The Kingmaker Read online

  The Kingmaker

  All the King’s Men - Book 1

  Kennedy Ryan

  Copyright © 2019 by Kennedy Ryan

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Editing:

  Lauren Clarke Editing

  Proofreading:

  Sarah, All Encompassing Books

  Cover Design:

  Lori Jackson Design

  Cover Photo:

  Perry Winkle Photography

  Reach Kennedy

  kennedyryanwrites.com

  Contents

  Also by Kennedy Ryan

  Author’s NOTE

  Part I

  Prologue

  Quote

  1. Maxim

  2. Lennix

  3. Maxim

  4. Lennix

  Part II

  5. Lennix

  6. Lennix

  7. Maxim

  8. Lennix

  9. Maxim

  10. Lennix

  11. Maxim

  12. Lennix

  13. Maxim

  14. Lennix

  15. Maxim

  16. Lennix

  17. Maxim

  18. Lennix

  19. Maxim

  20. Lennix

  21. Maxim

  22. Lennix

  23. Maxim

  24. Lennix

  25. Maxim

  26. Lennix

  27. Maxim

  28. Lennix

  29. Maxim

  30. Maxim

  31. Lennix

  32. Maxim

  33. Lennix

  Part III

  34. Lennix

  35. Maxim

  36. Lennix

  37. Lennix

  38. Maxim

  39. Lennix

  40. Maxim

  41. Lennix

  42. Maxim

  43. Lennix

  44. Lennix

  45. Maxim

  46. Lennix

  47. Lennix

  48. Maxim

  49. Lennix

  50. Lennix

  Ready for Book 2, THE REBEL KING?

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Kennedy Ryan

  THE HOOPS Series (Standalones)

  LONG SHOT (A HOOPS Novel)

  Ebook, Audio & Paperback

  https://amzn.to/2PrMrqQ

  BLOCK SHOT (A HOOPS Novel)

  Ebook, Audio & Paperback

  E-Book: mybook.to/BlockShot

  HOOK SHOT (A HOOPS Novel)

  Ebook, Audio & Paperback

  https://amznto/2UYqzXO

  HOOPS Holiday (A HOOPS Novella)

  books2read.com/HOOPSHoliday

  THE SOUL SERIES

  My Soul to Keep (Soul 1)*

  Down to My Soul (Soul 2)*

  Refrain (Soul 3)

  THE GRIP SERIES*

  FLOW (Grip #1)

  GRIP (Grip #2)

  STILL (Grip #3)

  Available on Audiobook*

  Order Signed Paperbacks

  THE BENNETT SERIES

  When You Are Mine (Bennett 1)

  Loving You Always (Bennett 2)

  Be Mine Forever (Bennett 3)

  Until I’m Yours (Bennett 4)

  Dedication

  Dedicated to the warriors, dreamers & hustlers who change the world.

  Author’s NOTE

  Lennix, this story’s heroine, is a proud member of the Yavapai-Apache Nation, an American Indian tribe. Some tribes mark the transition from girl to young woman through a puberty ceremony known by various names. My story pulls from the Western Apache’s version of this rite of passage, generally known as the Sunrise Ceremony or Sunrise Dance. Na’íí’ees, which means “preparing her,” ingrains in young girls the qualities deemed important for adulthood. The completion of this rite holds consequences for the entire community—blessings, health and longevity. For the four days of the ceremony, the young girl is believed to be imbued with the power of Changing Woman, the first woman, according to the tribe’s origin story.

  Banned in the late 1800s by the US Government in an attempt to Westernize and assimilate Native people, such ceremonies became illegal, necessitating they be practiced in secret until 1978 when the American Indian Religious Freedom Act passed. This rite of passage is sacred and pivotal in the life and development of many young Yavapai-Apache women. I approached even writing about this rite with respect, reverence and only under the guidance of several Indigenous women to ensure I would not misrepresent this or other traditions. I also consulted a medicine man who oversees these ceremonies to ensure the integrity of its portrayal. Any mistakes are mine, not theirs. In addition, these ladies opened my eyes to the epidemic of Missing and Murdered Indigenous women, which is addressed in this story. I owe a debt of gratitude to the following for their assistance:

  Sherrie – Apache/Yavapai

  Makea - Apache/Yavapai

  Andrea - Yavapai

  Nina – Apsáalooke Nation

  Kiona – Hopi Tribe, Liswungwa (Coyote Clan)

  Part I

  “My mother was my first country.

  The first place I ever lived.”

  – “lands” by Nayyirah Waheed, Poet & Activist

  Prologue

  Lennix – Thirteen Years Old

  My face remains unchanged in the mirror, but my eyes are older.

  Older than the last time I stood in my bedroom with its pink canopy bed and the Princess Barbies shoved to the back of my closet. Posters of NSYNC and Britney Spears still plaster the walls, but right now I can’t recall one lyric. The songs of my forefathers, and their fathers before them, fill my head. Ancient songs with words only we know—the songs we had to reclaim, cling to my memory. They ring in my ears and hum through my blood. The ceremonial drum still beats in place of my heart. A woman’s spirit occupies this girl’s body with my barely budding breasts and baby-fat cheeks. I’m still only thirteen years old, but in the four days of my Sunrise Dance, the rite of passage that carried me from girl to woman, it feels like I’ve lived a lifetime.

  I am not the same.

  “How ya doing, kiddo?” my father asks as he and my mother walk into my bedroom. Seeing them together has been a rare occurrence lately. Actually seeing them together has been rare for a long time.

  “I’m fine.” I divide my smile between them into equal portions, like I do with holidays and my affection. Split right down the middle. “Tired.”

  Mama sits on the bed and pushes my hair back with long, graceful fingers.

  “The last few days have been hard for you,” she says, offering a rueful smile. “Not to mention the last year.”

  We started planning the Sunrise Dance months ago. With enough food to feed everyone involved for days, gifts, getting the traditional dress made, and paying the medicine man and the ceremonial dancers, it’s a long process that is not only exhausting, but expensive.

  “I wouldn’t change a thing,” I reply. My knees ache from the kneeling, from dancing on my knees and on my feet. I danced and I sang for hours, led through the words by the medicine man. And the running. I’ve never run so much in my life, but when I ran in the four directions, I gathered the elements—earth, wind, fire, and air—to myself. I’ve absorbed them. They’re part of me and will guide me the rest of my days.

  “I know you’re exhausted,” Mama says. “But are you up to seeing a few people? They’ve walked with you the last four days, and are all so proud.”

  Despite the fatigue, I smile. My friends and family rallied around me, not
just during the last four days, but for the months leading up to my Sunrise Dance. It is a huge deal, not only for me, but for the entire community.

  “Sure.” I run my hands over the supple buckskin of my ceremonial dress and moccasins. “Do I have time for a quick shower?”

  The medicine man dusted my face with cattail pollen as part of the blessing near the end of the ceremony. Even though it was rinsed away, I still feel the traces of it and the last four days on my skin and in my hair.

  “Of course,” my father says. There’s pride in his gray eyes. Though not Apache, he was involved with the ceremony and observed every step. As a professor of Native American Studies at Arizona State, though the traditions don’t belong to him, he understands and deeply respects them.

  “Everyone’s eating out front and enjoying themselves,” Mama says. “They’ll keep while you get clean.”

  My parents exchange a quick look, seeming to hesitate together. It catches my attention because they’re rarely in sync, despite having once been passionately in love. My father had been a student studying reservation life. My mom lived on the rez in the same modest house we’re in right now. It was fireworks for a while. Long enough to make me.

  Maybe the fireworks sputtered. Maybe my parents were too different, my mother wanting to remain on the reservation, connected to her tribe and this community. My father, a rising star in the department when he completed his doctorate, needed to be at the university. They drifted so far apart they broke. Now, I’m their only connection. Things haven’t been exactly contentious between them, but they have disagreed a lot lately, mostly about me.

  “Today was a landmark for you,” Mama says carefully, again sharing that quick look with my father as if she needs reassurance. “You’re a woman now. The spirit of Changing Woman has made you strong.”

  I nod. I’ve never been that religious. My mother doesn’t practice all the traditions, but today I did feel a surge of strength during the ceremony. Somehow I actually believe the spirit of the first woman empowered me. I still feel that zing along my nerves I couldn’t shake even after the ceremony ended.

  “As you know,” my father takes up where my mother left off, “we’ve been discussing where you should attend school next year.”

  “You know I love having you here on the rez and in our school,” Mama says. “Learning our traditions.”

  “And you know that I want you to take advantage of every opportunity available to you,” Dad adds, his face schooled into a neutral expression. “Even if some of those take you beyond the reservation, like the private school near my house that I believe would stretch you—even better, prepare you for college and a scholarship.”

  “She can go to college free based on federal funding for the tribes,” Mama reminds him. “She doesn’t need the private school for that.”

  “Yes, but statistically only about twenty percent of Native students finish the first year of college,” Dad says, “Why not prepare Lennix for what lies beyond the reservation, while still keeping her connected to her community? Can’t she be prepared for both worlds?”

  It sounds reasonable.

  And scary.

  I’ve only ever attended the schools on our reservation. As empowered as I feel with Changing Woman’s strength, the prospect of something new still intimidates me. This conversation has been my life in many ways. Loved by them both and splitting my life between their two homes.

  “There’s a lot to consider,” Mama says, a little impatience creeping into her low voice. “But the point is, we think you should make the decision.”

  I look from my mother, who is an only slightly older version of me, to my father, whom I look nothing like except for my gray eyes. I carry them both in my heart, though, and I think my greatest fear is actually hurting one of them with my choices.

  “We can discuss it more when I get back,” Mama says, running a soothing hand down my back. “I’m off to Seattle tomorrow. There’s a protest for that new oil pipeline they’re proposing. They’re so shortsighted. Money today won’t mean much when the water is polluted and the land is beyond repair.”

  “So true,” Dad mutters. They are united in their love for me, and, though he isn’t Native, their passion for tribal issues. “Just be careful.”

  Some of the old affection I glimpsed between them when I was younger gathers in her eyes. “I’m always careful, Rand. You know that, but there is so much to do and no time to waste. Injustice doesn’t rest and neither will I.”

  I wish she would rest sometimes. There’s always a cause, a protest, a pipeline. Something that takes her away. I can’t complain, though. She’s the person I admire most in the world, and she wouldn’t be who she is without that passion for others.

  “We’ll talk more about this when I get back from Seattle,” Mama says. “How’s that sound?”

  I look between them and nod, a knot of dismay forming in my belly at the thought of displeasing one of them.

  They leave me to shower and change, and when I go downstairs, my friends, family, and community overflow from our small living room. The joy on their faces is worth all I’ve endured the last four days. The Sunrise Dance is a celebration we were denied for years when the government outlawed it. We had to practice it and so many of our traditions in secret. We’ll never take it for granted again, the privilege of celebrating in the open. We owe it to ourselves, but it’s also homage to all those who came before us. It’s a thread that ties us to them.

  Mena Robinson, Mama’s best friend, stood as godmother to me during the ceremony, a role that strengthens our bond even more than before. She and Mama could be sisters in appearance, but also in closeness.

  “I’m so proud of you,” Mena whispers.

  “Thank you for everything,” I tell her, tears in my eyes. For some reason, in her arms, surrounded by everyone who bore witness to my transition from girl to woman, the emotion of the last four days cascades over me.

  “Mena, Lennix,” Mama calls, glowing and aiming her camera at us. “Smile!”

  I grimace, so tired of pictures and of being the center of attention, but Mama takes many more photos. And she hovers, touching my hair, hugging me, forcing me to eat. Her love and pride wrap around me, almost smother me. By the end of the evening, I want to be in my bed and alone.

  I should have made Mama take a dozen more pictures. I should have given her a thousand kisses. I should have slept at her feet.

  I would have if I’d known I’d never see her again.

  “A riot is the language of the unheard.”

  – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

  1

  Maxim

  Four Years Later

  I am my father’s son.

  I’m the spitting image of Warren Cade. Dark, russet-streaked hair with a slight wave just like his. Identical light green eyes. Same wide stretch of back and shoulders. Toe to toe, nose to nose, we both stand six feet, three and a quarter inches. Notwithstanding the striking physical similarities, beneath our skin, inside our bones—we’re the same. Considering my father is one of the most ruthless son-of-a-bitches you’ll ever meet, that should scare me.

  “Why am I here, Dad?” I sink into a buttery leather seat on his company’s private jet. “What was so important you had to pull me off campus into this mile-high meeting?”

  He glances up from the file on the table in front of him. “Would it kill you to spend a little time with your old man?”

  It could kill us both if the last few years are any indication of how we’ll get along on this trip. Our clashes are epic. As a kid, I was my father’s shadow. “Hero worship” would be a mild term for the way I viewed him. We were inseparable, but as I got older and formed my own opinions, found my own will, the chasm between us grew wider. My father rules our family with the same iron fist he runs Cade Energy, the family business. When he tries to rule me . . . it doesn’t go as well.

  “It’s an awkward time,” I reply with a shrug. “I’m finishing my thesis and—”<
br />
  “Why you even wasted your time with that master’s program, I’ll never know.”

  I bite back any reply to defend my decision. It made sense when I double majored in business and energy resources engineering for undergrad. That fell in line with his plan for me. Going on to pursue my master’s at Berkeley made no sense. According to his timetable, I should have been leading a division in our company by now.

  “Let’s not go there,” I finally say, running an agitated hand through my hair, overlong and almost to my shoulders.