Page 56 of Kneel Before Me

“These are his chambers,” Agnes chirped. “Good luck.”

“Wait.” Daphne grabbed her arm the way her brother had, taking care to do it gently.

Agnes paused, raising an eyebrow.

“Why did you help me?”

To her surprise, Agnes smiled.

“Because you needed help. And I like humans.”

Daphne blinked. Agnes was perhaps the only basilisk in the universe to say that sentence. “You like humans? Why?”

Agnes bit her lip, thinking. Then she said, “They are…vulnerable.”

“Does vulnerability make someone likable?”

“Not necessarily,” Agnes laughed. “But how you treat someone more vulnerable than yourself says a lot about your character. Humans give us an opportunity to do the right thing—to be better. I like that about you.”

Daphne stared at her. She was still quite new to the basilisk world, yet she knew without a doubt that Agnes was unusual. “Well…” Daphne was truly at a loss for what to say. She settled on: “Thank you.”

Agnes smiled. “You are most welcome, Daphne.”

She turned to leave, and Daphne turned to the door.

“By the way,” she heard over her shoulder. “He is thinking of you.”

Daphne looked back at Agnes. “Who is?”

“Kronos.”

Despite the heat, a chill tingled down her spine. “How do you know that?”

In response, Agnes tapped a single finger to her temple. A moment later she was gone. Daphne stood frozen, her heart pounding. She remembered what Kronos had said about reading minds: That ability is only between basilisks. Daphne hoped Agnes was right. The door to his chambers loomed before her, thick and solid. She hardly dared believe that Kronos was behind it. She wondered briefly whether she should knock. If Kronos was truly thinking of her, perhaps it didn’t matter. Although Agnes hadn’t specified whether he was thinking good things about her. Daphne raised her hand. Before she could knock, the door swung wide open.

The moment she saw him, her throat closed. She barely had time to take in her surroundings—a moody room with a crackling fireplace and a bed built straight into the stone—before Kronos said, “Daphne? What in Kora’s name are you doing here?”

“I—I, uh…” Daphne couldn’t find the words.

Kronos was completely naked.

It was difficult to concentrate on anything other than his bare cock, which was without doubt the largest she had ever seen. The moment Kronos saw what she was looking at, he covered himself with his hand. It was a testament to how long his fingers were that he was even able to do so. Daphne barely caught a glimpse before he covered it. What she had seen made her even wetter than she was already. She could not fathom anything like that inside her. She blushed furiously, attempting to look him in the eyes, which somehow felt more erotic than looking at his cock. What was wrong with her?

“You should not be here,” he said.

The same thing Agnes’s brother had told her. Daphne was starting to believe it. “I know,” she managed to say. “But you…didn’t show.”

In reply, Kronos pulled her inside his chambers and slammed the door behind her. “Do you have any idea how dangerous this is?”

“Yes, but I—”

“You came under the mountain, alone, without an escort.”

“Agnes was with me.”

His eyes blazed. “In that case, I will have to have a word with her.”

Before Daphne could defend Agnes, Kronos shifted, and the firelight hit his chest. Only then did Daphne notice the smear of blood on his skin. Without thinking, she reached for him, brushing her fingertips over the blood. It was still wet. “Are you hurt?”