Chapter 39
The tuxedo collar is choking me.
Not because it’s tight—Alistair had it tailored by some asshole who probably sells suits to kings and dictators—but because I’m not built for silk and polished buttons.
I’m built for blood. For bone. For the crack of ribs under my hands and the wet sound a man makes when he realizes he’s going to die.
And apparently, for coronations.
The South Section’s new High Chancellor. I snort to myself as I head downstairs.
If Sterling could see me now—well. He can.
My shoes click down the steps of my estate’s private hall—what used to be a wine cellar but now functions as something else entirely. Something quieter. Colder. Better suited for the dead.
Or the almost dead.
My hand presses to the inside pocket of my jacket, brushing the folded ultrasound photo Arlo slipped into my hand a few hours ago. Our children. Twin boys. Two tiny shapes that already own me in ways bullets never could.
I haven’t told her about this place. Some things—dark things—belong only to the parts of me that were made in Valcross.
The basement lights hum as I step through the reinforced steel door. The scent hits first. Copper. Shit. Antiseptic. If hell had a medical wing, it would smell like this.
He’s awake.
Good.
Sterling is strapped to the chair in the center of the room, head slumped forward.
What’s left of his head, anyway. His hair is matted with blood, his jaw swollen, half his teeth cracked or gone.
One leg ends above the knee, wrapped in heavy bandages that haven’t been changed in days.
He refused to kneel for me during month three.
So I took the leg that wouldn’t bend.
He lifts his head at the sound of my steps. His one good eye squints in the harsh light.
“Jesus Christ,” he croaks. “Don’t you ever get tired? Just kill me already.”
I smile and loosen my cuffs. “You say that every time.”
“You think this makes you powerful?” He spits a glob of blood and saliva toward my shoes. It barely lands an inch away. He’s too weak to even hit me properly. “You’re pathetic. You’re just like—”
“Don’t say it.” I crouch in front of him, resting my hands on my knees. “Not tonight. Tonight’s special.”
His gaze drags over the tux. “Coronation,” he mutters. “So they really gave it to you.”
I tilt my head. “Oh, they didn’t give it to me. I took it. And let me tell you—no one warned me there would be this many goddamn meetings. If I knew the High Chancellor job involved this much paperwork, I might’ve stayed dead.”
He wheezes out a bitter laugh. “You’re fucking disturbed.”
“True. But the antipsychotics dull the edges a little. Not the fun edges, the annoying ones. Like wanting to slit throats in Council meetings.”
I smirk. “Alistair loves that shit, though. Endless strategy sessions, the politics…perfect for a soulless bureaucrat like him. He’s been a good Commander.”
Sterling’s lip curls. “He was never meant for command. He’s weak.”
“And yet he’s still got both legs. Weird how that works.”
His breathing rattles. He’s fading. Not enough to die, but enough to wish he could. For months, I’ve kept him balanced on that line so carefully a surgeon couldn’t replicate it.
A perfect purgatory.
A gift.
Arsen’s gift.
He delivered Sterling to me the night I discharged from the hospital, dumped him on my cellar floor half-conscious and bleeding, and said only one thing:
“Handle it.”
And I did.
On record, Sterling died the night he tried to kill me.
Killed by a single gunshot to the chest, body unrecoverable in the fire.
A tragic loss. The former High Chancellor, mourned in a closed-door Council meeting for his leadership before he went rogue.
Honored with fabricated speeches and falsified reports.
No Sovereign funeral. No ceremonial execution. No crowd to witness his noble end. Because there was nothing noble in him.
Arsen knew exactly what he was doing when he handed me the man who made me.
My father didn’t get a trial. He didn’t get honor. He didn’t get justice.
He got me.
He groans. “Priest…please. End it. For the love of—”
“Don’t say God. We both know He doesn’t come down here.”
He glares with what little strength he has left. “You’re a monster.”
“I know,” I say lightly. “But let’s be honest—you made me.”
His eyes flick away. Shame? Rage? Doesn’t matter. I stand and circle behind him, fingers tracing the back of the chair where the straps cut into his wrists.
“Want to hear something interesting?” I ask. “Arlo’s pregnant.”
His shoulders tighten.
“With twin boys.” There it is—the faint tremor of horror. I savor it. “Two heartbeats. Two new little monsters. My monsters.”
His voice breaks. “Don’t…don’t make them into you.”
“Oh, I won’t.” I crouch beside him again. “They’ll be better. Stronger. Me without all the fucking tics.”
He closes his eyes.
“But they will know justice,” I add quietly. “And they’ll know who bled for their future.” Sterling’s eyes snap open as I lean in. “I was seven years old when I made my first kill, Sterling. Seven. I had no father. No mercy. Just the pit. The hunger. The training you had carved into me.”
He shakes his head violently. “Priest—”
“I’ve decided that my sons’ first kill will be you. When they turn seven.”
His whole body jerks, chains clanging. “You sick bastard! You can’t—”
“You made me a killer before I could tie my shoes. This is tradition. A family heirloom.”
His voice turns hysterical. “Kill me now! Don’t do this. You can’t keep me down here for seven fucking years!”
I stand slowly, smoothing my tux jacket, adjusting the cuffs Arlo straightened earlier with soft, nervous hands.
He screams again, “Priest! End it! END IT! KILL ME!”
I press the button that seals the steel door. His voice cuts off behind six inches of reinforced metal.
Upstairs, Arlo is waiting.
My coronation awaits.
Our future awaits.
I slip the ultrasound photo from my pocket and look at it again. “My little monsters,” I murmur to myself. Then I turn and climb the stairs, leaving my past screaming in the dark where it belongs.
The mirrors in this room don’t lie. I stare at my reflection—at the woman staring back. A gown of midnight velvet clings to my body, soft where his grip will bruise later. My hair is swept up in a cascade of dark waves, exposing my neck with my mother’s gold necklace.
A reminder of everything I’ve lost. And everything I have left.
His hands slide around my waist from behind. His chest presses against my back. And still, I can’t breathe.
They took my father. They tried to take me. The Sovereign doesn’t feel like a future—it feels like a grave.
But Priest is here, and in the sickest, most twisted way, being in this world makes me feel closer to my father. Like I’m brushing against the shadow of everything he died for. Everything he lost.
We don’t make it past the east corridor.
One moment, Priest is walking behind me, the next, his hand wraps around my wrist and drags me hard into the marble hallway.
“Priest—”
He says nothing.
Just keeps walking.
The second the bathroom door slams shut behind us, he spins and shoves me back against it. One hand cups my jaw; the other lifts my dress and drags it up my thigh. His eyes look wild, the blue almost eaten by black.
“You’re shaking,” I whisper.
His fingers slide over my stomach. His gaze drops to where our babies grow. “I can’t fucking breathe out there.”
“You don’t have to prove anything.” My hands slide into his hair, trying to pull him back to me. “Not to them. Not to me.”
He roughly yanks my panties down, tearing the delicate lace. “Stop talking.” And then he’s on his knees.
He hooks one of my legs over his shoulder, yanking my hips flush to his face. My back arches, a gasp tearing from my throat as he buries his tongue inside me.
A shudder racks through me. My fingers dig into the door behind me for support.
His tongue is relentless. Starved. My blood heats, my hips rolling, chasing the friction. My head falls back against the door with a soft thud, my eyes fluttering closed. He slides a finger inside me, hooking it, stroking that spot that makes my vision blur.
“Give me your fucking cum, kitten.” His words are a dark vibration against my folds. “I need it.”
He slides another finger inside, stretching me. The pressure builds, a slow, intoxicating wave of heat that pulls me under. I grind myself against his face, riding his tongue, taking my pleasure.
My climax builds, tightening in my core, a white-hot storm that’s about to break. He adds a third finger, stretching me to the point of pain, and the pressure shatters. My orgasm tears through me, violent and sharp. I scream, my body convulsing, my nails scraping against the door.
I’m still gasping for air, still shaking from the force of it, when he rises.
In one rough motion, he flips me, bending me over the sink. My palms brace on the cold marble. My dress is shoved up around my waist, my thighs trembling beneath the fabric.
I catch his reflection in the mirror—towering behind me, eyes locked on mine as he unzips his pants. That wild look in his eye sends a rush of heat straight through me.
“Don’t forget I’m pregnant.”
His palm flattens against the small of my back. His other hand clamps down on my hip, his fingers stretching wide, damn near spanning the whole thing.
“I can’t forget. I fucking worship it.”
He doesn’t ease in. He doesn’t ask. He slams into me in one brutal thrust, stretching me wide, punching the air from my lungs.
A choked sob rips from my throat as my body jerks forward, my breasts dragging against the frigid marble. My knees buckle under the force of it.
“Look at me.”
His hand wraps around my throat. I drag my gaze up and lock eyes with him in the mirror. What stares back at me isn’t just hunger. It’s madness. A black hole of need that borders on agony.
This isn’t just fucking.
This is claiming.
This is him falling apart and pulling me down with him.