Page 67 of Crown of Thorns
I smack my lips together when I start to feel a tingle that crescendos alarmingly fast to a sting. My skin flushes hot then cold and a cool sweat breaks out on my brow and my upper lip. My heart begins to race.
Before last week, I’d only felt like this once as a child. I was so small, running through the garden with my mom and our dog. I went to smell a flower when a bee buzzed out of it and stung me.
“Ouch!” I’d said, and my mother walked over to look.
“It’s just a bee sting, my darling,” she’d said, “Don’t worry. It’ll only hurt for a moment.”
But then the tiny sting began to burn, and my heart started to race.
“Mommy, I don’t feel so good,” I’d said as the world started to turn fuzzy. She turned to me and screamed just as I fell and fell and fell. When I woke up, I was in the hospital with my mom and dad beside me and the doctors was talking about an allergic reaction.
“What’s this made out of?” I ask, my voice smalland scared even though I already know.
“A very rare bee venom,” Suzanne says.
“I’m allergic,” I whisper as the world turns fuzzy again. I clutch my throat as I fall to the tile floor of the lavish bathroom, knocking my satin clutch from the vanity top to the floor. Everyone knows that I’m allergic after the incident at the garden party last week. Oh my God. Everyone knows. Including those who want to hurt me. Fran and Paul were right to guard those secrets so closely.
“I know,” she says.
“I need my EpiPen.” I gasp for air. It feels like I can’t get enough in my lungs.
I reach for the bag, flopping to my side like a fish out of water and struggle to feel the smooth material in my hands. It’s just within my fingertips when she leans over me and kicks my bag away from near my grasp.
“Why?” I gasp. I’m shocked, truly. I had thought that we were friends.
“I want you to know that I’ve come to love you,” she says. “I feel we could have been great friends if the circumstances were different.”
“But why then?” I ask. I try to lift my head but the weight of the crown pulls me down. I never would have thought that the glittery trappings of this life would be what would lead to my death but there it is.
“Because the Queen always wins the game. There is no use fighting the firm.”
And then everything goes black.
It’s like Shakespeare said, “Heavy is the head that wears the crown.”
I’ve been betrayed, and this is where I die.
Chapter 22
Too Long
Rhys
“So, what do you think?” Jake Chancellor asks me.
“What?” I ask. I haven’t been paying attention, not since Stella walked away. I know she needed a break; her social battery wears down fast, but she’s been gone too long. I don’t like her out of my sight, not with so many threats in the room. If she’d have let me in, I could have confided in her that the threats were homegrown on both fronts and we have to proceed carefully, but she still doesn’t trust me. And because of that, she has no idea that I’m a member of one of the oldest fraternities in the world, a legacy passed down to me from my father.
Jake is not just president of the United States, he’s also a member of the Guardians of the Crown.
“I asked what you think about New York and if they’re going to win the pennant this year?” he asks. I should have known that he wouldn’t be asking me about his new trade deal with Japan at a social engagement like this. “So where did you go? What are you thinking about?”
“I was thinking that Stella has been gone too long,” I admit. “I don’t like it.
Jake smiles. “Ahh the newlywed phase. Take your time because when the babies come you have a lot less time to fuck your wife.”
“This is more than that,” I say quietly so only he can hear me. “I know she heard the earl the other night talking about getting her out of the way.”
“Think she’ll run?” he asks me.
