The Fearless Royal: A Reverse Harem Urban Fantasy (Annabelle's Harem Book 3) Page 8

  They all smiled and nodded at each other. I didn't have to tell them how momentous of a day this was… it was clear they already knew.

  I didn’t take them to a spot directly outside of the compound, of course. Instead, we landed in the forest nearby. I knew that Robert likely had security cameras on all the exits of the compound.

  After we landed, Angelo immediately got in the center of the circle and took out a makeshift map he had drawn from his memory of this place during my rescue.

  “Okay, here are all the exits. In approximately ten minutes, you will go cover all of them, split into a group of four. No matter what, nobody leaves this building. Block the doors, shift to intimidate them, do not let them leave.”

  Everyone nodded that they understood, and Angelo handed the map off to Tervan, an older bear shifter who was well respected in the village. It was understood that when we exited, Tervan would guide the group in what to do. He and Angelo actually spoke of the plan heavily over the past week. Angelo trusted him completely, so I did as well.

  “Okay, we’ve got to go, boys,” I said to Lio, Rhyion, and Angelo.

  “Good luck, our Queen,” Tervan said to me.

  I was met with a chorus of soft ‘good lucks.’ I had to smile. It felt good to have the trust of the people I cared so deeply about protecting.

  And, soon, I hoped to have the trust of the entire country.

  I held Lio and Angelo’s hands, they held Rhyion’s, and I took us exactly where we needed to go.

  We got into the room, and it looked just like it did in my dreams. The shelves were aligned with the porcelain jars that held my magic, there was an empty metal table in the center of the room, and nothing else.

  I looked at Lio, Angelo, and Rhyion. “I think I need to take it out of the jars first, right?”

  Rhyion nodded. “Yes, you do.”

  “So how do I do that?” I asked.

  “Just shatter them,” Angelo said casually.

  Right, of course… simple enough.

  With a simple swipe of my hand, I knocked down all the jars, sending them crashing to the floor with a loud bang.

  As they shattered into tons of pieces, a thick, purple liquid began to slowly ooze out of them. It almost shimmered…

  We heard shuffling outside of the door.

  “What was that?” a deep, male voice asked. No doubt one of the guards—one of the guards I knew about—would hear. I should have predicted this would happen.

  I am an idiot.

  “Go, get Robert now!” another man answered. “We need to get in there!”

  Right… Even they couldn’t get in right away without Robert’s handprint.

  “Annabelle, hurry!” Rhyion urged. “Say your spell! Say the spell and get us out of here immediately!”

  I nodded, not even wasting time to answer him.

  “Atalia turnet gio ten varies,” I said loudly, imagining the sensation of all the power that had once been taken returning to me.

  Thank the heavens that all my practice paid off. It worked immediately—the liquid lifted up from the floor in the form of a sparkly dust. It flooded up around me, encircling me and coming into me slowly.

  It was a weird sensation, an almost tingling feeling. Unfortunately it was a slower process than I suspected it would be, and soon we could hear the sound of footsteps running down the hallway.

  I willed my magic to come faster, but I couldn’t seem to speed it up. I just had to wait for it to be done. I watched the last of it swirl up from the floor just as Robert’s voice began to bellow through the hallway.

  “Move, you imbecile!” he yelled.

  “Hurry! Come here!” I reached out my hands. Angelo grabbed one and so did Lio, then they linked their spare hands with Rhyion’s, forming a circle.

  Just as the door began to beep, indicating it would open, I tore us out of there and we landed in Robert’s office.

  “Wow, this is gaudy,” Lio commented.

  "I know. How despicable, right? He’s got all this wealth while people are dying. How can he live with himself?”

  "He's a sociopath, obviously." Angelo shrugged. "I think we know that by all his actions in the past. Like leeching magic from a mother and her daughter, kidnapping one of them, not giving two shits when the mother died…”

  “Oh, he gave two shits. He gave lots of shits because he didn’t have unlimited access to magic anymore."

  Rhyion thought for a moment. “So, I guess we didn’t have to plan as carefully as we did, huh?”

  I looked over at him. "What makes you say that?”

  He laughed for a moment. “Annabelle, why do you think Robert isn’t in the room?”

  Oh, duh. He left because of us. So I guess we could have gone and destroyed the magic at any time, and he would have come running.

  “Ah, well, at least my dream guaranteed I’d have the foresight to grab this.” I picked up Robert’s cane off the floor, opened it the way I’d seen it done in my dreams, and then dumped out all the excess magic.

  “There. I’d like to see him fight me now."

  “When do you think he’ll be back?” Lio asked.

  “Any minute now,” Rhyion answered him. “No doubt when he’s seen all of that magic is gone, he’s going to remember his cane and come rushing back in here for the last of it. The battle is going to begin shortly.”

  “And end shortly,” Lio added.

  “Not too shortly,” I reminded him. “We need to paint an awful picture of Robert first.”

  “Yes, get him talking for as long as you can,” Rhyion said. “Try to get him to spill absolutely everything. It shouldn’t be hard—he seems obsessed with himself. I’m sure once he realizes he’s going to die, he won’t hesitate to talk to you.”

  He was absolutely right. If Robert knew he was going to be broadcasted to all of Elderan, he probably would play his cards close to the chest. But since he had no idea, I fully expected him to spill his guts.

  “Should we start projecting now?” Angelo asked. “Should one of us begin explaining what we’re going to do? Why we’re here and everything?”

  “No!” Rhyion said quickly. “If we start now, there’s a chance he’s going to see it on the TV screens they use for security. We can’t allow that.”

  “He’s right,” I agreed. “We’ll have to explain who we are afterward.” I looked around the room for a mirror, and sure enough, there was a large one hanging up behind the door. Weird, I hadn’t noticed it during my dream. Though, honestly, my mother had been right: the futuresight dreams were a lot fuzzier, less detailed, and they came with a layer of haze. I had to really focus on the objects to notice them. Kind of the way I didn’t notice the grandfather clock until I was specifically looking at it.

  The mirror would be perfect, though. As it was, I could only project what I saw onto the television screen. Everyone got the world through my point of view. So when it came time to speak, I needed a way to show myself. The mirror would work perfectly.

  Just as Rhyion predicted, there was a bounding we could hear from all the way down the hall. I had no doubt in my mind that it was going to be Robert.

  “Quick, get behind the door, all of you,” I instructed. “As soon as he comes in, slam it behind him. Do not let him leave. But don’t hurt him… that’s going to be for me to do.”

  They did as I said, and I backed up and climbed onto Robert's desk, sitting on top of it with my legs folded and my hands in my lap.

  Oh, and an unending smile. That was there too.

  Robert ran in, and when he saw me, his jaw dropped instantly. I wasn’t sure why, surely this wasn’t a surprise. Who else could get rid of all that magic so quickly?

  He began to back up slowly, but before he could exit the room, the door slammed behind him.

  Before I said a single word, I shifted my focus. Half of me was paying attention to the current situation, half of me was focused on my projection. I did what I practiced—I imagined the television screens all across Elde
ran, I imagined all of the people I was going to reach and subsequently rescue with this broadcast. I put my whole heart and soul into sending this message to every single one of them. Which wasn’t hard to do… because my whole heart and soul was in this completely, one hundred percent.

  I’d never cared about anything more in my entire life.

  “Hello, Robert,” I said smugly.

  He straightened up and tried to shake the fear off his face, but it wasn’t working well.

  “Annabelle,” he said bluntly.

  “Surprised to see me?”

  “Not completely. I’ve been waiting for this day.”

  “Did your best to avoid it, huh?” I asked.

  “I did,” he continued in a monotonous voice while his eyes quickly scanned the room.

  I knew what he was looking for—his cane. And I was going to let him look for it. Let him believe he still had hope, that there was still magic in there.

  It’d make for a better show.

  “You got pretty close there, when you captured me to try and milk me for all the magic I had,” I told him.

  “I did, didn’t I?” he said with a sly smile. He got a little more confident, so I thought maybe his eye caught the cane. “I mean, you have to admit, that was pretty genius.”

  “I know that it was pretty evil,” I told him. “I hear in the old days, you would be put to death for stealing a witch’s magic.”

  “Yes, well, that’s why the old days don’t exist anymore, right? But you know that.”

  “No.” I shook my head emphatically. “In fact, I don’t. Why don’t you enlighten me?”

  He looked at me angrily. “You witches, man, you’re all the same. Confident little bitches, aren’t you? So full of yourselves.”

  “I’m sorry, what do you mean you witches? Because I’m the last witch, as far as I know. The only one left on the planet after your ancestors destroyed us all.” Lio, Rhyion, and Angelo were staring silently ahead, but they all had smiles on their faces.

  “And bless them for doing so! Because this is how all witches used to be. You are the exact embodiment of why witches needed to be exterminated. Your people were overly confident, cocky, thought nobody should have your magic but you, right? You were born special, so you were the only ones entitled to it.”

  “No, that’s not it at all. See, we are the only ones entitled to our magic because we’re the only ones wise enough to wield it. I think my ancestors always knew that if our magic got into human hands, it would be misused. Humans would use it for evil, to gain power for themselves while giving nothing in return. And, hey, look what happened to you!”

  He smiled. “You think I’m going to be ashamed of what I am? Of what my ancestors were? Do you know how hard it was for humans to overthrow witches? We started with nothing! My ancestors waited years upon years for the right moment to finally take over. I’m not ashamed at all! I’m proud of them!”

  Just as Rhyion predicted, Robert was more than happy to talk about himself.

  “Yeah? And are you prideful of the way your ancestors destroyed Elderan? The way you yourself kept Elderan in poverty, with the human elite profiting off the backs of starving people?”

  "I am,” he said boldly. “I’ve been born into power, and you know what? I wielded it. Just like my father before me and my son after me. When you have power, you use power.”

  "What a disgusting mentality.” I scoffed. "This is exactly why you were never meant to have magic. My ancestors respected their power. They knew the responsibility that came with it. And they did what was best for Elderan, what was best for the general population. They cared about those they ruled for, unlike you, who continually steps on all of them.”

  “And they were weak for it! They were weak enough to lose power!”

  I shook my head. “People used to be happy, Robert! They were healthy, well fed, thriving! They were living lives where they didn’t have to just survive. While your ancestors quietly took power and then blamed shifters, of all people! The ones who stood by witches and wizards most loyally. For thousands of years, shifters have helped witches and wizards rule fairly! And you guys used them as a scapegoat.”

  “Again, another genius idea on our part.”

  “Again, you caused the suffering of so many! A hundred years of disgusting shifter discrimination. You branded them at birth with their animal, treated them like cattle, like the lowest of society. They never did anything wrong. Not now, and not historically. The one who should be branded is you, as a traitor to this country!”

  “But I won’t be. Because I’m King. And I'm above everyone and everything. I’m above every law, every punishment. Harm is not going to come to me.”

  You know, it seemed like he actually believed that. It was like he was so used to feeling safe for so many years, he couldn’t recognize danger when it looked him straight in the eyes.

  "Robert, don’t think you’re making it out of here alive. You are going to pay for what you’ve done. For all the people who’ve died of starvation in Elderan, for all the shifters you’ve had killed, for capturing me, for causing the death of my parents… You will pay. And when you’re gone, it’ll be me that rules Elderan. And I promise you, when that happens, all the terror will end! People will no longer starve in this country. They won’t suffer so a few elite can live more lavishly than anyone ever needs to. It all ends.”

  “Oh, don’t fool yourself! They will never accept you, you little witch bitch. Do you realize how powerful I am? Even if you kill me, my memory will live on. To all of them, I’m King! I’m the ultimate leader! Nobody is going to accept you if you murder me.”

  “The ultimate leader? You’re the reason they’re all living in extreme poverty! You’re the reason they’re suffering!”

  “But they don’t know that! And even if you tell them, they won’t believe you! You know, for as wise as witches are supposed to be, you clearly did not think this through.”

  I gave him a cocky smile. "But actually, I have.”

  He looked at me skeptically, but before I could even answer, there was a banging on the door. Robert turned around, though obviously, he couldn’t get to the door with Lio, Rhyion, and Angelo standing in his way.

  "My King, my King!" someone yelled through the door. "You're on TV! You’re on all the TVs!”

  It took a moment for Robert to process this. He slowly turned from the door back to me, confusion all over his face.

  “How?” he asked.

  "Magic." I grinned.

  He gave a sarcastic laugh. “You think you’re so goddamn clever. But you’re not the only one with magic, I think you’ve forgotten.”

  He literally dived across the room, grabbing his cane next to the desk. He landed on his stomach, but he got the cane and whipped it around to me.

  He pointed it at me from the floor, a wicked smile on his face. A smile that quickly dissipated when he realized that nothing happened.

  That nothing was going to happen.

  "How stupid do you think I am? You thought I would get rid of all your stores of magic but allow you to have that?"

  He shook his head in disbelief. He really didn’t think it was going to come to this. He had held out hope that he was going to make it through this ordeal alive, and I watched as that hope was absolutely shattered.

  “Do you have any last words, Robert?" I asked, since I knew I wasn’t going to be able to get him to say anything more incriminating about himself now that he knew he was on television. Which was fine, because he had said more than enough.

  Robert was silent.

  "Come on, nothing you want to tell Elderan?”

  “Fuck you,” he muttered.

  “Fuck you? That’s what you want to tell the entire population of Elderan? Fitting, since that’s basically what you told them when you were alive and well.”

  “Humans will do it again, you know,” he muttered. “You think you’re restoring order, but we’ll rise again. As we are meant to. We are the reigning f
orce on this planet. We are the most intelligent species. We are the ones who are going to rule, in the end. We’ll always find our way back to the top.”

  "A species that believes itself to be above all others is not a species who belongs at the top. If humans were allowed to rule, you’d ravage this planet until its death, just to get a little bit ahead. Your selfishness knows no bounds; that is what was proven today. You were never fit to lead. And none of your kin ever will again. And in your last moments, you will suffer like you made every person of Elderan suffer."

  With that, I lit him up. His entire body went up in a force of flames as he screamed for help that would never come.

  I was glad that Elderan couldn’t see me, so they couldn’t see the absolute grin that was on my face.

  I wiped it off before I turned to Angelo, Lio, and Rhyion, who were still standing in front of the door. I motioned at them to move.

  They did, exposing the mirror to me, and I got off the desk and walked over to it, introducing myself to all of Elderan for the very first time.

  “Hello, everyone. My name is Annabelle. I am the last witch on the entire planet, thanks to the humans that overthrew my ancestors one hundred years ago. You heard it from Robert’s own mouth: everything you know to be true is a lie. Shifters did not overthrow witches and wizards, humans did. And they cast hatred and discrimination on shifters, one of the most loyal and kindhearted species among us.

  “I know this will come as a shock, but you cannot trust the history books you learned from. The humans have beaten down truth-tellers for one hundred years, killing anyone who dared to defy them, until nobody dared to defy them anymore. They have used their power to get wealthier and wealthier while the rest of us starved.

  “And I starved, too. I was once just a poor young girl of Elderan, completely unaware of my history and unaware that I was a witch. My mother was a witch too, but unfortunately, she was killed along with my father because of a human that couldn’t handle losing power.