Page 10 of King

I peeked out first and saw it was free of anyone. This was it. I quickly exited the room and closed the door behind me so they didn’t think I was free. As I ducked into nooks down the hallway, I checked before I ran further down the never ending hallway.

How fucking big was this place?

Voices coming from around a corner alerted me to someone coming back down the hallway. I hid in the closest nook and waited for them to pass me by before I continued to run. I found a door and ran through it to find a wrought iron gate that was open. Following a pathway that led to another set of wrought iron gates that looked like it led into darkness. I stopped and looked around. The light wasn’t natural. It wasn’t a filter on the windows, it was sepia out here too.

What the fuck was going on?

That’s when I remembered my mother telling me that he lived underground like a rat. He’d made a metropolis underground, his own thriving city in darkness. I’d be impressed if I didn’t need to get the fuck out of here.

I realized that I had to keep running if I was going to escape. As I headed for the gates, I saw them closing. I picked up my pace, my bare feet burning on the cement under my feet just as the gates closed.

Shit. I rattled them but they didn’t budge.

I turned around to find another way out when I ran smack into a hard chest. Stepping back, I looked up at the three big men hovering over me.

Two of them grabbed me by the arms and hauled me back to the mansion in front of me. I struggled against them but they were strong.

They carried me inside, my feet not even touching the ground as I tried to wiggle my arms free. It only ended up causing me pain. I relented and let them carry me to another room. No hole in the doors. The interior looked the same but it wasn’t the same room.

“You fuckers better let me go,” I screamed out at them as they threw me into the room. Two of them stood at the door, as if they were the same person. They had to be twins. “She’s a fiery one,” one of them said. “Boss’ll have his hands full.”

“He likes it that way,” the other one said before they closed the door and locked it. I grunted in frustration as I looked around the room. At first it had looked just like the one I’d been in before but now that I looked around, it had a more personal feel to it. The bed was larger, almost twice the size of the other one and the quilts were black. The drapes were black as well, not the burgundy color they had been in the other room. I looked around for another way to leave but I’d heard the lock so I didn’t even try.

I moved over to the window and looked out at gardens. They were all dark leaves and dark blossoms with some white flowers here and there. This place wasn’t normal. There was no natural light so how could flowers be blooming?

A book sat open on the windowsill and I picked it up. That’s when I realized what I was looking at. He was growing his own poisonous plants here, some didn’t even need natural light.

What kind of hell dimension was I in?

Chapter Four

Halen

Zanelookedoveratme, completely unaware of who I was holding hostage in my palace underground right now. He was stressed, I could see it over his face.

He knew she was gone.

I tried to keep the smile off my face but it was hard. It had been years coming for me to get one up on him. He thought he was untouchable but he wasn’t. In fact, he was going to make a nice target. The fact he thought he could hurt me by taking what was mine only made me angrier but he would soon see.

“Are you feeling alright?” Raina asked me, looking quite concerned.

“Couldn’t be better,” I said. “I happen to be enjoying my night.”

They all looked at me as if I’d gone insane.

“Wouldn’t have anything to do with the woman you’ve got hidden in your mansion, would it?” I heard my brother Percy’s voice come through the door, a mischievous look on his face.

Everyone was surprised, so surprised in fact, we didn’t know how to act. It had been months since I last saw my fugitive brother and when he did happen to come ashore, he always told me first.

“How are you here?” Raina asked him, surprised, and getting up to hug her eldest son.

“I managed to come ashore under the guise of someone else,” he said with a smirk. “I can’t stay long, but I missed my people. Tell me the news of the land.”

He looked to the empty chair of my father’s and his smile dissipated. Our father had been off for the last couple of years since retiring, enjoying his life with as many young women as he could find. My mother never complained but I knew she’d been hurt by it. No matter how much of a prick my father was, she still loved him wholeheartedly. That was a rare find in a woman as I was experiencing as I got older.

“What woman?” Zane asked, his eyes fixed on me.

“Never mind that,” Raina said. “What Halen does in his own home is his business.”

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