Page 122 of Clash of Kingdoms

“And complimenting my dick is the way to do that?”

“Hey, who doesn’t love a dick compliment?” He winked then walked off.

Clara came up behind him a moment later.

“Tell your husband to stop looking at my dick.”

Both of her eyebrows rose at the comment.

I walked away before she could ask me about it.

It was nice to be on solid ground again. It took a day for the internal rocking to stop in my head. But now that the world was stable and there were no more distractions, I had nothing left to do but think.

Think about how miserable I was.

My old chambers felt like they belonged to someone else. Normally, I’d have a naked woman in the sheets by now, releasing all the pent-up frustration from the long sail across the sea, but my dick couldn’t get hard for anything.

Well, except for one person.

I thought about her often. Not often…but all the time. I wondered how she was. If she had returned to Delacroix. If she’d already hooked up with someone else to replace me. How long it would be before she let someone else touch her the way I’d touched her.

Those thoughts were like poison, always bringing me to a state of misery that I couldn’t escape. I drank, but that only made it worse. Going to sleep and waking up fresh seemed to be the only cure, but it was a weak one.

I sat at my father’s desk, looking over his notes that made no sense, the words he’d scratched into the wood when he was bored. My mother’s name had been engraved with his dagger. The mark was so deep and so clear, it was obvious that he traced it every single day, like freshening up the letters on an old tombstone.

A knock sounded before Kingsnake entered. “Received a message from Cobra.” He set it on the desk for me to grab.

I didn’t reach for it.

“He said the Kingdoms have been running smoothly in our absence. But Viper is cranky and ready to return home to resume his duties as general.”

I continued to trace our mother’s name with my forefinger.

“Are you listening?”

“Yes.” I straightened and looked at him. “Heard what you said.”

“Are you going to read it?”

“You just told me what he said.”

Kingsnake stared at me for a few seconds before he sat in the armchair that faced the desk. “What happens now?”

“I guess I’ll travel to the Kingdoms…”

“And rule as their king?”

“What did you think I was going to do?” I asked coldly. “Go shopping?”

“I just thought…since your politics have changed, you might not be interested in ruling over the humans like Father did.”

I stared at my mother’s name again. “Is that what you want?”

“I want to know what you want, Aurelias.”

I wanted the one thing I couldn’t have. “I don’t really care, to be honest.”

“Then what if we withdraw our government and allow the humans to appoint their own king. They can live separately from us. We can form a truce. We did usurp the throne from the Werewolf King, so they should hold no will toward us. It would be an opportunity for us to have the peace we’ve always wanted.”

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