“Do you want to rest before everyone gets here?”
I think carefully through my irrational annoyance at the mystery women buzzing around Rorrick and Christian and probably Seven too.
“Yeah, I think I’ll take a nap.”
“Great. Do you know how to get back to your room?”
Wow, these people are really shitty kidnappers.
“Yeah, I’ll be fine.”
Honestly, I’m not even sure if I could find my way back to Christian’s bedroom, let alone make a run for it and find the actual exit out of this hellhole.
She nods to me with a soft but sorrow-filled smile as I slip by. My heart pangs at the thought of planning an escape tonight and leaving this poor woman here. But she’s one of them. I can’t confide in her. I can’t console her. I can only leave her. And care for myself the way I always do.
I pull the door closed quietly behind me and try not to think about where the hell I’ll actually go once I’m away from this place. Is there a band of magical goblins, or elves, or something I could shack up with for awhile until I figure it all out? It worked for Snow White…
I’m so fucked.
That makes two of us, apparently. The door I’d passed earlier is wide open, and a moan shakes through the room and hallway. I stop for a mere second when I see her bare breasts pressed against Christian’s mouth, his tongue, his violently sharp teeth.
And that’s when I fucking snap.
SIXTEEN
Crymson
My heels click ominouslyas I walk casually through the open door. It’s an eerie calmness that takes over my aggression. The tall ceilings of the space should make me feel small and insignificant, but in this moment, I don’t. Fury burns in my chest, but there’s a poise to every step I take in the beautifully slutty ballgown.
I feel like a fucking force to be reckoned with. Maybe it’s the dress, or maybe it’s their fucking audacity, but either way, I’m so goddamn sick of men treating me like a thing. Like I’m something that can be used up and forgotten.
When it’s all said and done, these vampire men might use me up entirely, but they’llneverfucking forget me.
Not this time.
The moans of the room and the breathy giggles are a stale silence in the room when I enter. Rorrick and Seven sit near the wall farthest from me. Neither of them touching the women in their laps now. Neither moving a damn inch. Three women send glinting glares my way, but each one of them looks to Christian,clearly waiting for him to dismiss me like the future king of this disgusting kingdom that he is.
Seconds tick by on the hands of the sleek gold grandfather clock in the corner of the study. Everyone waits for their prince to speak. He tilts his head toward the woman in his lap but holds my gaze as he speaks.
“Go back to town. Our driver will take you.”
My brows crease hard, but the pop of the woman’s mouth sends understanding all through me. Her head spins toward him, and she looks like a child about to throw the most epic tantrum. She should probably put her boobs away before she starts flailing on the floor with beating fists and kicking feet though.
“You’re dismissing us, my lord?” Her cherry lips wobble with outrage and frustration.
“My driver will take you wherever you need to go,” he says in that typical empty tone.
He distances himself with that tone. He did it to me when I first arrived, and he’s doing it to them now.
And then he stands so stiffly, she stumbles out of his lap and only catches herself with her palm on the tile floor, inches from landing on her ass. Hastily, she pulls the top of her gown up over her nudity. A brunette comes quietly over and takes her friend’s hand to help her up, but the woman jerks away from her with apparent pride that I didn’t know she had when her boobs were bouncing around like beach balls at a summer concert.
“You’re choosing a used-up whore from your father’s bed over me?!”
At that, Rorrick’s chair shoves back from him with so much force, the legs scrape into the tile with a puff of wafting dust. He stands tall, a giant of a man in a room full of tiny, fragile women. I watch him suddenly, but he doesn’t lift a hand to any of them.His fury is tense across his scarred face, and it’s a shaking tone that slips from his clenched jaw.
“Leave like our prince asked you to. Or I’ll drag the three of you out myself.”
Seven’s quiet, watchful gaze passes from his friend to me, never once remembering the other three women that are still in the room. But it’s the questioning look in his knowing eyes that lingers in my mind.
