Rise of a Queen (Kingdom Duet 2)

“What’s going on?” Ethan asks, but he follows anyway.

“She needs to get out of the public eye.” Agnus’s features remain steady. “Now.”

Ethan and I are both inside when the car revs its engine in the street. Then Elsa’s father asks, “Are you going to elaborate, Agnus?”

“She’s part of a public trial.”

Again. I’m part of a public trial again.

I barely survived the first one. I can’t go through that nightmare all over again.

18

Aurora

I’m shaking by the time the car stops. I have no clue about the destination. All I know is that I should stay far away from that place, those people.

From everything.

Ethan didn’t try to talk to me, and I’m glad for that. I wouldn’t have been able to converse with him even if my life depended on it.

I’m back to being that teenage girl who sat in a dark corner in the safe houses the police took me to. I pulled my knees to my chest and trembled all night, unable to rid the victims’ faces from my mind.

At every trial, their families brought their happy pictures, their toddler albums, their graduation memories — all the things that made them human.

They thrust them in my face and demanded I see how their lives were stolen and could never be retrieved.

In that dark corner, I prayed for their souls. I even asked for forgiveness on Dad’s behalf, but with time, I stopped everything altogether.

I think a part of me died during those excruciatingly long weeks. With every trial, every escape from the media, and every look in Dad’s desolate eyes, pieces of my soul slowly chipped, then scattered.

For eleven years, I’ve been trying to gather them back together again, and just when I thought I finally could, the nightmare rushes back in.

The door opens, and I startle, pushing into Ethan’s side. What if they found me so soon and will now finish what they started eleven years ago?

Maybe my attacker has returned and he’ll drag me back to that eighth grave.

A breath leaves me when I get trapped in those grey eyes. It’s a weird sense of relief, something I never thought I’d feel upon seeing Jonathan.

There’s a crease in the middle of his forehead as if he doesn’t approve of the scene. As proof, he clutches me by the elbow and pulls me out of the car. I stumble, but he catches me against him, his arm wr

apping tightly around my waist.

He leans back into the car to glare at Ethan. “Get off my property and don’t show your face here again.”

“A thank you would be nice,” Ethan shoots back.

“You’re lucky that I’m not setting you and your car on fire.”

“If it weren’t for me and my car, Aurora wouldn’t have gotten here in time.”

I gulp, imagining what might’ve happened if I had been caught there on my own. Sure I could’ve escaped, but they could’ve recognised me first, or worse, filmed me and caused some sort of a media ruckus.

“That’s why I’m allowing you to leave intact.” Jonathan slams the door shut.

Ethan lowers the window. “Take care of yourself, Aurora.”

And just like that, the car speeds down the road.