Page 57 of Serpent King's Prisoner

“Tell Alex to back off.”

“Handle it,“ was all he said before the line went dead.

As I lowered the phone, the tension didn’t leave with the call. It clung to me, heavy as the San Francisco fog. Then I heard the soft rustle of sheets from the bedroom, the creak of weight shifting on an old bed frame.

Abby was waking up.

A second later, she appeared in the doorway. My breath caught—she looked like disarray made beautiful, her brown hair tousled around her face, green eyes blinking sleep away. She wore my shirt, the hem barely reaching mid-thigh, and for a moment, I saw her not as my captive, but as someone who might have chosen to be here with me.

Reality crashed in hard. She’d handcrafted a weapon to hurt me; she’d fought hard when I took her.

And yet last night, she hadn’t used the wine bottle or the corkscrew against me.

She hadn’t tried to escape.

No, she had lain beside me, her breath even against my chest, as if there was nowhere else she’d rather be.

I had to do something about her. But as I watched her move towards me, a realization hit me like a sucker punch—I couldn’t kill her. The thought alone coiled in my gut, repulsive and unthinkable. Not because she was useful, not because she was leverage.

I liked her—too damn much.

“Morning,” she said, her voice rough with sleep. There was a vulnerability there, in the way she reached for a strand of hair and tucked it behind her ear, and it stirred something in me I had no business feeling.

“Morning,” I echoed, my voice a low rumble, as I fought to keep the dangerous softness at bay.

I liked using her, that’s what I told myself; it was about control, power, nothing more. But deep down, I knew. I knew the way my pulse quickened when she looked at me wasn’t just lust—it was something darker, something deeper, something that had no place in the life of the Serpent’s Fang.

Any attachment to her was dangerous—especially now that she’d been declared missing. She was a liability, and I needed to…

No.

I couldn’t think about that right now.

I killed the thought, buried it under layers of ice and steel.

“Who was that on the phone?” Abby asked, her eyes searching mine with an intensity that I didn’t want to face.

I shoved the phone into my pocket with more force than necessary. My jaw clenched, my hand forming a fist at my side. “Nobody,” I snapped, my voice harsher than I intended.

“You seem upset,” she said quietly. “You sure you don’t want to talk about it?”

I glowered at her. “Toys don’t ask questions.”

Her face faltered for a moment, hurt flashing across her features before she masked it with indifference. She squared her shoulders, the defiance returning. “Right. Because I’m just your toy,” she said, her tone mocking, challenging.

“Exactly,” I replied, though every part of me rebelled against the word. I wanted to grab her, pull her close, erase the distance and the lies between us.

But this was the game—this was the role I’d cast her in. The one I had to maintain if I was going to keep her alive, even if it strangled the truth in my throat.

“Then I guess toys don’t need breakfast,” she quipped, turning away from me, the air around us growing cold as the pretense settled back in place.

“Abby—“ The name slipped out, raw and exposed, before I could stop it.

She halted but didn’t turn around, waiting.

“Never mind,” I muttered, turning my back on her and the dangerous sliver of something like hope that tried to wedge its way into my chest. It had no place here, in the world I ruled with an iron fist.

There was no room for softness, not in the dark heart of the Triad.

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