"What's happening?" I asked, panic welling up in my throat.
Jordan grabbed me at the same time as Rafe, both of them shoving me back into the courtyard, then dragging me as far from the walls as possible. Once in the middle of the open space, they tugged me to the ground and covered me with their bodies while the whole world continued to shake and shudder beneath us.
"It's an earthquake," Rafe shouted to be heard over the rumble and crash of breaking objects. "I think."
"How is that even possible?" I demanded, huddling under their warmth and trying to get a grip on my anxiety. "Do the Switzerlands get earthquakes often?"
There was a pause, neither one of them replying for a beat, and the earth continued jostling us around like a washing machine. Then...
"Nothing's impossible," Jordan said, sounding full of dread and resignation.
A deafening crash sounded, and the whole world went dark.
Chapter 36
When the sound receded, it became eerily silent. The air around us was thick and dusty, making me cough and choke when I sucked a too-deep breath, and I pushed the boys off me in a desperate bid for more oxygen.
"Violet," Rafe rasped, "are you okay?"
"I'm fine," I replied, not even pausing to check if I was, in fact, okay. Fine white powder coated every surface, including us, and I gasped when I saw what I'd come from. The whole east side wall of the courtyard—the exterior wall to the corridor I'd just watched Swiss guards drag Alex down—was gone. Or... not gone so much as it had completely collapsed. A section of an upper level of the stone palace had collapsed and crushed the lower level. Chunks of rock and plaster the size of people had landed a scarce few feet from us. Had they hit us... I shuddered to think. Broken spine, crushed skull...
"Jordan?" I exclaimed, tearing my eyes away from the closest hunk of debris. "Where's Jordan?"
"Here," came his groaned reply. Somehow he'd ended up behind a topiary horse and was slowly picking himself out. I breathed a sigh of relief, noting nothing more than superficial scrapes on his face and hands.
"What the fuck just happened?" I asked the two of them as if they had any answers for the cataclysmic event we'd just experienced. Thank fuck we hadn't been indoors, or it all could have ended so much worse.
“Natural disaster technology,” Rafe said, voice flat. “My mom was right.”
Shit, and I finally had my answer from that day. It was bad. Very fucking bad.
I sucked in a sharp gasp. "Mattie and Nolan! Rafe, your dad!" I scrambled to my feet, and white plaster powder sloshed off my huge skirts in waves.
Rafe caught me before I could tear across the debris, heading in the general direction of where the ballroom had been only a few moments before. “What are you doing?” I snapped, trying to wrench my arm free. “Our friends are in there. Your father!” I waved at Jordan. “Even Meghan.” Thank God his parents hadn’t been able to make it.
Rafe growled and got right into my face. “I fucking know that, and I’m worried too. But running in there without thought is going to get you killed. And that’s not happening on my watch.”
“We can’t lose you, Violet,” Jordan said. “You need to stay with us, just in case there’s another quake.”
I huffed. “Okay, fine. But I’m not staying here.”
“Never said we were,” Rafe replied as he wrapped his hand around my right one, Jordan took my left one, and they started dragging me along a different path than the one I’d been about to take.
I noticed that they stuck to the middle of the space, away from large objects, and their faces were alert as they looked around constantly.
“So this natural disaster technology,” I whispered, “it created this? This… earthquake?”
How was that possible?
“Maybe it was a bomb...” I mean, an explosion could rattle the land and walls like that. Surely.
Rafe shook his head, leading us through an archway to the main wing, half the stone of the doorway now lying on the ground. My heels caught on the rocks as I wished for flat shoes.
“It was definitely an earthquake,” he said softly, pausing briefly before moving again. “And since the damage looks to be focused right where the ball was, this was definitely man-made. ”
I spluttered, and Jordan covered my mouth quickly, no doubt to shut my stupid ass up. They’d just told me this was an attack, and I was reacting poorly.
So I pulled myself together, focusing like I’d done so many times in the past when the world went to shit.
“What else can this technology create?” I asked in a low voice, managing to sound calm.
Rafe took a second to meet my eyes, and his were, unsurprisingly, very dark. “In theory: tornados, tsunamis, earthquakes, fires, floods. You name it, there’s supposedly been something invented to unnaturally set forth the disaster. All monarchies are aware of this, but until this moment, it was assumed to be nothing more than a resistance rumor.”
The area where the ball had been was just ahead, and my heart galloped at the sight. Rafe was right; it had been focused there. Everything was in shambles. Half the walls looked to have been blown out, the floor was broken, and there was no way I could make it across in these fucking heels. But I was going to try because people I loved were in there.
“Mattie and Nolan,” I sobbed before I could stop myself. Fuck. Fucking fuck. I would not survive if my friends were hurt… or worse.
Rafe lifted me into his arms when my shoes got caught for the fourth time. I would have kicked them off, but then my feet would get cut to shit.
“Did the resistance do this?” I asked as the first body came into view. It was a man, one we didn’t know, and he’d been literally cleaved in two by a stone pillar. Dead, blank eyes stared up but wouldn’t see anything ever again.
“If this was the resistance,” Jordan said, voice harsh as we spied more dead, “then it was nothing sanctioned by the main Society.”
“Those fucking extremists have gone too far this time,” Rafe muttered, gently placing me on the ground, then reaching down to feel for a pulse on a prone girl. She had black hair, even though it looked grey with all the dust, and she wasn’t moving. “Clearly they decided to take some drastic measures to ensure the end of the monarchy.”
There were a ton of royals here tonight. Actual senior royals. Taking out this many at once… it would devastate the global control of the monarchies.
“Do they care that you guys are princes and you’re part of it?”
“Some protested when we joined, but since we pretty much stick to ourselves and fight, they use our power for what they need and forget the rest,” Jordan said, head moving as he took in more of the bodies.
I nodded. “So, you’re the fringe dwellers of the society.”
They both nodded. “Zach is quite high up and a total dick.” Jordan scowled. “He could’ve had something to do with this.”
We reached a section that was a little more cleared, and the sound of screams reached my ears. It was hard to tell at first, but now it was obvious that we hadn’t yet entered the main part of the ballroom. Once we reached it, there was utter chaos. “Stay near us,” Rafe shouted as the guys moved faster.
We had to duck under a half-cracked doorway to get inside, and when we did, I swallowed hard. Holy fuck, this was exactly how I imagined a war zone would be. People were everywhere, hundreds… thousands, I couldn’t even tell. There were blood and bodies scattered about, and those that weren’t dead were running around trying to figure out what the fuck had happened.
“Stick together,” Rafe said again, pushing his way through the people. He and Jordan used their bulk to keep me from getting smashed about too much, but I was pretty good at dodging blows myself.
“We need to split up,” I finally said when it was obvious we weren’t getting far. “We need to find the twins and Rafe’s dad.”
“No fucking way,” Rafe said.
There was no time to glare at him, so I did exactly what he would kill me for later. I took off to the right.
“Violet!” Jordan and Rafe both yelled after me, but I was busy pushing my way through the crowd, heading for the bar. Or what was left of it.
I was confident that’s where King Felipe would be, in the vicinity of where I left him, and when his body came into view, tears streamed down my face. He was covered in what looked like a plank and some rocks, blood pouring from a wound on his head.
Dropping to my knees, I reached out and pulled off what I could before I pressed my fingers to his throat. It took me a couple of tries, but I found a weak pulse.
“Dad,” Rafe said, sliding in beside me. His eyes met mine, and I started crying like a fucking waterfall had spurted from my eyes because the devastation on Rafe’s face broke me in two.
“He’s alive,” I choked out, “but his pulse is weak. He needs medical assistance right now.”
Rafe’s palm reader was up, and the message he sent out was red. I had a feeling that would get someone here ASAP.
“I need to get him out of here so the helicopter can land,” he told me. “You find Jordan and stay with him. I’m not kidding, Violet. This is life and death.”