Page 83 of Princess Broken

“No.” She lifts her head from my chest, and I open my eyes to look into hers. “You didn’t burn your family. The fire did. A fire that started by accident. You were a little boy. It’s not your fault.”

I nod, for the first time seeing that she could be right—at least a little bit right. Yes, it was naughty to think I could light that lamp, but I was a little boy. I didn’t deserve what happened after…

“People in the village were afraid of me. I think they hoped I’d die from the burns and no one wanted the burden of a sick child. So I was put in an orphanage…”

A shiver traces through me. The smell at that place. The coldness. The children crying. The loneliness and starvation. “I have very few memories of the orphanage.” My voice hardens as I tell this part. “I was only there a few weeks, maybe a month. There was still snow on the ground when the Master came for me.

“The Master?” she asks.

“Yes. Our Master. He was a vampire. My Maker—our Maker. But I knew nothing of vampires at the time. All I knew was that he saved me from that orphanage, that he put a deep red salve on my burned skin. Salve that relieved my pain and helped my legs heal.”

“His blood?” she asks.

“I didn’t know that at the time. To me it was a salve. All I knew about the Master was that he gave me and my brothers a safe, warm place to live. Gave us plenty of nourishing food so we could grow strong, very strong. The Master saved me. Even given what followed, I would go with him all over again.”

“This Master,” she says softly. “Where did he take you?”

“On a ship. We travelled over an ocean from Sweden to England. Then overland to the Institute.”

“A school?”

“I suppose it was a school, of sorts. But all that really mattered is that I was safe.”

The Master called The Institute a school, but our studies weren’t like a normal school. Not only were we trained in every form of combat and weaponry, my brothers and I were taught to kill. We were molded to follow orders, to believe that our life’s calling was to take the lives of others, as long as we followed the code that The Master set out for us.

“Phil, Crusher, Blade, they were already there.” And it was Crusher who’d get up each night when I had nightmares, who’d find me under my bed and hold me tightly until I stopped shaking, and then help me back into my bunk, waiting until I fell back asleep.

For years, I credited the Master for saving me. I thought of him as a surrogate father, but that role was truly filled by Crusher. Maybe for all three of us.

“When did the vampire turn you?” she asks.

“Not all of the boys at the Institute became vampires,” I tell her, unable to wipe the pride from my voice. “It was considered a great honor to graduate. He only turned the ones who became big enough, strong enough.” Brutal enough.

“He fed us a diet of pure protein. Plenty of it, but some of the boys couldn’t grow tall or muscular enough to please the Master.” I shake my head. “And some couldn’t or wouldn’t follow orders.” Especially the orders to kill.

“The boys who didn’t graduate disappeared. I don’t know what happened to them.” And if I’m honest, I never cared. The others weren’t strong enough to be my brothers, so they weren’t worthy of my attention. The Master trained me fully—body and mind.

“Where’s your Maker now?” she asks innocently.

I shake my head. I feel lighter, now that my childhood crime has been revealed, but I’m done talking for tonight. “Thank you,” I say softly.

“What for?” She shifts on my lap.

“For helping me remember. It’s a great relief to get all that off my chest.”

“I’m glad.”

“Speaking of relief…” Grinning, I slide one of my hands over her thigh and pat her ass. “I think we have some unfinished business.”

Her eyes widen to saucers. “Are you going to spank me again?” Her voice quivers.

“I don’t think so. Not right now.” I slip my hand between her legs. “Right now, you’re going to come for me. And you’re going to come hard.”

“I am?” She drags in a ragged breath.

“Yes, darlin’. Yes you are.”

Slipping under her dress, my fingers glide over the tender skin of her inner thighs, and she quivers in my arms. If you’d told me a few days ago that I’d care about a woman’s pleasure—ever. That I’d care about anyone’s pleasure but my own, I’d have thought you were speaking a foreign language. But right now, the only thing I want to see is Ana falling apart in my arms. I want it more than I’ve ever wanted anything.

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