Page 121 of Lethal King

I don’t know how to feel about that.

Only my closest friends have ever called me Roz. Rian must have picked it up from Gabriel.

My heart sinks.

Thinking of Gabriel reminds me of all I’ve lost.

And that includes Drago.

Fuck. Where has he been all of this time? What has he been up to? I didn’t think I wanted to see him again. I didn’t think I’d ever want to. But now, I’m not so sure.

How much more could I lose?

My adoptive father is still out there. And for some reason, Tytus trusts him.

I need to find out why.

But how the hell am I going to do that if I can’t even escape Rian’s grip?

Hell, do I even want to escape his grip?

Fuck.

I must be going crazy, because a sharp conflict rises inside of me as I remember what kept me from killing the lion.

Those bedsheets were pulled so tightly around his throat he could hardly talk. I was so close to ending him.

Then he said those magic words.

I don’t want to fucking marry you.

It was like he reached into my chest and clamped his fingers around my shriveled heart.

He’s the first man with any power to ever say something like that to me. And the declaration shocked me so badly I let the bedsheets go limp in my hands.

He took full advantage of my lapse.

Next thing I knew, he was fucking my brains out. The next thing I knew, I was loving it.

“I won’t ask you twice, kitten.” Rian’s deep voice drifts out from behind the shower’s billowing steam.

My toes curl.

My heart flutters.

He doesn’t want to marry me.

So, why the hell do I suddenly want him more than ever?

15

Rian

I don’t take my eyes off her.

Not as she washes beneath the hot water. Not as she steps out of the steam and dries herself off with a towel. Not as she picks up her stained rags from the floor and gently puts them back on.

Rozalia is hypnotic. And it’s not just that I’m still ravenous for her body. There’s something else.