Missing something

Missing something
Kaelar's POV

This was harder than anything I’ve ever had to endure.

Watching Johnston destroy his own Kingdom because he felt as though the world was better off without those beneath him. He’d never had to scrounge for food or wonder how he was going to support his family, and yet every person he pulled up from the slums did.

They’ve all been forced to live a life that is kill or be killed. Fight or die trying.

That’s why they are all here now.

The letters stated that their families would be compensated for their service. They were promised that in their absence, guard members would frequent their towns and ensure the safety of family.

But no one was sent and no one ever was going to be.

“Clean that up,” Johnston dismissed me with a wave as he disappeared beyond the curtain behind us.

The body of the man who stood up for himself lay in a pool of his own blood. The men standing around him were staring with wide eyes, and Johnston’s plan worked flawlessly.

One sacrifice meant that the sheep would dutifully follow so they didn’t meet the same demise.

He’d enlisted fear in these people by showing that he was willing to kill anyone who opposed his plan.

“I can deal with this if you need me,” Reo appeared at my side.

“Who is that new guy anyway?” Rhys muttered, glancing over his shoulder at the burly man with the rifle.

“Do me a favor and lead these people out of here,” I called out to Rhys and Reo.

That man was a weapon created under extreme duress and torture. He was one of Mikko’s men back in the day, captured, and presumed dead. But the reality was that he’d been kept for years in the dungeons. Darkness bred hostility, and a healthy dose of brainwashing created the perfect killing machine.

I needed to eliminate him before he became a problem, but doing so without tipping off Johnston was going to be a royal pain in my ass.

Scanning the crowd, I laid eyes on Ari. The clothing they gave her was two sizes two big and made for a man. Johnston was toying with her. I didn’t miss the way his eyes found her in the crowd, egging her to step forward so he could put a bullet between her eyes.

But the woman I fell in love with didn’t take the bait. She wasn’t stupid, and I knew that her being a part of my guard was going to change everything. I could feel it down to the marrow of my bones.

Aribella Voss was going to be Sacaris’ demise, and I would stand by her side and watch this whole place burn to the ground without a second thought.

I just had to ensure she didn’t die before then.

Her scent strengthened as she moved with the crowd, and I found myself desperate for a glance. This was the eighth day that I hadn’t touched her.

Eight excruciatingly long days.

“Sir,” her feminine voice had my spine straightening.

Turning towards her, I schooled my features, “Yes?”

“Here,” she reached out, offering a rag. When I went to take it from her, she reached beneath the sleeve of my suit jacket, and that single graze of skin felt like I’d been injected with an aphrodisiac.

“Thank you,” I cleared my throat, tucking the rag into my pocket.

Our eyes clashed for the briefest of seconds, and an unspoken conversation passed between us.

I nodded, turning my attention back to the body of the man on the ground. Pulling out my documents, I skimmed through until I found number 234.

Aldric Forman. Age forty-two. Has a wife and two daughters back in Bimini, a coastal town about thirty klicks to the east of the Castle.

“Davis, Hondor,” I called out to two of my lower ranking soldiers, “Please prepare to leave first thing in the morning for Bimini.”

“Yes, sir,” they said in unison.

I reached out, sliding my gloved fingers over the mans face… or what was left of it, and closed his eyes, “Rest in peace, Mr. Forman.”

Thirty minutes later, I loaded the body onto a traveling cart with a note stuck inside the front pocket of his shirt. Despite his reasoning for stepping forward, his family deserved to know the manner in which he was killed.

As I walked back into the large space, the evidence of what had happened was gone, and the silence that surrounded me was deafening.

“Mr. Itsuki,” Emrys’s voice echoed around the empty space.

“Ambassador,” I nodded, addressing him properly. This room had eyes and ears in every corner.

“A real inconvenience?” he nodded towards the freshly cleaned ground. It took me a moment to read between the lines, and I realized Emrys wasn’t a snake. A. R. I. He was asking about Aribella.

“We’re going to run into a few, but a fire has been lit, and I don’t think it’ll extinguish any time soon.”

“Good to hear,” he slapped me on the shoulder. “If you need anything at all, I’ll be around.”

“Thank you, ambassador.”

As I walked towards the dining hall, my chest felt tight. Everything about this was wrong, and I couldn’t figure out why. Mikko had been in the background for years. His followers caused carnage wherever they went, that was just how my brother operated.

So why was it that now Johnston was moving forward with this potential war?

I was missing something major, and the only person who might answer my questions would likely kill me afterward.