Trial by Thrall (Trial #2) Read online

  I shake my head, thoughts returning to the dilemma. He’s right. I didn’t think twice about chaos, civil war, angry parents or anything else when I saved the fae babies in the nursery. My only concern was saving lives, no matter what he or anyone else thought.

  Is it weird that this makes me feel hopeful? Shouldn’t I be looking for a way not to disappear a clan, instead of beginning to consider how I’ll ask people to volunteer to die? What if the curse doesn’t threaten the entire Community? Is it worth breaking at all, if the cost is so high?

  “It should never be a decision made lightly or in seclusion,” he adds. “The members of my Board of Directors are all senior fae, most of whom have been around for much longer than I have. I would take this to them for consideration, and to find an alternate solution, if possible.”

  I listen. Ben has his siblings, and Tristan has his Board.

  I don’t have anyone to advise me, except for the three candidates I’m not supposed to trust. But … in all honesty, who better is qualified to help me? The two candidates I’ve spent time with are fantastic leaders, good men and wise beyond my years. Even if I can’t tell them directly what I need to know or why I’m asking, I’m finding it too easy to trust their judgment in place of my own.

  But this is bad, isn’t it? The Book dropped a bombshell after my first trial and told me the candidates are expected to deceive and lie to me. What will it tell me after Tristan, and why is it so hard for me to remember that one of these men might prefer to kill me than be exiled? They don’t know exile is off the table, or that I might be disappearing one of their clans, in whatever form that takes.

  My life is in danger already. One of them is a threat, and I’m asking them for advice. The person who should have helped me, my father, didn’t and can’t.

  “No. Don’t look at me like that,” Tristan says and leans forward to kiss me. “Don’t turn into a Kingmaker now.”

  “You have to admit, this would be easier, if I knew all the rules,” I retort.

  “And much less like a trial.”

  “What the fuck am I on trial for anyway?” I exclaim, exasperated. “For a curse I know nothing about?”

  “I can’t answer those questions.”

  “Do you hate me, Tristan?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Do you hate the Kingmakers?”

  “That’s more complicated.”

  I sigh in frustration. “Whatever it is my family did to everyone, I’m sorry. I can’t make it right, if I don’t know what it is!”

  “What matters,” he says and tilts my chin up, “is that you don’t follow in the footsteps of everyone who came before you.”

  “That’s kinda hard, considering I have no idea what path they were walking or the one I’m on!” I snap.

  “The candidates do.”

  “And you’re what? Guiding me?” I tilt my head.

  He smiles but doesn’t answer.

  It disturbs me to know my father, at some point, made the wrong decision. Or maybe, a bunch of wrong decisions. I have no idea, and no one is going to enlighten me. Daddy’s resignation to his fate is clear in his letters. Did he know he made the wrong decisions and if so, when? Because I’ve done a ton of stupid shit in my life, but nothing that would piss off the entire Community.

  “Is that why you all killed my family?” I ask. “Because somewhere along the line, each one of us makes a mistake?”

  “I can’t answer that, either.”

  “Okay.” I can’t stay upset when he’s tugging my moods back from the edge. “How do I not become, or end up, like them?”

  “Remain the Leslie on the beach with me tonight, the woman with a beautiful heart who wants to help fae-bies.” He smiles. His gentleness is in part because I know he can feel the pain I experience whenever I consider my father wasn’t the person I thought him to be. “Can you promise me this?”

  I frown. Ben asked a similar favor of me during our last day together. Not only that, but according to the Book of Secrets, the candidates are required to manipulate me into making a promise to them.

  What are the chances Ben and Tristan both want me to promise the same thing? That I won’t become a Kingmaker like those before me? What if the same conspirators who murdered my father are working together on the trials for a purpose I can’t begin to guess?

  I can think of so many other promises they could try to maneuver me into making. Like … me promising someone the role of Community leader or that I won’t reveal their clan secrets or similar.

  Instead, they both have chosen to ask me for something that, on the surface, helps me survive the trials instead of them.

  “Yes,” I say slowly. “But, Tris -”

  Before I can ask him anything more, he kisses me, deep and slow, and draws my focus away from my thoughts. He’s doing it on purpose, this much I know, but it’s impossible to resist when he kisses me like this. The fire of desire sparks instantly and consumes me. Tristan takes one of my hands and places it on the bulge in his pants. I rub his erection through the thin material of his clothing, and he slides a hand past my shorts and panties to my already wet pussy to finger fuck me.

  Any thought not involving my skin against his, and his dick inside me or his tongue teasing my clit, vanish. Pushing him onto his back, I straddle him once more. Need and muscle fatigue cause my thighs and abs to tremble, but I’m not about to let exhaustion keep me from experiencing Tristan.

  We sleep little the rest of the night and instead, enjoy each other’s bodies over and over.

  Chapter Nine

  The next morning, I’m cuddled in the corner of the couch in Tristan’s apartment, clutching my fourth cup of hot, sweet coffee. We were up all night, fucking, and then hopped on his jet to be back in time for him to attend a meeting this morning. I’m not sure where he gets his energy from, but he doesn’t even need a cup of coffee.

  Freshly dressed in a light gray suit, he’s fastening his watch near the kitchen. I study his chiseled features, sensing what he’s not yet said anything about.

  “What’s wrong?” I murmur.

  He glances at me, warmth in his gaze. “I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to someone reading me the way I do everyone else.”

  “Tough,” I reply grouchily.

  He doesn’t respond immediately, and I rest my head back on the arm of the couch. His sorrow is stronger than usual. I don’t know if it’s because our bond is stronger or if he’s upset.

  “Being with you makes me question myself,” he admits softly. “I don’t like that feeling.”

  The reminder I’m not the only one unsettled by these trials bothers me. I’m ruining the lives of three good men, as well as my own. And for what purpose? They could vote for a Community leader instead of letting someone who knows nothing about what she’s doing make the final decision!

  “We had a few deliveries yesterday. After my meeting, I’m headed to the nursery,” he says. “When I think of how little hope we have for finding a newborn capable of surviving, of what you can do …” He drifts off, gaze distant.

  I rub my chest. I can feel his pain.

  “This is probably the hardest decision I’ve ever faced,” he continues with a sad smile. “Perhaps you aren’t the only one on trial.”

  I hate to see him so conflicted and know I’m causing it. There’s nothing I can say to make this better, but I try to think of something. I’m sorry seems so hollow. Sorry doesn’t save the lives of his clan or help him sleep at night when I’m gone.

  “You and Ben make it seem so easy to be leaders,” I say instead. “I never understood how much you guys really take on. I don’t know how you do it.”

  “You learn from the people around you.”

  “Like I’m learning from you?”

  “I really hope so.”

  At the odd note in his voice, my brow furrows. It’s not possible that I’m destined to become the Community leader. Even if an asteroid hit the planet and took out every possible supernatural
qualified to lead, and someone was crazy enough to propose I take over … I’d never do it. I’m not made of the same stuff these guys are and further, I’m too selfish. I acknowledge this freely. They sacrifice themselves daily, suffering in silence in order to protect and help their people.

  That’s not me. I may have a better understanding of what they’re going through after the trials, but I will never, ever be that kind of person. For all his talk of trial and error or learning from others, Tristan was born with a gift I don’t have. Ben does, and I’m almost willing to put money on the idea every clan leader is in his or her position because he or she is incredibly special.

  I’m not. I never will be. I admire them for who they are and what they go through, but I have neither the pretensions of following in their footsteps nor the desire to try.

  “For what it’s worth, you being in my life improves it,” he adds.

  “It doesn’t feel that way.”

  “You’ve given me hope, Leslie. You can’t be the answer to my clan’s greatest challenge, but if a Kingmaker is born with a heart good enough to heal others, then nothing is impossible.”

  I kind of hate it when people are nice to me, especially when they really don’t have a reason to be. His compliment is somewhat backhanded, a reminder of who I am, no matter what I try to do. I can sense how deeply he feels, both towards me and the problem he can’t solve, and I know – for this week – he cares about me in a way few people ever have.

  It makes his situation all the crueler. Whatever this curse is, it’s the most horrible thing on the planet to cause people like Tristan and Ben to suffer alongside me.

  Staring into my coffee, I don’t respond. I’m tired and cranky this morning, and Tristan’s emotion is more than I can handle.

  “Remember,” Tristan says in a lighter tone.

  “I know. Stay here.” I make a face at him.

  He winks and smiles before sliding out the door of his apartment.

  I’m too tired to go anywhere. The farther he goes from me, the more his emotion eases, and I sigh when it reaches a level I can manage. I’m debating taking a nap before I tackle the Book of Secrets, but Tristan’s faith in me leaves me guilty at the thought. He tackles his nightmare daily; I don’t deserve to sleep when so many lives depend upon me figuring out what the hell is going on.

  Bending over to drag the heavy Book of Secrets out of my backpack, I open it. My heart quickens in anticipation of what new horrors await me, helping the caffeine pump some life into me. I flip to the part about the Final Trials. Rereading the chapter for the tenth time, it still freaks me out. But this time, I feel like I almost have an alternative.

  If there’s no way out of this, I’m going to do what Tristan would. I’m going to tell the entire world what’s going on and ask for someone to volunteer. Although, it’s going to be more difficult to force an entire clan to volunteer, especially if I can’t say with any confidence whether they’re moving across the world or dying. If the Book wanted something akin to ten thousand lives, instead of a whole clan, I might have a better chance.

  Or … no chance. The longer I dwell on the passages I’ve already read, the more my optimism fades.

  No leader in his or her right mind would agree to what might be self-genocide.

  Chewing on my lower lip, I turn to the end of the census numbers.

  Neither Tristan nor Ben wants anyone else to know of their respective clan’s struggles procreating. By the looks of it, every clan is in severe decline. Ben’s suffers from infertility and Tristan’s from an infant mortality rate close to a hundred per cent. What about the other clans? What maladies or diseases are they suffering? And … why aren’t they working together to resolve them?

  Twenty generations of Kingmakers have chosen Community leaders. Every time they did, there was the potential for the Community leader to notice the decline in populations across the board. How is it possible that every one of the Community leaders for the past few thousand years missed the signs?

  Or … is there yet another reason why they chose not to make the news public? Were they even aware of such an issue beyond the scope of their own clans?

  I go back to the thin definition of what the Community leader is supposed to do.

  “Protect the Community and humans. Provide security and order,” I murmur. It’s too vague to interpret in more depth, and I wrack my brain for details about what the previous Community leaders did.

  I have no idea. My father kept me too isolated from the supernaturals. I knew they existed, were despised by Daddy – and that they paid some sort of homage to the Kingmaker family for reasons that now have me baffled. No one likes my family and yet, we remain in a position of immense power. We know a great deal the others don’t, decide the fates of at least three clan leaders every generation of Kingmaker, and we choose the Community leaders.

  Why?

  This question is the worst. Why is it like this? Why does it have to be like this? It’s not only cruel to disrupt the leadership of three clans, but hello! It’s cruel to someone like me to have to go through this every generation!

  The Kingmaker curse. It’s the only explanation that makes sense. For whatever reason, the Community is compelled to follow through with the trials, and my family is forced into the trials.

  I’m soon frustrated and pull out my notebook of abbreviated rules for the trials. Tapping my pen against the paper, I sigh and write a third.

  3. Fae magic will enthrall you before you know you’re a goner. And no, you did NOT create the word, fae-bies.

  If I’m the last Kingmaker, why am I bothering to write the rules?

  Because it brings me some kind of peace. I set the notebook aside and turn the page of the Book of Secrets, not expecting there to be any more writing.

  But there is. An entire new chapter, entitled, The Kingmakers.

  I grab it with a gasp and begin reading. As with the first few chapters, this one is a total disaster, written in middle English, rewritten in modern English, and far too wordy both ways.

  “The Kingmaker clan was established … two thousand years ago, evolving from another supernatural clan, the Eleventh, and youngest of the clans. Its true origins have been lost, and it is known throughout the history of supernaturals as the Eleventh clan, or the Kingmakers, for the role it plays in choosing the leadership of the Community. It is suspected the vampires, the oldest of all clans, understand the origins of the Kingmakers or at least, can access this information through the Blood Rite of Knowledge passed down from vampire to vampire. However, no vampire has yet volunteered this information, so there is also a likelihood the Kingmaker’s true history has been permanently lost.”

  I jot down the name of the Rite, so I can ask the vampire who’s next on my list for the trials. If someone out there knows my family’s history, I’ll stop at nothing in order to figure it out.

  I skim two pages that discuss, in great detail, just how little anyone knows about my family’s origins. As usual, the authors of the Book use half a page to relate even the simplest of ideas. It drives me nuts to read between the lines and try to interpret what they want me to learn.

  “What is known of the Kingmakers, without doubt, is that the clan was established at the onset of a curse and solely, or so it seems, for the purpose of carrying out the curse, until the Final Trials.”

  This line bothers me. I’ve come a long way from believing Kingmakers to be the sacred guardians of the Community and humanity, responsible for choosing leaders who will protect both, to this. The person charged with executing a curse.

  Curses don’t just happen. Whatever event occurred two thousand years ago, it was bad enough to create a new clan or perhaps, to transform a different clan into the Kingmakers.

  “Kingmakers are gifted shape shifters, capable of transforming into any other creature, if temporarily. In addition, each Kingmaker appears to have a different set of capabilities. A full list of Kingmaker magics has never been created, for each Kingmaker inh
erits different traits from his or her parents. The Kingmakers, having interbred with other clans for the entirety of its existence, is less of a bloodline and more of a hereditary title, a position one is born into, no matter who the parents were. What cannot be refuted: the Kingmakers each have a hidden gift that emerges only upon the onset of the trials. It’s this gift that often determines the course of the trials and the decisions made.”

  So it’s not all doom and gloom. I apparently am special in more than one way. I study the marks on my arm, the tattoos recording the clans of supernaturals that interbred with Kingmakers.

  What’s my gift? As a fae, I can heal. As a wolf, I … well, I wasn’t really good at anything as a wolf. Sniffing out trouble? Can that be a gift? I found out about the drug smuggling ring in Ben’s company, and then stumbled upon the fae-bies, and the truth behind what was happening to Tristan’s people. However, both were by accident, which makes me doubt that getting into trouble would be considered a talent.

  What if I’m the first Kingmaker in history without a gift?

  “From previous histories, it was said the Kingmakers once numbered in the thousands. However, their numbers have long since dwindled, and there are never more than two Kingmakers alive at any one time. This is not out of the intention of the Kingmakers. Many have had multiple children, only for all but one to die before reaching adulthood. It is thought this is the result of the curse.”

  I continue reading, hoping for more details about the curse or any other information that might explain why the Community hates us and why my father isolated both of us from everyone else. The ten-page chapter disappoints me. It ends with a list of the Kingmakers’ names, similar to the one inside the front cover, except this one lists the clans the Kingmakers married into as well as everyone’s death. The first thousand years, there were three Kingmakers.

  The second thousand, seventeen, with me being the eighteenth.