The Broken Puppet (The Elite King's Club 2)

“But we’re not going to be—are we?” Joshua whispered, looking to me in awe.

I shook my head slowly, a small smile tickling my lips. “No.”

“So what would you be having us do, Katsia?” the cocky boy asked.

Looking back to him, I tilted my head. “What’s your name?”

“Benjamin.”

“Benjiman… who?”

“Benjiman Vitiosus.”

“Ahhh,” I mumbled. It made sense. He was a Vitiosis. I didn’t recognize him earlier because the order of the Lost Boys worked like this: If you’re a sibling who doesn’t have what they call Elite Blood, then you get thrown in to be a Lost Boy, who—what Humphrey wants to do—are cleaners of the world. Humphrey has lined out the world very thoroughly. We have breeding time, which is the only time that we can try for babies. If you don’t fall pregnant, then you will have to wait four years before you can try again, and you only get to try twice. You see, Humphrey has made a natural order in the most unnatural way. You get the first two tries, and then you cannot try again. It’s about breeding them, but we need them in fours. Humphrey was too smart for his own good, for all of us. He had everything mapped out, and no one was stopping him. Not now—not ever.

If you had a child or a nephew who didn’t have Elite Blood, meaning they didn’t have what it took to be a King, then they got thrown in to be a Lost Boy. Trained. Well, that was what I was supposed to be doing, but instead, I have another plan for these boys. I want to fight Humphrey. Fight his cause and fight it to the death. He took my baby girl and killed her. Now… now I start a very detailed plan to kill him.

Slamming the book closed, I think over what I just read. I’m beginning to see the shift in Katsia from what she was in the beginning. She’s stronger. There’s vengeance in her blood, and we all know that once vengeance seeps into your blood, there’s no extracting that from your system. The only way that gets siphoned out is by getting your revenge. So all Lost Boys are somehow intertwined into the family of one of the Kings. This world is, once again, messed up. Flipping over, I hit my light and slide under my covers, snuggling into my warm sheets and drifting into a deep sleep.

Fog from the empty night expels from my lungs, and I stop running, leaning over to catch my breath. “Riddle me this, Kitty.”

“NO!” I scream, shielding my ears with my hands. “Fuck you!” Slamming my eyes closed, I shoot forward, the damp leaves sliding under the soles of my shoes. My heart pounds in my chest and my blood tears through my veins like bullets full of adrenalin. I keep running blindly as sweat trickles down my cool flesh, goose bumps breaking out over my spine, so I open my eyes and stop. Looking out to the still lake in the middle of the forest, I whisper in confusion, “What?”

I spin around to try to figure out where I just came from, but nothing is there. Only the bushes that hide the lake—the same lake Bishop and I fooled around in. A single bright firefly flutters in the air, swimming around in front of my face. I smile, letting the little bug light something inside of my gut. Reaching out, I go to touch it, but just as my fingertip connects with the little body, it turns to blood, dripping down over my finger.

“Ew!” I pull my finger back then look around the empty lake again. “Why am I here?” Wind whisks through my hair, igniting my skin and senses, and that’s when I smell it—the sweet, soapy scent of man. Inching my head over my shoulder, I smile softly.

“Took you long enough.”

Bishop steps forward so he’s standing directly beside me and looks out to the lake. “You run faster now.”

I grin, turning to face him. “Or you’ve gotten slower.” Looking him up and down, I take in what he’s wearing and my eyebrows pull together in confusion. He has no shirt on, his delicious body on full display, and his ripped jeans cover his long, lean legs. Barefoot, standing there like that in the middle of almost winter seems ridiculously strange. Actually, this entire setting feels strange. I look out toward the rock Bishop and I played around on what feels like years ago now, and smile. “There’s that rock.” When he doesn’t answer, I turn to face him, but he’s gone.

“Bishop?” I call out, looking around for him. Something doesn’t feel right. Actually, everything feels extremely wrong.

“Kitty,” Nate murmurs, and I spin around, seeing Nate leaning on his elbows in the sand, with no shirt on either.