A Cursed Throne by D.M. Simmons

Chapter 3

Declan

 

 

“What took you so long?” I reach for the drink in Luca’s hand impatiently and knock it back. Hints of oak and caramel tickle my tongue as the liquor works its way down my throat and warms my chest.

“It’s been what,” he looks at his watch, “five minutes?”

“Ignore him,” Kai waves a hand at me. “He’s nervous.”

“Yeah, well, we all are,” Luca glances over his shoulder, no doubt searching for the same person we’ve all been looking for since arriving. “There’s no need to be an impatient dick.”

I wasn’t being impatient. Or a dick. I was anxious. There was a difference.

I hadn’t lost my shit like Kai did earlier when he couldn’t find his trainers. And I didn’t tear apart every room in the house looking for my keys, as Luca had before we left the city. I was dealing with my anxiety the way any person would–by drinking.

“You know,” I shake my head. “You two weren’t exactly a walk in the park earlier, but you don’t see me calling you out.”

“What?” Luca laughs a little harder than necessary, confirming I’m not the only one that’s affected by being back here.

“You heard me.” I set the glass down on a high table next to us, harder than intended. “By the way, did you ever find your keys?” I ask pointedly.

“Okay, fine,” he looks up at the ceiling and takes a deep breath. “You’re right. We’re all on edge.”

Honestly, I don’t blame any of us for whatever reaction we were having. The country estate of Nev’s parents had once been like a second home to all of us but now it was a painful reminder of what was lost and being back was harder than I thought it would be.

“It’s fine,” I hold out my fist. There was camaraderie in misery, and we’d get through the weekend the way we had the last three years–together.

He presses a fist to mine and takes a sip of his drink. “The place looks the same.”

“It does,” I agree. “In fact, I was just going to ask if either of you have noticed—”

“That everything looks just like it did that night?” Kai finishes the thought, as if reading my mind.

“So it’s not just me?” I look over at him, relieved I’m not seeing things.

“Nope,” he shakes his head. “Same arrangements, same music…” his voice trails off as he reaches for a finger sandwich on the tray of a waiter passing by. “Same food,” he continues after taking a bite. “Although these are delicious, last time, they were dry.”

Kai was right. Everything was exactly as it had been the night of Nev’s eighteenth birthday party. I wondered if it was just a coincidence, or some kind of cosmic torture. In the scheme of things, it didn’t really matter. What did matter was why we were here–Nev was back for good.

When I reached out to her parents to let them know she’d been at the club, I expected them to confirm she was only back for a visit and would be heading back to Paris any day. I didn’t expect them to tell me she was home to stay, or that they were hosting a party at their place in the country to celebrate her return, and we were expected to attend.

Something must have changed. Nev’s parents wanted her as far away from London as we did. I’d been looking for them ever since we arrived to find out what was going on but neither they, nor Nev, had made an appearance yet.

I look around, hand gripping the back of my neck in eager anticipation, when finally, her mother appears.

“Boys,” Diablo makes her way over to us, greeting us with a warm smile. “Or should I say, gentlemen.”

The three of us straighten, returning her smile with our own. “Luca,” she greets him first. “You look dashing.”

“Your Grace,” he replies cheekily.

He’s called her that ever since we were kids, and it makes her laugh every time. “Have you seen your father?”

“Not yet,” Luca shoves a hand in his pocket. “Which means he’s doing one of two things: flirting with some poor, unsuspecting mortal. Or sparring with Viper.”

Caro, like his son, was a lover. And while Luca’s mother hadn’t been a part of his life since he was born, a rotating door of women had.

“Probably the latter,” Diablo shakes her head. “But good luck to him. Viper’s the best, even in a gown.”

Both close friend and personal guard to Diablo, Viper was a top-notch fighter that had bested all the Legion in the ring, but two–Dante, Nev’s father, and his best friend, Vinny. Caro had been trying to beat her for centuries, but always came up short.

“That she is,” Luca laughs. “But who am I to tell him to stop trying.”

The two laugh again and she reaches out, gives his hand a squeeze, then moves on to Kai.

“Are you watching out for your sister tonight?” she asks.

“Trying to,” he looks over her shoulder. Diablo follows his gaze to where his sister Maren is perched on a stool at the makeshift bar, and a handful of men surrounding her.

Maren was a bit of a hell raiser. She was four years older than Kai and was in her last year at Locksley when we arrived. I remember that she was always in the dean’s office and Kai was the first one she’d call whenever she got into trouble. Even though he was her little brother, Kai had always played the role of older brother and was always there for her.

“Well,” Diablo sighs and turns back to Kai. “It seems your father doesn’t care much for her date.”

“Does he ever?” Kai asks wryly.

When she was a child, Luke kidnapped Maren as leverage in his plan to keep Diablo and Dante apart. While it had kicked off a chain of events that forever changed the legion, Sam never got over the fear of losing his daughter and relied on Kai to help protect her.

“I’ve got my eye on her,” he says with confidence. “Don’t worry.”

“Good,” Diablo puts a motherly hand on his cheek and then finally makes her way over to me.

She looks at me for a moment, then reaches for my tie and straightens it. “There,” she says with a tender smile. “Now it’s perfect.”

My father was an impeccable dresser, and it was one of the better traits I’d inherited from him. It’s why I knew it already was straight, and that fixing it wasn’t about appearances, but her way of showing warmth to one she had helped raise and cared for like her own.

“Thank you,” I lean in and greet her with a cheek kiss; my own show of regard for the one who was the closest to a mother I would ever have. “How are you?”

“I’m good,” she places a hand on my chest, then drops it when I pull back. “I’m sure you have questions.”

“I do,” I take a deep breath.

“Dante and I will fill you in later. All of you,” she looks from me to Kai and then Luca. “For now, just try to enjoy yourself.”

“We will,” he says with more assurance than I think any of us is feeling.

If anyone understands how we are feeling right now, it’s her. I can see she wants to say something to ease our anxiety but can’t.

“I still can’t believe how grown up you all are,” she shakes her head. “You may be men now, but to me, you will always be those three little boys, fighting over Nev’s birthday cake.”

Luca looks at Kai and the two grin at the reference to a story we’d all heard more times than we could count.

It was the day I came to live with them, and Nev’s mother had just shown me into the family room, where Luca and Kai were gathered around a table with the other children of the Fallen, celebrating Nev’s third birthday. Kai couldn’t stop sticking his finger in the frosting of the cake that sat in front of her, and each time he did, Luca would call him out. The whole thing was so ridiculous I couldn’t help but laugh.

Memory of that day always held special meaning to me because I remember how sad I was and thinking I would never laugh again. But then the two clowns next to me made me laugh in a way I hadn’t before.

I can barely remember my mother’s funeral, or the words my father’s associates said to me afterwards. But memories can be a funny thing. Sticking in our minds, disappearing, depending on their importance.

I remember when my mother used to sing to me at bedtime and when we’d play in her beloved garden. Those moments are forever imprinted on me, just as that day with Luca and Kai and the cake is, because it was the first time since my mother died that I no longer felt alone.

As Luca and Kai sat there yelling at one another about the frosting, while I watched and laughed, there was a moment when the little girl with the big blue eyes looked at the three of us, and it was like we were the only ones in the room. And from that moment on, that’s exactly what it felt like. We were inseparable and when together, we were the only ones that existed.

I think that’s what I missed most. The four of us. Together. It was a feeling like nothing else, and since Nev left, it hadn’t been the same.

“She’ll understand,” Diablo says as if reading my mind.

“We’re counting on it.”

I think about how much is riding on that conviction as Diablo says goodbye and works her way through the room to greet the other guests.

Our entire existence the past three years was rooted in the hope that when the time came, Nev would listen, and forgive us. Forgive me. I clung to that belief harder than I had anything else before; my need for it was so strong, it nearly consumed me.

But just as great was my need to see her. A fleeting moment from across the club wasn’t enough. I missed her smile. Her laugh. The way her eyes never could hide the way she was thinking and feeling.

Nev and her father enter the great room and the very sight of her leaves me speechless, and when I turn to look at Luca and Kai, I see they, too, are just as stunned.

“Shit,” Kai says under his breath, and I couldn’t have said it any better.

Long dark hair tumbles down her back in thick waves, and her eyes are lined in charcoal, while a hint of pink tints her cheeks, and her lips are glossed the color of cherries. She’s breathtaking, and the gown she’s wearing accentuates the woman she’s become. It’s the color of her eyes, with a plunging neckline, corset waist, and a straight skirt that falls to the floor with a high side split.

Seeing her so close makes my heart pound hard in my chest, and I have to take a breath to steady it. But when I do, the air catches in my throat, as I watch Sebastian Crane, a former classmate we knew and loathed, sidle up next to Nev, and wrap an arm around her waist.

“What the fuck is he doing here?” Luca asks.

I shake my head, trying to clear the sound of blood whooshing in my ears.

Just as Nev shouldn’t have been at Styx the other night, Sebastian fucking Crane should not be anywhere near her. Not when everything we’d done was to keep those like him away.

As if he wasn’t bad enough, his sister Sasha appears next. She comes up behind Nev and covers her eyes, to which Nev laughs, pulls her hands down, then spins around.

I don’t know what I’m seeing, but it’s like an out of body experience. “When you saw Sasha, did she tell you they were friends?” I look at Luca.

“Um, we didn’t exactly talk,” he rubs his chin.

Kai swings his head in Luca’s direction, brows raised. “Something you forget to tell me, brother?”

“No,” Luca shakes his head. “It was nothing.”

“If it was nothing, how come he knows?” Kai tips his head at me.

“It wasn’t like he and I had a slumber party and didn’t invite you,” Luca rolls his eyes. “Declan saw me with her.”

“Where?” Kai asks with interest. “And moreover, when?”

“In the alley behind the club, months ago.”

Kai’s brows lift higher, practically touching his hairline. “You had sex with Sasha Crane in the alley behind the club, and didn’t tell me?”

“Trust me, it wasn’t a big deal,” Luca says with little interest. “And it wasn’t sex.”

“Well one, good to know. And two, I would’ve thought alleys would be too gritty for her.”

“Dirt comes off the knees, just as easily as it does your shoes,” Luca smirks.

I shake my head, half listening as I watch Sebastian pull Nev closer to his side. The way he’s looking at her, makes me want to break his arm, and shove it up his ass.

My irritation with the Crane siblings and Kai’s interest in Luca’s night with Sasha is short- lived, as another Locksley alum, Logan Sinclair, makes his way over to the threesome and plants a kiss on Nev’s cheek.

“The fuck?” the three of us say in unison.

When did they become friends? I wonder, curling the hand at my side into a fist.

Sebastian had been in the same grade as Luca, Kai, and I, and Sasha and Logan the same year as Nev. But none of us had been friends. In fact, Nev hated them each for different reasons.

Sebastian and Sasha were your typical society brats. They were obsessed with their name and power and since Nev and I could buy and sell them with our own family fortunes a hundred times over, we’d always laughed at their pretentiousness.

Logan, however, while equally obsessed with his family name and money, had a well-known crush on Nev, which she hated as much as I did.

The fact she once loathed, and now liked them, made me realize we didn’t know Nev well anymore. In the three years she’d been gone from our life, she’d changed, and Sasha, Sebastian, and Logan now stood where we once did, and I didn’t like it. Not one bit.

We watch them with angry scowls on our faces, and just when I think it can’t get any worse, Nev turns around, and stares right at us. The three of us say nothing, and when she starts to make her way over, with Sebastian, Sasha, and Logan in tow, we all freeze.

The seconds it takes for her to cross the room feel like an eternity, but when she’s finally standing in front of us, every nerve-ending has come alive.

“Gentlemen,” she says with a smile that’s different from the one I’ve known most of my life. “Thank you for coming.”

Her eyes float from Luca to Kai, cold, and expressionless, and when they finally meet mine, memories come rushing back to me. Our early years together, and those at Locksley; running around her mother’s garden in the penthouse and weekends here in the country.

But with the good there’s also the bad. The decision Luca, Kai, and I made, and the hurt in her eyes, when I made sure her absence from my life would be permanent.

All weave together in one long, and complicated story, and despite the cool indifference in her greeting, I can see she too, is remembering.

“Nev,” I say her name with measured control. “Welcome home.”

Her eyes flicker when she hears my voice and for a moment, I think the wall between us is about to crumble. But then she turns her head and scans the room.

“It’s been so long,” she says contemplatively, as I drink in the soft outline of her jaw, and smooth curve of her neck. “In fact,” she turns back to me and the warmth I thought I saw has vanished. “I can’t remember the last time I was here.”

I study her, trying to figure out if what she’s saying is the truth or a lie. Then I see the pulse point in her neck fluttering wildly and I know.

She couldn’t forget the last time she was here, no matter how hard she tried. In fact, something tells me she’s haunted by the memory of that night, just as much as I am.

Well, if she wants to play games and pretend that she doesn’t remember what happened between us, then bring it. Game on, baby.

“Oh Nev,” my lip hitches at the corner. “You remember. It was your eighteenth birthday. And if memory serves me correctly, your dress was the same color as the one you’re wearing tonight.”

“You remember the color of her dress?” Sasha laughs.

Ignoring the comment, I keep my eyes trained on Nev. “It was a beautiful dress.”

Nev swallows; a slight move, but one that tells me I hit something she hadn’t intended for me to reach.

“You’re right,” Kai chimes in and puts a hand on my shoulder, leaning against me casually. “That was some party.”

“It was,” Luca agrees, and tips his head in Sasha’s direction. “Sasha,” he smiles seductively. “Good to see you again.”

Nev looks at Sasha, her eyes flashing. “You didn’t tell me you two ran into each other?”

“Didn’t I?” Sasha says clearly feigning forgetfulness.

“Um, no,” Nev says plainly.

“Pretty sure I did,” she laughs awkwardly. “That weekend I came home when you were in Hong Kong for business?”

Seeing no recognition from Nev, Sasha shrugs. “The night was such a blur. I must have forgotten.”

“Right,” Luca grins. “Sometimes it gets so busy, things blow right through my mind, too.”  He swipes a finger across his lower lip and Sasha blushes.

“Guys,” Sebastian sticks out his hand, clearly trying to save his sister. “It’s great to see you. Been a few years.”

“It has,” Kai gives it a shake. I’m glad he took it, because if I had, I’d have crushed every bone in his hand.

“Congratulations on the club. It’s quite the place.”

Seeing the guest of honor among us, a server comes over and holds a tray of champagne flutes out. Sebastian grabs one for Nev, hands it to her, and then the rest of us grab a glass.

“Thanks for the props on the club,” Kai says after taking a sip. I can easily detect the sarcasm but know Sebastian won’t. He’s too arrogant. “That much money in one place on any given night. It’s a private equity manager’s wet dream, that’s for sure.”

“You got that right,” Sebastian grins and looks at Logan. I knew the two had recently started their own hedge fund and went to the club for what I’d heard them call business development.

“So hey,” Sebastian continues, dropping his hand lower on Nev’s waist. “How come I never see all three of you three enjoying the fruits of your labor?”

“The people of Oz should never see The Wizard,” Luca looks at me and grins.

While Kai and Luca were always present and seen, I made it a point not to mingle among the members. I learned more by watching from our office overlooking the club and keeping tabs on what went on in the private rooms.

“Well,” Nev says pointedly, crossing her arms, and pushing her breasts together. “You’re not really behind the curtain, when you’ve shared the secrets of your success with all of London.”

I tip my head, curious what she’s talking about. Then it hits me. The article in SCENE…she read it.

Well, well, well princess. Nev could deny her interest in us all she wanted, but I was onto her.

“So, how long have you four been…hanging out?” I ask casually.

“Well,” Nev clears her throat and looks at Logan. “Logan and I have been friends since our last year at Locksley. And Sasha and I bumped into each other when I first moved to Paris and have been inseparable since.”

“That’s right,” Sasha beams.

“You live in Paris?” Kai asks.

“Yup. Moved about the same time as Nev, as luck would have it.”

“Is that so?” He clicks his tongue and I know what he’s thinking. If there is a Crane involved, it’s not luck. It’s intentional.

“And Sebastian,” Nev continues, placing her hand on his chest. “He came to visit Sasha in Paris last year, and we’ve been in touch ever since.”

“We rented a yacht in Ibiza last Spring,” Sasha adds. “It was ah-mazing.”

“Hell yeah it was,” Logan chimes in.

Sebastian pulls Nev closer. “What’s not to love about sand, sun, and a week-long party with this one,” he says with a sly smile.

The idea of Sebastian and Logan ogling Nev in a bikini sends heat shooting up my spine.

“And you,” Sebastian turns the attention back on us. “What brings you three here tonight?”

I shake my head, wondering where Sebastian Crane got his nerve. “Come again?”

“Well, obviously you’re here to celebrate the return of this beautiful lady, but from what Nev says, you four haven’t been friends for some time.”

“Is that right?” I look at Nev, trying to keep my cool, because never have I wanted to punch someone in the mouth, as badly as I did him at this very moment.

“Our families are old friends,” Luca says with a slick smile. “So we may have lost touch, but we’re not going anywhere. We’ll be around forever.”

Nev’s lip hitches slightly, knowing well, the meaning behind Luca’s word choice, and every muscle in me aches. There she is. There’s our girl.

“Well alright,” Sebastian holds up his glass and the forced coolness Nev’s been maintaining is back. “How about a toast…to old friends, and new ones.”

The last thing I want to do is welcome some strange world where Sebastian and Sasha Crane and Logan Sinclair are friends with Nev, and we’re not. Yet, I do what I have been doing for the past three years. I suck it up and remember why we did what we did, why we’re here, and what’s at stake.

I hold my glass up and Kai and Luca do the same; the clink of our glasses, echoing into the night.

“Well beautiful,” Sebastian kisses the side of Nev’s head. “Shall we go and talk to some of the other guests?”

“Right,” she clears her throat and looks from him to us.

“Gentlemen,” he holds up his glass. “Enjoy the rest of your evening.”

The four turn and make their way across the room, leaving Luca, Kai, and I to stare after them in silence.

I don’t have to say a word. I know what each of us is feeling. Sebastian Crane has just walked away with our girl, and there’s not a damn thing any of us can do about it.

Yet.

But the clock is ticking.

And soon it will be time to take back what’s ours.