Chapter 13
THIRTEEN
Crymson
He brought me back to the room. He held me sweetly in the closet but then he didn’t say a word when he shoved me inside Christian’s bedroom and slammed the door behind me.
The white dress wafts with the swift movement of the door before settling once more against it. The lock turns heavily this time.
My stomach twists at the sound of it turning in place but for once, I’m thankful honestly. A solid lock separates me from the king.
For now.
The day passes slowly with only Christian’s most personal underwear drawer for me to riffle through.
Other than an extraordinarily organized sock drawer, there’s nothing of importance.
Like the other rooms of this castle that I’ve seen, there are no windows.
No light shines in for me to bask in. No skyline is visible for me to enjoy.
Just four hard walls and an empty room. It’s fucking depressing.
Even the carved writing desk in the far corner holds nothing more than a few sheets of stark white paper and a single pencil that also was most definitely carved by hand.
Do vampires really care about finely crafted furniture this much?
Every object is intricate with design. The walls may be built of cold stone, but even the dark-stained four-poster bed is lined with carvings of delicate leaves and vines that poke out here and there.
My fingers run along the smooth polished wood.
The deeply engraved lines hold meaning with all the swooshing swirls, but I can’t understand it.
I simply feel it. It makes me feel... alive.
Everything’s beautiful.
And terrible.
A pain knots up my stomach, and I don’t know if it’s from hunger or anxiety. I screwed up already. I almost ran into the King’s arms instead of escaping him.
Yesterday, my biggest problem in life was my toxic ex-boyfriend. Today, I’m locked in a bedroom, preparing to marry an old man who will most certainly eat me alive.
Well, that’s not entirely true. Seven said I didn’t have to marry him. So that’s a plus, I guess. I’ll be like a side chick... that he eats alive. Great.
I slide over the bed on my stomach, but my chains twist harshly beneath me, and I quickly have to flip to my back.
A sort of uncomfortable energy is pulsing through me with too much intensity.
The tangled emotions in my belly churn so much that I finally curl into a ball and hope sleep comes to take away all my terrible thoughts and worries.
This is all just too much. Unconsciousness is better...
For now.
Images seep into my mind. Chaotic war clashes into the room. Vampires scramble through the throne room, blood dripping down their chins and throats. The man at the seat isn’t Boris though.
It’s someone with familiar, kind eyes. Green eyes like nature itself is blooming behind his gaze. His stance is noble, and his stature is confident. A man fit to wear such a heavy crown, it seems.
He ushers people from the room as a storm of warriors break down the far door. He rushes in a flash of speed to face them head on, teeth extended into sharp, vicious points.
But then those captivating eyes go wide. His mouth falls slack. And dark blood sputters from his lips on a breath he can’t seem to reach.
From behind him, his body is shoved off of a long blade, and the man who holds the hilt sneers down on his victim. Then he arcs that sword up and slices it down so hard that I have to flinch away. A slow rolling sound crawls over the floor.
I force my eyes open and look up at the man now standing over me.
He’s leaner. His face isn’t puffy and bloated like it was when I met him. But there’s no mistaking the cruelness of that smile.
Boris.
The king’s crown lies in a puddle of blood while the head is now far from its body. Green eyes are empty and vacant.
Boris calls off the warriors with a small lift of his hand. The heavy marching halts, and a quieter parade of footfalls carries on.
Then he looks right at me.
The blood in my veins turns cold just seeing him again.
Except . . .
He lowers down to one knee and takes my little hand in his. The heaviness of his brow is a conflicting appearance that blazes terror all through me. His big hand snatches around my throat with gaudy, gold rings cutting into my flesh there. Only one thing calms all the terror inside of me:
This isn’t my hand he’s holding. This isn’t my reality. This is someone else’s ...
Foreign rage spikes through my body, and I can’t justify these emotions as I look up at the man with the devilish eyes. Everything suddenly feels far away and cut off from myself. Unexplainable understanding slowly seeps into me.
Boris killed Rorrick’s father.
This is Rorrick’s memory . . .
“Long live the king,” Boris whispers to me.
“She’s cute when she snores.”
“You’re obsessed with her,” a quieter voice says.
“I’m not fuckin’ obsessed with her.”
“That why I caught your cat ass watching her sleep when I came in here? That why she has your shirt tangled around her?”
“That was just a random cat. And I’m a good fuckin’ guy?—”
“Such a good fucking guy, she didn’t even think about you when I gave her a reality break last night.”
An uncomfortable pause drifts in as my lashes flutter against the dim lighting. The strange dream is a haze in my mind, dissipating and slipping away as fast as it came.
“Who, ah—what’d she think about in the break you gave her?”
My eyes adjust slowly, and I spot the three of them standing at the end of the enormous bed. Seven’s lips are quirked into his quiet, sexy smile. Rorrick’s brow is lined hard with frustration. And Christian... he’s glaring at the both of them.
“Good morning,” I say through a yawn.
“Good evening ,” Seven corrects.
The soft bed dips behind me, and my chains rattle against my stomach as I lean back on my elbows and stare up at the sexiest wake-up call a girl like me has ever received. I should wake up to three men waiting on me every day. Is that too much for a prisoner to ask for?
“Time to take the leash off, Pretty Pet.” Christian’s metallic eyes shine like diamonds when he says those words.
My heart leaps. I tilt my head at him in confusion, but his slender fingers lift up, and a golden key is dangling before me. It dangles there just like my hope for freedom. He holds it in the palm of his hand.
He’s unchaining me. We’re making progress in our relationship. He trusts me now. We’re no longer worried about my escape.
My foster mom, Brittany, was wrong: if I’m a good girl, I can change a man. Just take our toxic little relationship here, for example.
The plotting of my escape is already flashing before my eyes when he speaks once more.
“If you run, I’ll still hunt you down.” A rasp of a promise kisses those words.
My heartbeat flutters. He knows I’ll run. I know I’ll run.
The twisted idea of him chasing me down and tackling me to the ground probably shouldn’t turn me on as much as it does...
“Okay,” I whisper instead as I crawl across the puffy blankets and twisted sheets.
Rorrick’s deep green eyes follow me as I make my way toward them on my hands and knees. I should look away. This shouldn’t be as sexual as it feels. I shouldn’t be idolizing the brief kindness he showed me. He helped me when no one else did...
Twice.
I swallow hard and peer away.
Only to find Seven also seeping into my soul with his ever-watchful gaze. Heat burns across my cheeks, and I still don’t know if he knows what I did with the use of his magic.
The sensual memory of it all slips away when my attention drifts from his eyes to his...
“What happened to your nose?!”
Seven and Rorrick share a very long, very suspicious look between themselves. A line of dry blood is just below his right nostril, and he swipes at it the moment I mention it.
“I—I’m fine. Just feels like I got hit in the face with a shovel.” The moment he says the lie, a noise rings out through the room.
It’s a solid sound. A literal “plink” of resounding metal smacking across Seven’s incredibly gorgeous face. And then the materialized shovel clatters to the floor at his feet.
“What the fuck!” Seven’s outburst of surprise matches my own, as well as everyone else’s.
His hands clasp to his face, his eyes clenching closed in a pain that doesn’t make any damn sense.
What is happening here?
“Where the hell did that come from?” Christian picks up the shovel from the floor, and his attention sweeps through the room as if the shovel didn’t just swing through the air and intentionally land firmly against Seven’s bloody nose.
“Magic,” Rorrick accuses, all three of them shifting around the room now to get to the bottom of this bizarre shovel magic.
“Who do you think it is? Your father? The Fae King? Spies?” Rorrick’s big body is tense and on guard.
Christian shakes his head slowly.
“Whoever it is, they’re not out for blood. They’re just fucking with me.”
And the moment he says that . . .
A gasp tears from my throat. The room vanishes for a fraction of a second. And then I’m crashing down. As if by teleportation, I land from midair. My legs tangle with his. Luckily, his back... and skull break my fall.
“Fuck!” Christian’s hands fling violently at his sides before he looks up at me. Where I suddenly sit naked and straddling his hips. “You,” he hisses, his eyes narrowing with accusation.
“ Me ?” I ask on a mouse of a voice.
“You’re fucking with me... literally .” My sex presses firmly against his strangely unbuttoned black pants.
I cross my arms and cover my breasts with my hands. The gold chain from my neck to my wrists is still fully intact. It’s cold against my curves.
“Everyone calm down. Let’s not jump to conclusions,” Rorrick says coolly.
And then he starts jumping. Frantically jumping until his enormous body is rattling the wooden desk and the pens are rolling off and the vase of flowers on the night stand teeters unevenly before crashing down in a spray of glass.
“Stop! Stop it!” Christian commands of him.