Richelle Mead - The Immortal Crown

“I thought you’d like it better that way,” he said now.

Mae felt her breath catch and couldn’t make her voice work for several moments as a coldness filled her. “Because I asked for it earlier,” she suggested.

“Yes,” he said. He started to relax, but she must have given something away in her face, given away that she’d caught him in the lie. He jerked away at the same moment she reached for him.

“Who are you—” She started to say, her words painfully cut off as he backhanded her with a force she wouldn’t have thought Justin capable. He sprang from the bed and tore out of the room naked. The hit threw her off for a few seconds, giving him a slight lead, but then she recovered and took off after him, ripping a robe off the wall as she passed by it.

She made it to the living room in time to hear her front door slam. Without even the slightest hesitation, she gave chase. Whoever he was— whatever he was—she had the advantage of her implant. Surely, even with his lead, the burst of life and adrenaline powering her would close the distance. But she heard the lobby’s main door close while she was still on the stairs, and when she finally burst outside, he was nowhere in sight. A few pedestrians gave her a curious look as she tightened her robe and peered around, certain he couldn’t have gone far. She checked both directions on the street and sidewalk and even looked in the hedges surrounding the building’s entrance. Nothing. It was as though he’d vanished into thin air.

No one can do that, she thought. But then, no one should have been able to walk into her home wearing Justin’s face. She returned to her apartment shaking, both from the implant’s letdown and fear over what she couldn’t understand. Her mind nonetheless tried one last attempt at rationalization, refusing to admit that she had just been involved— very involved—with something beyond normal human abilities. Maybe it had been Justin, confused and high on some drug that had made him forget things he had no business forgetting.

She settled on her couch, wrapping her arms tightly around herself as she told her living room screen to call him. For a moment, it didn’t seem he would answer, and when he finally did, she wished he hadn’t.

There was no question where he was, from his tuxedo to the well- dressed people milling behind him to Lucian’s voice echoing on a sound system in the background. Justin was at the senate party, where he was supposed to be. He wasn’t running naked down her street. He wasn’t here. He never had been. Bile rose up in Mae’s throat.

“Sorry it took me a minute,” he said, pitching his voice over the background noise. “I had to sneak away to answer and—what’s wrong?”

The trembling in her body threatened to become a seizure. She could form no words, only shake her head as he asked her three more times what was wrong. After that fourth time, he told her he was coming over and walked out of the party.

He came straight to her apartment door, as the real Justin would have earlier. Mae’s state hadn’t improved, but as he sat with her on the couch, she managed to finally speak enough to get out a slightly disorganized but otherwise accurate retelling of what had taken place. Partway through, he started to reach for her and then seemed to realize she didn’t want to be touched. His hands fell back into his lap, and a storm of emotions played over his face, disbelief and horror and anger and compassion. She knew they must make a ludicrous sight, him so polished in his tuxedo and her disheveled in the robe. Nonetheless, she tried to use his face and steady eyes as a centering point to calm herself down. Instead, all she achieved was an internal berating that she could’ve possibly confused anyone else for him.

“I have to go,” she said abruptly, when she finished the sordid tale. “I—I have to shower. I have to wash him off of me. I can still feel him everywhere. I have to—”

“No, wait,” said Justin, grabbing her arm. He immediately let go when she recoiled. “No—don’t. Not yet. I know it’s a terrible thing to ask, but if you go to a hospital, check in as a rape victim—”

“I wasn’t raped!” she exclaimed. But then she faltered. “I mean . . .”

“Call it whatever you want. They can do a DNA check. They can

ID whoever this was from the registry. We’ll find out who did it.”

“And what if the results come back, and they find out it was you ?” He winced at that. “I suppose that’s very possible, depending on the extent of this . . . I don’t know, illusion. Look, we’ll say you and I went out tonight, had sex at my place and that you were attacked walking home. That park around the corner’s got a lot of shady spots, and I’m pretty sure there are no cameras. Give some generic plebeian description, say you couldn’t see much in the dark, and then just wait for science to do the rest.”

“And so I go on record saying I slept with two guys in one night.” She stiffened. “ And that I’m a praetorian who let herself get assaulted. If they believe that, then they’ll probably lose all faith in our military.”

Justin remained calm, despite how difficult she knew she was being. “Mae, I know this is hard on your pride, but please. This is the fastest way to get answers. We’ve talked about the War of the Elect, and now it’s found you—in a way I don’t think either of us could have predicted.”

“We don’t know that it was an elect,” she said.

“Who else could it have been? There’s no question someone with considerable power—shapeshifting, illusion, whatever—is responsible, and only the servant of some god could do that. Why this and not an outright attack? I don’t know, but the first and best way to get answers is to get a name. Please do this.” He started to reach for her again out of habit but remembered and stopped. “I’ll go with you. I won’t leave you.”

Only the servant of some god. Mae felt ill, suddenly remembering the words spoken to her by the goddess—by Freya—when she’d brought the apple tree back to life: This is the kind of power you have in service to me, the power of life and love and fertility. As my priestess, you will bring life where you choose. As my warrior, you will bring death when necessary. You will bring comfort and healing. You will ignite desire. And always, always, I will have my hand upon you, empowering you.

Was this Freya’s idea of empowerment? To be so desired that someone would use magic or their god’s favor to deceive her and take her unknowingly? Mae, who’d had countless casual lovers without a second thought, suddenly felt dirty and violated. Her body no longer seemed like her own, and she hated herself for it—and hated Freya for it. Where had the goddess’s hand and protection been when that phantom had been in Mae’s bed? Was this what it was truly like to be in the service of a god? Where was Geraki’s higher calling?

“I’ll go,” Mae told Justin. “I’ll go to the hospital with you.”

The story they’d contrived sounded as convoluted as she’d expected, but even Mae could recognize that she was in a shell-shocked state and that went a long way in convincing the intake officer. Equally convincing were the signs of physical assault. In the sterile lights of the hospital, Mae could now see red marks on her wrists that would be bruises tomorrow. It again made her feel foolish for not suspecting something sooner. Why would Justin, who had played her body with such skill in Panama, have resorted to such crude and fumbling tactics? She’d written it off to the heat of the moment, believing he was so wild for her that he couldn’t control himself. In reality, she was the one with no self-control to stop and consider that maybe everything wasn’t actually falling out like she’d dreamed.