Free The Reluctant King (The Star-Crossed Series) by Rachel Higginson Page B

you’re scaring me. Eden confessed gently between us.
                  There’s nothing to be scared about. I promised, making myself mean it. We’ll talk later tonight.
                  Eden closed the door to our shared mental consciousness again without asking anymore questions. I loved that about my sister. She never asked too many questions, or pried where she didn’t feel like she should. Granted, that trait had caused her a lot of trouble in the past, but she knew when to walk away.
                  Ileana seemed to have waited for me to finish my internal conversation before she spoke again. I chewed my thumbnail viciously while listening to every single word she had to say.
                  “For several months there have been visions…. visions of your future. Nothing has been clear, and nothing has been specific. But I have seen your struggles, the whispers of plotting and scheming that happen in far off places. I have felt how they hate you and your family and how they want the crown that you wear to be theirs. Their hatred runs deep, thick and poisonous through their blood. They have wanted the throne for a long time, longer than your young years. And they will stop at nothing until it is theirs. Their evil is worse than the one that came before you,” she finished in a raspy whisper that sent chills running over my body.
                  A cold, unforgiving fear settled in my stomach. Worse than Lucan? How was that possible? And who were they?
                  “You don’t know who they are?” I restrained myself to one question, although my tongue burned with the need to interrogate this woman like a suspect.
                  “They have been nothing more than ghosts in the night,” she admitted sadly. “Until last night. Last night there was something more…. substantial. But you will not find them yet. They think they have bested you, they think they are still invisible.”
                  “No, they think I am blind,” I growled. Both hating myself for becoming so apathetic over the past couple years and them for underestimating me.
                  “They think you are blind,” she confirmed.
                  “And you have nothing more than that? No location? Names? Family ties? Hell, I would even take rough descriptions at this point… Hair color, eye color, race?” I bit out, trying to not let Ileana feel like my anger was directed at her.
                  “Nothing,” she said with finality.
                  I believed her. I had no choice but to believe her, the same way I had to believe that her visions would somehow make their way into my reality. There were people out there that hated me, hated what I stood for and what I wanted to give my people. They hated Lucan before me and now that I stepped into his place I would be the one to deal with them.
                  A small, miniscule, tiny part of me wondered if they hated me for good reason. Did they have something better to offer? Was I the one that swooped in, destroyed years of tradition and a way of life and made things worse?
                  No. I couldn’t believe that. Ok, I couldn’t let myself believe that. Doubt and insecurity were a result of restless boredom, not grounded in reality. Things were better for the community as a whole, and as soon as they released their grip on the past they would get even better.
                  “I should get back,” I mumbled without making a move to get up.
                  “Not yet,” Ileana demanded in her playful way again. Serious discussion over and she was back to her old mysterious, mischievous ways. “The evening is still young. And we have made you dinner.” She gestured toward the hut with a healthy stream of smoke puffing out a patchwork chimney.
                  I looked