A Wife For The Torturer
Daniella Wright
Contents
Prologue
1. Darkness
2. Flight
3. Capture
4. Inhuman
5. Choices
6. Mother
7. Quantum
8. Tenth
9. Impulse
10. Girl
11. Fascination
12. Morality
13. Family
14. Pathways
15. Leading
16. Arrival
17. Demon
18. Horrors
19. Survival
20. Formidable
21. Explosion
22. Reunited
23. Control
Epilogue
More By Dany
Four Daddies’ Secret Twins
Auctioned To The Armitage Brothers
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This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locations is purely coincidental.
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Prologue
Prince Markus Aurelius Alin III was ninth in line to the throne of his family’s prosperous, powerful kingdom, which was tucked away in the perilous, snow-capped peaks of dragon-shifter territory.
Ninth in line behind five sharp-tongued brothers and three beautiful sisters. Nine was a number that Markus could hardly ever forget; even if he wanted to ignore just how inconsequential he was to his family and his kingdom, he would inevitably be reminded of it by one of his self-involved siblings.
Markus never quite understood why his older sister Lilia, eighth in line to the throne, never felt the same way that he did about their position in the royal bloodline. After all, Princesses were much worse off than Princes; they were treated like pawns, delicate and well-dressed tokens to be married off in order for their parents to secure even more power. But, it seemed to Markus that that was the fate Lilia wanted all along; she preened and pranced around for dozens of foreign Princes, eagerly awaiting her chance to be sold off.
It turned Markus’ stomach.
Most of the time, the ninth royal heir was able to avoid his family. He bounced from kingdom to kingdom, and even planet to planet, attending raucous parties. He had devious friends in all the right places who introduced him to the best drugs and the best women. Markus figured that, if he was never going to be King, he might as well enjoy the wealth and prestige that came with being a dragon Prince somehow.
But, even Markus couldn’t avoid the mandatory royal dinners that occurred on the first day of every month. It was the day he always dreaded, the day when all eight of his siblings, his parents the King and Queen, and the various uncles, aunts and cousins that had clawed their way into King Alin’s closest circle all gathered at one very large, very chaotic table for a painfully long, fifteen-course dinner.
Markus hated all of them.
That night, he managed to make it through three courses without having to say a single word or acknowledge any of his family members. It was a record, actually, and Markus thought that it was a good sign that he’d managed to fly under the radar for three entire courses; it was going to be a relatively painless night.
That was until his uncle, the Duke, decided to fixate on his brother’s ninth child, seemingly out of nowhere.
“Markus,” said the Duke, his voice almost as deep and loud at the King’s. Markus often wondered if his uncle was ever spiteful about being second in line behind his brother when their father, Markus’ grandfather, died and passed on the crown.
With a quiet sigh, Markus regretfully looked up from his dinner plate. He’d been enjoying the food and hadn’t even been too bothered by the sound of his female cousins gabbing obnoxiously with his sisters directly beside him.
His uncle smirked at him. It wasn’t an unkind look, but it certainly wasn’t friendly either. The Duke had never been a particularly friendly man.
“It’s nice to see you in the flesh, Markus,” said the Duke, leaning across the table and offering Markus a patronizing grin, as though he were still a child, rather than a man who was well into adulthood. “Usually I only get to see you when your face is plastered all over the intergalactic tabloids.”
Markus replied to his uncle with a humorless smirk, but the Duke wasn’t finished.
“What was it I saw just yesterday?” he mused, pretending to search his memory for something that was very clearly at the forefront of his mind. “Oh, right! ‘Bad Boy Dragon Prince Attends Rocketship Rave, Beds Princess Flora.’”
Most of the table was listening in, but at the mention of Princess Flora, the King himself turned his attention to what was happening between his pest of a younger brother and his last heir.
“What was that?” asked Prince Jack, Markus’ brother, second in line to the throne.
“Oh, you didn’t hear?” chuckled the Duke, very clearly enjoying himself and the chaos he always managed to cause. “Your little brother fucked your betrothed.”
Markus groaned as he watched Jack, who was ten years his senior, immediately go white in the face, likely from an anger so pure and strong that it leeched all the color from his body.
It wasn’t technically true, though. Well, the sex part was true. Markus did, in fact, sleep with Princess Flora, who was a dragon Princess on their neighbor planet. But, Princess Flora wasn’t Prince Jack’s betrothed. At least, not yet. The King and Queen had been trying to finalize that alliance for years, and Jack himself had been exerting every ounce of effort he could muster to woo the charming but mischievous girl into giving a damn about him. It went without saying, but Jack hadn’t had much luck. The fact that his brother, his youngest brother, ninth in line to the throne, had managed to accomplish what he hadn’t, caused his blood to boil.
“You shouldn’t believe everything you read in those tabloids,” Markus told his uncle, feigning perfect innocence. Meanwhile, King Alin was glaring at him with a frightfully intense gaze.
And then, because he was feeling reckless, Markus turned to his brother Jack and shot him a wink.
But, Prince Jack was used to the ninth heir’s antics. The anger inside him that had flared so suddenly at the mention of Princess Flora had almost instantly died down into a gentle simmer. He knew that Markus only acted out because he felt inferior and unimportant. It was sad and pathetic, really.
Jack couldn’t help but poke at his brother’s fragile facade.
“You’re such an embarrassment,” sighed Jack, clucking his tongue in disapproval.
Markus didn’t take the bait and instead turned his attention back to the food on his plate and the wine in his goblet.
However, everyone else at the table seemed keen to continue the conversation. It was their favorite game, listing all the ways that the youngest son of the illustrious, intimidating King of the Dragon-Shifters was such a foolish disappointment.
Markus’ cousin, a silly girl with a cloud of fluffy blond hair and cold gray eyes, giggled cruelly and nudged Markus in the ribs with her elbow. He fought the urge to rip her arm off.
“Daisy said she saw you doing a line off Duchess May’s breasts last week at that fucked up intergalactic drug party or whatever,” commented his cousin. “You’re lucky there’s no photographic evidence.”
“It was an international music festival,” Markus replied, feeling m
ore exhausted by the minute. “Not an intergalactic drug party.”
“Same difference,” shrugged the blond.
“You really should be more careful, Markus,” added his sister Lilia, the eighth heir. Markus shot her a glare and she immediately quieted.
Yet Prince Jack took the opportunity to continue voicing his own opinions about the man he considered to be the runt of the litter, though Markus was hardly small or weak.
“Lil’s right,” said Jack, taking a sip of glimmering, golden champagne. Markus had always thought he was a pompous asshole; the sparkling beverage really drove the point home. “Do you even think about how your actions reflect on the rest of the family? On the kingdom?”
At that moment, Prince Ry, the firstborn, the crown Prince, the gem of the kingdom, the first heir to the dragon-shifter throne, cleared his throat.
Markus could only imagine what was about to come out of his oldest brother’s mouth. He hardly ever stooped to gossip like the rest of the family, and instead chose to focus on matters of state, disappearing for hours with the King to discuss strategy, resources and the future of their people. He barely interacted with the rest of the siblings, let alone Markus.
“Perhaps,” sighed Prince Ry, setting his knife and fork down gently on the tabletop. “We should let the King and Queen alone pass judgment on the youngest Prince.”
Markus blinked in surprise.
“Though I do, in truth, find your behavior incredibly intolerable,” continued Ry, shooting Markus the quickest of glances, as if he couldn’t even be bothered to meet his brother’s eyes for longer than a fleeting moment.
Markus frowned.
“Thank you, Ry,” said the Queen on the far end of the table. Her voice was quiet and soothing but tinged with an unquestionable authority so powerful that it did not have to be shouted like the King’s or growled like the Duke’s.
Everyone else fell silent when the Queen spoke.
“Markus,” sighed his mother, who adjusted the golden crown atop her wild dark curls with a delicate, bejeweled hand. “I would like to have a discussion later this evening about your behavior. We’ll leave it at that. Now, who’s ready for the fourth course?”
Beside him, Markus’ cousin snickered under her breath. Across the table, the Duke smirked down at the table as the servants came in to take the plates away and replace them with a fresh course.
Something hard formed in the pit of Markus’ stomach. It was an orb of hatred, fueled by the coldness and darkness that ran in Markus’ veins. It grew as he took in the disdainful glances and rolled eyes of his family. It morphed into something ugly, something hungry for blood.
Markus could feel the dragon side of him coming out, urged on by the loathing and frustration that festered and multiplied in the very core of his being. His fingernails began to sharpen into claws; his eyes began to burn and he knew that if he looked in a mirror, they would be the vibrant scarlet color of dragon eyes. Markus sat at the table, glaring down at his untouched fourth course, breathing hard against the darkness that rolled through him like pummeling ocean waves. His shoulder blades began to itch and he yearned to let his leathery, powerful wings break free and unfurl.
“Markus, calm down,” whispered his sister Lilia on his right.
The table had fallen silent. Dead silent. It was quiet enough to hear a single diamond drop on the pristine marble floor. Over their heads, the King and Queen’s royal blue banners quivered slightly in a strange breeze.
The truth was, King Alin preferred to avoid having his youngest heir shift into his true dragon form. Something about Markus had always been a little too strong. He carried with him a fearsome energy that was always under threat of exploding. King Alin feared that, if Prince Markus ever shifted in close quarters, fueled by the wrong emotions, he might kill them all.
Prince Markus didn’t know that his father thought such things.
With a curse, Markus stood up from the dinner table so quickly, his chair toppled over backward onto the cold stone floor.
“Markus,” thundered the King. “You have not been excused from this table.”
Markus shot a glare so icy and wicked at King Alin that it caused Prince Ry and Prince Jack, who were each on either side of him, to immediately stiffen into protective stances.
“I’m excusing myself,” hissed Markus.
And with that, the ninth heir to the throne stalked out of the dining room for the last time.
I’m excusing myself, Markus had thought to himself as he left the room. From this family.
Chapter 1
Darkness
Markus
The darkness weighed heavy in my stomach, but I relished it.
I let the shadows twist and warp my insides, taking over my body until I was steeped in gloom. Then, with a roar that sounded far too animal, I slammed open the doors to the palace apartments that had been designated mine, in the farthest south corner of my family’s castle.
I’d had enough.
In fact, I’d had about twenty-eight years worth of enough.
I stormed into my bathroom and leaned over the sink, gripping the smooth marble sides with my hands. I noticed the dragon claws that had threatened to make their appearance at the dinner table had melted back into normal human nails.
Auburn hair, wavy like my mother’s, fell over my eyes as I bowed my head over the deep blue basin. My chest heaved and my skin felt like it was on fire. With a loud, frustrated grunt, I yanked my shirt over my head and tossed it aside on the stone floor. Anger caused me to tremble as I lifted my head and took in my reflection.
My eyes, usually so dark they were almost black, were a strange flickering hazel color. It was the in-between hue that my irises took on just before turning a deep, rich red. Red like blood. Dragon eyes. I blinked furiously, willing them to settle back into the usual smooth inky shade I’d been born with.
A wave of dark, smoking anger struck me hard at the sight of my features, inherited from my cursed, cruel parents. I sank my fist into the glass before me, shattering the mirror into a hundred pieces. My hand came away bloody, but I couldn’t feel the pain through the darkness.
All my life, I’d been nothing more than the ninth heir. The youngest son, and therefore the least important member of the precious Alin royal bloodline. My older brothers, especially the first two, were given the best tutors and training, as well as the most attention from our parents. Meanwhile, as I watched my sisters, the sixth, seventh and eighth heirs, being groomed for arranged marriages, I was tossed aside.
I was a Prince, of course. I was given all the delights and wonders a young royal boy could imagine, but it was always as a second thought. Half of my birthdays passed forgotten. My father, the King of our region, barely spared a single minute to get to know his ninth heir. He was always too busy with Ry and Jack, the first and second sons who would be most likely to rule one day.
As a teenager, I grew spiteful, as any kid would have. I started acting out. I hung out with the wrong crowd of elites and nobles, snuck out of the palace in the middle of the night and had far too much fun drinking my way through the dirtiest clubs in the kingdom.
After a few years, my bad behavior was no longer something that could be considered a cry for attention. As I got older, I cared less and less about earning a glance from either of my parents for any kind of stunt I pulled. I simply got used to breaking the rules and being a royal disappointment. It became my persona.
But, I would have never turned out this way, with a heart as black as night, if the King and Queen had learned to love the nine children they produced with equal measure, and if their goals were centered around more than just power and the continuation of the legendary Alin dragon-shifter reign. I also probably wouldn’t have been like this if my siblings hadn’t been the awful fools that they were. Jack, with his patronizing glare. Ry, with his determination to ignore the fact that I even existed. Lilia, with her stupid devotion to our family, despite the fact that she wasn’t much bette
r off than me in terms of succession lines.
Not to mention all the others, with their sidelong glances at dinner and their unnecessary comments. I had a feeling at least a couple of them were just jealous that they’d never had the guts to disobey our parents’ wishes and do what they wanted.
I hated them. I hated all of them.
I hated the disdain and arrogance. I hated that I was expected to behave like the perfect royal, but that I would never come close to being King.
After all, I’d only become King if every single one of them died.
The dark pit in my stomach sparked at the thought.
I wandered out of the bathroom and into my bedroom. Rich velvet tapestries hung from the stone walls. An elaborate chandelier made of twisted iron and blood-red rubies dripped from the ceiling, suspended over a massive canopy bed draped in silver silks and ebony cottons.
Kneeling next to the bed, I reached underneath and pulled out a glossy wooden box that only I knew the code to. Wordlessly, heart pounding in my chest, I unlocked the box and rummaged through the contents: a collection of contraband hallucinogens in plastic baggies, a few more common narcotics among them, a pure silver knife that once belonged to my grandfather, the former King, and, at the very bottom, a small business card.
The business card was pure white, and the writing on it only a few shades darker in a muted gray. I remembered the party I received it at; a private gathering on the other side of our world. It was the first night I’d met Princess Flora, who also had the same renegade tendencies as I did, though she was certainly much better off than ninth in line to her own throne.
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