explanation.
Thankfully, Kingston took pity on me, pulling my attention back to him and the right side of reason. “Quinn, Max’s blood also tested positive for the substance. But given his size compared to yours…”
Kingston glanced at Max with sympathy in his eyes. Max scoffed, shaking his head like it had offended him, and Kingston’s expression hardened.
Turning back to me, Kingston held my gaze and spoke plainly. “Max wouldn’t be anywhere near you if I thought for a moment he’d been responsible, Quinn.”
My cheeks reddened, logic returning to my brain as his point hit home. I slid my gaze back to Max. “Sorry, I…”
“Assumed the worst of me?” He arched a brow, a deep frown settling on his face. “I’m shocked.”
He pushed up from the bed and stalked into the bathroom. The door shut before I could say anything else.
Guilt over insulting him gnawed at my gut, but…
I honestly didn’t know what to think.
Kingston and Landon were having some silent conversation with their eyes when I turned back to them. As I watched them, the events of last night slowly came back to me.
“We drank the wine. From the gift basket we found when we came home and the door was open. Other than the food we’d been eating for the past few days, that’s it. But you saw the bottle, Kingston. That wine was sealed.”
“Yes, it had the same wax all the other bottles from that winery have. And it’s inscribed with a date and a one-of-a-kind design, so it’s easy to see if the wine has been opened and resealed.”
“That’s super weird.”
“Given the price tag on a single bottle, it’s not.”
I didn’t even want to know.
“Oh, so it hadn’t been tampered with, then?”
“That’s what I’m looking into. If it contained the drugs, it would’ve been dosed before the winery sealed the bottles.”
Landon’s head perked up. “You think someone got a batch of drugged wine from Le Vin Redoute?”
“I think it’s possible. If they wanted to get the drugs to a Maiden without causing suspicion.”
Landon’s eyebrows drew in, wheels turning over something I didn’t understand. I wanted to ask, but a more pressing question had come to mind.
“Where…how was I found?”
This time, when Landon reached for me, I didn’t pull away. Even though nothing felt wrong physically, I ached all over and couldn’t be sure without checking my body in private. If Kingston was about to tell me I’d been found naked in the woods, I needed to hold onto something.
“Max found you passed out on the lawn shortly after he’d gone inside, and he called me immediately. I called the closest doctor in town, and she came by to check on you. You weren’t alone long enough for anything to have happened, Quinn.”
Relief rushed through me, so stark and bright it hurt. Tears filled my eyes, and I buried my face in my hands to hide them.
Landon pulled me into his chest, tucking my head under his chin. He let me hide instead of forcing me to face it, and when I lifted my head, his dark amber eyes held so much more than sympathy.
I cried harder.
Landon whispered reassurances in my ear, most I could barely make sense of through my tears, or the feel of his hands rubbing soft circles over my back.
Pulling back slightly, I glanced between him and Kingston. “Nothing even happened. I-I’m fine. I don’t know why I’m crying.” I swiped at my face. “Nothing happened. I wasn’t?—”
“But you still had to worry if it had, Quinn.” Kingston sat on the bed, taking one of my hands and holding it between his. “Even for just a second.”
Suddenly, the reality that I’d been drugged tore through me, and I sank back against Landon’s chest.
I tried to make sense of it. But my dad had given me more than a few talks about safety as I grew up, and I’d always been careful. Never accepting drinks from strangers. Choosing beverages I could open myself, instead of taking something already poured when offered.
Gia and I had a system. We were vigilant.
She even had that nail polish that changed color if it was dipped in a compromised cup.
How had this happened?
I’d spent so much of the last six days wary of Max’s intentions, fighting suspicions over Kingston’s motivations, and pushing away thoughts of Landon’s actions—convinced I’d already let the biggest threat inside my heart.
Meanwhile, the real threat had bided its time. Catching me when I’d least expected it. When I’d believed I was safe.
Tears fell freely, because that threat—the possibility of someone taking something from me that I didn’t want to give—was real, and it was always there.
Even though I’d been spared the worst of it. This time.
Landon growled in my ear. “This shouldn’t have happened to you. Ever.”
Kingston agreed. “And it certainly shouldn’t have occurred here, where you were told you’d be safe.”
I sniffled, huffing a laugh to try and break up the heaviness in my chest. “Yeah, I’m starting to think I should sue for false advertising.”
“We’d support your claim, fully.”
Giving Kingston my best attempt at a smile, I nodded half-heartedly. I appreciated the sentiment and what they both said. But they couldn’t really understand why those words didn’t mean much in the grand scheme of things.
A lawsuit like that would be more painful for me than for Camelot Court, and being drugged when I least expected it? Unfortunately, that was an inherent part of being female these days.
Not exclusively, of course, but it was a risk I’d had to consider in ways the two of them would never understand.
The person I really needed to talk to about all this was Gia.
“Will I get my phone back tomorrow?”
“You can have it today.” Kingston reached behind him, grabbing it off the bedside table.
“I can? The challenge is over?”
Kingston and Landon shared a look.
And then, it hit me.
What had happened before the drugs took effect. My kiss with Max. One he started, but I didn’t stop.
I lost the challenge.
“Oh. I guess it doesn’t matter anymore, does it?”
My brows drew in, and I pulled away from Landon in preparation for what came next. For my dismissal from The Quest, I couldn’t bear him touching me.
Not realizing that immediately, he reached for me. “What’s wrong? Are you hurting?”
I flinched away. And when he withdrew his hand to put it behind his back, pain lanced through my chest.
But I had to get used to that.
It was over now.
I’d lost. That meant I’d have to leave. And Landon had made his choice, so I likely wouldn’t see him again.
Either of them.
And, in that moment, my feelings—my motivations for staying—were perfectly clear. I couldn’t lie to myself or ignore the way my heart clenched.
Unable to meet their eyes, I forced the words out. “I don’t understand why you’re both still here.”
“Quinn, I…” Landon’s eyes darted to Kingston before returning to me, a deep frown etched onto his face. “You’re still my Maiden. I needed to—I had to make sure you were alright, and I want to be?—”
“But…” I shook my head, my brain still aching.
Holding on was only going to make this harder.
“I’m not your Maiden anymore.”