Chapter Twenty-Two

***REMI***

The Midnight King drops the boy of the soldier and yanks me away from Xaden with a bloody hand.

Keiran’s gaze is intense, filled with a myriad of emotions I can’t quite decipher. As he starts to make his way across the room, I see Rhodes and Kallias notice him. Even drunk, Kallias’s laughter dies in his throat, and Rhodes straightens, a look of mild concern replacing his earlier mirth.

“Clean up the fucking mess,” Kieran orders them, and without hesitation, the twins obey.

Keiran’s steps are measured, and purposeful, but I can feel the tension in the air like a blade. I shake my head, trying to process what just happened. He just murdered a soldier, a protected soldier.

He killed a boy, just for touching me.

This can’t be happening.

Everyone scatters as Kieran drags me across the bar, into an inky black portal he’s conjured. I’m smart enough not to struggle as he pulls me through, Xaden and the twins following. Within seconds, the dance floor and pub meld away, and I’m back in the House of Twilight.

On the first floor, by the dining room, where Vienna first introduced me to her brothers.

Glass shatters as Kieran pushes all the contents of the set table to the floor with his magic. I try not to wince as he leads me to it, and when I trip over my own feet, Kieran only drags me harder.

A chair scrapes, and he pushes me onto the table. His arms come around me on either side, bracketing me in as he leans down to meet my eye level.

The tension is palpable, the air around us thick with it. Blood coats his lips and his face, and his too-white fangs shine in the gloom.

“Now tell me, little doe,” he begins, casually flicking a piece of lint from his shoulder. I squeak when he turns his ice-blue eyes fully on me. “Who do you think you are?”

Kieran’s voice is low, and dangerous, as he glares at me. This is not the King that was interested in me, not the King that pretended to show mercy. This is the King I heard about as a child, the nightmare I was raised to fear.

One wrong move tonight and he’ll hurt me. One wrong move and I’ll never have any chance of escape.

“Kier,” Kallias starts, but the look he gives the spymaster silences any protest.

“I have rules,” Kieran says, his blue eyes pinning me.

“Which I followed,” I dare.

“You touched another.”

“And last I heard touching is not fucking.”

The King’s jaw flexes, and he breathes through his teeth.

“Your purity will save this city, save two hundred and fifty thousand,” he says.

“It’s my body,” I reply, “and last I checked the blood running through my veins, and your little weird bath ritual won’t mysteriously change if a young man takes my virginity.”

He scowls, then shoots a glare over my head. “Who told her about tomorrow?”

To Rhodes' credit, even though the King is manic, he doesn’t shy from the truth.

Kieran rubs at his temples.

“Are you going to kill him, too?” I throw it in his face. “He touched me this morning, forced me to drink. Maybe you’ll kill him and everyone in this city just because you’re not strong enough to control your magic.”

Kallias shoots me a warning.

I continue on anyway. “Maybe if you weren’t so weak, you wouldn’t have to murder innocent girls and–”

One second, Kieran is before me, running a casual hand through his dark blonde hair, then the next one, he explodes.

The vampire yanks my hair, baring my throat to him in a way that’s beyond painful. His fangs have fully come out, and I’m terrified, truly terrified, that he may rip out my throat.

His voice is ice and wind. “What’s your plan here, princess?” he snarls, “try to stick any cock you can manage down your throat just to get a reaction out of me? Get me to take your precious little virginity?”

He leans in closer. “Well, I’ll tell you something, little girl, even if you manage that, the Witches still take the ones we spoil. They’ll keep you alive, impure, and broken, and you’ll never see the light of day again.”

His words. So much meaning is in his words. First, an implication that there is another path for me, to not die but the city to still live. And second, the other thing he said.

Never have I thought before about how I have…different holes.

In some twisted, fucked up way, those are also choices, I’ve never considered.

“Yes,” I finally say, and the Midnight King's eyes harden. “I’ve dreamt about taking a man in my mouth ever since the night you came to my Kingdom and stuck your finger down my throat.”

Kieran stops breathing. The room stops breathing.

I can sense the rising fury in his body, the calm before the storm.

I barely have time to breathe before he’s pulling me onto the table.

He lays me flat on my back, my head hanging slightly over the edge of the table, exposing my throat.

I gasp out as he runs his fingers over my breasts, tearing the corset open with nothing but his bare palm.

“If you want to be fucked in the mouth,” Kieran says, “why not start with the man who stole you?”

My nipples are barely covered, and I yelp as the Midnight King slaps my arms away from covering myself.

“Hands behind your back,” he orders. He tilts my head back, forcing me to arch my back and expose myself. Then I hear his zipper opening.

This is insane, absolutely insane, but every part of my skin is alive, and never, ever have I wanted something so much.

I look around the room for a second, at Kallias, Xaden, and Rhodes, all watching us silently. They all know Kieran won’t touch me unless I want it. With Kieran it’s always a choice.

I know my hesitation only turns on the King further, that my inexperience, me being his “little doe” is what draws him to me. And it's precisely that glint in the male of myth and legends eyes that makes me want to submit.

“Yes, Your Highness,” I say, then open my mouth.