The king and his friend both raise their shining cups high, mine joining there as well. My father staggers into the circle of raised cups, his big goblet clashing against ours, and I have to really put effort into not breaking my entire jaw from how tightly I’m holding onto this fucking smile.
“To—”
My words are cut off as the Thorn King interrupts.
“To Crymson Vain. May she right many wrongs and heal the poison between our two kingdoms.”
My attention narrows on the king while cheers of immense approval follow his strange words. He holds my gaze the entire time he throws his head back and downs the glass in one big gulp.
We’re coming up the back. Keep him distracted until I can get her inside.
Rorrick’s voice cuts through my mind, and my attention flashes toward the back door of the garden. Through the smoke, I see her holding her shoes in her hand as Rorrick holds open the door for her.
“Father.” I take a step into his space but his drunken attention doesn’t see me at all. It’s like he knows she’s there. Or perhaps stupidity simply leads him in life.
“There. There she is. Come here, girl!”
Stiffness lines her slender back from his roaring words. I notice then that her dress exposes the peeking hint of claw marks from her first encounter with my father. The jagged scars are still pink and healing. My jaw grinds when he doesn’t wait for her to come to him. He storms across the smoky garden.
She turns slowly, her bare feet dirty and muddy against the castle steps. Her chin lifts, and she meets him with silent but steely attention.
“You are mine! Do not dishonor me again, girl.” And then... his hand rears back and snaps across her face.
Her gasp of shaking shock is barely heard before I’m in his fucking face. My fingers sink into the flabby meat of his neck, my nails digging into soft flesh as I slam him down against the hard brick wall. With hostility rising between us, flickering violent memories of my childhood threaten to come to life in my mind. But I shove them back down.
A space is made around us as I hold him pinned there like a moth with tattered, breakable wings.
“Know your fucking place, Father,” I hiss through my fangs. “This entire exhausting, ridiculous ceremony is for her. It’s her fucking ceremony that we’re just puppets lined up to get a fucking glimpse of her. She isn’t yours.” Seven’s hand touches my shoulder for a single moment of calming energy that’s failing to extinguish the fiery rage inside me. But it does reach me. The whiteness that’s kissing my knuckles fades. I lower him back to his stubby legs. My fingers curl around the collar of his suit, and I smooth it back out for him with a shaking, unsteady smile pressing to my mouth. “She isn’t yours,yet.” I add. “Let’s not insult our friends or the gift they’re giving.” I turn my manic smile to the Thorn King, and what I find there is just as unsettling as my own sudden messy emotions.
The hardness of his jaw trembles. The heavy wings against his back are arced high above him, shadowing across not only myself but my father as well. He looms over us like a grim angel with dark intent.
“Rorrick,” I say casually, my eyes clashing with Thorn’s. “Take my father inside. He’s had too much to drink.”
I straighten my posture, and though Thorn has a mass of muscle that severely outweighs me, my strength is unmatched.
I hear my father’s mumbling dry up, and only when the door closes with a quiet click, do I dare speak to him.
“I know?—”
“You think I don’t fucking smell her on you?” His head dips low, his harsh whisper meant for only me. “I see the bruises on her throat. The smell of her cum on his hands is so intoxicating, it leaves no room for the scent of blood that I know is on your friend’s fucking tongue.”
Seven shifts behind me, his body lining up to stand between us and Crymson.
“Crymson.” He looks over me, and the intensity of his stare is heavy when he finds her. “Come here.”
I don’t look back at her. I don’t say a word.
Because the moment he says it, she obeys.
Her scent passes me in a commanding way. The Thorn King is right about how heavily her scent clings to every single part of me, and I didn’t even have her the way I wanted her. I want to wrap her up against my chest and run away from this shitty fucking world I helped my father create.
His hand lifts. Without a word, she slides her palm into his. It’s a form of art between them. A dance that I had no idea she knew the steps to. It’s strange how good you thought you had something with someone... and then seeing what good actually looks like. It’s fluid and easy between them.
Seeing them hand in hand, they don’t look like father and daughter.
They look like lovers.
And vomit stings the back of my throat.
