Series: Lords of Rathe Series by Meagan Brandy
Total pages in book: 104
Estimated words: 98580 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 493(@200wpm)___ 394(@250wpm)___ 329(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98580 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 493(@200wpm)___ 394(@250wpm)___ 329(@300wpm)
“Wrong,” he says matter of fact. “It is you and you know it. It’s a deeper part of you. The truest fucking part. The part that knows what you really are and what it wants and what it wants is the girl who belongs to it. There is no denying this. London belongs to you. Literally. You can hate it and you can hate the girl, but until you break the bond completely, those are the facts. Lying to yourself will only make you mad. Trust me.”
I growl, angry because I can’t fucking speak. Can't acknowledge. I did that. For a split fucking second, I let go. I wanted and I caved, and she was perfection in my palms.
And then I learned the truth.
London Crow, no, Villaina Lacroix, isn’t intended to be the Queen of Rathe. No, she’s the test for its future King. Me.
The fates gave me the daughter of The Slasher to test my worth. To test not just the monster beneath my skin, but the man who wears it; and I will not fucking fail by giving into the weakness that’s crept beneath my bones because of her. Make no mistake. That is exactly what she is.
A weakness.
A plague, bound to destroy everything she touches.
Slowly, I push to my feet and my brother rises with me.
The answer is easy.
I just have to destroy her first.
And I will.
London
The servers wear silver pasties over their nipples and a strip of translucent glitter covers their slits, the rest of their bodies completely bare. Glitter makeup is elegantly scrolled above and below their eyes, some drawing all the way to the hairline in thick swirls, others curving down the sharp bones of their cheeks.
The points of their ears are subtle and soft seeming, silver clips running along many of their lobes, though not all. As if it’s a choice. Nice to know some people in this world still get some of those.
“Maybe I’m the only one who doesn’t,” I mumble.
“Doesn’t what?” a satiny voice whispers into my ear.
My eyes close, and goosebumps break across my skin.
“I …" My head falls to the side.
“You what?”
“Mm,” I moan lightly, my eyelids flutter. “I have no choice.”
“And what would you do if you did?” A hot tongue runs along the exposed skin of my shoulder. “Tell me, sweet girl.”
I clench my thighs together on the first swipe of heat, and my teeth sink into my lower lip on the second. There's a crash and then a gasp, and I blink, a fog clearing from over my eyes.
I whip around, coming face-to-face with a wild-eyed and fang-baring chaos, but it’s not the sight of the Gifted who might end up Knight’s bitch, who is clearly a vamp by the fucking way, that steals the breath from my lungs.
It’s the sheer, crackling mirage between us. It’s clear, glass-like, but not.
My eyes narrow slightly, hers booming wide.
I reach out to touch it, my fingers sliding through with ease, and the moment my skin meets it, my body lights up. A million butterflies burst in my chest and the tension in my shoulders washes away.
The feeling and whatever this thing between us is falls away when hands wrap around the girl’s head, one braced on her chin, the other on her forehead.
Blue eyes lock and hold mine, and without breaking the contact, he snaps the vamp’s neck, leaving her body to fall in a harsh thump at his feet.
Creed.
He steps over her, so he’s now hovering above me. The brother who hated me from the start studies me for a long moment, and I jolt when a vibration rattles along my temple.
He’s trying to get in my head, and if the anger that builds with each passing second tells me anything, he can’t.
With that, he goes to walk away, but just before he passes my ear, he speaks in a furious hiss, “She’s on the edge of going feral. The blood on your lip is a single fucking drop, and still, she couldn’t resist.” He leans in closer then, hissing his whisper, “Imagine what would happen if she smelled a little more?”
I spin, watching as he strides across the room with the same air of confidence as his brother, his words playing in a loop in my head for what seems like hours. It’s not long until his father's slip inside too.
If you wish to survive this, forget who you became and remember who you were.
I’ll never get to ask him what he meant by that, but as I almost spilled to the spellbinding, bloodthirsty—if the brother I least expected to be of any use to me was trying to tell me what I think he was trying to tell me—vamp currently fighting for my mate's mark, I have no choice. That’s not me being a whiny bitch. That's fact.
I’m a major piece on the board in a game I don’t want to play, a prisoner of the Royal Court.