I have one chance at a new life. A college education. A future outside of Tanglewood’s dark walls. For a breathless moment it seems like I might actually escape.Then I get a phone call from home.
Damon Scott is my own personal dragon, the fight I’ve always lost, the secret hope of my heart. And he needs my help right now. Only my mind can solve the puzzle. Only my presence can keep him sane as the city fights against him.
Only my heart can unlock a man with such a tragic past.
This is my final gamble, with everything at stake. One last game to win a future for both of us.
And a love strong enough to break the city apart.
THE QUEEN is the final novel in the bestselling Masterpiece duet, about a game of lies and loyalty, of betrayal and power, and ascension to the city’s throne.
The Queen is the second book in Skye Warren’s Masterpiece Duet. You must read The King before They Queen or your going to be terribly lost. You might also want to start from the very beginning and read The Pawn, The Knight and The Castle. While those books are about a different couple they appear in the Masterpiece Duet and it is also where we first met Damon Scott. Plus there amazing reads too that you do not want to miss.
Penny has one chance to start a new life, obtain a college education, and a future outside of Tanglewood’s dark walls. For a fleeting moment it actually seems like Penny has escape. Then a phone call from home changes everything and she is about to come face to face with Damon Scott once again. He is her personal dragon,, a fight she has always lost, and the secret hope of her heart. He needs her help right now solving a puzzle of great importance. While her mind can solve the puzzle her presence keeps Damon sane as the city fights against him. Only her heart can unlock a man with such a tragic past. Everything is at stake in this one last game to win a future for both of them. A love strong enough to break the city apart.
The Queen picks up with Penny in college and naturally excelling in mathematics. She is living in Avery’s hotel that Gabriel gave her but refuses to live above her mean so she is working in the kitchen and living in a room off the kitchen that use to be for servants. A tiny room that she has made a home. Her dad calls to check on her once a week and is still having to work for Damon. When he doesn’t call Penny is alarmed and planning to go home to Tanglewood and find out exactly what Damon Scott has him doing and if he is really ok. However tragedy once again strikes the night before Penny leave and this really leaves her reeling. (You have to read the book to find out what this is. It is to good a plot twist that I never saw coming to spoil in a review) Determined to go back to Tanglewood and to also solve this mystery a cryptic letter has arrived with Damon on the same date that this event happens. Now Penny is staying in the Den once again in a tiny room right off Damon’s master bedroom. That is about all of the plot your getting from me. I don’t want to ruin anything.
I will say that I have love Damon since he first met Penny out by the lake behind her trailer and he protected her. They may have only been kids and he quite a bit older but I loved how he was with Penny and he pretty much sacrificed himself for her safety from psycho daddy Jonathan Scott. I have rooted so hard for these too and was terrified this book was going to rip my heart out and stomp on it before all was said and done. Penny of course isn’t sure how to love really. She never had anyone to love her as a child or to teach her what love was. Damon is beyond damaged and honestly doesn’t feel like he is good enough for Penny in my opinion. My poor emotions were all over the place at times. Lets too not forget we are reading a Skye Warren book so you know that something dark and creepy and holding your breath for a while is going to happen and it’s EPIC!!! I might have shouted yes yes yes in just the right place too.
If you are looking for a love story that is not so simple as girl meets boy and they fall in love. A love story with real flawed people who really don’t know what love is with a side of of holy crap then you do not want to miss The Queen. Just remember you have to read The King first. I have loved this series from the beginning of the Pawn and I’m so glad she spun off They Masterpiece Duet. I knew Damon Scott had quite the story to tell ….and he really really does. Bravo Skye Warren Bravo.
I flinch, glad he can’t see me across two thousand miles. Even working in the kitchens most nights only covers my food, my textbooks. Not the tuition bill. “You’re the one who wanted him to work for you. You’re the one who made him the stake in our last game.”
“And you’re the one who lost,” he says lightly.
“Do you know where he is?”
“Of course. Like you said, he works for me. I would be a careless employer if I let my men go wandering off, gambling and racking up debt and questioning their loyalty to me.”
A shiver runs through me. “Then where is he?”
“He’s a grown-up, Penny. Like you are now. He’s responsible for himself. You only need to worry about your studies. I’m sure Algebraic Topology is taking up plenty of your focus.”
It’s one of my courses this semester. How does he know that?
“Stop playing with me.”
“Why should I?” he says with a soft laugh. “It’s so much fun.”
Frustration stings my eyes, hot and damp. I look up at the wide-open sky, willing myself not to cry. There are a million stars visible here, most of the land owned by Smith College or one of the other campuses. So much land, so much pride. There aren’t buildings climbing on top of other buildings, as if they might sink into the concrete ground if they don’t. There aren’t glass towers reaching to an endless black sky.
“I’m never coming back,” I say abruptly.
His laugh falls silent. “I know.”
“I hate it there. I hate Tanglewood and being powerless. And most of all I hate you.”
The last part is a lie, because I don’t hate him. I’m drawn to him; I’m repelled by him. It’s far too complex a relationship, an equation I’ve never been able to write. It makes me wonder if I’m lying about the other parts—if maybe some twisted part of me misses home.
If some twisted part of me misses being powerless, too.
“Ah, Penny,” he says, sounding infinitely weary. “I hate you too.”
The words shock me, but the hurt inside shocks me more. He shouldn’t be able to wound me. Three years away from home, growing up, growing strong. It should have been enough armor to protect against anything he could say to me. But the arrow sinks deep, proving that I’ll never be able to escape him.
“What did I do to you?” I ask, quiet, in a voice like I’m six years old again. Like I’m speaking to the wild boy I found by the lake, one I lured into my trailer like a wolf.
He answers the same way, a surly teenage boy, fierce and vulnerable at once. “You made me care. You made me want, when I needed to leave. You made me feel, when I would have preferred to die. You brought me back to life.”
And I condemned him to torture. That’s what happened when he sacrificed himself so that I could stay safe. Two children with so few choices. “I’m sorry,” I whisper.
“Don’t worry. I got my revenge, after all.”
My blood runs cold, almost subzero at the words. There’s only one person left in my sad little family. One person he could hurt. “Did you hurt him?”
“By giving him a job when he couldn’t hold one down? By paying him enough that his daughter could escape the city, could go to a fancy college instead of becoming a corner-store whore? Yes, I’ve been horrible to him. A monster.”
“Then why isn’t he answering his phone?”
In the pause I can picture him in a three-piece suit, reclining in one of his ridiculously expensive leather chairs. Some amber liquid in a crystal-cut glass. “Don’t come back,” he says, his voice grim. “You made it out of here. Let that be enough.”
A soft click ends the connection, leaving me bereft.
And more worried than before.
Something is happening in Tanglewood, something bad enough for my father not to call, something horrible enough that even Damon Scott has warned me away. I look up at the infinite stars, but they’re dimmer than before. The whole world muted. It wasn’t a new life that I found so far from home. It was a long dream, and now I’m painfully awake.
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