Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
D oing something that should’ve terrified me didn’t feel quite as scary in Kingston’s presence.
With my arms wrapped tightly around his middle, I held on for dear life as he wound through the mountains.
Even though he drove slowly—most likely due to my nails in his gut, a clear sign of my anxiety—and took each turn with well-thought-out and carefully precise movements, the experience scared the ever-living shit out of me.
It also made me feel alive.
Each winding turn exhilarated me, and the wind on my face—even as it brought tears to my eyes—made me feel impossibly light. I understood what he loved about it right away. And while I clutched him dearly, I trusted he’d see me safely to the end of our ride together.
At one point, I even lifted my hand into the air, letting the wind rush through my splayed fingers before quickly returning them to his stomach.
A laugh rumbled through his chest, and I pressed my cheek against his back. Closing my eyes. Enjoying the experience.
And reveling in the way I felt impossibly light and free —without fear or limits—so long as I was holding onto Kingston.
When we finally stopped, he parked the bike and held out his hand to help me off it. I unfastened my helmet while he climbed off after me, and handed it over to him. He set both on the back of the bike before lacing our hands together.
Then he led the way to his doctor’s office.
I recognized the doctor as soon as she walked in the door. “Dr. Barrow?”
“Hi,” she said as her eyes flew wide.
The last time I’d seen her, she’d been giving me a clean bill of health after someone had drugged me during the Honor Challenge. We’d discussed my asthma, sexual history, and preferred methods for birth control.
Now, seeing Dr. Barrow again on the weirdest first date ever, I tried to hide the blush our connection brought to my face as I shook her hand.
As she looked me over, she asked, “How are you feeling?”
“I’m good. No issues since everything happened. Thank you for what you did for me.”
She smiled, squeezing my hand before patting the table for Kingston to hop up. “I’m glad you’re doing well, and that Kyle brought you by so I could see for myself.”
My eyebrows rose, but a quick, subtle shake of Kingston’s head from behind Dr. Barrow’s back schooled my features. “I’m glad he did, too.”
Stepping back and out of the way, I tried not to eavesdrop while they discussed what brought Kingston in. At least, not in a way that was blatantly obvious.
But no way was I tuning out the good doctor when prime secrets were on offer.
Dr. Barrow spoke normally, so that helped. “Can you take off your shirt so I can see the wound?”
Wound ?
Given Dr. Barrow’s height, I couldn’t peer over her shoulder. I had to lean and look around her body to see Kingston.
He stifled a laugh at the sight of my head popping into view and undid the buttons on his shirt.
Distracted by the sudden appearance of his tan skin and lean, muscular chest, I had to shove my inner trollop back in her sex cage to focus on his wound.
I covered my mouth as I gasped.
A red and angry mark sat right under his left shoulder, close to his chest muscle. It marred Kingston’s perfect expanse of skin. And it didn’t look like it had gotten there by accident.
“Oh, Kyle…” Dr. Barrow put on gloves and dabbed at the dried blood around the wound. “When did this happen?”
Kingston swallowed, wincing at the first dab of gauze near the raw edges of his skin. “Two weeks ago. Give or take a day or two.”
I did the math in my head.
He’d had the wound since before the Knights’ Quorum, at least. Maybe longer, given his uncertainty over the date.
But I had a feeling Kingston remembered exactly when it happened.
Dr. Barrow hummed quietly as she continued to examine his chest. “What happened?”
“I fell.”
Her spine—and mine—instantly straightened. “Kyle, if…”
“Dr. Barrow, before you ask, I don’t want to report it. Because I fell. So, that would be a silly thing to do, right?”
“It wouldn’t be, honestly,” she said, gently and pointedly. “You’d be surprised how often it turns out to be more than that. Reporting it could stop any more falls from happening.”
“It was my mistake, Dr. Barrow. I can be clumsy, and should have been more careful while tending the fireplace.”
My hands shook until I clenched them into fists.
“Kyle, it’s June. You lit a fire in the middle of summer?”
“My house gets drafty.”
Dr. Barrow let out a deep sigh, touching Kingston’s arm. “You know I have a responsibility to report it if I suspect…Kyle, by coming here, I can’t help but think you want ? — ”
“Dr. Barrow, I come here because I trust you, and I believe you value patient confidentiality more than the doctors my family suggests I use.” His tone was firm but not commanding. “If there was something to report, I’d tell you to do it.”
“Are you sure?”
It took him a second to respond, and I wondered if the word had lodged in his throat the way my heart had gotten stuck in mine. “Yes,” he said softly. “Yes, I’m sure.”
Rage electrified my body.
My breaths came out shaky, and my heart jackhammered a million miles a minute.
Someone had hurt him.
Someone had burned him.
And I only needed one guess to figure out who.
As she resigned herself to accepting his decision, I wanted to scream his father’s name at the top of my lungs.
“Let me go get the ointment you’ll need to put on it, and I’m sending you home with an antibiotic. Hopefully, that’ll get rid of the infection and allow the wound to heal. But you need to keep it covered and you can’t rub or pick at it, understand?”
“I understand. Thank you, Dr. Barrow.”
Her eyes flashed to mine before jumping back to Kingston’s. “That’s twice in one week you’ve come to me. It’s getting worse again, and it seems like it’s less isolated than it was when you were young…”
“I know, but this should be the worst of it. I promise. Can you give me some time? If I come back again, I’ll let you report it.”
“What if you don’t get the chance to come back?”
“It won’t come to that.”
Dr. Barrow, to her credit, didn’t look convinced at all, but she nodded and left the room to grab what she needed.
I rushed to Kingston’s side the second she closed the door, my eyes on his chest. The wound was raw and aggravated, and it didn’t appear to be healing well. But then, from what Kingston had said, rubbing at it hadn’t been helping.
As soon as I saw it up close, I gasped, mouth gaping as I took in the extent of it. Trickles of blood welled up at the edges where the scab had reopened from peeling off his shirt. And he hadn’t just been burned .
He’d been branded .
Painfully and purposefully marked forever.
“Kingston, what—? Why ?”
He eased my hands away from the mark before his blood coated my skin. Curling my fingers in his, he brought them to his lips and drew in a shuddering breath, as if shoring up his courage before answering the question.
“It was a warning.”
Shock and outrage warred for dominance as my grip tightened on his hands.
“What kind of psychopath brands someone as a warning? Have they not heard of email? A strongly worded letter? Kingston, what the fuck?”
He flinched at the heat in my voice, grimacing as if the poker had seared into his skin again. I forced myself to take a breath, loosening my grip on his hands.
“What kind of monster?—?”
“A very old, very sadistic and evil man, who has had unchecked power for far too long.”
I shook my head. I wanted to understand but branding? It was completely out of the realm of what any of us should be dealing with. Someone had abused him, and from what Dr. Barrow had said, it had been happening for most of his life.
“Kingston, why won’t you report this? Whoever did this—your father, I’m guessing? He has to be stopped. This is?—”
I stared at him, eyes wide as I tried to process it.
“Someone needs to do something about this.”
His sad smile broke my heart. “I’m trying, love.”
“ What ?”
My eyes jumped between the brand and his face as I slowly wrapped my head around his meaning.
He was handling this on his own? This was part of what he’d been hiding? Not only that, but a piece of the truth he deemed safe enough to share?
The room spun.
“No. This is—it’s too much.” I shook my head, over and over like I might force this truth away. “Kingston, we’re in our fucking twenties. We need—We’re just kids.”
But even as I said it, the words rang false.
If I’d learned anything in the last year without my dad, my childhood had come and gone. The time for being young with someone looking out for me? That had ended.
Accepting that truth after the accident had been so daunting I’d avoided facing it at all. I’d hardly pretend I’d fully accepted it now, even though I felt more capable.
But it was an unavoidable part of growing up.
Eventually, we all faced battles that no one else could fight for us. I’d had to figure out my shit because no one was there to do it for me. I hadn’t been ready to survive on my own, but…
Life didn’t care if we were ready.
And it didn’t wait.
Sometimes, life threw us into the unknown without warning. Thrusting the worst upon us. Demanding we make a choice.
Fight with courage, or risk losing everything.
Clearly, Kingston had learned that lesson long before I had.
But it was too much. Way beyond bills and student loans. All the problems I’d believed I couldn’t handle on my own a month ago paled in comparison to this .
I’d been thrown into a freaking kiddie pool without floaties, while Kingston had been forced to swim in shark-infested waters.
My voice broke. “You’ve been all alone. Surely, someone?—”
“Quinn, I’m the King of Camelot Court and a D’Arthur. No one else can stop this but me.”
“But—”