Page 15 of A Kingdom of Lies
“Fuck you,” I snarled. “That’s what my father taught me.”
Doran’s face elongated into a gasp of horror. “Terrible choice of words. How unbecoming of a king.”
I felt nothing like a king. I could pretend all I wanted, but deep down I knew.
“Please, Erix,” I begged a final time. “Come with me.”
“He stays because I command it.” Doran laughed as though he was proud of himself. “He will do everything and anything I so desire. It is the curse of his kind. Once they give in to the darkness, there is no clawing their way back to the light.”
The atmosphere shifted quickly. A sense of danger itched at the insides of my ears and scraped along the bottom of my spine up to the base of my skull.
“Speak,” Doran commanded, fingers digging into Erix’s shoulder. “Tell your precious little bird just how correct I am.”
Erix screwed his eyes closed, taking in a deep breath, preparing himself. Then, when his eyes opened, they were slightly lighter than before. That was when he shouted at me. “Run, Robin. Now!”
Erix’s outburst had my blood turning to ice.
“Silence,” Doran bellowed, and Erix’s mouth sealed shut before another word could be uttered. His eyes shifted back to the empty dull sheen that I’d seen this entire time. For that single moment, it was as though a mask cracked and I saw the true Erix behind it.
Fear bridled within me, knowing the pure control Doran had over him.
“Can you just imagine the possibilities?” Doran’s free hand reached down to the bulge in his worn trousers. “Now I have what I require I can lose myself for days with the Mounts who wait for me back at Court. I have many years ahead of me. All it takes is minutes to secure more of Erix’s kind.”
My stomach twisted, bile rising in the back of my throat. “You sicken me.” It was a natural reaction to spit on the floor before Doran. The taste in my mouth was too unbearable to swallow at the thought of the disgusting creature bedding those he spoke of. Doran’s red, swollen hand gripped the space in his crotch and squeezed, gargling a laugh as he revelled in my reaction.
“Surely you are not rushing off, Robin,” Doran replied, frowning. “Not without bidding your lover goodbye?”
I shook my head, unable to look at the empty shell of the man who held the name Erix. A man who I’d spent nights with, lost in his touch and taste. A man whose warm hands had left imprints on my body.
Doran ran his yellowed tongue across his equally yellowed teeth, making a sucking noise that made my skin crawl. “Erix, kiss him goodbye.”
“No,” I spluttered as Erix began stepping towards me. “Stop, Erix, don’t do this. Fight his control.”
I cared little for the warning of Altar as my magic seeped from my body. I would not,couldnot, let Erix near me, even if a part of me longed for his touch a final time. Because that was what this was, a final time, I knew that truth deep down.
Erix was lost to me.
The greenery around me crystallised as a cool breeze of ice spread. It didn’t deter Erix, who kept coming, even though his boots crunched the blades of iced grass and stone with each step.
Father was growing too heavy to hold as I stepped backwards towards the exit. I couldn’t risk seeing where I walked.
“Robin, do not regret missing the opportunity to say farewell to your love.” Doran’s voice deepened as though he concealed something beneath it. “I admit I never had a taste for boys. Not when the Mounts within my Court present themselves like honey to the tongue. But in this light, I can see what entrapped Tarron. What piqued the interest of my berserker.”
“I don’t want to hurt you, Erix,” I snapped, defeated as my back pressed against something hard. I turned to see the vine-wrapped pillar I had walked into. Father slipped from my arm and crumpled to the floor, wheezing upon impact, but I could do nothing to help him now. Not as I held both hands out, pressing them into Erix’s chest with as much might as I could muster. My back arched against the stone as Erix still forced forward, my arms shaking with the effort of keeping his unwanted mouth from leaning towards me.
Ice spread across the leather of his breastplate, devouring the dark material until it glittered beneath my hands. I turned my head to the side, trying everything to stop his mouth from coming closer. “No.”
“No?” Doran called from somewhere behind Erix. “Say it louder. Scream it.”
“Get off me!”
“Louder,” Doran commanded.
“Please…” My voice was broken, shattered like my soul. “Erix, stop!”
Doran spoke to Erix as though he was a dog upon the end of a leash. “Hold.”
And Erix did, frozen in place, his lips inches from my face. I was crying, tears turning to beads of ice as they crusted upon my cheeks. I closed my eyes, turning my head to the side to stop myself from seeing Erix’s shadowed face so close to mine.
