Riona, and they will face me,” Maddox replies, his cold voice making the room feel freezing. Sabina bows her head, as does Natalia even though she seems quite shocked.
“I should be heading out also. But I will go and see Reign before I leave,” Natalia claims, standing up. The way she says Reign’s name is with a slight bit of affection. She looks directly at me. “May the sea bless your way, Riona.”
A whirlpool of water appears around her, spinning so fast, and then she is gone. Sabina just steps back and disappears like she was never here. Becoming rapidly aware Maddox is still holding me, and how I don’t like how I didn’t notice, I try to get out of his arms. He chuckles and eventually lets me go. Screaming, I stumble back when I see body parts all over the wall behind Maddox, blood pouring across the ground like a wave. Dots of it are scattered everywhere, and it’s a miracle we aren’t covered in it. Vero is standing in front of the bodies, and he winks at me before disappearing.
Then I notice the people aren’t dancing anymore, they aren’t anywhere to be seen because they are all dead. They are smothering that wall, the witches nowhere to be seen after they caused this destruction. This time, I can’t hold it in, I turn and puke all over the floor, not caring when hands hold my hair back. Even when I know exactly who it is.
When I’ve stopped, Maddox lets my hair go and walks to the table. He pours a glass of water from a jug near the edge and brings the glass to me.
“Here,” he offers, and I reluctantly take it, drinking enough water to get rid of the taste of sick. Maddox takes the glass from me and throws it across the room where it smashes into pieces before walking to the door. “Follow me.”
Wanting to get out of this room, I do just that, heading out into the corridor and across it, the only door in the mountainside of the wall right at the end. Maddox holds the heavy wood door open for me, and I slip in after him, into a small room with a spiral staircase bathed in a bright light coming from the top, enough to light the steps down here. He walks up, and I follow after him, walking up and up, even as I start to feel a little breathless.
How many bloody stairs?
My cardio needs work, that’s for sure.
The stairs eventually come to an end, and I step into an attic type room with a triangle window pouring in light from the sun setting in the distance over the city. Having never seen the city like this, I walk past all the covered-up easels and white canvases lining the wall to the window, taking in the view. The city is so much more than it looks, especially lit up at night like this.
“How is this hidden from the world?” I whisper.
Maddox steps behind me, moving silently, but I feel the heat of his body to warn me of his presence. “Because we kill all those who escape with our secret.”
“Would you kill me if I left?” I breathlessly question, my voice huskier than I meant it to be.
I gulp as his hand slowly drifts down my bare arm, making me shiver. “No. Not because you can resist my compulsion, but because I find you interesting. Nothing has been interesting to me in a very long time, Riona.”
“What do you want from me?”
“What any man wants from a beautiful woman,” he breathes into my ear as his other hand snakes around my waist, pulling my body against his. “My name breathlessly uttered from your lips as I’m buried inside of you. Your sweet moans that I can claim as my own. The sound of you completely giving yourself to me.”
I can only stay still, even as his words do things to me that they shouldn’t. He is a monster. Plain and simple.
“I think you want me because it would hurt your brother. I’m a game,” I reply. “You could have any woman, choose someone else.”
He hums. “No, I saw you first, and you refused to give me your fear. You were strong in the face of everything. That alone decided your fate. My brother is nothing more than a nuisance.”
His answers make sense to a crazy person, I guess. “Why are there two princes and not one king?”
“My father was