Chapter 31
THIRTY-ONE
Crymson
A hypnotic energy pulses through me. It feels like my heart isn’t my own but is laced up with his, mirroring the fast pace of each and every hard beat that pounds within him. Since I arrived here, I’ve never felt magic like this. Whatever is in the mysterious Thorn King, it’s powerful.
He leads us away from the watchful eyes of the garden. Trees surround us. The screams from the hunt are long gone. Only a heavy quiet remains.
The alluring Fae King steps closer, his hand coming up slowly to trace the line of my spine from the lowest part of my back all the way up to the nape of my neck.
He’s my father. He’s my father. He’s my father.
Is this what having a father feels like?
I don’t think it is. But I’ve never felt this connected to anyone in my entire life. The moment he said my name, it was like I was suddenly alive in a world where I’ve only ever felt half dead.
Warm fingers kiss across my shoulder blades before he halts that mesmerizing sensation of his hands on my body.
“Who did this to you?” There’s a jaggedness to his deep voice. His fingers slide down the forgotten scars on my back, my lashes closing hard to hold back the wince threatening to cry out. “Did that disgusting man do this to you? Tell me!” he roars so loudly it shakes my soul.
“Stop!” Christian storms forward, and I realize then that I have felt this feeling before.
I have felt this dominating energy swirling inside my chest. When Rorrick bit me .
“Let’s calm down. Remember why we’re here tonight.
” His erratic gaze is held hard against the small contact of the king’s hand against my back.
He tells the Thorn King to be calm when the Blood Prince is anything but.
I glance from one psychotic man to the other, both of them total opposites. It’s like standing between the light and dark side of the moon.
And still feeling cold and lost.
“I didn’t think you’d actually find her,” the Thorn King says on a smooth whisper, his gentle fingers skimming over the line of my collarbone to the curve of my jaw. He looks down on me with the strangest light shining in his icy blue eyes.
And then inky spider webs crack across Christian’s handsome face. His steps pound over the dirt until he’s right up in the king’s face.
“You’re going to want to take your fucking hand off of her before I break it off for you.” Barely controlled rage shakes through his lithe body.
A tinge of amusement kisses the corner of the king’s full lips.
“I don’t want to fight you, Little Prince. I don’t want to burn your borders again when they’re so close to recovering.” His calmness is cruel. A fuck-you in the face of rage. “I only want one thing.”
Seven and Rorrick walk up slowly and quietly behind the Blood Prince. Christian’s brows pull with a thin line.
And then all of them look to me.
“No.” Christian’s answer is flat and final. “She’s not a bargaining chip.”
“And yet you were happy to bargain with her when she was just a faceless Promise. Like your mother was .”
Rage ticks through Christian’s jaw. It’s clearly a stinging comment that slices much deeper than he lets on.
“I said no.”
I stand between the two men, and it’s only then that I realize they’re talking about me. The Thorn King wants me. Christian... doesn’t want me, but he doesn’t want Thorn to have me either.
Thorn’s fuck-you smile widens when he pulls his attention away and fully looks at Christian.
“My men and their skeletal dragons are lined within the darkness. Your king is overindulged and underprepared... for everything in life, it seems.” His pause drifts to me, and there’s that feeling again when our gazes lock.
“I could take these lands by sunrise. Your people would die. Your women. Their children. All of it would be burned to the ground just like before, and only then would I think that the charred remains would be better than the wasteland of magic that it is now.”
Rorrick looks to Christian immediately, and that single look of alarm is too telling.
The Thorn King isn’t lying. These people—as terrible as their lives may be—they’ll all die. Because of me.
“I’ll go,” I say suddenly.
Seven’s head turns swiftly toward me, and his big brown eyes hold even more concern in them than usual. Christian’s fury burns brighter where the redness tinges his glinting gaze.
“And Delilah?”
“I don’t want your sister. I don’t want your lands or your crown.
I only want her.” He nods toward me. His voice is steady, but the moment he says those things, my heart stutters at the sound of someone blatantly stating they want me.
Even someone as terrifying as the Thorn King.
“Maybe someday, I’ll come back to right the darkness that’s staining our lands, but not today. ”
“And how do I know you won’t just kill her?”
“You mean like your father would?”
I swallow hard at that fact.
This morning, I wanted so badly to escape. I thought I’d run tonight. Instead, I ran right into their arms. And I’m still facing the same fate I was when I woke up chained to a vampire prince’s bed.
The Thorn King is offering me life. Maybe he’s a monster of a man, but at least he doesn’t want to eat me alive. Jesus. It’s pathetic how low the bar is for the men in my life.
“I’ll go. I want to go.” I meet Christian’s eyes, and there’s quiet pain there mixed in with the dark violence. For the first time possibly ever, he shows his remorse in the downturned line of his lips.
He can’t protect me from his father. Not unless he kills him. I don’t honestly believe Christian has the ability to do that. Despite how much he seems to hate him, there’s a sick, twisted loyalty between them. And above all, I don’t want more blood on his hands because of me.
He said it himself: He’ll never have me. But he won’t let anyone else have me either.
I can’t live like that.
I need safety. I’ve always needed safety.
Now more than ever.
“She’ll be safe there,” Rorrick whispers to his friend, mirroring my own thoughts.
Deep down, I know Christian knows that. I know he knows he put me in this situation. And I know he hates himself more than I ever could.
I can see it in the depths of his silver eyes.
“You want to go with this monster?” His tone is cutting, his cruelness turned on me now despite the sadness in his gaze. “Go. A war will come of it, either way.”
He steps back from me. It’s only a single step, but my emotions launch the moment he does, twisting around and tightening in my chest.
Can I truly walk away from the only men in my life that ever made me feel like a goddess even while bound in chains?
Rorrick doesn’t acknowledge me. I study him for a long hard moment but he only focuses on the ground. He doesn’t speak. He can’t even look at me.
Just— Look at me !
You’ll be safe with him. His velvety warm voice enters the intimate space of my mind like a secret I’ll never hear again after tonight.
Still he doesn’t meet my gaze. Hot tears prick my eyes but I refuse to let them fall. Why do they all make it seem so easy to shove me away? Why can’t it feel that easy for me too?
My heart sinks while my stomach turns. What if I can’t do it? What if my life is just as tragic in the fae world as it was in the human world? What if?—
“I’m going with her,” someone says. The words are spoken quietly but effectively. Every pair of eyes drifts toward the one man who hasn’t said a single word:
Seven.
His hand slides into mine. He’s confident. He’s assured enough for the both of us. And I’m so incredibly thankful for that.
The Thorn King pauses on our interlocked fingers before he swiftly calls out to unseen soldiers.
Pain slices through my chest, cutting my heart in two.
I hold the prince’s gaze for far too long, hating that I can’t see a single ounce of emotion in his steely eyes.
He looks exactly the same as that first confusing night in The Neon Gods Club: devastatingly handsome, and yet, emotionally empty.
A chaotic wind bursts around me, a shrieking of bats and a sound like a thousand wings beating at once crashes into my chest. The metal slide of swords being drawn can be heard around me.
But none of it matters. Because suddenly, Christian is pressed against me.
His hand captures my chin and he tilts my head up firmly.
Depthless eyes tainted with a pulsing ring of red look down on me.
My heart beats wildly against his chest. It pounds so hard within me it makes up for the silence within him.
“You’ll always crave me, Pretty Pet,” he whispers against my lips. His next confession comes out rasping and raw; a confession he doesn’t want to admit. “ I just never expected to crave you too .”
A spiraling urge tangles through me. It’s a demand for action. I want to kiss him and crawl into his arms all at once.
I can’t put my fate in this maniacal man’s hands, though. I won’t.
I step back from him slowly. A magnetic pull fights against me.
The small space between us grows and so does the pain in my heart.
Something inside me yearns for his demented affection.
His hand falls away with ease. A shining glint is in his eyes: a look of understanding and a look of tragic remorse.
“I’ll see you soon, Crymson Vain.”
It feels dangerous to look away from his deadly promise.
But with my head held high, I do just that. I walk away from the Vampire Prince.
Forever.
THE END
Royals, rivals and a little bit of … revenge returns with the final installment to this why choose romantasy with A Kingdom of Death & Darkness!