The Reaper Prince

CHAPTER 34| The Butterflys Teeth

The night air hits my lungs like a fucking baptism.

Cool. Clean. Free of the thick, coppery scent of blood that saturated the arena behind us. I carry Leah through the massive gothic archway and out into the Ardencrest courtyard, her small body cradled against my chest like something precious. Like something I'd burn the entire world down to keep.

And I just did.

Two hundred of my elite soldiers are still on their knees in perfect formation across the cobblestone courtyard. Their heads bowed. Their weapons lowered. Acknowledging what just happened inside that arena. Acknowledging her.

The American Princes stand in a tight cluster near the armored vehicles—Evander's calculating blue eyes tracking every movement, Lucius's face impassive, Tristan watching with that unsettling artist's intensity, Landon's frame tense like he's not entirely sure this night is over.

They all saw it. They all witnessed me kneel before her.

Witnessed me declare her Princess Donovan. Crown Princess de Rivel.

Mine.

The helicopters circle overhead, their searchlights cutting through the darkness, bathing the courtyard in harsh white light. The engines create a rhythmic thrum that matches the pulse currently hammering through my veins.

I feel alive.

For the first time in my entire fucking existence, my chest feels full. Not empty. Not hollow. Not that vast, yawning void that's defined every single day of my life since I was born with a brain that doesn't process emotion the way normal humans do.

Full.

Because I won.

I slaughtered the men who dared to threaten what's mine. I gave my butterfly an empire she didn't even know existed. I dropped to my knees in front of two hundred armed soldiers and pledged myself to her like some medieval knight, and I'd do it again. I'd do it a thousand fucking times.

She's back in my arms where she belongs.

She said yes when I asked if she was ready to come home.

She finally understands that she's mine.

I adjust my grip slightly, pulling her closer against my chest. Her yellow dress is still stained with dirt and blood—not hers, thank fuck, but the visceral evidence of the violence that erupted around her.

Her dark hair is tangled, falling in messy waves over my arm.

Her face is pale, her brown eyes wide and still processing everything that just happened.

She's in shock. Obviously. Normal people don't witness multiple brutal executions and just bounce back immediately. The human brain needs time to compartmentalize that level of violence, especially when you're not wired for it the way I am.

But she'll be fine.

She's stronger than she thinks. Stronger than she was when I first found her, that terrified little butterfly flinching at shadows and trying so hard to be invisible. I made her stronger. I built her into something that could survive this world.

And now she's a fucking princess with two empires' worth of soldiers ready to kill for her.

I descend the arena steps slowly, savoring this moment. Savoring the weight of her in my arms. The way her small hands are still gripping the fabric of my blood-soaked shirt. The way she hasn't pulled away from me.

This is victory.

This is what winning feels like when you actually give a shit about the prize.

My soldiers remain frozen in their kneeling positions as I walk past them. Perfectly trained. Perfectly obedient. The only sound is the crunch of my boots against the cobblestone and the relentless whir of the helicopter blades overhead.

I'm already mentally planning the next steps.

We'll take her back to the penthouse first—she needs to shower, change into clean clothes, eat something.

She's probably running on pure adrenaline right now, and when that crashes she's going to collapse.

Then I'll have the medical team check her over, make sure she's not injured anywhere I haven't noticed. Then—

Leah shifts in my arms.

It's a small movement. Just a subtle change in how her weight is distributed. But I feel it immediately because I'm always hyperaware of her. Always cataloging every micro-expression, every breath, every tiny shift in her body language.

"Nikolai."

Her voice is soft. Fragile. But there's something underneath it that makes my steps slow slightly.

Something firm.

"Yes, mon papillon?" I keep my voice gentle. Soothing. The tone I've carefully calibrated to make her feel safe with me.

"Put me down."

I frown slightly, my arms instinctively tightening around her. "You're exhausted, ma belle. Let me—"

"Put. Me. Down."

The firmness is more pronounced now. Not a request. A command.

Interesting.

I study her face for a moment. Her brown eyes are locked on mine, and there's something in them I haven't seen before. Not fear. Not the soft vulnerability I've grown addicted to. Something else entirely.

But fine. If she wants to walk beside her king instead of being carried like a princess, I can adjust. It's actually rather fitting—her choosing to stand on her own two feet after I just gave her an empire.

I slow to a stop in the center of the courtyard, right in the middle of my kneeling army. Gently, carefully, I lower her feet to the ground, making sure she's steady before I release her.

"Better?" I ask, keeping one hand lightly on her waist to support her.

She doesn't answer immediately.

Instead, she takes one step backward.

Then another.

Large, deliberate steps that create very distinct physical distance between us.

My hand falls away from her waist.

My frown deepens.

Leah looks around the courtyard slowly. At the armored vehicles waiting with their doors open. At the helicopters circling overhead. At the two hundred soldiers still frozen in position. At the American Princes watching this interaction with varying degrees of interest.

Then she looks directly into my eyes.

"I'm not getting in the car."

The words are simple. Clear. Absolute.

I process them for exactly two seconds before I respond. "What?"

"I said I'm not getting in the car." She crosses her arms over her chest, and despite how small she looks in that stained yellow dress, despite how fragile she appears standing alone in the middle of an armed encampment, there's steel in her spine. "I'm not going with you."

I laugh.

I can't help it. The sound comes out sharp and disbelieving because this has to be shock talking. Trauma response. Her brain misfiring because she just witnessed extreme violence and she's not processing correctly.

"Mon papillon, you're in shock. Let's get you—"

"I'm not in shock." Her voice cuts through mine like a blade. "I'm completely clear-headed. And I'm telling you that when I said 'let's go home' in there—" She jerks her head toward the arena. "—I meant my home. My dorm room. Not your penthouse. Not your empire. Mine."

The amusement drains from my face.

"You're not thinking straight," I say carefully, taking a single step toward her. "You've been through a traumatic—"

"I'm thinking perfectly straight." She doesn't retreat from my advance, which is both infuriating and fascinating. "I'm thinking straighter than I have in months. And here's what I'm thinking: I'm leaving. Right now. I'm walking back to my dorm room, and I'm absolutely not forgiving you."

The last sentence hits like a physical blow.

Not forgiving me.

After everything I just did. After I slaughtered her enemies. After I gave her a crown. After I kneeled before her in front of my entire army.

She's not forgiving me.

The hollow void in my chest suddenly yawns open again, swallowing that brief, beautiful feeling of fullness. Replacing it with something cold and sharp and utterly unacceptable.

"Leah." My voice drops to that dangerous register I reserve for people who are about to make very stupid decisions. "You're mine. You've always been mine. What happened between us before—the misunderstanding, the temporary separation—that's over now. You're coming home."

"No." The single word is absolute. Final. "I'm not."

She's serious.

She's actually fucking serious.

The psychopathic possessiveness that lives in the darkest parts of my brain instantly flares to life like someone threw gasoline on embers. The mask I've been carefully maintaining—the gentle, devoted prince who just fought for his princess—begins to crack.

No.

No, she doesn't get to do this.

She doesn't get to walk away from me. Not after I've already claimed her. Not after I've built my entire existence around the gravitational pull of her presence. Not after I've done things I've never done for any other human being—kneeled, pledged, felt—for her.

She's mine.

I move before I consciously decide to. My hand shoots out and wraps firmly around her fragile wrist, my fingers circling the delicate bones completely. I'm not hurting her—I'm very fucking careful not to hurt her—but the grip is absolute. Unbreakable.

"You're not leaving." The words come out flat. Final. The voice of someone who doesn't negotiate.

I fully intend to just throw her over my shoulder and put her in the car myself. She can be angry during the drive. She can rage and fight and hate me as much as she wants once we're back in the penthouse. But she's coming with me because that's what's going to happen.

I start to pull her toward me.

Leah doesn't flinch.

Doesn't cower.

Doesn't display any of the fear response I would expect from a normal person when the Reaper Prince grabs them with clear intent.

Instead, she swings her free hand in a wide arc and slaps me as hard as she physically can directly across the face.

The sharp crack echoes across the entire courtyard like a gunshot.

Every single one of my elite soldiers violently tenses.

Safeties click off weapons.

The American Princes all shift forward slightly, hands moving forward.

The helicopters above seem to hover lower, as if the pilots themselves are reacting to what just happened.

Someone just struck the Reaper Prince.

Someone just committed what would normally be a death sentence.

My head snaps to the side from the force of the blow.

Not because she's particularly strong—she's not, she's small and fragile and her hand probably hurts worse than my face does—but because I wasn't expecting it.

Because in all my careful calculations and predictions and behavioral modeling, I never actually considered that she would hit me.

Slowly, I turn my head back to look at her.

My cheek stings. There will probably be a mark. The skin feels hot where her palm connected.

Leah is crying.

Tears stream down her face, cutting clean tracks through the dust and grime. Her chest heaves with harsh breaths. Her hand is still raised slightly, trembling in the air.

But her eyes.

Her eyes are blazing.

Not with fear. Not with the broken hopelessness I saw when I destroyed her trust. Not with the soft vulnerability I've been addicted to since the moment I first noticed her.

With pure, incandescent fury.

"You don't get to do that." Her voice shakes, but it's not from weakness. It's from the sheer force of the emotion she's barely containing. "You don't get to grab me and force me and decide what I do just because you—"

She chokes on the words, more tears spilling over.

"Just because you dropped to your knees in there.

" She gestures violently toward the arena.

"Just because you declared me a princess.

Just because you slaughtered three men in cold blood and gave some pretty speech about how I'm yours.

None of that erases what you did to me, Nikolai.

None of it makes up for the fact that you intentionally shattered my heart and threw me to the wolves. "

Every word is a knife.

Every sentence cuts deeper than Dante's blade ever could.

"You hurt me." Her voice breaks completely. "You destroyed me. You made me believe I was safe with you, that I mattered to you, and then you ripped it all away like it meant nothing. Like I meant nothing. You watched me fall apart and you did nothing to stop it."

"I had to—" I start, but she talks over me.

"I don't care what you had to do!

" She's shouting now, her voice raw and jagged.

"I don't care about your tactical decisions or your strategic plans or whatever psychotic justification you've created in your broken brain!

You hurt me, and that doesn't just go away because you decide the game is over! "

She rips her wrist out of my grip—I let her, I'm too stunned to maintain the hold—and takes several more steps backward.

"You want to know what I learned from you, Nikolai?

" She laughs, and it's the most bitter sound I've ever heard.

"I learned that I'm stronger than I thought.

I learned that I can survive things I didn't think were survivable.

I learned that I don't need a monster in a beautiful suit to protect me, because I can fucking protect myself. "

She wipes at her face with the back of her hand, smearing the tears.

"So here's what's going to happen. I'm leaving. I'm walking away. And you're going to let me, because despite everything you've done to me, I know you're capable of at least that much basic human decency."

She pauses, and when she speaks again, her voice drops to something cold and final.

"I hate you."

Three words.

Simple.

Clear.

They land like bullets in the center of my chest.

"And you can go straight to hell."

Then she turns her back on me.

On the Reaper Prince.

On the most dangerous man in the criminal underworld.

On someone who has killed men for less than looking at him wrong.

She turns her back and starts walking away into the darkness beyond the courtyard lights.

Instantly, my lieutenants step forward. Dozens of heavily armed guards move to block her path, forming a human wall between Leah and the exit. They're not drawing weapons—they know better than to threaten her—but they're clearly waiting for my order.

Waiting for me to tell them to detain her.

To bring her back.

To ensure she doesn't leave.

I should give that order.

Every instinct in my possessive, obsessive, psychopathic brain is screaming at me to give that order. To not let her walk away. To take what's mine and keep it and never let it go.

But I don't.

I just stand there, my hand still raised from where she ripped her wrist free, and I watch her retreating back.

I touch my stinging cheek with my other hand.

Feel the heat of the mark she left.

And slowly—very, very slowly—a smile spreads across my face.

Not the practiced smile I use for manipulation. Not the empty smile I wear like a mask. Not even the cold smile of the Reaper before he kills.

A genuine smile.

Twisted. Dark. Deeply fucking psychotic.

But real.

Because I'm not angry.

I'm not even particularly upset.

I'm fascinated.

I'm absolutely fucking fascinated.

Do I see what I just did?

Do I understand what I just accomplished?

I took a terrified, broken girl who flinched at her own shadow. Who made herself small and invisible and silent to avoid drawing attention. Who apologized for existing. Who let the world hurt her over and over because she didn't believe she deserved better.

And I turned her into this.

Into a queen brave enough to slap the Reaper Prince across the face in front of his entire army.

Into a woman strong enough to walk away from power and protection because her pride matters more than her safety.

Into someone with teeth.

My brutal, violent, psychologically devastating method actually fucking worked.

I broke her down to reprogram her, yes. I shattered her trust to reconstruct her worldview, absolutely. I used every manipulative tactic in my arsenal to reshape her from victim to survivor.

And it worked.

She's not that helpless little butterfly anymore.

She's something sharper.

Something dangerous.

Something magnificent.

The laugh that bubbles up from my chest is low and breathless and probably sounds completely unhinged to everyone watching.

"Stand down."

My voice carries across the courtyard, clear and absolute.

My lieutenants freeze.

"Let her go."

Their faces show confusion. Disbelief. They're waiting for the punchline, for the moment I reverse the order and tell them to grab her anyway.

But I don't.

I just keep watching her walk away, my hand still pressed against my stinging cheek, my smile growing wider.

"Do you see her?" I say to no one in particular. To everyone. To the universe itself. "She isn't a victim anymore."

Leah reaches the wall of soldiers blocking her path.

They glance back at me, seeking permission.

I make a sharp gesture with my hand.

They immediately part, creating a clear corridor.

"She has teeth," I breathe.

Leah walks through the gap without looking back. Without hesitation. Her spine perfectly straight despite the fact that she just told the most dangerous criminal organization in Europe now in North America to go fuck itself.

The soldiers close ranks behind her.

The courtyard remains dead silent except for the helicopter blades.

Everyone is staring at me like I've lost my mind.

Maybe I have.

Maybe watching the girl I broke put herself back together into something stronger than before has finally pushed me over the edge into complete insanity.

But I don't care.

Because I didn't lose her.

I just realized that hunting her down the second time is going to be the greatest game of my life.

She thinks she can walk away from me. She thinks she can just go back to her cheap little dorm room and resume her normal life like we never happened. Like I never claimed her. Like she isn't already mine in every way that matters.

She's wrong.

So beautifully, perfectly wrong.

But I'll let her believe it for now. I'll let her have her victory. Let her think she won by slapping me and walking away.

Because when I take her again—and I will take her again—it won't be by force.

It will be because she chooses to come back.

Because she realizes that the safest place in her dangerous new world is at my side.

Because she understands that I didn't kneel for her in that arena as a performance.

I kneeled because she's the only person alive who could bring me to my knees.

"Sir?" One of my lieutenants approaches cautiously. "Should we... follow her? Maintain surveillance?"

"Obviously." I finally drag my gaze away from where she disappeared into the darkness. "Detail two teams. Rotating shifts. They stay far enough back that she doesn't notice, but close enough to intervene if anyone even looks at her wrong."

"And if she tries to leave campus?"

"She won't." I'm absolutely certain of this. "She has nowhere else to go. No family. No resources. No support system outside of what I built for her."

I destroyed all of that very deliberately.

"What do you want us to do long-term?" another lieutenant asks.

I consider this for a long moment, my fingers still absently touching the mark on my cheek.

"We wait," I say finally. "We watch. We protect her from a distance. And we let her think she escaped."

"For how long?"

My smile turns sharp.

"However long it takes for her to realize she's still in the cage. It just got bigger."

Because that's the beautiful thing about the psychological reconditioning I did. About the way I carefully rebuilt her sense of safety and belonging around my presence. About how I made myself essential to her emotional regulation.

She can hate me all she wants.

She can walk away and slam doors and tell me to go to hell.

But eventually—inevitably—she's going to feel the absence.

The silence where my voice used to be.

The cold where my touch used to warm her.

The emptiness where my obsessive attention used to fill her entire world.

And when that absence becomes unbearable, when she realizes that I didn't just make her stronger—I made her mine in ways that don't disappear just because she's angry—she'll come back.

Not because I force her.

Because she can't stay away.

"Dismissed," I tell my lieutenants. "Get the men back to base. I want a full debrief on the Corsican cleanup by morning."

They hesitate, clearly uncertain about leaving me standing alone in the courtyard.

"Go," I say more firmly.

They scatter.

The American Princes approach more slowly. Evander reaches me first, his blue eyes calculating as he studies my face.

"That was unexpected," he says mildly.

"Was it?" I'm genuinely curious about his perspective.

"Most men would have dragged her back." Lucius's face is impassive. "Especially after she struck you in front of your army."

"I'm not most men." I touch my cheek again, feeling the lingering heat. "And she's not most women."

"You're going to let her just... leave?" Tristan sounds skeptical.

"I'm not letting her do anything." I turn to look at them fully. "She thinks she's leaving. I'm letting her believe it. There's a difference."

"That's fucked up," Landon rumbles.

"Yes." I don't deny it. "But effective."

Evander laughs, shaking his head. "You're more psychotic than I thought."

"Thank you."

They leave too, eventually. Back to their own empires, to their girls and territories and problems.

I stand alone in the empty courtyard for a long time after everyone is gone.

The helicopters have departed.

The soldiers have loaded into their vehicles and driven away.

The arena behind me is being cleaned by the sanitation crews who specialize in making murder scenes disappear.

I'm alone with my thoughts and the mark on my face and the memory of her blazing eyes as she told me she hated me.

I raise my hand and touch my cheek one more time.

Then I smile into the darkness.

"Run, mon papillon," I whisper to the night air. "Fly as far as you can."

Because the hunt is so much more satisfying when the prey thinks it got away.

And when I catch her again—when she comes back to me of her own accord—I'm never letting her go.

Not for anything.

Not for anyone.

Not even for her.

She's mine.

She just doesn't fully understand what that means yet.

But she will