King's Men

by Lana Sky

  “Come here.”

  Only now do I notice that he hasn’t attempted to pull his pants up.

  “Now.” His voice deepens. It’s like he’s daring me to run. To give him chase and one more reason to hate me.

  Maybe I should. I wrestle with the weight of how easy it would be to give him what he wants. He practically begged me to.

  I need to hate you.

  Slowly, I unfurl my limbs, wincing as fresh bruises throb over my legs. Much to his apparent annoyance, I cross over to him. His next breath hisses through his teeth as he reaches up to trace tears that I didn’t even realize were falling. I shiver as his thumb trails over my bottom lip, nudging my mouth open.

  “Clean me off, Snow.”

  His chilling expression contrasts the unusual softness of his tone. My mind instantly conjures up an image of what he means, and I can’t stop my gaze from darting down, finding him partially erect, shining with fluid.

  My cheeks flame as a refusal springs to my lips. “I—”

  “Yes,” he murmurs over me. His hand cups my chin, forcing my gaze up to his. He nods encouragingly, stroking his fingers along my jaw. “Do it.”

  He wants me to run, I realize with a building sense of helplessness. My stomach tightens as I rock onto the balls of my feet, torn between leaving and staying. Finally, I move, collapsing to my knees.

  Almost reflexively, his hand seizes a chunk of my hair, yanking my face up for his scrutiny. I’m stripped bare beneath his attention. Then he draws me closer while fisting his shaft with his free hand.

  I fight the instinctive need to close my eyes. I keep them open, watching him observe me, his face that twisted mask of rage I’ve come to associate with him. My mouth opens and my tongue hesitantly shoots out, tracing the wet crown.

  I don’t let myself process the taste. I simply obey, using my tongue to whisk liquid away even though it leaves him just as damp as before. My mind shuts down and I move on autopilot without ever stopping to reject the act. His gaze is the only thing to give me context to the moment: eyebrows drawn, mouth curved downward, piercing, empty eyes.

  Suddenly, my hair is tugged painfully, which pulls me away.

  His breaths thunder from him, his lids lowered. A surprisingly pink tongue flits across his parted lips, tasting my fear on the air. “Open your mouth,” he says harshly.

  No. Fear crawls through me at the thought of being choked again. My esophagus is still tender from before. Without thinking, I return to his cock, this time licking him faster. Harder.

  He grunts in surprise, and I’m sure he yanks chunks of my hair out by the root. Then he stiffens. My hand comes up as if on its own accord, grasping him in a weak fist. Desperate to mimic the tightness of my throat, I squeeze.

  “F-fuck.” His breathless gasp encourages me to squeeze harder and lavish attention on the places along his shaft that make him grunt. Curse me. Hiss. Spit. “Dammit, stop!”

  He shoves me away this time, his hand striking my shoulder. I let myself go limp, watching him grasp his length in both hands. He doesn’t stroke, just grips until his knuckles whiten as if he’s fighting to stave off any reaction. Then our gazes meet. Collide.

  “Fuck!” His head rears back and he spills himself into his palm.

  Not by intention.

  His anger resonates in my very bones as he steps over me and snatches my dress from the floor and cleans himself off with the satin. Then he tosses the garment aside before snatching up another item. This one, he holds up in the overcast daylight filtering in through the window: one of the letters. His teeth gnash at the air as he grabs the other corner of the envelope, preparing to rip it open. Before he can, he bellows out something unintelligible and throws it so hard that it bounces off a bookshelf.

  “Fuck you! Fuck—” He tears at his hair, and his gaze finds mine, narrowed and unsettling. “If you won’t read, then you stay in here. You don’t fucking move an inch.”

  He advances toward me, testing the strength of his command. I stay still, lying on the floor. I don’t breathe. I don’t blink. As requested, I don’t move a fucking inch.

  Paces away from me, he turns and marches for the door instead. I sense his gaze rake over my prone body one last time. Then he’s gone, leaving the door open and exposed to the drafty air chilling the rest of the house. Within days, my warm, familial haven has become an icy crypt, haunted by old memories.

  A flash of white catches the corner of my eye: one of the letters strewn beneath the desk. There are ten of them in total. Ten fragile pieces of my soul I’d thought torn away years ago. I’m not ready to reconnect with them now. It feels like ages pass before I gather up the nerve to reach for one and run my fingers over the sloppy handwriting spelling out Brandt’s name.

  My eyes sear. Blinking worsens the pain, and once again, I find myself weeping, unable to slow the onslaught of misery. The moisture smears the old ink, rendering it illegible. Just a stain of black over faded ivory, much like the way the past stained our perfect Hollings future. Papa always warned me not to dwell and never to regret.

  We were Hollings, and that means…

  It means…

  I grasp through my thoughts for the answer but find nothing tangible. Just pain, and agony, and a growling voice that won’t stop echoing inside my skull: You’re only beautiful like this. Broken. Beautiful. Broken.

  You’re broken, beautiful Snow.

  In my hands, I hold just one tiny sliver of who I used to be. Moving like an old woman, I carefully gather the rest, wiping off dust and grime as best I can with my already filthy fingers.

  Papa always kept matches somewhere in his study to light the fireplace when the mood struck him. Usually on the mantel, hidden within the false bottom of a Napoleon statue. It’s still there, a tiny figure riding a marble horse. So I crawl toward it and find the book of matches intact, with one remaining.

  There’s no wood in the fireplace itself. Regardless, I arrange the letters in a neat stack and strike the match.

  The topmost one almost doesn’t light, stubbornly resisting destruction. When I move the flame directly over Brandt’s scrawled name, it finally catches fire.

  Layer by layer, my unspoken explanation goes up in flames as I watch on. Burning smoke floods the room, making me cough and my eyes water further. It’s the smell that must draw him back. His footsteps rattle the floorboards, rapid in their approach.

  “What the hell?”

  I turn and find him lunging through the doorway, his chest heaving. When he sees what I’ve done, he lurches forward and shoves me back. Hissing, he beats the flames with his bare hands before snatching my dress up to vanquish much of the fire. From the smoking wreckage, only one letter survives, and he cradles it against his palm.

  “Get the fuck out.”

  I don’t make him tell me twice.

  On jellied legs, I return to my room and scrub myself clean. I pull on my shift dress and almost immediately find myself wandering the kitchens, desperate for fresh air. His very presence repels me from the house, banishing me to the gardens—but I don’t go far. Enslaved by my promise, I go only as far as the grounds allow me. Walking. Running. Weeping.

  My eyelids chafe against sore flesh. I’m exhausted from crying so many tears. They blur my surroundings, reducing the stunning estate to a landscape of smeared gray and emerald green. A cool wind nips at my hair and bared flesh, seeming to shove me along until I reach the wooden path by the boathouse.

  He’s not here, a fact that gives me enough courage to creep inside and throw myself into maneuvering one of the exercise machines. Without permission. I know I’m not welcome here, but exertion is more welcome than waiting for his next assault.

  He wants me beautiful for him. I’ll give him exactly what he wants: beautiful, broken, ugly, fractured, selfish Snow.

  After attempting to lift weights until my arms burn, I reach for a dumbbell, intending to lessen my load. But when my fingers brush the metal surface, everything blinks in and out of f
ocus. Then I’m falling through the floor, wrapped within a heavy, dizzying cloud. The next thing I know, I’m on my knees, tasting blood.

  My stomach churns, an angry, vengeful thing. How long has it been since I’ve eaten? I can’t remember, not that it matters. My body swells around me. I’ve never felt so ungainly. So clumsy. So stupid.

  Stupid.

  Stupid!

  I’m engorged on Blake Lorenz. He fills me up, more decadent than any cake or sweet. He’s poison. I can’t keep him out. I can’t keep him in. Bile lurches up my throat, impossible to choke down. Desperate, my gaze cuts to the lake shimmering beyond the window, and I tear from the boathouse and stumble toward the dock.

  My reflection gazes up at me from the water’s surface, so hollow and pale that she glows. Maybe she’s not me but a ghostly soul doomed to haunt the Hollings Estate. She watches me sway, looming closer. Farther. Closer.

  Alarm runs down my spine before my brain can process it. Panicked, I grasp for the railing, but all I find is air. Then my legs give out, pitching me sideways.

  Thwack!

  Stars dot my vision, burning bright. I hear a splash. And then silence. Darkness.

  And everything fades.

  “No!”

  I flinch at the shout. The way thunder heralds lightning, I know that voice and the danger that tone conveys. Sluggishly, my body reacts to it. My eyelids lift and then lower again, which gives me only a snippet of gray sky and looming trees. It’s cold. Wet. My teeth are chattering so hard that I almost can’t hear what the bellowing figure says next.

  “Don’t you fucking dare, Snow,” he growls. “Breathe!”

  Pressure slams against my chest, knocking me onto my side. Rough earth meets my cheek; I can smell it, grass and dirt. My eyelids flutter faster as my lungs heave, refusing to draw in the air as they should. Each attempt wheezes noisily, gurgling…

  “Damn you. Breathe!”

  Another blow to my chest makes me cough up salty, bitter liquid as my eyes open again. An angel is hovering above me. He’s beautiful, his blue eyes wide with fear. For me? Then his upper lip pulls back from his teeth in a vicious snarl and he’s suddenly more demonic than heavenly.

  “You don’t get to do this,” he hisses as I’m jostled onto my back so that I’m staring up at the sky. “You don’t get to leave me. Not until I let you go. I didn’t let you go. I didn’t…”

  He continues to speak, biting off unintelligible words as my thoughts drift and the world dissipates again.

  Eighteen

  Clinical smells alert me to the fact that I’m not in my room. In fact, going off the thinner, warmer air, I don’t think I’m even in Hollings Manor. My eyes fight to open, but I wind up getting only blinking snapshots of the room: narrow, quiet, and beige.

  A mechanical beeping gives me a vague clue about where I could be. Then I attempt to move and the stiff mattress beneath me confirms it: a hospital room.

  Panic flutters through my veins as I struggle to keep my eyes open. Part of the difficulty, I realize, is because the right side of my face is on fire. The constant throbbing triggers tears. Then everything’s a blur. My arms and legs feel near impossible to lift. Why am I so goddamn heavy?

  “Stop.”

  I stiffen at the harsh command, but I can’t bear to turn my head far enough in the voice’s direction to catch sight of the figure standing there.

  “Where am I?” I wince. Is that me? My voice has never sounded so high-pitched and reedy.

  “They say you fainted,” my visitor coldly replies. “Then you hit your head and fell into the lake. It’s a miracle you didn’t drown.”

  He sounds so dry. As if my death is a topic no more intriguing than the weather.

  Groaning with the effort, I lift my head far enough to see him standing in the corner, despite the pain the movement triggers. His arms are crossed over his chest, his face devoid of emotion.

  “My face?” My fingers only twitch at first when I try to lift them. Eventually, I manage to bring one hand to my cheek. Pain flares with the slightest touch, and something’s covering my skin, stretching down to my jaw. Gauze?

  “A minor laceration,” Blake says, but he stares right through me.

  Overwhelmed, I let myself fall back against a single pillow. Gradually, more of the room comes into focus: the looming doorway from which I can make out the chaos of the hall. Harsh, artificial light clashes with the natural glow streaming in through my window. Someone pulled my curtains back, revealing a private view we couldn’t even secure for Ronan.

  My lips part and an inquiry about my brothers springs to my tongue, but I bite it back. Silence builds into a stifling pressure between us—at least on my end. When I risk glancing at him again, he’s staring straight ahead, far beyond the confines of this room.

  “You died,” he says, but his expression doesn’t change at all. Almost as if he isn’t even aware of the words leaving his mouth. “Your heart stopped beating. I felt it. You died in my arms.”

  Images fill my skull, lacking context. Cold black. Gray sky. An angel. A devil—watching me suffocate.

  Suddenly, he shakes his head and his lips flatten into a firm line. “They suggested you stay overnight,” he says, sounding more like the callous man I know. “And that you may have some memory loss.”

  His silence draws attention to what he isn’t saying. He wants me to ask him something, but I don’t know what. My thoughts are liquid, too intangible to decipher.

  He has no choice but to drip-feed me more subtle hints. “I’ll have the remainder of your things forwarded to the location of your choice before the liquidation,” he adds, and I frown as my heart picks up speed. Is that hesitation I detect? No. It can’t be. Blake Lorenz doesn’t hesitate to deliver his cruel bombshells.

  And this one is the cruelest.

  I don’t process it for the longest time, and when I do, it’s in snippets. Things. Liquidation…

  “No…” I shake my head, and the nearby beeping sound must track my heart rate, because it increases, building into a frantic rhythm. “No, no!”

  “Yes,” he interjects. “Our deal was that you stay with me for the entire year. Even the loss of one night was not in the agreement—”

  “You can’t do this.” My voice still lacks real definition. I lick my lips and attempt to sit upright. “You can’t do this—”

  “I’m abiding by our agreement,” he insists, stepping forward from the shadows.

  God, he looks awful. Even the harshest swipe of his fingers can’t tame his wild hair. His clothes look damp, and the briny scent of still water wafts from his direction. Because, for whatever reason, he jumped in after me…

  That much is clearer now, even though a part of me refuses to believe it: his hands slamming onto my chest, knocking the water from my lungs. My chest heaves at the memories as my rib cage constricts over tissue-paper lungs.

  “You can’t do this.”

  “It’s already done.” He shakes his head, and for the first time, his gaze seems to focus on me directly. He frowns at what he finds. Then he turns to the door, squaring his shoulders.

  “Why are you like this?” My voice breaks openly, but I can’t even attempt to disguise the pain. I’m sobbing again, gritting my teeth against any sounds that might escape. But a moan does. Then a bleating whimper. I’m so fucking weak that even he flinches at the sound and his footsteps slow. “You knew Brandt…”

  It doesn’t even hurt to say his name anymore. Maybe now I can finally admit that he’s a specter. He’s dead and gone, even if the man before me reminds me of him in every inch of his being. My Brandt is gone.

  “He wasn’t… He was good,” I croak.

  Blake laughs, but it’s a hollow sound that chills me to the bone. “He was good,” he says softly. “He did love you. And he is dead. I’ll send notice as to where you can collect your things—”

  “You promised me.”

  Again, he pauses near the door, his muscles bulging with suppressed t
ension. “A promise means nothing in the world of business. You’re a fucking Hollings. Don’t tell me you don’t know that.”

  “F-fine.” I swipe at the blankets, shivering as I’m left exposed in a thin, backless hospital gown.

  “What the hell are you doing?” He bares his teeth, his hands flexing at his sides. “Get back into bed.”

  “I’m upholding my end of the agreement,” I state. Which is funny because I can’t even support my weight. Whatever happened between fainting and hitting the water sapped my strength. Freeing my legs from the sheets is an ordeal that has me panting and sweat creeping across my brow.

  A flicker of motion alerts me to his sudden advance. He grabs my arm, shoving me down so hard that I’m left spinning. “Get back in the fucking bed.”

  “You can’t do this!” Pain unlike anything I’ve ever felt rips through my chest, outlasting any injury. I see Hollings Manor lost forever and my heart physically fractures inside me. I can feel it beating in a disjointed rhythm. “You can’t…”

  He heads for the door, and this time, he doesn’t look back. “Welcome to the real world,” he says. A sigh edges his words. He has the nerve to sound weary, as if he’s done me an exhausting favor. “A world where your name doesn’t mean shit once it’s taken away. Where the ones you love the most can betray you in an instant. Where nobody gives a shit if you howl in pain at the injustice of it all.”

  He’s not speaking about me.

  “Think about that the next time you dare to mention Brandt Lloyd’s name.”

  “I loved him.” At this point, I’m little more than a broken record, croaking out the same tired line. But the repetition makes it no less true. “Everything I did was to protect him!”

  If that assertion bothers him, I can’t tell. He leaves, melding into the clinical hallway. But he can’t go. Not now.

  I kick my legs and strain to bring them over the side of the bed. Somehow, I wind up sitting with my feet braced on the floor. Then I try to stand only to fail. Over and over as time ticks stubbornly on.