The Gender War (The Gender Game #4) by Bella Forrest (read novel full TXT) 📗

believe my luck that her marriage was a sham and her false husband dead. That she really did want… me. That all those desires I’d thought I would have to bury forever were within my grasp. That I had a chance to start over. To have her as my own.

I’d trailed off again. “Viggo?” Violet asked. “What are you thinking about?”

I responded without even blinking an eye. “I’m thinking about how much I always wanted to do this.”

Then I slid my hands around her waist, pulling her around to face me, enjoying the little gasp that escaped her before I pressed my lips against hers. I felt her smile against my mouth, her left hand moving up to press against my chest. Her lips opened to me and I delved deeper in, forgetting the world around us, getting lost in her.

Violet.

Without conscious thought, my hands pulled her closer to me, moving slowly up and down her body, enjoying her curves, the way she arched toward me, her small body pressed between my legs. A part of me wanted to pick her up and press her against a wall, but even through the rush of our two heartbeats accelerating, I knew I had to be careful. She was worn out, injured, and I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself if I gave in to my urge to be rough and set off her injury in the process.

Violet took my lower lip in hers, nipping and teasing me, and I had to tamp down my resistance even harder. Her touch was making me feel better than I had in a long time. Energized. Powerful. And it was making me want more of her.

My slipping control wasn’t tested any further, because a knock at the door and a conscientious throat-clearing interrupted us. Violet and I parted lips regretfully, and she turned to face the door, though I kept my arm around her waist as I shouted, “Come in!” I refused to be embarrassed about touching my girlfriend in front of people. She was mine, and they would just have to deal with it.

The shed door opened all the way to reveal Ms. Dale and Henrik—Henrik’s expression openly amused, Ms. Dale barely managing not to smirk.

“How’s it going?” she asked casually, and I shrugged, trying to remember what I’d come out here for. I felt great—for the moment—but the supply hunt wasn’t going well, that was for sure.

“Well enough,” I responded. “We were just about to start looking for some of my old camping gear. It might be useful if we have to hide out.”

Ms. Dale nodded and held out a piece of paper to me—the pardon. I grabbed it, reluctantly coming back to the real world as I scanned Maxen’s tight writing. It was everything I had asked for, signed and dated, with Henrik acting as a witness. I folded it up and tucked it into my pocket, surveying the group of people who had gathered outside. I decided it was the right time to ask a strategy question.

We’d made everybody else check each other for trackers similar to mine during the drive back to the house last night. There was no way that I was letting Desmond, Elena, or anyone have their damned technology anywhere near my property. But there had been no traces of them on anyone but me. The wound on my back twinged at the memory.

“Can either of you,” I asked Henrik and Ms. Dale, “tell me how Desmond managed to place a tracker on me while I was in the castle? And why it was only on me? Why not on Violet? Or… you?” I nodded at Ms. Dale.

I remembered how our drive away from the Matrian palace had felt too easy. Of course, the subsequent near-death-by-drowning had driven that notion from my head, but it had surfaced again the moment Amber’s group had commenced their attack on the king. Had Desmond just been toying with us? Had the heloship sent to hinder our escape just been filled with expendable tools, just used to help us feel like we had real foes to fight, so that her agents could tail us to Maxen’s location? But in that case, why try to drown us in the river?

Henrik and Ms. Dale, each a former agent of the groups to which we were now opposed, considered the question.

“I can’t tell you how she got it there, but I do know that the tracker on you was our backup option for finding the king,” Henrik said musingly. “We were waiting on intel from a palace insider for the king’s location until he deviated from his schedule to meet you at the hideout in the tunnel. Then we got new instructions and were able to lock onto the signal from your tracker. We had to wait until you’d reached the tunnel to move in, however, because we had to leave our tech behind when we went in…”

I digested this information. “So she’d already had a plan to get to the king…” That was, in a way, almost a relief.

“Palace insider?” Violet asked.

“We weren’t given the name,” Henrik said, “so this is mostly speculation. But I would bet on it being Chancellor Dobin.”

“That guy again,” Violet said, her face serious. We all remembered Dobin’s visit to The Green, especially since Violet had just educated Maxen about it earlier. That piece of the puzzle fit almost too well. “I wonder why he’s doing it,” I murmured. But no one seemed to have an answer to that.

Ms. Dale spoke up, however. “I may have the answer to why the tracker was on you, Viggo,” she said. “At one time when I was working at the palace, it was standard practice to place tracker beads on all males who were caught for committing crimes, even for being suspected of committing crimes, in Matrus. I believe the practice was discontinued for those who were only suspects—but I’m pretty certain it would have been reinstated after the murders of