Rise of a Queen (Kingdom Duet #2) - Rina Kent Page 0,19
food while Jonathan’s fingers are busy with other parts of my body.
The balance is off, and the fact that it’ll never be the same again fills me with a sudden sense of grief.
“Or is it Maxim’s interview?”
My blood runs cold at that, and I stop chewing for a second before resuming. Of course, Jonathan doesn’t miss it.
“I assume it’s both.” He cocks his head to the side. “Do you think you’re eligible to have another rebirth to escape this?”
I clamp my lips shut.
“You cannot have a rebirth when you didn’t finish the first one, Aurora.”
My voice is calm, considering my internal mess. “What do you know about rebirths when you were born with a silver spoon hanging from your mouth?”
He scoffs. Jonathan scoffs. The entire motion is so weird that I take some time to commit it to memory. “If anyone here was born with a silver spoon, it’s you, wild one. Just because that spoon was snatched from your mouth in your teens doesn’t mean it wasn’t always there. Maxim gave you everything you wanted, didn’t he? You were his spoiled little princess.”
“Stop it.”
“That’s why you failed your rebirth, Aurora,” he continues as if I haven’t said a word. “You can’t be reborn if you still can’t get out of his shadow.”
“I am not in his shadow.”
“It looks that way, though. What did I tell you about how he’ll reappear? That he doesn’t like being forgotten. Are you that surprised he’s dragging you with him? It’s his way to retaliate for what you did eleven years ago, and if you keep giving him leverage, he won’t hesitate to use it against you.”
His words have the impact of a natural disaster. Sudden and wreaking. It’s not that I haven’t thought of it that way before, it’s that I always thought I’d escape my dad. That I don’t live in the shadow he cast over my life.
That’s why I changed everything we used to do together. I even dyed my hair blonde at some point, and I hate the blonde me. She was a coward and a thief who jumped from motel rooms.
“How about you?” My voice is steady but low in volume.
He pauses cutting an avocado. It’s been secretly becoming my favourite new food. “Me?”
“If I keep giving you leverage, won’t you also use it against me?”
“I don’t want to, but I will if you force me.”
“Me? Force you? You’re the one who’s forcing me right now.”
“Keep your voice down.”
“Or what?”
“You don’t want to know the answer to that.” He shoves a piece of avocado in my mouth, shutting down my protest. “And I’m not forcing you. If I did, you wouldn’t have a choice, but you do.”
I swallow the piece, commemorating its taste to memory. Who knows if he’ll take this small luxury away? Jonathan enforces the most sadistic type of cruelty. He makes you get used to things, then snatches them away as if they never existed. “Is that what you tell yourself to sleep better at night?”
“I’m well aware of who and what I am. I don’t have to delude myself, Aurora. You do.”
“W-what?”
“You’ve been squirming and rubbing your thighs since I sat beside you. It doesn’t matter how much you tell yourself you don’t want me or you don’t want to get out of this situation. You and I both know your body doesn’t lie.”
“That is not true.” I’m thankful my voice doesn’t betray me.
Jonathan tilts his head, and I expect him to try and prove me wrong like he always does.
Pushing my buttons and cementing his supremacy is one of his control-freak methods that he doesn’t hesitate to use.
So I’m surprised when he stands. “Follow me.”
“To where?”
“Do I need to throw you over my shoulder again?”
I jerk up, not wanting to feel whatever the hell I did when he spanked my arse earlier.
He steps into the bathroom, and I stop at the threshold.
“Are you waiting for an invitation?” he asks in a clipped voice, his nostrils flaring.
“Why are we here?”
He reaches into the cabinet and retrieves another first aid kit. Now that I think about it, he seems to have those everywhere. Almost like he’s expecting to injure himself in every room he walks in. Which is weird, considering that Jonathan is far from being the clumsy type.
He retrieves something from the box and closes it. “You need to shower.”
“I can do that on my own.”
“Not with your injuries.”
Before I can protest, he appears in front of me and wraps what seems like a plastic