One of those people I’m here to save. Rukaiya Harrison is the reason I’m lying in a bed in London. Following her here was more for me than for Dahlia. As much as I care for my best friend’s girlfriend, I’m being selfish because I want to find Rukaiya and steal her for myself.
Shoving off the bed, I make my way to the window. There aren’t any curtains to obstruct my view. The gray skies hang heavily with the promise of rain and cold.
I stare out at the skyscrapers of one of the busiest cities in Europe. There’s no noise from this high up, but I can see the people racing down the street, the cars and cabs all vying for a spot in the busy early morning traffic.
Meeting my father last night, I realized just how much I missed him. Even though he made sure my life was a comfortable one, I needed him more than the money he ensured was in my bank account. Granted, most kids would prefer the dollars to someone giving them advice about life, but that’s not me.
I’ve always hungered for human connection. And perhaps that’s why I found it in places that, at times, got me into trouble. It started when I was sixteen. My mother walked in on me fucking our maid. The twenty-three-year-old wasn’t complaining and neither was I, but mom wouldn’t have her son fraternizing with the help. Those were her actual words.
She didn’t care that I was older beyond my years at that point, all she worried about was that I would taint the blue blood she believed we had. Me—on the other hand—all I wanted was to feel needed, to feel loved.
Over the years, my yearning for family came from the companionship I found with Ares and Tarian. They were the brothers I never had, and they never judged me the way my mother would.
Growing up in a small town like Tynewood didn’t offer much privacy, so anything I did, got back to her one way or another, except for the one thing that I managed to hide from her and even from my best friends. My mother’s incessant nagging had me wanting to run away from home, and I found solace at the Lancaster mansion more times than I care to count.
Ares had his father, but he wasn’t around often, and it would allow us to just be. There wasn’t this innate need to impress anyone, which my mother was a great fan of doing.
When I turned eighteen, Dad came back and gave me the choice—live in London with him and his new floozy or stay in Tynewood with my friends and attend school here.
I decided to stay and join the society that I know my mother was against all my life, but I knew I was the only one to step into my father’s shoes. I was convinced that I had made the right decision. I wanted to be in Tynewood because it was the only place that I felt I belonged. It was where my brothers were, and I wasn’t leaving them. And it was time to become the man I was born to be—a Crown.
I joined the Gilded Sovereign at twenty-one, only eight months ago. My mother stopped caring about the society. It was as if she accepted it was real, that I had to be one of the chosen. She never mentioned it again, which still has nervous energy coursing through me. I don’t know why Hilary Durand decided to leave it be, and that’s another mystery I need answered.
Now, I’m in London, looking at the sky as the sun rises, and I’m about to meet with the Sovereign which my father heads up in Britain. Each major city in the world houses a sector of the Sovereign. It will be the first time I attend a meeting with Elders like this, and I’m looking forward to it.
I’m also chomping at the bit to find Rukaiya. The men my father has looking for her have come back empty-handed. They haven’t spotted her yet, but we’re not sure why her father, Fergus Harrison, would’ve taken his daughter if he was on the run. She’s over eighteen, so it’s not like she’s underage and needs him to watch over her.
I have a feeling there’s more to this story than meets the eye. And I plan on getting to the bottom of it. I know Tarian has his ticket and will be flying out soon enough.
Once he arrives, we’ll have to get to Rukaiya before she’s hurt in some way. I don’t trust Fergus, and from the background information we have on him working for Abner Lancaster, Ares’s Dad, I have a feeling he’s capable of anything.
Tarian also needs to know his uncle may be involved. I’m not sure what he has to do with it just yet, but something doesn’t sit right with me.