When King of the Texas Empire kidnaps Warren's brother, Warren embarks into a still Wild West to save him. On his journey, he makes a discovery that changes his life forever—he and his brother are long-lost members of the Texas royal family and the King wants them both dead.
He gets help from an activist Texan named Lena, who's itching to take on the King and happens to be a beautiful firecracker Warren can't stay away from. Convincing her he's not one of the bad guys becomes harder when a mysterious energy stirs in his body, turning his brain into a hive of emotions and memories—not all his own.
A legacy of violence is not all he inherited from the brutal Kings of Texas. The myth that the royal family possesses supernatural powers may not be myth at all.
Gone are the days when choosing a major was a big deal. Now Warren must save his brother and choose whether or not to be King, follow a King, or die before he can retire his fake ID.
Excerpt:
When Warren arrived outside his mother's apartment, he saw
Luke Skywalker's face plastered against the window. For some reason, his mother
had taped his old Star Wars comforter
over the patio glass. He didn't pause too long to wonder why. His mother
suffered from what his brother called severe
eccentricity, a condition that sometimes included blacking out windows with
old sheets for no obvious reason.
Warren always came home when his mother asked, in part because
she tended to do things like make bacon in the toaster and start fires. However,
if she called him today for anything less than a toaster fire, he would head
right back to campus to enjoy the first day after finals the way he had
intended to—drunk and poolside.
He wiped his
feet like his mother taught him, even though the revolting brown carpeting didn't
show much. He kind of missed the crappiness of the apartment he grew up in,
although he didn't know why, because crappy also described his new apartment in
Eugene. Still, to him, home smelled like pine trees intermingled with pool
chlorine and exhaust from the laundry room.
His mother stood
in the kitchen beside their yellow nineteen-eighties stove and a refrigerator
that always looked too small next to Warren and his other too-tall family
members. She held a box of uncooked spaghetti and didn't respond to his
presence right away. The box of spaghetti looked worn and crushed, as if his
mother had stood there and squeezed the box for a while. The wrinkle between
her eyes had grown deeper, and a few more strands of gray had found their way
into her waist-length black hair.
Warren took the
box of spaghetti out of her hands.
"I will make
you dinner," she said.
"I'm not
hungry."
Two Red Bulls
churned in Warren's hungover and now worried stomach.
"What's
wrong?" he asked.
Please don't say
cancer. At six-foot-five, Warren had grown too tall for most childish
things, but losing his mama still felt like the worst thing that could possibly
happen.
"It's Isaac,"
she said.
Warren's hands
began to sweat.
"What's
wrong with him?"
Okay, maybe
losing his little brother felt like the worst thing that could possibly happen.
His mother took
Warren by the hand and led him into their apartment's only bedroom. She had
slept on the couch for fourteen years, and Warren and Isaac had shared this
room. A bleach-stained towel hung over a broken window. Through the gap, Warren
saw the courtyard full of pine trees where they had played as kids—the courtyard
where Isaac collected specimens to look at under his microscope while Warren hit
mud balls with his baseball bat.
Glass surrounded
a brownish-red smudge on the carpet. Blood.
"What is
this?" Warren asked.
"Someone
took him."
Warren's breath
caught in his throat.
"He came
home to visit. Said he felt sick. I tried to get off work, but I couldn't find
anyone to cover my shift." Her voice took on a higher, more urgent pitch. "When
I came home, he was gone."
"You mean
someone actually broke in and took him?"
"Yes."
"He's sixteen
years old and freaking six-foot-four. You don't just abduct a guy like that for
no reason. What the hell for?"
She shook her
head, her eyes on the spot of blood.
"Did you
call the police?" His voice got higher and louder too.
"Yes, I
called 9-1-1, like you told me to for an emergency. Isaac put the numbers on
the phone so I wouldn't forget. They came and asked me questions and took
pictures."
"What did
the police say?" Warren asked.
"Just to
call if anything new happens."
"It doesn't
make sense. He's nice to everyone. Keeps his head down. This is bullshit."
He realized he had yelled. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to curse."
"It's okay."
Warren knelt to
get a better look at the blood smudge, careful to avoid the glass.
His mother sat
on the floor next to him and took his hand.
He didn't notice
his hand shook until she held it firmly.
She pulled him
into a hug and squeezed tightly.
"I love
you," she said.
"I know. I
love you, too, Mom."
"I think
you should go."
"What? No.
I'm not going anywhere." She got
confused at the grocery store on her best days. She needed him now. And he
needed her.
"They'll
come for you, too," she said in a near-whisper.
He pulled away
from her. "What aren't you telling me?"
"Nothing. I'm
just worried. I don't want to lose you, too."
She didn't lie
well, and only one topic caused her to act this evasive.
"Does this
have anything to do with my father?"
She paused for
what seemed like a full minute, and then finally gave the same answer she
always gave when they asked about their father.
"No. Your
father is dead. He died in Waterloo when the bomb hit Texas."
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