Page 41 of Serpent King's Prisoner

I needed her dead.

That was the only logical choice.

But as I watched her sleep, the freckles on her fair skin stark against the bruises I’d left, the monster inside me recoiled. I wanted her alive because I liked her, respected her, enjoyed her company. And Fangs…Fangs wanted her alive to play with. To mold into the perfect fuck doll.

It was that want that terrified me more than anything else.

Abby shifted slightly, a soft sigh escaping her lips, and my heart clenched. I had to make a choice. A part of me whispered to end it, to do what had to be done. And yet, I couldn’t. Not now. Not when every fiber of my being screamed against it.

The night wore on, a silent witness to my internal war as sleep failed to take me. I wanted her more than I’d ever wanted anything in my life. But wanting her meant protecting her, and the person she needed protecting from most was myself.

I was all twisted up inside over one girl.

With the weight of my decision heavy on my shoulders, I slipped out from the sheets, each movement a study in silent precision. The digital glow of the bedside clock marked the lateness of the hour as I punched a code into the locked drawer that sat like a silent.

It clicked open, revealing its contents—a collection meant for restraint and control, a contingency plan I’d stashed here in case I ever needed to keep a captive somewhere secret and safe, out of reach of my family. Zip ties, duct tape, but it was the pair of cuffs that caught my attention, their cold metal gleaming with promises of captivity. My fingers closed around them, and they felt so damn certain in a night filled with doubt.

Turning back to Abby, I hesitated. She was a mess, her brown hair tangled around her face, green eyes hidden beneath lids bruised by tears and sleep. Yet even now, marked by violence, there was a beauty about her that knotted my guts. I’d seen plenty of women in my life, but none quite like her.

She stirred something within me that should have been dead.

Taking a deep breath, I moved to her side of the bed, the cuffs weighing heavily in my hand. As a child, my mother had taught me to be gentle, to cherish life’s delicate things—Abby looked every bit the part of something precious, and here I was, ready to chain her down. Disgust surged hot and bitter in my throat.

“Sorry, Abby,” I whispered, not sure if I was apologizing for what I’d done or what I was about to do. It didn’t matter; both were unforgivable.

Her wrist was slender beneath my grip, her pulse rapid against my fingertips. She jolted awake, a startled gasp escaping her lips as her eyes flew open, locking onto mine with a terror that clawed at me. I swallowed the lump in my throat and snapped one cuff around her wrist, the click of the metal a grim punctuation to the silence between us.

“Please,” she whimpered, her voice cracked from screaming, “don’t do this.”

The other cuff closed around the bedpost with an air of finality. Abby’s body tensed, twisted against the restraints in a futile effort to escape. Her green eyes were wide, shimmering pools reflecting a thousand silent accusations. The freckles scattered across her cheeks made her look so innocent that I cursed myself for hurting her even as I wanted to make her dirty again.

I wanted to keep her…wanted to destroy her.

I had no idea what I was going to do with this girl who had shaken me to my foundations.

“I have to,” I muttered, even though every part of me screamed to do the opposite.

The fight drained out of her as quickly as it had flared up, leaving behind raw despair. Tears brimmed in her eyes, spilling over and tracing paths down her pale cheeks. “I’d rather die than let you...” Her voice broke, choked off by sobs that wracked her body.

Her words echoed inside me, reverberating through the hollows of my soul. I had never intended to hurt her, not really. Despite everything I was—a Zhou, the oldest son of the Serpent, a man feared on the streets—harming women was a line I’d sworn never to cross. Yet here I was, having crossed it in the most heinous way possible.

“Abby,” I started, but no more words came. What could I say? That I didn’t mean it? That I wished things were different? In the end, would any of it change what I’d done?

She turned her head away from me, her body still shaking with sobs. I stood there, bound by duty and desire, feeling like a monster in the skin of a man. My dragon tattoo seemed to tighten around my chest, a reminder of the oath I bore—the same oath that now forced me to imprison the only person who might have seen beyond the beast.

I had wanted her, yes. But what I wanted now, more than anything, was to undo the night’s dark work. To rewind time, to take back the pain and replace it with something tender.

I hesitated, the cuffed wrist in my hand feeling like a shackle on my own soul. “I still don’t know what I’m going to do with you,” I muttered, the words tasting like ash on my tongue. I drew small circles on her wrist, and I could see her flinch in response. She feared me.

She should.

“Isn’t it clear?” Her voice was ragged, but razor-sharp with accusation. “You took me so you could...so you could fuck me.”

Her blunt words hit me harder than any punch I’d ever thrown. A dark laugh, cruel and void of humor, clawed its way up from my throat. “And would it make you feel better to be treated like my fuck toy? Is that it?”

“Seems I already am,” she shot back, venom lacing her voice.

It cut through me because it was the truth—a truth I despised. The beast inside me raged against the bindings of my human conscience, urging me to quell the dissent, to assert control over Abby as I had done with countless others.

---