The Fearless Royal: A Reverse Harem Urban Fantasy (Annabelle's Harem Book 3) Read online

  He smiled and kissed me gently on the lips. "Have you been practicing the spell?”

  He was referring to the spell to regain all the magic that Robert stole from me. It was a complicated spell—more difficult than the spoken spells I’d used before—and I’d need to get it just right. So on a daily basis, I repeated it, trying to get my energy and my pronunciation just right.

  Of course, we wouldn’t know if it would work until the moment we tried it. There was no way to practice. Rhyion didn’t have a way to extract my magic to try and reabsorb it.

  So this would be scary. Theoretically, if we failed, I could just teleport us out of there and try again at another time. At least, that was what I told myself to take the pressure off.

  “I’m just so disappointed in myself,” Rhyion told me sadly.

  I put both my hands on his cheeks. “Well, I’m not. I’m not disappointed at all. In fact, I’m incredibly proud of you and everything you’ve accomplished. You amaze me.”

  I kissed him softly, gently, one kiss after another.

  He smiled at me. “It’s my night tonight, isn’t it?”

  Since my first night with Rhyion, I took my turns with Rhyion, Lio, and Angelo. They each got every third night with me, so we could all have private time together.

  We worked great as a group, and there was never any jealousy, but it was so important for us all to get intimate time with each other. It was important to each of our relationships.

  “As a matter of fact, it is.” I gave him a cheeky smile.

  “Well, in that case, can my night… begin now?”

  He leaned in and started kissing my neck several times and I laughed as I pushed him away. “Woah there, big boy. You’re going to have to wait until tonight. Patience is a virtue.”

  He grinned at me. “Usually, patience is no issue for me. But with you, I’ve got no self control.”

  “Good. The way it should be.”

  I loved how much he loved me.

  7

  I looked over at my mother—she was standing in the same field where I initially met her in my dreams.

  These days, she and I mostly just talked when we met in my dreams. We discovered exactly what I needed to know about Robert so we had more time to ourselves, which I appreciated. I had missed her so much.

  “Hey, sweetheart.” She smiled at me.

  “Hey.” I smiled back. “So, Rhyion had something he wanted me to ask you.”

  “Oh?” She raised an eyebrow. None of the boys had ever had anything to ask her before. “What’s that?”

  “He’s a little stumped on how we’re going to change the population’s opinion of me… Robert is a monster, but they don’t know it. And we have no way to prove it. He thought you might know some kind of magic that can help us.”

  She thought on this. “Not off the top of my head… I mean, there’s no spell that you could use on the whole country.” She then paused. “So you need a way to prove to everyone what Robert truly is?”

  “Right, exactly.”

  “Well… Why don’t you just get Robert to admit it for himself? Get him to tell the people all the lies they’ve been fed, how they’ve been abused by their government…”

  I laughed. "He's never going to do that! And even if he did, it would just look like I forced him to make some speech out of a threat on his life or because of a spell.”

  “So… catch him off guard. Get him to say it privately. Then show the world.”

  "But how? How can I show the world?” I asked.

  Her face lit up. “Right… of course. Of course I know magic that could help you!” she said excitedly.

  “What?"

  “There’s this thing that witches used to do… Particularly dreamers, like us. You know how you can reach people in their dreams, communicate with them? Well, it’s a variation of that power. But instead of projecting into someone’s head while they sleep, you project onto a third object. They used to use white screens, for example. It was mostly used for entertainment purposes prior to movies and television. It was like TV before technology.”

  “So… I don’t understand what you’re suggesting. I go talk to Robert and I put the image of us on a… white screen?”

  “Well, no, of course not! But maybe you can do the same thing with television screens. Broadcast your meeting with Robert using television screens across the country. Everyone has a TV in their home.”

  “But… has anyone ever done it with an actual television?”

  “Not that I know of, but I don’t see how it could be so different! You’ll just have to try and see. But if you are able to do it, and you can get the rest of the country to see Robert through your eyes, they’ll have no choice but to believe you. It must be candid, and ideally it’d be better for them to watch it happen live so that they see the truth about him prior to you killing him. That way, his death will be a celebration rather than a travesty.”

  “Right… yeah!” I finally got excited about the idea. “They’ll have no choice but to believe me then! And when I come into power, they’ll welcome me with open arms. I just have to…” I trailed off because my excitement faded when I realized what I had to do.

  I had to project the live image of Robert confessing to me all his misdeeds onto every television across Elderan?

  That seemed like quite the task considering the only time I’d ever been able to project myself to anyone, it was in their dreams. And only one person at a time. And only because I felt a deep connection with them.

  “How on earth do I do this?”

  “It’s not easy, I’ll admit. It’s a lot harder to project onto an object than onto a person. But it’s the same kind of process.”

  “But with a person, I’ve been able to project because I cared so deeply about them. It was easy because I so deeply wanted to reach them. How on earth am I going to connect with a television? Let alone every television across Elderan?”

  “You’re going to have to not think of them as televisions. You’ll have to find your deep connection somewhere… so find it in the people. You’re not really projecting onto a TV, you’re projecting to them. The love you have for your people, your desire to protect them, all the strong emotions you have associated with becoming Queen and protecting them, that’s what you need to tap into.”

  Of course. Just like all magic, I had to find an emotion to connect to. That was always the hard part.

  “I’ll just have to try when I’m awake… and hope this works.”

  I was overwhelmed with the possibility that I wouldn’t be able to do it, but on the other hand, I was relived because this was going to take a lot of the weight off Rhyion. He had been so stressed about not being able to find an answer…

  Well, now we had an answer. So he no longer had to worry about that.

  “There’s something else you’re going to have to try,” my mom added.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “I’ve been thinking,” she continued. “I know we’ve talked about how you know everything you need to know to defeat Robert, and for the most part, I think that’s true. But I was thinking there was one more thing that could help you…”

  “What?” I didn’t understand why she was beating around the bush like this. But her dancing around the subject made me think this wasn’t going to be something easy.

  “If you know Robert’s plans the day that you’re going to attack, you’ll be able to know exactly where to find him. You can avoid having to fight guards and Robert potentially being alerted to what’s going on. You can just teleport to him, catch him off guard, and speak to him about all the injustices he caused before you destroy him and end his reign of terror for good.”

  “But… how do I do that? It hasn’t even happened yet. Should I try to go into the past to see if he has anything scheduled on—”

  My mom stopped me. “No, dear… you need to go into the future."

  “Wait, you mean… have a futuresight dream? But… I’ve never done that
. I’ve never even gotten close to doing that.”

  “No, you haven’t. And I’ll admit, it’s harder to see than the past. The past is set in stone and easy to revisit. The future is messy, it’s undecided, and it’s vaguer. But I think you can do it, Annabelle, if you just continue to try. It’s not all too different from the past, really… Except that you have to focus on your desires for the future rather than your knowledge of the past.”

  “Uh, well, I’ve got to say… that sounds harder.”

  “Like I said, it is. But attempt it. If you’re successful, the destruction of Robert will be child’s play.”

  “Okay, then… so, I just have to learn how to use magic to put what I see onto every television screen in the country, and then I need to master futuresight. No big deal at all, that certainly doesn’t put any pressure on me or anything.”

  My mom smiled and put both her hands on my shoulders. “You are the strongest witch I have ever met, Annabelle. You are absolutely, positively incredible. If anyone can succeed in this, it’s you! You have a strength unlike any I’ve seen before. You are more powerful than me, more powerful than your grandmother, stronger than even her mother. It is easy to see why you were destined to be the one to save Elderan.”

  I smiled. “How do you know I was stronger than Grandma’s mom?” I asked.

  “Well, to be fair, she didn’t have incredible strength. Even her daughter, your grandma, eventually surpassed her. She wasn’t necessarily weak, just not the strongest there ever was. It was actually her twin sister who ended up being Queen. I think she preferred that—she had no desire to lead or be in the spotlight."

  I’d never heard my mother talk about my great grandma before, and it was incredibly interesting. "What was her name?” I asked.

  “Reba,” she said softly.

  Reba… that sounded oddly familiar… though I couldn’t place why. Maybe my mother actually had mentioned her name when I was much younger but I forgot it.

  “Well, I’m glad you’re so confident in my abilities.”

  “I am,” she assured me. “You’re going to be Queen very soon, my dear.”

  I wrapped my arms around her tightly. “I wish you were by my side when that happens.”

  She patted my shoulder gently. “But I am, sweetheart. I always am.”

  I sighed. “I miss Dad.”

  “He misses you too,” she whispered. “I wish so badly I could bring you two together. I can come to you in your dreams, and when we were alive, I was able to come to him in his… But I don’t know how to come to two people at once.”

  “If only…” I whispered softly.

  “After you’re Queen, I think you could meet your grandmother, though. Maybe even your great grandmother, Reba.”

  “That would be lovely,” I said quietly.

  “Annabelle, you’re going to wake up soon, but trust me. You can do this. You’re going to succeed, I promise you.”

  As usual, she was right. Both about me waking up soon and about me being capable of doing what I had to.

  Rhyion was absolutely ecstatic when I told him about what my mother told me. So were Lio and Angelo, of course. They were dying to put this plan into action. But it was especially important for Rhyion, who was beginning to doubt we’d ever get there.

  It took me weeks to master the art of projection. It started out more slowly than any magic I’d tried before, even dreaming. At first, I was only able to flicker an image on the old television in the living room of the cabin. What I was seeing would pop up for a second, then fade out.

  And I realized then that this was going to take more focus than I’d ever used before. It was so complicated because keeping a conversation going and behaving normally while keeping focus on the task at hand was near impossible.

  But I did eventually grasp it after hours and hours of practice on a daily basis. I could hold conversations with Lio, Rhyion, and Angelo, and at the same time, put everything I was seeing on the television screen.

  I’ll never forget the adorable crooked smile Angelo flashed me when I did it for the first time. “You’re ready. We can do this. We can all go home.”

  It gave me the most insane rush of relief. I’d done it… and I was going to be the reason we all got to return home.

  It was after a full week of successful projection that spanned all the televisions on the island that I finally decided on a date that we’d return to Elderan and attack Robert. My mother told me when using futuresight, it was important to have a date in mind. I couldn't attempt it before that moment because I didn't know when I’d be ready.

  But I was positive now… it was time.

  After weeks of practicing my focus on projection, having a futuresight dream really wasn’t that daunting. I did what my mother told me, and it actually was very similar to pastsight. I just needed to have a reason to look into the future, a question to answer, and I did.

  What was going to make it easier to defeat Robert?

  I ended up in a very extravagant-looking room. The walls were metal, so I knew I had to be in the same place that I was in when I’d been captured… but besides that, the room felt very different.

  The floor was carpeted, and over the carpet was an expansive, ornate red and gold rug. There was a large wooden desk with a fancy-looking lamp on top. The walls were surrounded by large bookshelves that had a sliding ladder so that one could get up and reach books even on the highest shelf.

  “Leave it to Robert to have an office like this,” my mother muttered. “People in his country are starving. What do you think this rug cost?”

  “I don't know, but I’m guessing it wasn’t cheap,” I agreed.

  Robert was behind his desk with a pair of glasses on. I'd never seen him in glasses. Perhaps they were for reading, because he was leaning over a book, evidently lost in thought. He seemed dead to the world.

  And soon, he really would be.

  Suddenly, there was a loud banging on the door.

  “I am in the middle of something!” Robert barked.

  “Sir, it’s a code red!” a voice called from behind the door. “Please, hurry!”

  Robert’s face sank as he stood up from the desk, ran around it, and slammed the door closed behind him.

  As the door slammed heavily, I heard something drop to the floor. I glanced over to see that Robert’s cane had fallen over. From where it had landed, I guessed it had been leaning up against the desk.

  “Well, that must have been important. Should we follow him?”

  “Yeah, let’s—” Then something hit me. “Wait… no. No, we have everything we need right here!” I nearly laughed with joy.

  "What do you mean?” my mom asked, confused.

  "What time is it?” I asked quickly, my eyes darting for a clock on the wall.

  There was one in the corner of the room—another extravagant piece. It was a grandfather clock. This time, I was thanking Robert for his ridiculous, expensive taste. If he didn’t have it, maybe he wouldn’t have had a clock in here, and I wouldn't have known it was 10:45am.

  “I don’t understand, Annabelle. What’s going on?”

  “Look what he left!” I pointed at his cane.

  “So?” My mom still didn’t get it.

  “I’m going to destroy his magic, right? But he is still going to have some left in that cane, unless I get here at exactly 10:45 when he leaves and I grab it before he can. Then he has nothing…”

  She finally understood and immediately pulled me in for a hug, squeezing me tight. “Oh, my genius daughter! I've never been more proud of you! That’s perfect!”

  In some small way, I felt like I had Rhyion to thank for that quick thinking. I could have sworn he sharpened my mind. I had him to thank for my ability to analyze a situation quickly.

  And that was it. That was all I needed. I knew how to destroy his magic, change the public’s view of him, and make sure I could defeat him with ease. There was nothing else to do now.

  Except destroy him complete
ly.

  8

  On the day that we were going to destroy Robert, we had to be very careful about the timing. We needed to be in Robert's office at 10:45, but we had to destroy all the magic before that. We didn’t want to stay in the room any longer than we needed to, so Rhyion suggested we only go into Robert’s magic vault a few minutes before 10:45.

  Which was nerve-wracking because it meant I needed to pull this off perfectly. If I failed, we might not end up in Robert’s office in time. There was a lot riding on this.

  We had decided to get volunteers from the village to go with us. Most of the shifter adults decided to come, with only a few staying back to watch all the children.

  We wanted to make sure that when shit hit the fan, Robert’s lackeys at his compound couldn’t get away. We wanted to lock up as much of the human elite as we could, and since I assumed they didn’t have any kind of roster, that meant capturing as many as we could.

  The shifters who came with us would guard all the exits of the compound so nobody could leave and they could all be rounded up. With no magic, the humans inside would be no match. It would work out perfectly.

  Only Rhyion, Lio, Angelo, and I would actually go inside.

  I stood out in a large dirt area outside of all of the cabins. All the volunteers were standing before me, ready to take orders.

  “Alright, everyone… let’s make a circle. Grab the hands of those next to you. Everyone needs to be touching me in one way or another.”

  They did, and when the circle was formed, I encouraged everyone to move in as tightly as possible. We gathered into a secure huddle.

  I had to teleport us inside the compound any minute now. We were going to land outside the building only about ten minutes before 10:45. Again, we didn’t want to linger too long outside of his compound, lest someone saw us. The tighter we fit this in timewise, the safer we would be.

  “Okay,” I began to yell. “I just want everyone to know how much I appreciate and value you all. You are doing a wonderful thing. I know this is scary, I know this takes a leap of faith, but you are going to take part in what will be a monumental day in history. You’ve already taken part—every shifter has, both alive and dead. Thanks to the generosity of you all, I have been allowed to learn everything that I could in order to defeat Robert. Because of you, Elderan will return to its former glory.”