Page 90 of Their Fierce Little Monster

Especially with how much of a dick the Gamemaster has been toward me.

I throw myself into finding an outfit worthy of His Majesty. Anything to make sure Kazak and I are permitted to leave.

But my heart is still thumping loudly in my ears.

Please, Gods, just this once, let nothing go wrong.

Chapter

Twenty-Two

KAZAK

The palace soars toward the heavens, and I’ve been playing this scenario in my head for the past few days when I had nothing to do in prison but fucking think. Now that I’m here, I want this over with.

Dawn’s breath catches, and I glance at her as she stares up at the castle with mesmerizing awe. She chose a simple but elegant dress the color of the night sky. Thin strips over her shoulders, a tight bodice across her chest, intricately woven with golden thread, a thin belt, and the dress tumbling to her ankles. In heels, she appears taller, almost more confident. Her hair is swept off her face with pins, falling down her back in small waves.

The whole ride here in the royal carriage, she barely said a word, staring out the window, her knees bouncing. Corvin and Lian sat across from us, glared in my direction, and then gave me a quick rendition of what’s been happening the last few days. The assassin at the sex club, which Lian made sure to emphasize, especially the part where he watched Corvin fuck Dawn. How he eradicated the killer, bragging like a fool. Corvin mentioned something about seeing a necromancer, which made no sense to me, before Lian explained how he healed in the baths with my Dawn.

She glanced at me several times, clearly waiting for my response, but I sat there, soaking it all in. What the fuck was I meant to do?

If I had it my way, I’d declare open warfare with both bastards and fuck them up. I’m still shaking with pent-up energy and fury and the need to rip their spines out. But most importantly, to drag Dawn away from them.

Right now, they’re both behind us as the Gamemaster appears from the palace doors, and inside it’s crawling with guards. He approaches with a quick-paced stride, a permanent scowl on his face, his deep-purple coat dragging on the ground behind him.

“You’re late,” he snarls. “Quickly, follow me. We have no time to spare.” With a flurry, he whips around, his coat nearly whacking us across the legs, and we enter the palace on his heels.

Thick gold columns line the entrance hallway until we emerge into a grand room. In the middle of the space stands a golden statue of a wolf mid-attack, lunging at its prey, lips peeled back over incisors, hair puffed up at the back of its neck. He’s twice my size, towering over everyone. Paintings of other animals hunting or ripping their victims apart surround us. It’s gruesome, but it makes the threat that King Slate is a predator easy to see.

Chandeliers hang heavily with hundreds of lights, glinting like stars in the sky.

We follow the Gamemaster past the wolf statue and into a doorway at the rear of the room, bringing us into a long corridor lined with only the finest rugs. More opulent lights, walls covered in paintings of the king himself, and I grunt under my breath at the arrogance.

Dawn is captivated, staring at everything, making tiny gasping sounds, which I fucking adore. She’s absolute perfection.

We pass plenty of servants, dressed in black, who pause, stand aside, and bow their heads.

Nothing here impresses me. The grand halls in Grimvale across all the courts are extraordinary and make this palace seem like a meager attempt to flaunt wealth.

Dawn glances up at a painting of King Slate atop a black stallion that’s on its hind legs. The king appears, in my human terms, to look as though he’s in his mid-thirties, though he’s hundreds of years old, as his race lives to thousands of years.

Corvin and Lian whisper something behind me I can’t catch, and for two enemies, they seem to be getting along rather well.

My attention swings to Dawn, who’s grinning at everything she sees, and even waves to a young servant. Even with everything, her presence unfurls the darkness inside me, tempts me to forget it all, and just get lost in her eyes. To kiss her again, have her body naked against mine. It’s torture being apart from her.

“Glorious, isn’t it?” Lian says, stepping up alongside her, and I tense all over. But as much as I’m contemplating hurling him through one of the stained windows, I don’t intend to break into a brawl in the king’s palace.

He and Corvin are dressed as royals themselves, in fitted black suits with hints of gold and red to complement the king’s royal colors. The suit Corvin lent me fits well enough, even if slightly tight across my shoulders and chest.

“It’s magnificent,” Dawn answers, close to swooning, and suddenly, I want to take her through our halls back in Grimvale, to have her smile and see where she came from. Ridiculous thoughts, considering I doubt the two opposing courts would welcome me back for stealing Dawn away. Though, I want to know exactly what the two kings intend to do with us because, for now, I consider them suspects who could have just as easily been the ones responsible for her family’s death.

The assassin does confuse me. Why send their sons to collect Dawn if they’re going to just send someone to get rid of her? That makes no sense to me.

“Between us,” Lian whispers, moving closer to Dawn, “it’s trying too hard.”

She grins. “It looks incredible to me.”

We pass more galleries of portraits, including previous kings and royal families.