Page 28 of The Death King
“I’m not going to lie on my back for anyone. Not anymore. Not unless I want to. And I’ve never had the chance to lie down on my back for anyone because I wanted to.” My first experience with a man had been with General Titan. I’d been working in the Arid Sands since I was eighteen. My entire adult life had taken place in that desert. There was no first kiss with a boy. No butterflies in the stomach like Amelia talked about.
His eyes widened instead of narrowed, and he took in my expression with a whole different look. It wasn’t a look of intense anger or surprise. It was something I couldn’t describe. For the first time, he was an enigma.
“If you want me, you’ll have to force me. But I don’t think you will.”
He didn’t ask a question, but his eyes narrowed as if he had.
I was twenty-four when General Titan claimed me as his, and I’d known I was in trouble from the first time he’d seen me. Once he stared at me, his gaze was locked in place, and not once did it deviate. Unbridled obsession. Uncontrollable need. It was written there like words on a page. He was the predator, and I was the prey—but I had nowhere to run.
I despised the Death King and would kill him if I ever had the opportunity, but I could tell he didn’t possess those traits. My time with General Titan and hearing the stories from the other girls had created a clear profile for that type of man—and King Talon didn’t fit the bill. “Because you would have done it already.”
His eyes flicked away, like the hand he held close to his chest had been knocked to the floor.
“You wouldn’t remind me of your attractiveness. You wouldn’t try to make a trade with me. The manipulation is despicable, but it’s far more honorable than what General Titan did to me.”
His eyes remained down, his expression impossible to read now, his thoughts locked up in a vault hidden underneath the castle.
“I decline your offer, so please leave.” I was no longer on edge around him, because as hard as he tried to hide his cards, he’d put his hand on the table and lost the game. He was a violent tyrant who’d enslaved an entire continent of kingdoms. There was no doubt he was dangerous, but not in this regard.
He remained, his eyes still averted. “If I have no use for you, I may as well return you to the Arid Sands?—”
“I earned my freedom.” I’d found that black diamond with my hard shovel, my back sore from being bent at the hip all day.
His eyes lifted to mine. “And you let someone else take your place.”
My eyes narrowed. “How do you know that?”
His eyes were impenetrable like the walls of the keep.
“How do you know that?”
He still didn’t answer. “If I have no use for you, then I’ll have to kill you?—”
“Or let me go, like a rational person.”
A beat passed, his stare sharp as a knife. “Because you have the gift, that wouldn’t be a rational decision.”
“So you’re saying I have to fuck you to know about the tale, or you’ll kill me.”
His eyes lacked empathy. He was devoid of all emotion once again. “At some point, yes.” The conversation appeared to be over because he stepped away and headed to the door, his muscular back strong and tight as he moved. When he reached the door, his hand rested on the doorknob. “We both know how this is going to end. My advice? Don’t fight it.”
I wanted to understand the gift, but I wanted to escape more.
I would much rather live a normal life like everyone else, a life I’d been denied, instead of succumbing to the wishes of the man who’d killed my father, taken my homeland, squandered my childhood, enslaved me in the desert…had taken my innocence.
I made a few other trips around the castle, the guards close on my tail. I pretended to admire the artwork posted throughout the hallways, pretended to visit the kitchens because I was hungry even though I’d just eaten a few hours ago, spent time in the garden like I wanted to smell the roses when I didn’t give a fuck about roses.
I gave a fuck about freedom.
It’d been days since my last conversation with King Talon. He seemed to have other things to occupy his time because he disappeared for days without a word. Sneaking out in the middle of the night seemed like the safest choice. There were fewer people out, and it was dark.
The guards were posted outside my door every hour of the day. They had a single shift change that happened in the evening just before I had my dinner. After standing out there past midnight, the guards probably got tired and deliriously bored. It was the perfect time to make my move.
But I couldn’t go out the front door.
I’d spent a lot of time looking out all my windows, and it was clear from every angle that a small ledge traveled all the way around the castle. It wasn’t big enough to hold my entire foot, but it was enough for me to balance on my tiptoes and step sideways. I could climb to one of the windows in a different hallway, away from King Talon’s chambers so there would be fewer guards on duty, and break through a window to get inside the castle. And then I could make it the rest of the way through the route I’d mapped out.
King Talon said he would kill me if I ran for it…so I better not get caught.