The Conspiracy of Us (The Conspiracy of Us 1)

Finally, he pulled away. “We shouldn’t be doing this,” he murmured. I knew he’d be responsible. I started to pull away with a resigned sigh. “But I don’t care,” he finished with a grin.

I forgot where we were, all the danger we could be in or not or why it ever even mattered. It all faded away as my body melted into his, and the daylight streamed through the window and wrapped around us.

A buzzing sound made me jump. It took me a second to realize it was Jack’s phone.

“I don’t have to answer it,” he said, but I saw his eyes dart to his pocket.

“No, you should.” I shifted on his lap enough that he was able to pull the phone out.

He frowned down at the text, and his grip tightened on my waist. “It says there’s an emergency. And—” He cursed. “There are more, from early this morning. We must have slept through them. It doesn’t say what it’s about. I have to go.”

I stayed on his lap for as long as I could, fingers tracing over his shirt. Even through the worry, a smile lit his eyes and he leaned in for one last lingering kiss.

A noise in the hallway stopped us both still, his arms tight around me. Jack put a finger to his lips. We both held our breath, and I leaned toward the noise.

And then, I heard the most frightening thing I’d ever heard.

A key, turning the lock on my bedroom door.

CHAPTER 36

We both jumped up. The door opened a few inches, then got stuck on the chair I’d wedged under the knob. Jack bolted for the window, grabbing the incriminating tuxedo jacket on the way. Someone kicked the door open, shattering the little gold chair into pieces.

Monsieur Dauphin strolled in. He nodded at Jack, halfway out the window, and a dozen guards streamed into the room, their guns trained on him. Jack stopped still and raised his hands above his head, jacket dangling from his fingers. The guards surrounded him and wrenched him back inside.

Behind Monsieur Dauphin, Stellan slipped into the room.

How did they know? They cuffed Jack’s hands behind his back. I was going to throw up. But he wasn’t the Dauphins’ to punish. They’d have to give him back to the Saxons. I could reason with my father. Couldn’t I?

A guard pressed a gun to Jack’s side. “This isn’t what it looks like,” I pleaded, even though it was obviously exactly what it looked like. “He was helping me, um . . .”

“I couldn’t care less what he was doing with you.” Monsieur Dauphin’s cold, low voice sent a shiver down my spine. “He won’t live long enough to do it again.”

“No!” I lunged toward Jack, but another guard grabbed me and turned me to face Monsieur Dauphin. Between him and Stellan, Luc peered out. His eyes were rimmed with red, and he looked shaken.

“What I care about,” Monsieur Dauphin said in that same eerily calm voice, “is what you’ve been hiding from us.”

My stomach dropped to my toes. Monsieur Dauphin crossed the room toward me. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I struggled against the guard’s iron grip.

“Don’t touch her,” Jack snarled from behind me, but he cut off abruptly, and I turned to see a knife at his throat.

Monsieur Dauphin, towering over me, grabbed my face in one massive hand. He leaned down, peering into my eyes, so close I recoiled from his hot breath on my face.

I squeezed my eyes shut, and then a hand from behind me was forcing them open, holding my eyelids apart.

“Stop!” I tried to yell, but Monsieur Dauphin gripped my face so hard, the word came out as a whimper. His other hand came up to my eye, and I knew what he was doing.

His thick fingers swiped at my eyeball, and I could feel my contact lens, dry and sticky from having been slept in overnight, ripped from my eye. Half my vision went blurry, made the world look unreal.

Monsieur Dauphin let go of my face. I blinked involuntarily, and a gasp went up from the room.

“It’s true,” Luc breathed. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Beside him, Stellan watched impassively, but I could see his jaw twitch. It was him. He’d figured it out and turned me in.

“She didn’t tell you because Saxon had some kind of plan with her.” Monsieur Dauphin continued to peer at me curiously. “But now, she’ll help us instead.”

“No.” I shook my head desperately. “There’s no plan. Saxon doesn’t even know about my eyes,” I said, then had a flash of inspiration. “Don’t you need his permission to do anything to me? He’ll be here any minute. He’ll stop this.”

“Ah, but he’s been told you’ve run away. He’s off looking for you right now. Unfortunately, he won’t find you until you’re already ours. He won’t be happy about it, but it’ll be done.” Monsieur Dauphin wiped his hands on a handkerchief.

“But you’re not even sure who the One is,” I choked out. “You don’t know it’ll work.”

He handed the handkerchief to a guard. “And we’re not going to know, so it’s time to take matters into our own hands.”

The room looked fuzzy, wrong. “You don’t need me,” I said desperately. “You have the baby.”

I saw nothing more than a flash of movement before the back of Monsieur Dauphin’s hand hit my cheek with a deafening thwap. I fell to my knees, choking on a cry.

Luc stepped out from behind his father to help me up. I wiped the tears out of my eyes and could see, up close, that Luc had been crying, too. I looked at the others again. At the unfamiliar dark circles under Stellan’s eyes. At the rage in Monsieur Dauphin’s.

“Luc?” I whispered.

“The Order attacked my mother on the way home from the ball last night,” he said. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “She’ll pull through. And the baby boy is fine.”

He didn’t say anything else, and it hit me. The baby girl was not fine. “Oh, Luc—” I whispered.

With a flick of Monsieur Dauphin’s hand, the guards holding Jack bundled him out the door. My eyes swam.

Monsieur Dauphin turned to Luc. “The tailor is waiting for you, son,” he said. “I got you a new suit for your wedding.”

•   •   •

The hard wooden cot was a far cry from the plush mattress on the bed upstairs. I shifted my weight, trying to find a position where it didn’t jab into my shoulders or hip bones as I stared up at the ceiling. I’d already been in this cell for a couple hours, and I had no idea how much longer I’d be here.