“Ah. Your shirt. Right. She looked good in that shirt.” I pause, and it’s sad how easy it is to press his buttons. “She looked good out of it too.” I lift my hand conversationally, and my calmness only makes him rage even harder.
It’s his downfall really. His emotions take on too much. He doesn’t know how to cut the emotions from the problems in his life. Just like his father, I’m told.
His fist slams into my jaw with a blur of his big body coming down on mine. The chair breaks beneath our weight, and we slam hard to the glossy, wooden floor. My eyes close, and it’sdifficult to explain my reaction. Because I don’t have one. I just take it. When his fist cracks down across my nose once more, I thrive in that pain. Colors burst to life, the room becomes brighter, the anger in his eyes feels deeper.
I can feel. Every. Single. Thing.
Finally.
“Stop!” Christian stares down on the two of us from the other side of his desk, and his attention slides slowly to the splintered wood that’s all around me. The woven vines of the chair are nothing but jagged pieces now. “You know he loves this shit,” Christian whispers to Rorrick. “Because of her, the fae will be here for the first time in three hundred years! I need you to use your brain! He’s antagonizing you. He didn’t fuck her. Her scent would be all over him if he did.”
Rorrick’s fists open slowly, releasing all the anger that he held there. Christian’s right. I love to set Rorrick off. And Rorrick loves to be set off.
My entire relationship with Rorrick is a fucking mess. His father was my master. And when he died, I was passed down to Rorrick. He didn’t want me. He never hurt me. I know that and he knows that. But there’s a stain on our relationship that will never fade. It will always be there, with tense glares and bitter tastes in our mouths.
We’ll never be friends. Not really.
He stands over me now. A giant of a man. A big palm splays open, and there’s shame in his eyes as he helps me up.
He doesn’t apologize. He shouldn’t. I deserved exactly what I got. I just shouldn’t have made him give it to me.
I swipe the blood from my nose but the pain and wound are already gone. I settle on brushing the dust from my pants. Rorrick doesn’t. He’s staring... I look up and find him watching Christian. There’s a deep line between the prince’s eyebrows.And he’s still fixated on the mess of splinters left on the floor from the chair.
“My sister’s been Promised,” he utters.
I blink at all the words he isn’t saying. His voice is a haunting tone, not filled with authority or power. It’s empty.
“He said he wouldn’t Promise Delilah. He told me he wouldn’t after mother died.”
It’s not only his voice that’s haunted though. Shadows crawl across his pale face in an unnatural way. Smooth veins turn inky across his neck and jaw. The thing inside him... the magic that he hides... it’s pissed.
And we’ll all be fucked if he lets that thing out.
“Who did he Promise her to?” Rorrick’s hands frame his hips as he seems to sort all this out.
Rorrick and Christian are alike. Too much problem solving and not enough self-care. That’s why they’re filled with anger they can’t control. They don’t take enough “me time”.
But I can’t say I blame them for their anger. There’s a lot to be angry about in the Dark Lands.
His father has sold off all of Christian’s half sisters. Sent his sons away to defend our borders. I don’t even fully know what he did to their mother. But he has never had the nerve to Promise the only full-blooded family Christian has left.
Until now.
He’s a real fucking bastard for all that he’s done. But this—this might get him killed.
“Who did he Promise her to?” I repeat, my voice carrying more emotion now that even I can’t contain.
The hair on the back of my arms lifts little by little before he ever utters the words.
“The Thorn King.”
TWELVE
Rorrick
“Should I check on her?”
Seven’s dark eyes narrow on me and I wish I hadn’ said anything at all. The mess of Christian’s sister and our far too alluring prisoner are all screwing with my head.
