Page 20 of The Uncrowned King (The Bastard Duology #2)

CHAPTER TWENTY

“It isn’t working.” Kora hadn’t been able to get out of the room with Derek fast enough.

The antechamber had cleared out, leaving only Con, Merrill, Brandr, and Hector. The four of them stared at her for a moment before Con said, “We knew it wouldna be easy.”

“Easy?” She choked on a laugh. “His words are cutting. The animosity is…” She turned her head away, her throat tightening at the memory of the hate Derek had directed at her. “I’m not the one who will get through to him.”

Merrill leaned a shoulder against the wall. “I disagree. Keep talking to him.”

“Maybe one of us should have a chat with him,” Hector said.

Brandr slowly shook his head. “I agree with Merrill. Kora needs to go back in. That was just the first attempt. It could take hundreds.”

“Hundreds?” she repeated in panic. “We don’t have that kind of time.”

Con tilted his head slightly and shrugged. “As long as Derek isna with Miena, we have time.”

“You’re guessing.” Kora didn’t bother to hide her ire. She didn’t even care that any of the four could kill her on the spot. They didn’t know any more than she did. That could be the very thing that cost Derek in the end.

Merrill pushed away from the wall, his face tightening with indignation. “You’re fucking right we’re guessing. It’s what we bloody do! Do you have any idea how many enemies we’ve fought? Guess how many times others have tried to wipe us out. Go on,” he demanded, his voice cold and low. “Guess.”

“Merrill,” Hector said in warning.

He ignored Hector and kept his dark blue gaze on Kora. “You want to know why we’re still standing? Because we didna fucking give up at the first opportunity when things got hard.”

“Merrill.” This time, Con was the one issuing the caution.

But Kora wasn’t about to back down. “Hard? You think this is hard? You have no clue what that is! The man I love is in there, but it isn’t him. He doesn’t remember me. All because I made a bad decision. It isn’t that his memories are gone, or even that he abhors me. He wants to kill me. And not just because I’m a hellhound. He thinks I did something. I can’t reach him!” she shouted, fighting not to let the tears loose. “Do you know what that feels like? Have you loved like that?”

“Nay,” Merrill answered calmly. “I can no’ begin to know that feeling. But if you love him, then you’ll get back in there and fight for him. Fight as he did for you against Gordon and Bryok.”

Kora dashed away an escaped tear. Damn Merrill for bringing that up. She hated that he was right. She had run away because Derek had hurt her feelings. Nay. She had run because he didn’t recognize her, and that felt like a dull blade sinking slowly into her heart. Every word and look of disgust had turned the blade a little more.

“We all knew this would be challenging,” Con reminded her.

She nodded. “And that it might not work.”

“Look, I’m not normally an optimist, but Derek is here,” Brandr said. “That means he isna on Earth attacking the Kings. Miena lost her hold on him.”

Kora looked at the three before her as a sudden fear sprouted. “What keeps her from coming to get him?”

“Good question,” Hector said. “It’s one we’ve repeatedly asked ourselves about Villette.”

She frowned at the news. “Are you telling me Villette hasn’t crossed the border?”

“Only recently,” Brandr answered. “That was when we surrounded her up north.”

“Crispy fried her,” Hector said with a chuckle.

Kora had no idea what that meant, but she could guess. “What has kept her out?”

“Nothing, as far as we know. Lotti isna hampered by anything, which means none of the others are either,” Con answered.

Merrill jerked his chin to the door. “Derek needs you. Let us worry about everything else. Focus on him.”

Kora rubbed her hands together and faced the door. Derek had been prepared to die for her freedom. She had claimed the same for him. Standing on that cliff was easier than facing him now. The fact that he wouldn’t listen to her made the situation so much harder.

So, she would make him.

Kora walked back into the room. Derek sat cross-legged in the cage with his eyes closed. She quietly shut the door behind her and made her way over, purposefully making the contact of her bootheels soft against the stone floor. She walked around the enclosure. Derek was calm for someone who had woken up confined. She would probably be pacing the space, demanding to know why she’d been detained.

“Derek.”

He whispered something she couldn’t make out. She continued her route around the cage, and as she came even with him, found his eyes open and following her, even though his head hadn’t moved.

“It was wrong of me to begin by trying to convince you of…different things.” Kora clasped her hands behind her back. “I should’ve known that wouldn’t work.”

“Why are you here instead of a King?” he demanded.

She stopped at the front of the cage and looked at him. “They think I can get through to you.”

“Like you have them?” Derek snorted in derision. “Not likely.”

“Why do you hate me?”

A muscle jumped in his jaw. “You know why.”

“I want to hear it from you.”

Kora was taken aback by his silence. It was difficult to have him so near and not be able to touch him. To look into his beautiful eyes and not see the man she’d fallen in love with. Miena had fulfilled her promise of cutting out all of Derek when she wiped his memories. What had she replaced them with? Something horrible about Kora, obviously.

“What is it you want?” she asked.

Derek blew out a bored breath. “Freedom. And to kill you and every King.”

“Why?”

“You know why.”

“You keep saying that. What is it you think we did?” she asked, hoping he would answer if she reframed the question.

Instead, he closed his eyes, shutting her out.

Kora dropped her head back and looked at the ceiling for a heartbeat. Then she turned on her heel and walked to the wall. She sat against it, keeping Derek in front of her. “I know you don’t need sleep.”

There wasn’t even a twitch of agitation.

She hated the helpless feeling that threatened to swallow her. Everyone believed she knew Derek best. Maybe she did, but this wasn’t her Derek. He was gone.

“No one here wants to hurt you,” she said.

His eyes opened, but he didn’t reply. Instead, he looked at the cage.

“We didn’t have a choice. You were intent on harming us.” She winced when his eyes closed once more. Kora rested her head against the wall and propped her feet on the floor, her arms on her knees. “I messed up. Badly. I did something I shouldn’t have, and this is the result. You, there. Me, here.”

“Seems to have worked out for you. For now,” he said without opening his eyes.

She bit the side of her lip. “Miena isn’t the first Star Person you’ve aligned with.”

Now that was something interesting. Likely only a ruse, but Derek had to hand it to the hellhound, she knew how to get his attention. He still didn’t look at her. It seemed to bother her that he ignored her, so he kept doing it. If he couldn’t take her life now, at least he could agitate her.

“Do you remember Villette?” the hellhound asked.

There wasn’t even the slightest inkling of such a name in his recollections. His foe could be making it all up. Or, as much as it pained him to admit it, the name could’ve been shaken loose with everything else. Not that he would give the hellhound the satisfaction of answering either way.

“What about Bryok?”

For just a moment, Derek thought the name sounded familiar, but it was gone just as quickly.

She sighed, the sound carrying in the silence of the room. “The man I know is in there somewhere. I’ll reach you. I’m not giving up.”

He could’ve told her not to bother, but she wouldn’t have listened. When would the torture begin? As if she had read his mind, she launched into another story about their supposed trip over the mountain.

He realized the torment had already begun. She was the torture.

Derek found it easy to shut out her voice. He called to his magic but was filled with disappointment when he still couldn’t use it. It was there, just out of reach. Infuriating. He thought about trying to reach out to Miena. He would if things got to the point where he couldn’t handle it. He wasn’t there yet, though.

“…Stonemore. The gates were huge.”

The single word yanked him from his musings—Stonemore. Was it a coincidence that Ash had mentioned the city and now the hellhound had, as well? Derek listened intently.

“Yet you got us inside,” she said. “It wasn’t anything like I expected. It was dirty and smelly, but the worst part was seeing those living on the streets and starving. Nothing was being done.”

Derek had thought the story might give him more, but he had been wrong. He tried to shut her out again, but his interests were piqued.

“The city has eight levels, and each has a gate patrolled by the army. The bottom four levels are for the underprivileged while the upper ones are for the wealthy. Somehow, you got us up there. No one questioned you. It was…incredible to watch. Surely, you must remember some of this.” Another sigh at his silence. “You were there, standing right beside me. It was just last week.”

Now he knew she was lying. He would’ve been with his mate and their eggs. “Stop wasting our time,” he told her. “I’m done listening to your lies.”

“They aren’t lies,” she insisted.

Derek opened his eyes. She had her knees up and her head bent forward as her arms curled up and over her head. Did she act as distraught and vulnerable in front of the Kings? Is that why they all went to such lengths to safeguard her?

The hellhound went back to her story, and he promptly closed his eyes. He listened with half an ear, mostly because he was curious about how good her lies might be. She gave just enough detail to make them seem plausible, but Derek didn’t believe a word. She and the Kings were murderers. Someone needed to bring them to justice, and he was here to deliver it.

She droned on for hours before someone else entered the room. Derek was curious, but not enough to look just yet. The silence that followed was a relief. Yet he was aware of another presence. Something about this person was different. They had an air of something darker, something menacing. Savage.

Derek recognized what he saw within himself. He opened his eyes to stare into dark blue ones. Derek didn’t need to ask to know that this was a King. His dirty blond hair hung past his chin and was raked back, like his fingers had just plowed through the strands. The King grasped the bars and leaned his weight into them as they stared at each other.

“She said she would go deep enough that nothing of you remained.”

The King’s voice was deep, the accent strange—and not one Derek had heard before. “Is this where I’m supposed to ask who you’re referring to?”

“Aye. I’d be curious as hell to know where my memories had gone.”

“It was a head wound.”

The King grunted. “You could say that.”

“Are you telling me we didn’t battle?”

“No’ each other. No’ before yesterday.”

Derek shook his head. “This isn’t any better than her wretched stories.”

“Her story is true. I was there for some of it. You’d be wise to listen.”

“Why? To remember something that never happened?”

The King slammed his hand against the bars, rattling the entire cage. “To remember who you are!”

“And you know me?”

“We had just met when all this happened.”

Derek was weary of this. “Stop with whatever this is and get on with whatever you have planned.”

“This is the plan.”

He searched the King’s face for the lie but didn’t find one. “You plan to talk me to death?”

“To remind you who you are.”

Derek was up and at the bars in a blink. The King didn’t so much as flinch when they stood nearly nose to nose. “Is that why you killed her? Is that why the hellhound destroyed the eggs?”

“What?”

The bewilderment in the King’s eyes looked real. So did the color that drained from his face. But Derek didn’t take the bait. “Don’t play stupid. I know what the Kings did.”

“You think we killed your mate?” he muttered and dropped his arms as he straightened and took a step back. “Bloody fucking hell.”

Without another word, the King turned and walked out. Derek stared at the door for a long time afterward. He tried to shake off his adversary’s reaction, but he couldn’t. It stayed with him. The astonishment, the umbrage.

And he hated the King for the doubt it wrought.

Derek remembered the eggs. If they were real, then his mate must have been, too. If only he could recall her name. He turned to lean against the bars and tried to pull up her face in his mind. He searched his heart for some recollection of her other than her hair. How could he dredge up memories of eggs and not her? She was his mate, for fuck’s sake! The one he loved above all others, their souls connected. He wouldn’t forget her.

But he had.

Rage surged through him. At himself, at the Kings. At the hellhound. He curled his hands into fists and lifted them in front of his face. He wanted battle, to vent his fury on those who had earned it. And perhaps even himself.

The yearning to unleash agony and suffering on his enemies like they had never experienced consumed him. He sought pain, to feel the sting of a cut or the ache of burns that might chase away the gnawing emptiness of what he had lost. He needed to feel something other than grief and desolation. Something besides the endless anger.

He required blood for blood.

Derek turned and slammed his fists into the bars. The cage shuddered violently. He would never get to see his unborn children. Through his fury, he noticed the bars had bent outward where his fists had struck. He grinned. Maybe his anger was good for something.

He focused it all into his hands and grabbed the bars. He strained to pull them apart. The feel of them giving way propelled him to keep pouring his fury into his hands. He had known there was a weakness in the cage, and he had found it. There was no stopping him now.

He heard the door open as the bars gave way. His gaze locked on the hellhound as she skidded to a halt, her eyes widened in disbelief. Derek curled the bars back and turned to the side to move through them. He clenched his teeth, his muscles spasming when he met the barrier. It would all stop if he could get through it, but that was proving harder than he’d first thought.

Agonizing pain slid down his spine, up into his neck, and into his brain. He heard someone bellow and dimly realized it was him. He reached for the hellhound. His arm was free of the barrier, but the rest of him was stuck inside. All he needed was to get clear. Then he would have her.

He stretched out his arm, his finger scraping the sleeve of her shirt just as everything went black.