The Gender Lie (The Gender Game #3) by Bella Forrest (ebook reader for laptop TXT) 📗

This was my chance to explain what had happened and try to get a way out for me and Viggo. Stepping forward, I offered her a bow, noting the look of surprised pleasure on her face.

“Hello, Ms. Bates,” Queen Elena said, her voice soft. “Please, have a seat.” She held out an arm toward one of the chairs on my side of the table, and after a moment’s hesitation, I sat down.

She moved over to her own chair, opposite me, and seated herself, smoothing the front of her dress with both hands before resting her arms on the table.

“You know, Violet, I have been thinking a lot the last few hours, and I have to say, you are a rather fascinating subject to think about.”

“Your majesty, please… where is Viggo Croft? Is he… is he all right?”

Elena smiled and leaned back in her chair, watching me. “Such devotion to a Patrian… how I admire that.”

I frowned, unsure of what she was talking about. Leaning forward, I tried a different route. “Your majesty, you have to understand—he’s innocent. We both are. We saved the ceremony.”

“No, actually, what you did is what you have been doing all along—annoying me with setbacks,” she announced, standing up. “You see, I had a plan, but then you came along, and kept forcing me to adapt it.”

I gaped at her as she moved over to a rope hanging from the ceiling and pulled it once. The doors behind me swung open, and I stared as a woman with a familiar face marched in with an unconscious person slung over her shoulder. I watched as Ms. Dale was deposited on one of the couches with a grunt.

Straightening, the familiar woman rotated her neck and then looked at the queen. I recognized her as Tabitha, second in line for succession. She was muscular, her limbs and neck bulging, while Elena was slender, like a willow reed.

“Thank you, Tabitha,” Elena said. “And now… Desmond?”

My jaw dropped as Desmond appeared, seemingly from nowhere, in front of the queen. “As always, my dear girl, it is an honor to serve,” she said, bowing deeply.

Elena smiled and embraced the older woman, placing her forehead against Desmond’s in a sign of complete trust. Then Elena broke from her, coming around the table to sit back down.

I stared at Desmond as she moved behind Elena and leaned against a shelf.

“I… I don’t understand,” I said, shifting my gaze between the two women.

Desmond threw me a piteous look while Elena gave me a feline grin. “Violet, you’ve seen the facility,” the queen said. “You know what Mother and Mr. Jenks did to me and my sisters.” I nodded and she continued. “Do you know what gift I was given?”

I shook my head. I probably should have looked it up, but it hadn’t seemed as important to me when Viggo was in his coma and Tim was struggling to fit in.

Leaning forward, she rested her chin on her hand and sighed. “I really expected more from her, Desi,” she said, and Desmond shrugged.

“I never said she was bright—that distinction belongs to her better half.”

“What is going on?” I demanded, coming to my feet.

Elena sighed and waved her hand, and Tabitha’s hand came down on my shoulder, forcing me down with a strong squeeze. Drumming her fingers on the table, Elena eyed me. I glowered back.

She laughed then, a chiming sound that was almost child-like, and leaned forward. “You have been the fly in my ointment, Violet, so I think it’s only right that I share with you a few things… Before I have you executed as an agent of Patrus, who attempted to kill me and several women in an unprovoked attack.”

“What? Why?”

“Honestly, I rarely get the opportunity to be honest with anyone. When Mr. Jenks made me, he made me to be smart. Very smart. By five, I could read as if I were ten or eleven. I was solving algebraic formulas at six. Everyone was so proud. Until they realized the downside of the treatment. Each one of us got our own slew of problems. Tabitha has a short temper and a thirst for violence that I don’t think will ever be sated. Lena can’t be touched. Ever. And I? I’m what you would call a sociopath. Do you know what that is?”

I shook my head and she leaned closer, as if she were telling me some deep dark secret. “It means that I don’t feel things the way you do. Love, happiness, guilt?” She laughed then, that same delighted laugh as before, only it sent shivers down my spine, warning me of impending danger. “I feel none of those. I am… unburdened by them. It gives me clarity of focus.

“When I was twelve, I realized that I was going to be queen. And it made me curious about the queens of the past. So, I studied and read every bit of history and news that I could find about them. And do you know what I found?” She nodded encouragingly at me, her smile bright. I met her gaze and shook my head again. “Nothing worth reading about,” she said, her voice dropping lower.

She stood up and moved back over to the window. “Our ancestors didn’t come here to survive, Violet. They came here to thrive. Every queen, including my mother, was a stopgap. A way of maintaining the status quo. The only interesting thing my mother ever did was make me and those like me. And that was enough for me to formulate the beginnings of a plan.”

Turning back toward me, she leaned against the window sill. “Desmond has always been working for me,” she announced.

Although the truth had begun to dawn on me the moment Desmond had appeared here, as Elena spoke, it felt like all the oxygen had been drained from the room and I was in free fall, about to impact with the ground. My mind rattled with all the implications, sweeping through my memories to find any clue