Emory
My head is aching, and my shin is throbbing, but when I look up to see King Kane standing near the side of my bed, it’s like all of the aches dissipate, and the only thing that matters now is him.
I start to sit up, but he stops me with a motion of his hand. Helga and Nellie are gone, and it’s just him and me now. I don’t move, but he comes to sit next to me on the bed so that his hip is right next to mine.
“Are you all right?” he asks, his voice full of concern as he gently brushes my hair away from my face.
I am lying in an awkward position to be able to talk to him, and I do feel it is necessary that I let him know what happened, at least to a degree, so I roll my hips toward him and scoot up a bit on the pillow, while holding the ice bag in place over the lump on my forehead.
He takes it from me, and once again, his fingers touch my skin, just briefly, but it is enough for a fire to begin to grow in my flesh, rippling through my body to create a knot in my core.
“I’m all right,” I assure him. “Thanks to Nellie and Rainer.”
At first, his expression only darkens, but then, he nods slowly, and a think I see a bit of relief on his face. “Opal did this?” he asks me.
All I can do is shrug at this point. I don’t want to stir up more trouble with her than what’s already gone on. I’m sure Rainer will tell him, though. “They scared me. I’m not sure they were going to do anything. But—”
“What happened?” His voice commands me to answer.
I sit up further, tucking my dress beneath my legs and working the ice pack so that it’s nestled against the bruise on my shin. He pulls back the bag on my head until I’m situated. Then, he replaces it on my bruise, holding it for me. “I was in the garden, waiting for Nellie to bring me some new shoes. My strap broke.” He doesn’t move, like he has no idea what I’m talking about, so I continue. “Opal, Jacob, your brother, and some other women came along and started asking me questions.”
“What sort of questions?” He slides closer to me and his thigh is against my folded knees now. I can’t breathe for a second, and it has nothing to do with my injures.
“Uhm, just silly… teasing questions. Lex actually tried to get them to go on and leave me alone, but then Jacob and Opal wanted me to shift.”
“To shift?” he raises his eyebrows. “They know that’s against the law on castle grounds.”
“Yes, and Lex pointed that out. Opal said—” I stop myself. If I quote her exactly, she will hate me. “She said it would be okay.”
He only shakes his head. His hair is down right now and I watch how the light plays off of it as he moves, momentarily mesmerized, like I am watching a shooting star. He notices and moves so that our eyes are connected. “Then what?”
“Well, I didn’t think it was in my best interest for them to know that I can’t shift yet. I’m not twenty-one yet, so… I don’t have my wolf.” He nods, clearly aware of that already. “Right. So… I got up like I was going to shift, but since I was afraid they might try to hurt me either way, whether I told them I couldn’t shift or I just didn’t shift, I threw my shoes at them and ran.”
His face is unmoving for a beat as I realize how absolutely juvenile I sound. “You… threw your shoes at them?” he repeats. “And ran?”
I nod, biting my bottom lip. He must think I am ridiculous.
A chuckle escapes the back of his throat before he says, “That’s brilliant. I do hope you hit them with your shoes.”
Stunned at his comment, I’m not sure what to say at first, but then I manage, “Well, I didn’t get a good look because I was trying to get away. Nellie had come back and heard what was happening and went for help.” He is nodding again, so I guess he knows this. “I was checking how close they were to me when I ran into Rainer.”
“That’s how you got the bruise on your head?” he asks.
“Yes, and my shoulder.” That one doesn’t hurt as much.
His fingertips slide beneath the strap of my sundress, moving it slightly out of the way, and I can’t help the little gasp that escapes my lips. After he’s inspected the bruise, he puts the strap back.
“Well, I’m certainly glad that Nellie and Rainer kept you safe,” he says, but I see that same look in his eyes that was there last night at dinner when he was mad. “Those assholes from Scarlett Thunder, though…. And my brother of all people!”
“Oh, actually,” I interject, lifting a hand to his bicep. As soon as I touch him, I know it is the wrong move. My hand is now magnetized, and I am unable to pull it away from him. I stare at it, and he shifts his eyes to look at it as well before looking back at me, waiting with an eyebrow arched.
I want to pull my hand away, but I can’t. I’m not sure why. Perhaps it’s because he’s not as cold as I always imagined a vampire would be or as rock hard. It’s odd. It’s like he has flesh over marble, like it’s only their bones that are unyielding. But then, I never gave much thought to touching vampires except for to kill them.
“Emory?” The sound of my name on his lips does nothing to dislodge the distraction I am caught in. He lifts his other hand so that one finger is beneath my chin, and he pulls my eyes back to meet his face. When his hand leaves my skin, I can breathe again, and my hand slips away from his arm. “Actually… what?”
“Right. Actually… your brother was trying to help me, I think.”
“My brother?” He sounds like he doesn’t believe me. “Lex?” I nod, smiling at him as he’s clearly taking this a bit too far. “Blond guy, little shorter than me, thin, with a pretty face.”
“I know what your brother looks like,” I assure him, still giggling. “Though I will admit the two of you look nothing alike.”
“Oh? I’m not pretty?” he asks. “Or am I not thin enough?” He fakes sucking in a tummy he doesn’t have, and I am beyond the ability to speak because I am laughing too hard. He’s having trouble keeping the ice on my head because I’m shaking so much. I reach up and take it down, thinking it probably won’t do much good now anyway.
“I’m sorry, Your Majesty,” I say. “You’re not thin—you’re quite muscular. And… I wouldn’t say you’re pretty either.”
He feigns being hurt, pretending that tears are welling up in his eyes. “I’m not pretty?”
“Sorry,” I tell him, and then I’m touching him again, my knuckles brushing the smooth surface of his cheek. I stop laughing now. “You’re not pretty, but you are very… handsome.” A thousand other words rush to mind, some of which are very inappropriate to say to your king—sexy, godlike, fuckable? I could never….
A grin replaces his fake tears. “You think I’m handsome?” He moves toward me, and for a moment I think he might kiss me again, the way that I thought he might the night before.
I nod, looking up into his eyes, and his smile widens, but he stops a few inches short of me and brushes a curl behind my ear. “Don’t let Lex fool you.”
“Why do you say that?” I ask, trying to concentrate on the words and not the lips they are escaping.
“Because… he only does what serves his purpose. If he seems like he is helping you, it’s to move forward with his own agenda.”
I hear what he’s saying, and perhaps that’s true even in this instance, but it helped me, so I don’t think that Lex should get in trouble for it. “He tripped them,” I tell Kane. “At least, I think that’s what happened. When they started running, after I threw my shoes, they all fell down except for him, and he had his leg out, like he was the one who knocked Jacob and Opal over and into the others. I think… I think he meant for me to get away.”
Kane holds my gaze for a second and then shrugs. “Maybe so. But don’t let that make you think he’s your friend. There’s a good chance he was just trying to keep his own ass from getting in trouble.”
I open my mouth to say something else, but I don’t know what else to say. He certainly knows his own brother better than I do.
“You need to sleep,” he says. “You’ve been through a lot in the last few days. I can’t even imagine how you’re dealing with it.”
Just the statement makes me want to burst into tears again. “I’m not,” I assure him. I don’t want him to leave. I’ll say just about anything in the world if it will make him stay. “What about you?” I ask him.
He cocks his head to the side and stares at me for a second before he asks, “What do you mean?”
“I mean… whether you wanted me or not, I belong to you now. I’m yours to… do whatever you want with.”
“That’s not true.” He readjusts so that there’s more space between us, and I instantly regret my words. “I agreed to the trade with your father because I didn’t think it was in your best interest to go back home with a man who would do something like that, who would sell you. And as for what I can do with you, well, I bought you as a feeder, Emory. Nothing more.”
I hear his words, and they send a crack splintering through my heart. Nothing more.
Tears come to my eyes, but I look away. Maybe he’ll think they are because of how it hurts to know my father sold me. Or because I am thinking of my sister with no one to protect her.
“Em?”
I look up at him, but I can’t stare into his eyes. It hurts too much. I have already completely lost myself in him, and I have no idea why. Is it because he’s shown me kindness when he didn’t have to? Or is it something else? I don’t know, but the pain of being so close to him when he’s just said he doesn’t want me for anything but to be his feeder aches worse than any external bruises.
And then… his lips are on mine, and the confusion is lost to the spell of his kiss.