Page 236 of Savage Throne
“So calm. So at peace.”
I smirked.
“Long ago, when I tried to talk to you, all you did was stare up at that balcony.” She gestured in the opposite direction.
I didn’t glance back.
I knew what she meant—the balcony to Chanel’s bedroom.
But now, it was just a broken tether to a past obsession that I had finally let go of.
“It was always hard to get your attention.” The Bandit looked at me. “With the way you acted, one would think that I wasn’t ascaryghost.”
“You were still scary. I was just. . .more haunted by my obsession with Chanel.”
“Things have truly changed.” The Rebel nodded slowly. “Good. Because you’ve got things to do.”
Her words were a challenge but I didn’t bristle.
Instead, I turned and met her stare head-on. “The daggers that you said were keys. Ended up beingmorethan just weapons. They were puzzle pieces.”
“The keys to my treasure map.” Her lips curved into a sly smile. “That little girl who solved it ismykin. She’s got thegoodblood.”
“She’ll be happy to hear that.”
“You got those daggers to her like I hoped. There’s more out there but you can’t get them until after Kashmere is with child. Not before. Remember that. You’ll have to wait.”
That didn’t make any sense.
As far as I knew, Kashmere hadn’t been dating anyone. She’d been forced to take over a throne due to Chanel’s and Romeo’s deaths.
But that didn’t matter now.
There was something that peaked my interest.
I looked at her. “You knew I’d fall in love with TT’s sister, Moni?”
“I hoped, but time is different here. We see the past, present, and future all at once, but things shift. Choices ripple. Futures change. But your heart. . .it likes our blood a lot.”
I thought of the ghosts that appeared to me when I killed my father. “Why does my heart like your family’s blood?”
“I don’t know why. You would have to askyourmother’s people. There’s something in your bloodline that just works different.” The Bandit tilted her head slightly and with deliberate slowness, she reached up and removed her feathered cowboy hat.
At first, it seemed simple enough—a ghostly figure performing a mundane gesture—but as the brim left, I froze.
The top of her head was gone.
Just. . .gone.
Where there should have been a smooth curve of skull or wisps of hair, there was a jagged, hollow opening, as if someone had cleaved it clean off.
For the first time since seeing her long ago, I wondered how she died.
I couldn’t stop staring and leaned a tiny bit closer.
Her spectral form glowed as green as ever but inside the hole in her head, it was just a void. There was no light, no ethereal shimmer—just endless darkness.
Then, as though the sight wasn’t already strange enough, two long braids fell to her shoulders, swaying gently with the breeze.
