Page 77 of Creatures that Breathe

I wipe a hand down my face and realize my mouth’s wet, my tongue infused with her. “Fuckin’ hell.”

My mental files on Draven are the same for all of Queen Vinia’s children: bastards, born not to Kadmos, but welcomed into the fold, regardless. Neither allies or enemies.

“I won’t go back,” Leni says.

She’s not begging anymore. She’s demanding. A princess.

I toss a shirt to the bed, pants. What else does she need?

Shoes.

Leni jumps into the clothes, all the while crawling across the bed, telling me, “Please, you cannot leave me here. You don’t know what it’s like. Cross.”

I do. I do know what it’s like. I really fucking do. The unbearable weight of duty.

“I’m sworn to a beast!” She’s rocking on the edge of my bed, blue hair wild, cheeks light pink. “To a prince whose desecrated the word. I can’t marry him. He’ll kill me. Please. Don’t let them come for me, they’ll hurt me, Cross. That’s what he wants. To just hurt me.”

Genuine fear coats her from head to toe.

There’s only one reason the Queensguard would harm her.

Only one reason she’d come here, to me.

I shut my eyes, loosen the strap of my holster, let it drop to the ground.

Seven minutes.

I unload the loaded Sigs from my dresser, send the bullets down the bathroom drain. “The Queensguard works quickly,” I explain, ripping out a pile of t-shirts from the dresser to pry up the false bottom and pull out knives and daggers, a Glock, bundle them up, force open the window and toss them through.

What next?

“I will not go back,” she repeats, kicking into her pants. “I didn’t run for this, I didn’t kill—” She chokes on the word, shudders. “You made a vow to the king and I respect your choice, but I never got the choice, so I will not blindly bow to his whims.”

“You don’t respect my choice,” I accuse her. “You hate the king.”

It’s a guess, but she agrees, all too readily, “Yes, I do. He overreached with his power.”

She bounds for the door.

My controls shreds. “Open that door and you’ll experience a kind of violence from which you will never recover.”

I’m not breathing normally, something in my ribs won’t let me.

She stops, glares back at me, in my clothes again, a black bruise on the curve of her throat, blue eyes beautiful. “If you feel anything for me, any kindness—”

“I don’t.” I almost laugh at the rasp in my voice.

“Nothing at all?” she asks, eyes like twin moons. “I thought maybe you …” she trails off, looking more and more princess when she’s crestfallen, with emotions on her sleeve.

The struggle in my breathing intensifies, the power under my skin whips and crackles.

Moments ago, I was frantic with lust, starved for this woman who meets me match for match, lost in making a memory, unaware of anything but her, and now—

Now I’m breaking.

“Fuck, Leni, of course. Yes. I can still taste you like syrup on my tongue. Of course I feel for you,” I mutter. “But it’s nothing akin to kindness.”

“Then what?”

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