Sandy leaned against the cool wall of the corridor and resisted the urge to bang her head against it. There was no point in hurting herself because she was frustrated.
“Is there something you need, my lady?”
With a weary sigh, she turned her head in the guard’s direction. For ten days, she’d been closely monitored by someone. Not only was it a huge pain to be followed at all times, but there was a guard outside her bedchamber during the night. King Blackheart left nothing to chance. She never should have created such a devious and clever character.
“My lady?”
She straightened and proceeded down the corridor, deciding to ignore the guard. It wasn’t his fault. He was only doing what he was ordered to do, but she was sick of not being able to do her own thing. And worse, she still had no idea how the king managed to trap her here.
She walked outside on the edge of the courtyard where the king and his knights were practicing their sword fighting. Crossing her arms, she stopped and watched Blackheart, willing him to grow uncomfortable under the intensity of her glare. But he continued swinging his sword as if she wasn’t there. He had to know she was there. He had a tendency to pick up on the slightest change in his environment. Though that trait impressed her, she refused to give voice to anything positive she noticed about him.
After five minutes of staring at him with a scowl on her face, she gave up trying to get him to look in her direction and turned her attention to the steps that led to the wall. She might as well check out the landscape again. The guard still behind her, she reached the top of the wall and studied the forest that spanned miles before her. Beyond the forest, she saw the sunlight glimmer off the ocean. Her kingdom wasn’t too far from there.
Grunting, she reminded herself that this world was fiction. It didn’t really exist. Her so-called kingdom was really an apartment, and she was a waitress, not a queen. Her thoughts turned to her family and Caitlyn. There wasn’t a day that went by that she didn’t wonder what they must be going through. They would have the police looking for her, and the police wouldn’t be able to find her. No one would guess she was stuck inside her computer’s hard drive. Help wouldn’t come from outside. She had no hope of escaping on her own. Besides Noel and two guards, she didn’t know anyone. Noel and the guards were extremely loyal to King Blackheart. They’d never betray him.
She spun around and looked back at the courtyard which was below her. Again, she willed the king to look up at her, to acknowledge her, to grow uncomfortable under the heat of her stare. But he didn’t. For all he cared, she might as well have been invisible.
A guard ran into the courtyard. Curious, she focused on him as he approached the king. King Blackheart glanced her way while the guard talked to him. She crossed her arms. King Blackheart gestured to the guard beside her.
The guard nodded and turned to her. “Your presence is required in the throne room.”
“Required?” she asked, thinking that was an odd way of saying she was wanted in the throne room.
“Yes. You have to go.”
“I have to?”
“Yes. The king won’t let you refuse.”
“Oh really? And what is he going to do if I refuse?”
He stared at her, unblinking. “Are you refusing?”
She almost asked him, What do you think? but resisted the urge. Instead, she said, “I have to tend to some personal matters.”
“That can wait.”
“I’m afraid it can’t. Not unless you want me to make an unpleasant mess.”
“I don’t believe you need to go to the privy.”
Before she could respond, he picked her up and threw her over his shoulder. Stunned, she didn’t fight to get away from him as he carried her down the stairs. The men around her chuckled, and her face flushed in embarrassment. If King Blackheart thought her guard could treat her like a wayward child in front of his men and get her to agree to whatever he wanted, he had another thing coming.
The guard strode across the courtyard, and as they passed the king, she noticed a slight smirk on his face. Aggravated, she yelled out, “I won’t do it! Whatever it is you have planned, I won’t do it!”
“We’ll see,” he called out.
She grunted. She hated how certain he was that he could get her to do anything he wanted. It only made her more determined to resist him.
The guard carried her into the castle and to the throne room, bouncing her on his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. When he set her down, she realized he had placed her in front of a man with a long blue satin robe and matching hat.
Her eyes grew wide. “The magician?” He looked exactly the way she’d pictured him while she wrote the book, but… “Didn’t King Blackheart kill you for betraying him to one of my knights?”
“In your version of the story, that was true, but we’re not in your version anymore,” the guard told her. Turning to the magician, he added, “You know what to do.”
“What? What does he have to…”
A blue haze surrounded her, and she forgot the rest of her question. She knew he was putting a spell on her. She felt the magic reach out and penetrate her mind, dispelling all protests from her. In its place was a very pleasant sensation. Though a part of her realized she should be alarmed, she couldn’t bring herself to care.
The door to the throne room opened, and she turned in time to see King Blackheart stride across the room with a priest, that knowing smirk still on his face. As much as she wanted to narrow her eyes at him, her body wouldn’t obey. She felt a smile form on her lips.
“You see, Father Augustine,” King Blackheart began, motioning to her, “she’s quite agreeable to the marriage.”
“Yes, I am.” She blinked in shock. Good heavens but did that phrase just come out of her mouth? And was she really smiling as if this was the best thing that ever happened to her? She looked at the magician. She had no idea she made him that powerful.
Father Augustine’s shoulders relaxed. “I’m relieved. While I understand much is at stake, my own life included, I can’t bring myself to marry a man or woman against their will.” With a smile, he stepped between the two thrones, one for Blackheart and the other for her. “Please, come.”
To Sandy’s horror, she hurried over to him, still smiling as if this was the best thing that ever happened to her. She glanced at the magician and mentally grumbled. Who knew magic could be so powerful? Blackheart walked toward her at an annoyingly slow pace. She wished she could groan or roll her eyes, but the magic only permitted her to give him a ridiculous grin. The whole thing made her want to puke.
“Please, join hands,” Father Augustine said.
Blackheart reached out and took her hands in his, and as much as she wanted to pull them away, she clasped her hands around his.
“The uniting of two lives is a splendid thing,” the priest began. “You are joining more than two kingdoms. You are joining your hearts, your lives, your hopes, your dreams. From this moment forward, you will no longer be two, but you will be one. It is a blessing.”
It was a curse, Sandy thought, but she couldn’t say it. All she could do was smile like an idiot. She tuned out the rest of Father Augustine’s spiel about the beauty of marriage. Granted, she used to dream of being a bride. She was almost one, long ago. She shoved the memories back into the recesses of her mind. Josh was in the past, and that’s where he’d always be. The jerk didn’t deserve to be remembered.
Her gaze focused on Blackheart, and she wished she could slap that stupid smirk right off his face. The thought crossed her mind that she could give him the same news she gave to Josh shortly after he proposed to her. That would be the easiest way out of the marriage, but what was the point? Blackheart was a character in her story. He wasn’t real. None of this was actually happening.
As real as it felt, this world and the people in it stemmed from her imagination. This was all fake, and when she found her way back to reality, everything that happened here would be null and void. So it didn’t matter if she was married. She was only married in the story, and any story could be rewritten. Even so, it irked her that he dared to force her into something she specifically said she didn’t want.
Father Augustine finally finished talking and clasped his hands over theirs. “From day to day may your love flourish and grow stronger, regardless of what happens, good or bad. You have my blessing and are now husband and wife.” He let go of their hands and motioned to the magician. “You may hand the king the bride’s crown.”
The magician stepped forward with a delicate gold crown with a few rubies embedded in it. Blackheart let go of her hands and accepted the crown. She wanted to run off and get out of this wretched castle, but the magic held her in place. He put the crown on her head.
“Let your kingdoms prosper and your subjects know peace,” Father Augustine said before he bowed.
“Thank you for coming,” Blackheart told him.
“It was an honor to be here for this blessed event.”
Sandy inwardly groaned and averted her gaze from the jovial men. Blessed event, indeed! It was something alright, but blessed wasn’t the word she’d use to describe it.
Once Father Augustine left, Blackheart instructed the magician to undo his magic spell. The instant he did, she was able to scowl at Blackheart.
“It’s good to have you back to your normal self,” Blackheart dryly commented before turning to the magician and guard. “I have it from here. You may leave.”
The two men bowed and hastened out of the room.
She crossed her arms and glared at him. “Don’t think you’ve won. This was but one battle.”
“I did what was necessary,” Blackheart replied, placing his hands behind his back. “As we speak, word is being sent to your kingdom that Crystaline and Havenshire are united.”
“I hate to admit it, but even with all the things you’ve done to keep me prisoner, I never thought you’d use magic to force me to marry you.”
“Now you know what it feels like.”
“Now I know what it feels like?”
“You had me slaughter innocent people and destroy villages against my will. I protested it each and every step of the way,” he pointed to her, “but you made me do it. So yes, now you know what it feels like to be forced to do something against your will. It’s not very pleasant, is it?”
“There’s a big difference between you and me.”
“Besides the fact that you’re stubborn to a fault?”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “If I’m stubborn, I have good reason to be. I am the author of this story. And not only am I the author, but I’m real. You are a work of fiction. Once I’m back in my world, you will cease to exist.”
Because she’d make sure the first thing she did was delete him from the story. She no longer even wanted to kill him off. The sooner she was done with him, the better, and there was no quicker way to be rid of him than to delete the entire book. At this point, she was fine with the thought of quitting the insane notion of writing a book altogether. It simply wasn’t worth the aggravation. The last thing she needed was another psychotic character abducting her.
“I was able to go into your world to bring you here,” King Blackheart said in a low voice that demanded her attention. “If I could materialize in your world, I’m real.”
She stared at him but didn’t say anything. She refused to give him the satisfaction of wondering how he managed that feat, especially since he wasn’t supposed to be real.
“It doesn’t matter what you think or what you want,” he continued with a shrug. “The fact is, our kingdoms are united now, and the story is finally going in the direction it should have gone from the beginning.”
“And how does your version of my story end? Do I fall off the wall because I’m miserable?”
“Why do you insist on killing people? Is your life so morbid you have to enact such violence?”
“My life is just fine, thank you very much.” Not that anything she did in her real life was any of his business, but she might as well humor him and tell him why she was happy. “I have a decent job, a nice apartment, and good friends. The only reason I was writing was because I had a dream that needed to be written down.”
“Protest all you want, but I sense an emptiness inside you.”
“That’s because I’m stuck here. Send me back and the emptiness will go away,” she said through gritted teeth. She didn’t know why his words irked her as much as they did. They were just words. There was no validity to them, none that she could see anyway.
“If you let me live, I’ll send you back.”
After a long moment, she shook her head. “The story isn’t yours. It’s mine.”
“Then you’ll stay here.” Taking a deep breath, he straightened and extended his arm to her. “I’ll escort you to your bedchamber so Noel can help you dress for our wedding dinner.”
“You’re not getting into my bed.”
“I don’t believe I mentioned doing so.”
“I meant tonight or any other night. You might have used magic on me to get me to marry you, but if you so much as use magic to—”
“Enough,” he interrupted, his eyes growing cold. “I know you take me for a villain, but I wouldn’t make you do something that personal against your will.”
“You made me marry you. From where I stand, that’s pretty personal.”
“I married you for political reasons. It has nothing to do with affection.”
“If I remember right, and I’m sure I do, you mentioned me having your child the night you brought me to this prison.”
“In due time, I’m confident you’ll see the error of your ways and will either write the story as it should’ve been written in the first place or will fall in love with me. I’m not opposed to the love story aspect, but I’ll take the first scenario if we end up going our separate ways.”
“You are taking a lot for granted.” She decided to leave their conversation on that note. At least she was assured he wouldn’t be forcing himself on her in bed, and right now, that was enough to ask for. “You may escort me to my bedchamber, but I’m not touching your arm.”
Without another word, he led her out of the throne room.