Page 128 of A Drop of Anguish
“I know. It’s been… it’s been hard.” Her voice cracks. She straightens her shoulders. “Look, he’s much more relaxed now.”
I follow her gaze to Jarron. She’s right; his eyes are back to that near honey brown, his shoulders much less stiff. Though his chest is still rising and falling faster than usual, and his gaze is piercing. He’s still working through a lot, which is fair. So am I.
“They found your body,” he says stiffly.
“Oh, about that body… being a jinn has its benefits. I have magic not even supernatural experts are aware of. Magic even the most powerful in the universe would be envious of. There are signs that body was a fake, but none that are known to anyone who hasn’t been magically forced to remain quiet.”
She sounds so proud. But there’s only one explanation as to how she got this power.
“And how did you become the jinn?” I ask, voice low.
“By winning the games, of course.”
I breathe slowly through my nose. Well, that answers a few of our leftover questions about the games. “The losers die. The single winner becomes the jinn.”
“You always were the smart one, Candice.” She smiles sweetly, but then her eyes turn sharp and her head tilts. “Now, let’s talk about you stealing my future lover—a literal prince—right out from under me.”
52
The Jinn Has A Plan
Jarron’s nostrils flare, but his face remains passive otherwise. He’s working very hard to control his reactions. “What,” he says through a clenched jaw, “are you talking about?”
Liz turns her softened look to him. Her beautiful blond hair falls from her shoulder, waving down at the ground. She’s even more beautiful than before. She now has the luminescent skin of a supernatural. “Don’t worry, love. I know. Vincent doesn’t know how to keep his lips shut. He’s got this ridiculous grand plan, you know? Steal the prince’s chosen, make her powerful, bond to her, and then parade her around on his arm. Apparently, that’s some big political move in your world.”
Jarron stills, every muscle tense.
“But I’ve got a plan of my own,” Liz purrs. She steps closer to Jarron and then runs her forefinger down his chest. Jarron doesn’t so much as blink. “I don’t like being a pawn in someone else’s plots, you see. And I don’t like being lied to. He pretended like he was giving me something incredible but left out the part where he was stealing a different life of power from me. The life as the queen of an entire world.” She holds out her hands like she’s reveling in that power here and now.
My heart races, watching my sister. She’s the same in many ways, but there’s something off. Something different. My sister was lovable and sweet and oh-so-beautiful, but something about the way she’s acting is almost unhinged.
I swallow. She was manipulated by an older man, lied to and betrayed and forced to fight for her life. She’s been through a lot, I rationalize. She’s been controlled and “kept on a leash,” as she put it. It makes sense for her to be a little… different.
It just scares me because it also means I don’t know what she’s capable of. I don’t know what this new version of my sister will be willing to do to get what she wants.
Jarron clenches his hands in fists.
“So, I made some moves of my own,” Liz says, relaxing her stance once more. “I made promises to Vincent, whispered sweet nothings into his ear, and told him I would forgive him for his lies and play along in his plans, but I wanted something in return. I wanted my sister to enter the games.”
My blood turns cold.
“What?” Jarron growls before I could utter the same response.
She waves her hand. “Don’t worry. I never had any intention of letting her come to harm. I told Vincent I wanted Candice to be my replacement and become the next jinn. She’d get power like me, and together we’d be the unstoppable Montgomery sisters.”
I roll my shoulders. My mind spins through so many different things. “But everyone would think we were dead.” I’m not sure why, of all the things I could scream at her, that’s the one that first comes to mind.
She waves her hand again. “Yes, yes. That’s a snag for sure, but we could find a way out of it. Perhaps we’d take on new identities and become some other set of sisters, or we’d make up a tale about how we hunted down a jinn and took its power. Who cares? We’d have incalculable power. Me and you, together. Can’t you see it?” She turns her frantic wide-eyed stare to me. “I know you didn’t want anything to do with magic, Candice, but that was just fear. You knew you couldn’t overcome your inadequacies, so you moved away from that world entirely. But this is it—the way we could both be powerful beyond reckoning.”
“Liz,” I warn. How do I tell her that’s not what I want? Any of it.
“And besides, I didn’t necessarily plan for you to actually get into the games. That was all a ruse just to get you here. My vulnerable sister, and her big protector—soon to be mine.” She winks.
“You’re going to have to explain this more.” Jarron’s voice is small and gravelly.
I nod in agreement. “This is a lot of new information,” I tell her gently. “What happened? You won the games and became the jinn? What does that mean? I have so many questions.”
Liz heaves a big sigh. “Yes, well, apparently Vincent had no intention of allowing me to die in the games. He cheated, as powerful people tend to do.” She rolls her eyes. “I didn’t know it at the time. He implied I’d be fine, but once the games started and—” She closes her eyes. “I thought he’d really, truly manipulated me and I was going to die for it. And, I mean, I certainly could have died, but things were set up to my advantage. And, well, long story short, I won. He confessed his undying love and told me his whole plan. There were so many things he left out before the games, though. Like that a prince was my freaking soulmate and that he was going to use me to start a civil war in his home world. And that once I won the games, I’d be trapped. A literal slave.” She crosses her arms and pops a hip.
