Chapter 30
THIRTY
Christian
I watch her in the darkness long after I’ve walked away.
I lurk in the shadows like the monster my father created.
I used to lash out at everyone around me just for an ounce of his brutal attention.
I wanted his praise so bad, it physically hurt my chest where any semblance of a soul should be.
I don’t want shit from him now. I didn’t think I wanted anything from anyone anymore.
Until . . .
Rorrick straightens her dress for her while Seven sensually licks closed the puncture wounds that are scattered across every curve of her body. Blood stains her gown in flicking droplets that every vampire here tonight will immediately notice.
He kneels between her thighs now. The delicate way she holds onto Rorrick’s arm for support curls a twisting pain through my stomach.
She’s strong for a human. But weak for a vampire’s Promise.
My father will ruin her. He’ll drain the fight from her pretty green eyes little by little. And in the end, she’ll be no more than a walking corpse—one I’ll have to look at for decades and know that I did this to her.
“Where is she?! Where is my Promise! Did you take her, Thorn?” His voice is far off in the distance, but I hear him. The slurring agitation in my father’s tone is like a child preparing to throw himself down on the floor and make everyone pay in the most annoying way possible.
I tilt my head, and a crack eases the tension from my neck. I take my time doing the other side.
And then I run. An owl overhead calls out from the burst of speed as I fly by in a shadowy blur. Branches jar into my chest and break away against the sheer motion of my body. I can’t even feel my legs. Sometimes, I can’t feel anything at all.
But I can feel the growing tension between my father and the Thorn King. I burst into pieces, flying out on hundreds of wings and beady eyes that sense the night more than they see it. The cries of the bats that carry me home are a calming sound.
More calming than the man I meet when my feet touch casually back down on the ground. I straighten the black lapels of my suit jacket and finally address him.
“Her dress tore, Father. She’ll be back to the party soon.
” I take the golden goblet from his big hand, but he tears it away from me and downs it in one gulp, leaving red lines running down the fatty tissue of his thick neck.
“I see the fae brought refreshments.” I inhale deeply, and a sugary scent fills my lungs.
“My sister makes the finest sweet ale in all the dark lands. I brought three barrels in honor of our treaty among centuries-old friends,” The Fae King says with a lazy smile.
The smile that’s plastered on my face for Thorn doesn’t waver. Despite how much I want to break his fucking face right now.
I’ve never seen my father drunk in my entire life. I don’t even know what being drunk feels like. Mortal drugs and wines only give us mere minutes of relief from our ever-constant mind.
Whatever is in sweet ale, it’s powerfully intoxicating. The Fae King is definitely plotting something.
“Have a glass, Prince.” The Fae King’s friend, the one with the dark watchful eyes, hands me a glass, appearing as if from thin air.
Rule number one of being friends with fae: never take a gift.
Rule number two: never refuse a gift either.
“Thank you.” The smile I offer is bitter against my lips. I hold the goblet loosely in my hand, and their attention on me feels heavy.
Waiting.
“Should we make a toast?”
The king’s dark eyebrows lift high as amusement widens his perfect smile.
“I had no idea the Blood Prince of the Burning Kingdom was so festive.”
I smile back at him through tight lips for that fucking name he just tagged our kingdom with. His friend laughs as he claps his king on the back. The energy lifts, but just beneath our false smiles and pretty words, there’s centuries-old conflict that’s dying to be released.
The king and his friend both raise their shining cups high, mine joining there as well. My father staggers into the circle of raised cups, his big goblet clashing against ours, and I have to really put effort into not breaking my entire jaw from how tightly I’m holding onto this fucking smile.
“To—”
My words are cut off as the Thorn King interrupts.
“To Crymson Vain. May she right many wrongs and heal the poison between our two kingdoms.”
My attention narrows on the king while cheers of immense approval follow his strange words. He holds my gaze the entire time he throws his head back and downs the glass in one big gulp.
We’re coming up the back. Keep him distracted until I can get her inside.
Rorrick’s voice cuts through my mind, and my attention flashes toward the back door of the garden. Through the smoke, I see her holding her shoes in her hand as Rorrick holds open the door for her.
“Father.” I take a step into his space but his drunken attention doesn’t see me at all. It’s like he knows she’s there. Or perhaps stupidity simply leads him in life.
“There. There she is. Come here, girl!”
Stiffness lines her slender back from his roaring words.
I notice then that her dress exposes the peeking hint of claw marks from her first encounter with my father.
The jagged scars are still pink and healing.
My jaw grinds when he doesn’t wait for her to come to him. He storms across the smoky garden.
She turns slowly, her bare feet dirty and muddy against the castle steps. Her chin lifts, and she meets him with silent but steely attention.
“You are mine! Do not dishonor me again, girl.” And then... his hand rears back and snaps across her face.
Her gasp of shaking shock is barely heard before I’m in his fucking face.
My fingers sink into the flabby meat of his neck, my nails digging into soft flesh as I slam him down against the hard brick wall.
With hostility rising between us, flickering violent memories of my childhood threaten to come to life in my mind. But I shove them back down.
A space is made around us as I hold him pinned there like a moth with tattered, breakable wings.
“Know your fucking place, Father,” I hiss through my fangs.
“This entire exhausting, ridiculous ceremony is for her. It’s her fucking ceremony that we’re just puppets lined up to get a fucking glimpse of her.
She isn’t yours.” Seven’s hand touches my shoulder for a single moment of calming energy that’s failing to extinguish the fiery rage inside me.
But it does reach me. The whiteness that’s kissing my knuckles fades.
I lower him back to his stubby legs. My fingers curl around the collar of his suit, and I smooth it back out for him with a shaking, unsteady smile pressing to my mouth.
“She isn’t yours, yet .” I add. “Let’s not insult our friends or the gift they’re giving.
” I turn my manic smile to the Thorn King, and what I find there is just as unsettling as my own sudden messy emotions.
The hardness of his jaw trembles. The heavy wings against his back are arced high above him, shadowing across not only myself but my father as well. He looms over us like a grim angel with dark intent.
“Rorrick,” I say casually, my eyes clashing with Thorn’s. “Take my father inside. He’s had too much to drink.”
I straighten my posture, and though Thorn has a mass of muscle that severely outweighs me, my strength is unmatched.
I hear my father’s mumbling dry up, and only when the door closes with a quiet click, do I dare speak to him.
“I know?—”
“You think I don’t fucking smell her on you?” His head dips low, his harsh whisper meant for only me. “I see the bruises on her throat. The smell of her cum on his hands is so intoxicating, it leaves no room for the scent of blood that I know is on your friend’s fucking tongue.”
Seven shifts behind me, his body lining up to stand between us and Crymson.
“Crymson.” He looks over me, and the intensity of his stare is heavy when he finds her. “Come here.”
I don’t look back at her. I don’t say a word.
Because the moment he says it, she obeys.
Her scent passes me in a commanding way. The Thorn King is right about how heavily her scent clings to every single part of me, and I didn’t even have her the way I wanted her. I want to wrap her up against my chest and run away from this shitty fucking world I helped my father create.
His hand lifts. Without a word, she slides her palm into his. It’s a form of art between them. A dance that I had no idea she knew the steps to. It’s strange how good you thought you had something with someone... and then seeing what good actually looks like. It’s fluid and easy between them.
Seeing them hand in hand, they don’t look like father and daughter.
They look like lovers.
And vomit stings the back of my throat.