This feral woman. I’d learned long ago that she was most ferocious once you peeled away her layers. Whatever happened to her over the last few days had done exactly that. She didn’t know enemy from friend.

I pull off a glove and touch her cheek. She’s burning up.

“Serenity.” I shake her lightly. “Serenity!”

She moans but doesn’t wake.

“Soldiers! I need a medic!”

Men rush to my side, and things happen quickly after that. A stretcher makes its way to our floor. They have to pry her out of my hands, and when they move her, she’s limp, lifeless, this woman that burns so brightly.

Fear tastes like gunmetal and blood. How long it’s been since I’ve feared for anything, save myself. I don’t like it that the most important parts of me live inside a dying woman.

When we’ve boarded my jet, I follow the medics into the back cabin, where a hospital room and a Sleeper have been set up. I’d known that she would need medical attention, but I’d underestimated the extent of her injuries. Vastly so.

They cut away her clothes, and her head lolls to the side. One of the men working on her curses, drawing my attention. He removes the last of Serenity’s bandages. I almost gag at the sight of the wound on her upper arm. It’s swollen and festering. Another medic pushes me out, and I don’t fight him.

I place a shaking fist to my mouth. No, fear doesn’t sit well inside me. I’m the leader of the entire globe, and the Resistance dared to hurt my wife, their queen.

I head to the onboard phone and dial the head of my special weapons unit. “Move ahead with our original plans.” By nightfall, that Resistance outpost will be obliterated. Everyone and everything that hasn’t escaped by then will be captured, and I’ll make sure they understand what happens to those that cross me.

Serenity

I BLINK MY eyes open and stare at the white molding decorating the ceiling above me.

I don’t know where I am.

A hand squeezes mine. “You’re awake.”

My entire body reacts to that voice. I’ve only met this man twice, and already his presence overwhelms me.

I turn my head to face the king. He sits next to the bed I’m in, my hand clasped in both of his. His eyes look sad, regretful.

I try to sit up and look around. Already my body’s tensing. I may be a woman without a past, but I haven’t lost the memory of the past few days. This world eats the innocent for breakfast, and it does far worse to those like me.

The king gets up to sit on the edge of my bed. He’s too close. Gently he places a hand on my chest and pushes me back down.

“Not so fast,” he says.

I’m a cornered creature. It makes me want to lash out.

“Let me up,” I demand.

“Serenity, you’re safe.”

He can read me. That’s good to know.

Rather than letting me up, he leans down. All sorts of unforgiving angles have sharpened his features. His expression’s only tempered by his eyes, which are devouring me. When his mouth’s a hairsbreadth away from mine, I realize what he’s going to do. At the last second I turn my face away. His lips brush my cheek.

The king pulls away enough for me to think through the haze of his presence. Does he not know that I lost my memory? I assumed my previous captors told him, but in hindsight, they had plenty of reasons to keep this a secret.

“Is my wife suddenly shy?”

My cheeks flame.

One of his fingers trail my blush. “She is. How very titillating.” He leans back in, his breath warm against my throat. “Let’s see how long it’ll take for me to make you forget your embarrassment.”

He presses a kiss to my neck.

I can’t hold it in any longer.

“I don’t remember you.” I stare at the velvet chair the king sat in not a minute ago, but I’m not really seeing it. I swivel my head to face him. “I don’t remember you.”

Above me, the king’s fallen ominously silent. I feel the weight of it bearing down on me. Nothing this man does is subtle. Not even his silence.

“What do you mean?” he says carefully.

“My memory is gone.”

The King

MARCO.

The Resistance made it appear that he’d died at their hands, but Serenity’s words paint a new picture.

Marco carried the memory suppressant on him at all times in place of a cyanide capsule. When he and Serenity were cornered, he must’ve used it on her. He could’ve still died at the Resistance’s hands, but if he’d had time to give her the serum, he probably had time to die, either by his own hand or knowingly by another’s.

Faithful until the very end.

The crushing weight of his absence tightens my lungs. I force my grief down. I’ve had plenty of time to mourn him while the Sleeper pieced Serenity back together. I won’t let it ruin this day.

I stare at my wife, flummoxed by this turn of events and more than just a little unnerved that she lost her memory and I hadn’t noticed.

She remembers nothing.

All those reasons she hated me so viciously—gone. I could avoid her ire altogether. I could charm her as I had the many women who passed through my bed before her. It’s tempting. But as I fall into her guarded, wary eyes, I find I want the old Serenity back.

I married my hardened, angry queen because her spirit was the twin of mine. Without her past, all her rough edges will be blunted; she’d only be a shadow of herself.

I touch her cheek. “Would you like your memory back?”