King's Men

by Lana Sky

  “Miss?”

  I glance up and find a nurse in the doorway. Her blue scrubs contrast with the white surroundings and highlight the wariness in her gaze. Instantly, I suspect she wasn’t here on her own, but sent.

  “You should lie back down, honey—”

  “I want to sign myself out,” I say. “Now.”

  She frowns but scurries from the doorway. I barely get to relish in my apparent victory when a new figure appears in her place.

  “Snowy?”

  God, not now.

  The man standing in the doorway looks so worn that I barely recognize him. Is it really Hunter? These past few days have aged him well beyond his thirty years. His suit jacket is wrinkled, the white shirt underneath stained with what I hope is coffee.

  The smell betrays him: it’s wine.

  “I’m sorry,” he mutters as his bloodshot eyes scan my face and quickly glance away. “I must have the wrong room—”

  “Hunter?” I self-consciously touch my face, focusing on the bandage. A minor laceration, Blake said.

  “S-Snowy?” Hunter blinks and shakes his head as he comes closer. He snatches my hand up in a grip tight enough to break. “Jesus Christ… What the hell happened? All I know is I get a fucking call in the middle of the night—”

  “My face…” It should be the least of my concern. Still, vanity outlasts everything, even shock. Desperate, I scan the room, but I don’t find the hint of a mirror. “I need to see my face.”

  “That’s probably not a good idea. They used those damn old-fashioned stitches.” Hunter winces as if he hadn’t meant to speak. “Snow…” His fingers cup my chin and gently lift it. They shake. “What the fuck happened? Where have you been? Sh-shit, I should have called the fucking police. A goddamn note. What the hell was I thinking?”

  “I’m fine.” I shrug him off and struggle to tamp down the panic building in my veins. My breaths are shallow and frantic, impossible to slow. “How is Ronan?”

  He glances at the door. “He’s fine. Better than expected, in fact. He’s been awake for three days. I tried calling you—”

  “Miss?” The nurse calls from the hall, holding a stack of paperwork and tugging a portable piece of equipment. “Are you ready?”

  I glance from her to Hunter and shake my head. Surprisingly, she seems to take the hint and says nothing. For now.

  “I’m starving, Hunt,” I blurt, nodding toward my emaciated frame.

  Questions he doesn’t voice out loud linger in his eyes as his fingers deliberately encircle my wrist, which is something he hasn’t done in years. The act was always his tried-and-true test whenever I’d gone too far. He draws away but can’t suppress his horrified expression before I catch it.

  You’re only beautiful like this…

  “Snowy?” He strokes my shorn curls. “I’ll get you something to eat. Would you like that?”

  I nod. “Please. From the cafeteria.” I force a nervous laugh. “I can’t stand hospital food.”

  “Yes.” He swipes his hand along his pants and then blinks as the realization of our precarious financials dawns on him. Then he shakes his head. “I’ll get it. Whatever you want.”

  I send him off, and the nurse comes forward.

  “You have the right to leave,” she tells me, as she hooks me up to a blood pressure cuff. “But I’ll only recommend it to the doctor if everything is within limits.”

  I submit to her assessment, warily watching the time tick onward. It’s already late in the evening.

  I have only until midnight.

  Nineteen

  I race barefoot up to the door of Hollings Manor and pound against it with both fists, knowing I’ll barely make a sound. Exhaustion rips my nerves to pieces. I’m shaking with the effort it takes to stand. In only a thin hospital gown, my body is helpless against the biting chill. Winter is in the air, and it seems to mock me with its looming arrival: You failed.

  “Blake!” My rasping shouts battle the wind for supremacy. “Blake!”

  The door cracks, opened a fraction from the inside. I nearly collapse against it in relief.

  “I’m here,” I say in between gasping breaths. “You…can’t…turn me away.”

  “Excuse me?”

  I flinch back as if struck. That voice. It’s not Blake’s cold rasp or Charles’s suave tenor. No… The soft tone could only belong to a woman. A young woman, I realize as the light from the foyer ghosts over her delicate features. She’s tall and slim, with white-blond hair curling prettily over her shoulders. Her dress is nothing like the wispy garments Blake chose for me, but a modestly cut navy-blue shift. Her green eyes watch me warily, drifting down to my bare toes.

  “Blake?” she calls, her voice shaking.

  “What is it?”

  I stiffen at the gruff baritone before I see him cross the entryway over the woman’s shoulder. His hair is lazily slicked back, his shirt unbuttoned to reveal the panes of his chest. On bare feet, he approaches the door, and I barely recognize this relaxed, handsome stranger. Then he spots me, and Blake Lorenz returns with a vengeance. His cold eyes narrow over my trembling frame.

  “Masha,” he says sharply, causing the woman to flinch. “Wait for me down the hall.”

  She hesitates, her wide-eyed gaze on my face. “What is—”

  “Go,” he commands, but the gentle tone differs from the callous way he orders me. He places a hand on Masha’s shoulder and steers her in the opposite direction. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

  I watch her scurry away, this beautiful, perfect creature. Not too long ago, I knew how to emulate her. How to charm her. How to intimidate her.

  I was her. Innocent and pretty, at a man’s beck and call. She even walks the way I used to: slowly and unhurried without a care in the world to delay her steps—or so she lets everyone think.

  Blake Lorenz has done his best to destroy me since the day we met, but this… This guts me. I hunch over, clutching at the door for support. I hear him say something. Growl something, but I can’t understand what. The world spins for what feels like an eternity as a mocking whisper creeps through my thoughts: You thought you were the only one?

  “Let go of the fucking door.”

  I’m clinging to it for dear life, preventing him from slamming it shut. The harder he tries, the tighter my fingers grip the panel of wood. I shouldn’t be able to outmatch him, even at my full health.

  For some reason, he’s not fighting me. “Let go—”

  “What are you doing?” My entire body is jostled toward the entryway. Only now do I realize that I’m not on my feet, but being carried in arms like steel over the threshold. Robotically, I peel my fingers back one by one and watch the door rattle against its frame with a bang.

  “You stupid little cunt,” he snarls into my hair. “I should have you whipped. I should have you…” He trails off, speaking too softly to decipher—because of her. He doesn’t want Masha to overhear.

  Why that thought resonates so deeply, I can’t explain. Maybe it’s out of concern. She should know the man she’s dealing with.

  I don’t find her lurking in the room he carries me into—the sitting area just off the main entrance. He switches a lamp on one-handed and then dumps my body onto a leather chaise—but he shoves a pillow beneath my head first. Confusion disrupts the indignation I should feel. That self-righteous need to fight for my property that brought me here. So I meet his gaze as best I can through watery vision, intending to state my case right to his face.

  “You…you certainly move fast,” I croak without recognizing the sound of my voice.

  He raises an eyebrow as his eyes cut to the doorway. If I’m not mistaken, a smile tugs at his mouth before a frown destroys any trace of humanity.

  “Is this supposed to impress me, Snow?” He gestures to my body, inadvertently drawing my attention to the fact that the hospital gown is bunched up around my waist, baring everything to him from my thighs down. “I told you: It’s over—”

  �
�You claim that Hollingses are liars,” I counter, struggling to haul myself into some semblance of a dignified position. I curl my legs beneath me, but I don’t feel strong enough to attempt standing. Even I can admit as much. “Maybe we are, but if you renege on our agreement, then you’re no better than we are.”

  He scowls at the accusation.

  “You told me that I couldn’t miss a single day with you. I’m here.”

  “That you are.” He shifts his position to glower from the nearest window, out at the pitch-dark blackness beyond.

  “Though.” My tone has him frowning and glancing back, his eyebrows knitted. “I didn’t sign up for this.”

  “To be whored?” he wonders with such callousness that I cringe against the seat cushions. He grins at the show of weakness, but the expression doesn’t reach his eyes. It’s like he’s merely going through the motions.

  “To be part of a harem,” I counter. The venom lacing my voice is a shock, and not only to me.

  “A harem?” he repeats as if tasting the word. He begins to pace with his hands clasped behind his back, oblivious to how his chest remains exposed. I suspect from the way his knuckles stand out in stark contrast to his skin that keeping his hands out of sight is the only way he can stop himself from using them. On me. “Whatever do you mean, Snowy?” He observes me shrewdly. “Did you think that you’d be the only woman I’d fuck?”

  My face heats and the rush of blood triggers pain from my injury. I turn away. “Of course not.”

  Maybe it’s the truth. A man who used me for pure entertainment would surely have other women at his beck and call.

  “But I didn’t sign up for adultery.”

  “Oh?” Something darkens his gaze, making the hairs on the back of my neck to stand on end.

  “I…” Even short, my hair encases me like a veil, giving me enough courage to spit an answer out: “Is she your wife?”

  I hear him grunt. Out of shock? When I look up, that unsettling expression has strengthened, rendering his face unreadable. Again, his eyes cut to the doorway and I get the sense that I inferred too much. He doesn’t like the conclusion I’ve drawn about Masha.

  But it’s obvious he cares for her, even in the way he talks down to me.

  “And if she is?”

  His nonchalance catches me off guard. Confirmation? Something terrible and sharp twists inside me, and suddenly, all other discomfort is forgotten. I kick my feet out and stand. Too quickly. Only the nearby coffee table can break my fall, and I land hard.

  “Jesus Christ.”

  He grabs me before I can move on my own. Blinking, I find the room spinning once more, morphing into the upstairs hallway and then my shadowed bedroom.

  “Stay here,” he commands before lowering me onto the mattress.

  I’m not sure if my head strikes the pillow by his intention or accident. But he leaves the room before I can decipher any hint of concern.

  Alone in the darkness, I wait until I’m sure he’s descended the stairs before climbing to my feet. Moving at all is an ordeal I grit my teeth to endure. My head throbs and sweat glosses my limbs as I finally make it into my bathroom, using the wall for support. Here, I switch the light on and prepare to face my expression.

  Oh God.

  Horror drains what little color remains from my face. That can’t be me.

  I glance around the room, hunting for another figure nearby who could cast such a ghastly reflection. All I find are shadows and silence. When I hobble to the counter, the person in the mirror does the same, her eyes wide and bloodshot with tears. Her bottom lip trembles, one of the few features I can recognize.

  What Blake Lorenz classified as a “minor laceration” requires a bandage taped from my right eye almost to my chin. Spots of blood have seeped through, and I remember something the nurse told me that I shoved to the back of my mind before now: “You’ll need to make an appointment to remove the stitches.”

  My hands shake as I carefully peel the tape back and remove the gauze. Then a gasp of horror escapes me. The area beneath my eye is bruised a violent shade of purple. Through the damage stretches a line sealed with a tiny row of black stitches. Dried and fresh blood cling to the rent skin. Despite everything, a sudden thought makes a bubble of hysterical laughter erupt from my chest. At least Daniel’s on his way to prison, because he wouldn’t want me now. Not without my money or my pretty face.

  I’m still laughing, even as dread claws away every ounce of emotion I have left but shame and dread.

  I’m a hollow shell, forced to scuttle back into the shadows of my bedroom.

  You’re only beautiful like this, Snow. You’re only beautiful like this.

  “I told you to stay in the fucking bed.”

  I’m still hovering over the threshold when I spot him standing by my bed, his eyes gleaming through the darkness. I didn’t even hear him come in. He approaches me, heedless of how I scramble back, and snatches my arm, dragging me forward before shoving me onto the mattress.

  I expect him to leave. I need him to.

  Instead, his silhouette stubbornly lingers over the wall, blotting out what little moonlight has managed to seep in through the windows. I hear the rasp of sheets as he draws them back, revealing a sliver for me to slip beneath. Before I can mistake the gesture for one of kindness, he yanks the top sheet from the bed entirely.

  “Lie down.”

  My heart clenches unsteadily in my chest. He couldn’t mean to… Not now. I glance at the door, but the question I need to ask won’t escape my tongue. My head throbs; my body aches. I couldn’t stop him if I tried.

  “You’re wondering if my wife is still here,” he deduces, stressing the word.

  I grit my teeth, but he chuckles in triumph, sounding more unstable than gleeful.

  “Oh, little Snow. I sent her away. If I were to allow her to catch me with a whore, it might as well be one worth divorcing over.”

  The insult can only sting if I care what he thinks of me. Still, I wince. He chuckles again, or perhaps it’s just how he breathes: part growl, part grunt, huffing into the air.

  “Don’t make the mistake of thinking that I won’t fuck you, even like this,” he warns, possessively sliding a hand beneath my gown, grazing my thigh. He’s warm.

  I hiss at the fact, hating the greedy muscles that latch onto his heat. In my absence, the house remained devoid of any warmth.

  “You came back to me,” he adds as his touch travels higher, swiping aside the hospital-issued garment. He has a clear view of my stomach now. My thighs. Between my legs… “You came back for this.” He shoves a finger inside me without preamble, and I can’t silence my cry.

  My back bows, pressing my head against the mattress and triggering a throb in my skull that has me seeing stars. If only the pain were the worst part. Anything but the fire he brings to life with one curling, twisting swipe of that searching digit.

  “Because you crave it.”

  I cringe from the brutal accusation, turning my face toward the sheets. He finds me anyway, sinking his hand into my hair to drag me back to face him. I groan. The world is spinning now, with him at the constant center.

  His clenching jaw is my only warning before he mounts the bed, easily batting his way between my closing thighs. With his grip on my hair, he guides where I look—up at him as his free hand shoves between us, flicking my gown out of the way. He settles himself between my splayed legs as if he belongs there, even when I’m dazed and bleeding. Even if I’m half dead. He owns me, and he’ll take what he wants.

  I shiver as his fingers trace the curve of my rib cage, ghosting up…higher.

  “I saw the way you looked at yourself,” he admits, his breath nuzzling my breasts as his creeping fingers displace my gown further. “With pity.” He laughs as my skin heats with shame.

  His hand sweeps over my stomach and hooks beneath my waist, flipping me over. My head lolls at the sudden shift. The doctor warned I could have a concussion and to return immediately if I felt
unusual pressure. I’m all pressure, building to a painful, crushing degree. I let my face sink into the sheets, inhaling my scent, alarmed to find it mingled with his.

  Already, he’s permeated the cotton. “But you don’t even know…”

  Nails rake down my spine and over the curve of my ass. Right before my thigh, the sharp ridges bite down, drawing a scream I barely manage to smother. Almost as quickly as the assault came, he soothes over the area with his palm. Then he draws it back and smacks the same spot.

  “You don’t know how fucking beautiful you look like this.” He nudges my face toward him and strokes along the line of burning stitches. “It gets me hard just thinking about the things I could do to you,” he admits.

  With his next pass, he presses against the wound, just enough to make it sting more. “The bruises I could leave over your skin. The ways I could make you scream. Your pain is a drug, Snow.” He inhales raggedly, his gaze unfocused. God, that’s how he looks now: drugged. “It’s fucking hell. And you came back.”

  I tense in warning, even before his fingers encircle my throat, clenching so tightly that I choke. Then he releases his grip and tugs the rest of the gown away, leaving me bared to him fully.

  “You came back knowing that I’d fuck you. That I’d bite you—” His head lowers, teeth bared.

  A protest stammers from my lips, but it’s too late. He nips the swell of my breast. Laves with his tongue. As air flutters from my lungs, he bites down so hard that my vision goes white for a split second. I can’t even form a proper scream—just a gasp. My hand shoves against his shoulder, but he doesn’t even budge.

  “You knew,” he accuses against damp, sore flesh. “And you came back anyway. Say it.”

  I flinch as he strikes me again. Not to bruise, merely to sting. To feel.

  His heavy groan betrays the erection hardening against my lower back. He wasn’t lying; hurting me arouses him. My pain gets him off. “Say it—”

  “I-I came back.”

  The obedience doesn’t save me from another quick strike to my hip, followed by another chilling stroke of his fingers to seal in the injury. He lingers there, lazily tracing a path to my thigh. I can sense his control fracturing. His hands shake. His breaths quicken, ruffling my hair and drying the sweat slicking my shoulders. Something is holding him back, and my stomach drops at the prospect.