Royally Endowed by Emma Chase

Author:Emma Chase [Chase, Emma]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: The Royally Series
Publisher: Emma Chase
Published: 2017-08-14T07:00:00+00:00

We drive in silence, Logan’s whole demeanor changed with that call. He looks at the road with a do-not-fuck-with-me expression and a death grip on the steering wheel. His shoulders are tense and his forearms are corded. As we drive, I notice that the scenery around us changes. The suburban homes fade into run-down buildings with graffiti, barbed-wire gated lots, abandoned houses and storefronts with black iron bars on every window.

We pull down a dark street and park at the curb in front of a ramshackle house. Logan reaches under his seat and takes out a small, black handgun. It’s mini, kind of cute, as far as guns go—if you can look past the whole capable-of-blowing-brains-out thing. He lifts my hand and wraps it around the butt of the gun.

“Tell me the rules,” he says.

Immediately, I know what he’s referring to. A few weeks after Logan showed me how to throw a punch and strapped a knife to my ankle, he took me to a gun range. So I’d know how to use a weapon if I ever needed to, without shooting myself in the process. There were rules he made me repeat back to him more than once:

“Don’t put my finger on the trigger unless I’m going to pull it. Don’t point at anyone unless I plan to shoot them. Don’t shoot anyone unless I want to kill them.”

“Good.” He nods.

“You stay in the car with the doors locked. If someone tries to break the window to get in, don’t wait, don’t warn, you point and you pull the trigger—and you keep pulling until it stops firing. Do you hear me, Ellie?”

I nod, looking across the street and out the window. Then I whisper, “Logan, are we in the taint?”

The corners of his mouth quirk. “Yeah we are. If I’d had a choice I wouldn’t have brought you here, but I couldn’t leave you alone at the house.”

A crash and yells come from inside the house.

“I have to go in.” He looks me in the eyes. “Stay in the fucking car, Ellie. Yeah?”

“Okay, I will.”

And he’s gone. Charging up the steps, through the front door.

Silence closes in tight around me. It’s eerie—no cars are honking, no one out walking and talking, there’s not even a dog barking. Those are the sounds of a city, the sounds of life. The absence of those sounds means life has moved away or is too afraid to come out. In either case, it’s not a place you want to be.

The screen door of the house bursts open—snapping back with a bang and falling off its hinges. Logan stands on the front steps and literally throws a guy down onto the pavement. He lands hard but gets to his feet quickly, gripping a long butcher knife in his hand. Logan shakes his head and goes after him. My heart crawls into my throat when the guy swings the knife at Logan’s stomach, but he jumps back, grabs the guy’s arm and twists his hand back at an unnatural angle.

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