The Beast King (Royal Aliens 3)

She was still holding the crown. Konan could not believe it. A mere human, handling the most prized relic in his world, as if there were nothing to it.

“I could even put it on my head,” she murmured, almost to herself. “Then you’d have to obey me, because I’d be your king.”

“Don’t you dare,” Konan growled.

“If you don’t want me to, then you should put it on yours.”

She was maddening, disrespectful, rude — and right. He should have been wearing the crown from the beginning. His rage at being deposed was great because he knew it was his fault that it had been possible at all. But it was not that simple. The crown wasn’t just a piece of jewelry. It was a being of more power than anybody present understood. Even Konan didn’t really fathom the true depths and machinations of the thing. He simply knew he did not want it locked on his skull.

“Power corrupts. A crown can do more damage than the wildest of tyrants. I did not feel the need to become the tool of the crown…”

“Oh, you thought you didn't need it? You don’t like needing anything or anyone, do you, Konan?”

The psychoanalysis was more painful than the betrayal. This human had come to know him and understand him in a way he did not truly understand himself. Now she was reflecting his actions back at him in a way he could not defend.

“I don’t like being spoken down to by a human who babbles about swords in stones while holding the crown of my nation. Give it to me.”

Her smile broadened in a reckless and disobedient fashion. “Come and take it.”

“Elizabeth…” he growled her name in the deep, serious tone which usually turned her to submissive jelly, but she was clearly far too busy enjoying herself to worry about the pain she would inevitably endure when he got his hands on her.

“I’m gonna put it on,” she declared. When was the last time your people had a girl king?”

“Don’t!”

He dived for her to stop her from putting it on. He knew she wasn’t joking. The crown tricked those who touched it with an almost unbearable impulse to put it on. She had that glassy, hollow look in her eyes and he knew that she was under its spell.

Her slim body was no match for the full force of his massive frame crashing across the space between them. There was no way he was going to allow that crown to touch her head.

But it was a trap.

She wasn’t trying to put the crown on her own head.

She wasn’t trying to become his king. She was trying to become something infinitely more dangerous — his queen.

It was too late to stop her plan. He saw it in her eyes before he realized what was happening, but he had momentum pushing him toward her, his arms outstretched for his crown.

Careening toward her at full speed, he was slightly off-balance and wildly out of control. She extended the crown between his arms. He felt it touch his head. He felt it fusing with his being. He felt the moment he had forever feared coming to fruition.

Having dumped the crown on his head, she ducked to the side and he ran right past her, the coronation taking place in a clumsy, yet effective, blink of an eye.

Konan clutched at his head, trying to pull it off as she had done to Herk. But whatever influence she had exerted over the crown, he could not. He felt it grasp his skull, becoming almost instantly one with his physical form.

“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!?” he roared furiously, absolutely beside himself with outrage.

Elizabeth smiled broadly, so devastatingly proud of herself. “I’ve restored the relic to its rightful owner. I’ve made you king again. I’ve kind of solved all your problems in under two minutes. That’s got to be some kind of record.”

She had no idea what she’d done. He could feel the fusing of the crown, the apparently inevitable joining he had tried to avoid his entire life. Konan had been born a king, but he had never wanted the crown. As long as it was in his possession, that had been enough. To wear it, to feel it become one with him, that would change him fundamentally.

“It suits you,” she said, as if it were some mere piece of clothing he could remove if he didn’t like it.

“It doesn’t suit me. It becomes me. It will change me…”

“You could do with some change, Konan.”

Flippant little human. How arrogant she was. How foolish and unthinking, and… he could almost think it. Stupid. She had been stupid.

“I chose not to wear this crown for a reason. You had no right to put it on me.”

“You chose not to wear it because you were afraid of it. You don’t have to be afraid anymore.”