Then my mind assaulted me with images of the time after we were caught. I remembered the moment when I stood in front of the Queen Mother confessing to my sins, to the fact that I seduced her grandson. She wasn’t the only one there. His aunt, uncle and George. They all looked at me with disgust and repulsion. It was the most humiliating moment in my life. It didn’t matter then that he had promised to love me for as long as we lived—our special ring was worthless. I had betrayed the royals and the members of the public, by putting the future king in danger.
“No. You have no right to say anything to me. You did nothing to save me, to defend me. What happened then closed the door on us. It’s in the past. So stay away or I swear to God I’ll hurt you,” I snapped, stepping away from him and inhaling the crisp air.
Ricky must have felt my anger and resentment. A calming delicate breeze ruffled my hair and I was praying that no one had been listening in. From early on I learned that the palace was filled with secrets and people that would do anything to keep spying on me and the prince.
At the time when everything exploded I’d wished that I had died or had been sent back to hell. I was willing to do anything to save myself from the pain I felt back then.
Arthur’s pupils dilated, but he didn’t back away. He was broadcasting his feelings so openly, while my heart was wounded, broken and torn. Despite everything, he still loved me. I hated knowing that he wanted to bring me to his chest and ease the pain, I hated the fact that I could feel his torn emotions. That’s why I was cursed, that’s why it was so difficult for me to move on.
“Maxine, please. I made a mistake, a terrible mistake. You mean everything to me. We don’t have to be so distant. I’ll break the engagement. Now that you’re back,” he continued saying, pleading with his heart for me to give him another chance. “The hospital, the children at the ward. Does this mean nothing to you?”
Tears forced their way to my eyes. I couldn’t believe that he was playing on my emotions like that. The memories were still too raw. Arthur became a patron of a children’s hospital in London a couple of years ago.
When I was responsible for his safety I used to accompany him there with other guards. Over the period of time, I became involved, playing and bonding with kids that no one visited. Arthur became attached to a few. He donated extraordinary amounts of money to the whole ward and he felt personally responsible to visit them.
The hospital, the room filled with lonely kids connected us, and while I was there I was able to sympathise with the pain that some of the children experienced—since I’d grown up with the same kind of loneliness. It was our moment that no one could take away, the moment when I felt truly fulfilled and happy. After I vanished from London to deal with the consequences of my action, those memories of the hospital impacted my future decisions. I left my hiding place torn apart, knowing that I was possibly crushing yet another life.
I was ready to shake my head and walk away, but Arthur grabbed my face so lovingly that I instantly changed my mind. Then he kissed me, his hand cradling my neck.
In that moment I lost all the resolve I had built up over the past twelve months. His lips reminded me of everything that was ever lost to me, the passion, the longing for his soul. My body turned into an inferno, blood rushing through my veins wildly. When his tongue connected with mine, I moaned, as our love exploded. I had the tendency of over-broadcasting my demonic powers whenever Arthur was around. Sometimes my emotions affect humans too. They felt everything, the ecstasy that scorched between us, the heat of the moment. His touch was liberating and I instantly wanted more.
The kiss didn’t last long and it didn’t matter how good it felt. I forced myself to remember the betrayal and the pain so I was strong enough to break it, to push him off me.
“No. You have no right, Your Highness. What had been between us is done. You did nothing, said nothing, so now you have no right.” I raised my voice, not caring for the world that every security guard, even the demonic ones had just heard me.
I forced Arthur to obey me, to stay where he was, and then marched back to Ricky, who looked disturbed.
“Let’s move now,” I barked, and he only nodded. I knew he wanted to tell me a lot of things, but there was no time. I didn’t look back, but I knew that Arthur stood behind the pillar, unable to move, and he was fighting with himself to go after me again.
When we were outside, I took a few deep breaths, shoving my thoughts and desire to the back of my mind. That damn hot kiss made me lose my head, but only for a moment. That was why I was so reluctant to show up in the palace, to get involved with royal affairs again.
It was hard to admit, but I missed the thrill that the job used to give me, and I damn well missed Arthur.
These days I was living day-to-day, killing creatures that escaped from the underworld, solving murders, and finding missing people. Most of the time I didn’t know how I managed to survive for so long, nearly drinking myself to death. This wasn’t the life that I signed up for, but somehow I couldn’t change it.
“Are you all right, Maxine?” Ricky asked, most likely for the fourth time since I got in his car and I still hadn’t responded. We were leaving the royals behind. I arched my head up, trying to forget about the pain that kept rippling through me, that I was so suddenly aware of.
“I’ll be fine, once you drop me off at The Broken Shoe. It’s five o’clock, after all,” I said, wondering if George was still alive. For some reason I had a feeling that we were gonna have to move heaven and earth to find him.
“No bloody way. We have a job to do and a new human in the office. You’re not losing all our money tonight just because you made out with Arthur again,” Ricky snarled, driving faster and scaring the shit out of me. “Maxine, you’re a fucking badass motherfucker, not some pathetic heartbroken mongrel, crying over someone that you could never have. ”
I hated being in the car. It was one of my many phobias and Ricky was driving way too fast.
“How do you know what he was trying to do?” I asked, dejected.
“It was obvious. Your emotions were running wild. That spoiled brat’s got some nerve cornering you like that. The quicker we solve this freaking case, the quicker you will get away from that royal bullshit. Right now we need to get back to the office so you can forget about what happened.” When the car stopped at the traffic light Ricky looked back at me and added, “Although, Arthur wasn’t the only one in that room that got slightly hot under the collar.”
I looked away, pretending that I didn’t know what Ricky was talking about. The silence was supposed to indicate that I had no opinion on Ricky’s crazy theories.
“That hot shot detective was eyeing you from the moment you showed up. He was aroused, Maxine. I felt it.”
“Zachary Quinton is just a chauvinistic, arrogant prick,” I muttered, thinking about the way I felt when he was treating me like I was beneath him.
“Like I said, Arthur wasn’t the only person that got a bit of lust up. That bad boy detective got your engine running too, Maxine,” Ricky added, sounding very amused all of a sudden.
I turned away from him and exhaled sharply, knowing that he was absolutely right. Detective Zachary Quinton was an arsehole, but for some reason I was attracted to him.
Chapter Seven
“O human race, born to fly upward, wherefore at a little wind dost thou so fall?” ― Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy
I was in a terrible mood when we got back to the office after being stuck in traffic for two long hours. Apparently the roads were blocked due to an accident. The first thing we saw was Emma pacing around looking stressed. She exhaled with relief when she saw us.
This day couldn’t get any worse and I really needed a strong drink.
“Thank God you’re both here,” she said. “Some guy was here. He didn’t want to leave. I was so scared that he would murder me and throw my body into a river.”
“No one does that these days, hon, trust me,” I said.
“What guy? Did he say what he wanted?” Ricky asked, using his abilities yet again to calm her down. He really needed to stop messing with her head. We couldn’t afford to check her into a mental institution just yet, and she had already seen too much.
In certain circumstances humans knew about the other world, but only if their minds were strong enough to handle that kind of news. Things like that were mostly handled by Watchers. A demon that wanted to reveal our world to a human needed to apply for a certain relief licence. If the head of the faction said no during an official hearing and the human already knew everything, the Watchers would erase the human’s memories and the demon in question was punished. I really didn’t want to be in that position with Emma.
“He didn’t tell me his name or what he wanted other than you, Maxine. He was tall, dark, looked like a gangster. He said he wanted to speak to you. He promised to come back,” she explained, waving herself with the stack of paper. “He was very handsome with these dark penetrating eyes.”
She muttered the last sentence in a hushed tone when Ricky had turned around. Emma didn’t waste much time when we were out. She was no slouch. There was a stack of files on the floor, and the first drawer of the filing cabinet was organised. She had gotten through a couple of years of a mess already. Ricky had mentioned that some members of a faction would come down to audit us to see if we were following the protocols of operating in the human world discreetly. At least some aspects of our business had been taken care of for now.
“What else did he say?” I asked, wondering if this was about my debts. One of the demons had given me a few months to sort the cash out, but he never dared to come over to my place of work before. I needed to make tonight count and finally win my fair share back. It’d been too long.
Emma smoothed her blond hair and fixed her human eyes on me.
“He said that it was good to finally put a face to the picture and he will see you tonight to discuss the case,” she stated, sounding confused.
I slammed my palm over my desk, feeling like my blood pressure was already up.
“Quinton was here,” I snarled, when Ricky looked at me, putting all the evidence on the table at the back. “How did he find us so quickly? We were supposed to be invisible to, you know, other people?”
“I have no idea, Maxine, and we haven’t got time to dwell on it. We need to find the person responsible for the mess in the palace. We don’t want Rodriquez on our backs … especially not now,” Ricky muttered, probably not wanting to use the word “demon” in front of Emma.
“You take care of the evidence and call me if you find something. I need to go out, talk to my old circles, find out if anyone has heard anything,” I announced, ready to disappear.
I really needed a drink to get my thoughts back in order. Ricky knew that I didn’t like spending too much time in the office. I was most effective when I was out on the streets. I wasn’t expecting Quinton to show up in here. He obviously didn’t like wasting time. Besides, if George was still in the city, then I had to hurry up and track him down. Royals represented pure human genes. Many mongrels believed that drinking their blood would make them more powerful than a fully developed demon. I didn’t think this theory was accurate, but demons liked spreading untrue rumours. The bottom line was that every member of the royal family was a hundred percent human and there was nothing special about them.
“Max, I think you should stay here tonight. We have a lot to go through. Besides, Quinton may come back,” Ricky said, sounding more and more like my nonexistent mother. “I had dinner plans with a lady friend, but it looks like I might have to cancel.”
“Ricky, I’m not going out playing. You know that I hate sitting at a desk. Let me see what I can find out in Hackney and report to you later on or tomorrow, all right?”
I don’t know why I was lying to him. We both knew that at the end of the night he could find me in The Broken Shoe. Maybe it was easier that way, pretending that I was being conscientious and responsible. He smoothed his jaw, looking from me to Emma.
“Fine, but leave half of the cash in the safe,” he said, slightly less hostile.
Okay, I got it, he didn’t trust me and he had good reasons for it. I had proven to him on a number of occasions that I was a lousy partner. I marched back to my office and took half of the money out. We had a small safe secured with charms at the back. Things were different two years ago. We had an understanding. Ricky ran the agency and I did what I wanted. That was before I fucked it all up and nearly bankrupted the whole business.
Maybe, sober for once, I should go back home to see Mrs. Patel and pay the rent. She had tried calling me a couple of times already, but I didn’t have a chance to return any of her calls. Mainly because I didn’t know what I was going to say to her.
Once I hit the tequila I couldn’t control myself, didn’t know when to stop. It was easy to admit to all of it now, but when it came to my poker I loved the thrill of the unknown. I never knew what would happen in the next round, if I was going to get good cards or not. Either way, the game helped me to think of things other than my past.
Emma had cleaned my office too and left a pink notebook on the desk, with a thank you note. I could tell her emotions were unsettled and that she wasn’t certain if she was cut out for this position. We couldn’t keep messing with her thoughts and we could apply for a licence once we presented our case to the head of the faction. She was strong enough to take the truth, to know that humans weren’t the only creatures living on earth.
I spent the next half an hour going through some of our ancient texts, hoping to find something on that strange grey powder, but I couldn’t focus much on the text. Ricky had locked himself away in his room, so I slipped away after an hour, telling Emma not to expect me until tomorrow. Most of the time I was a night owl. Mornings were tough, and I’d never gotten up earlier than ten a.m., even when I worked for the royals.
Outside, I headed straight to the underground. Ricky loved his Mercedes, but I preferred to use my legs or public transport. But it was hard to block out human emotions, especially when I was surrounded by crowds of people. From a very young age I kept hearing things that were depressing and sad. Humans had never-ending problems, issues that they constantly worried about. Sometimes it was exhausting to coexist in this world, but I had to blend in somehow.
On the tube, I mercifully found an empty seat and closed my eyes, settling in for the journey. I gave myself permission to spend this time to think about my day and how it felt seeing Arthur, which led me to remember everything I’d tried to forget. Concentrating on my past, I shut down the multiple voices in my head.
It was my first time in Buckingham Palace and I was bloody nervous. I didn’t know what to expect. I had worked in security since I was eighteen years old, protecting rich kids and important demons that escaped from the underworld.
Now I was stepping into a completely different world. Graham, one of my clients who owned half of the banks in the city, had sat me down one day and proposed a deal. He thought that I was wasting my time working in commercial security, that I was talented enough to do something much more ambitious.
I felt kind of burned-out anyway, spending many years working myself to death, waiting for something else but never knowing what. I was bored, ready to leave London behind and start somewhere else.
Graham had heard that the royal family needed a new head of security and he had promised to send my resume to his contact in the palace. I had to be interviewed like anyone else, and get ready to go through millions of security checks and present my medical records. It was standard procedure, but I was up for a challenge and kind of excited.
The security guard by the gate had kept me waiting half an hour, and when I was eventually let through, the thrill of excitement shot over my spine. The whole place was amazing, and I couldn’t stop wondering if I would adjust to this new role. Graham had to make several phone calls and I was going to owe him big time, but I knew that working for the r
oyals was the opportunity of a lifetime.
Some human in a tight white shirt made me wait outside a long twenty minutes, before a tall demon called me inside his office. There was no one else apart from me, and once I got inside my nerves started slowly paralysing me.
A member of Beelzebub’s faction was sitting in front of a large antique desk. He was young, very young, probably in his early twenties. These days nothing shocked me anymore, and I knew that despite his appearance he was most likely very powerful.
“Have a seat, Miss Brodeur. My name is Edward Johnson and I’ll be conducting the interview today,” he stated, then smoothed his tie. He had short brown hair, wore designer glasses and a very expensive suit. My CV was in front of him. I recognised the font that I changed a couple of days ago. “Tell me, why do you think that an ordinary mongrel like you should be put in charge of royal security?”
I shifted on the chair, feeling attacked. That little fucker had some balls treating me like I was beneath him, but I needed to remember that this wasn’t just a job, but a huge step up the ladder. He most likely wanted to see if I was going to lose my temper.
“I have six years of experience working in commercial security. I have a black belt in karate and a grand master belt in Tae kwon do. My demonic abilities are fully developed. I have protected demons, rich kids, and managed the entire security staff of one of the biggest clubs in London. Taking care of the security staff of the royal family will be hard, but I’m ready to take on the challenge,” I said, knowing that all of this was on my resume, that my achievements weren’t overall impressive.
“I get it, but this job comes with many different responsibilities. Your main focus will be on Prince Arthur and he is going to make your life difficult. So far he has fired three excellent candidates, simply because he didn’t like them. He doesn’t care about the protocol or the press. The faction wants to protect him from 'our’ world and dangerous demonic influences. We have tried to pair him up to humans, but so far none of them have worked out. It’s time to change that.”