Page 52 of Cruel Crown

I opened my mouth, but my lips quivered. The question I wanted to ask seemed so immense and out of reach. Eight years, and I never thought this day would come. I felt like I was so complete but full of dread. Like my body would start shaking and fall apart. Invisible shackles that chained me for so long started snapping around me one by one.

“Is Yorovich…is he dead?”

Gideon looked at me with soft eyes, the brown like melted caramel, and I felt the intensity with which he looked wrap around me.

“He’s never going to hurt you ever again.”

As soon as he said those words, my hands came to my face, and I silently wept. I had lived with the idea that my servitude would be for decades. I never saw myself being released from my contract.

Gideon’s arms wrapped around me, bringing me to rest my head on his chest. His hand went down from my scalp down to where my hair ended, and he kept doing that over and over again, as he let me have my moment.

“I was supposed to go see him again in a few weeks,” I whispered.

He didn’t stop what he was doing when he answered. “I know.”

“He would send me messages that I would pay when he saw me again, and I feared what would happen to me when I went back to Chicago… I was sure he was planning on killing me.”

“Fuck that,” Gideon growled. “He was never going to get you again.” Gideon dragged me out of the bed until I was standing in front of him. “You want to know how he died?”

Biting my lip, I tilted my head because I wanted every detail and fact to know that he was indeed gone.

“With a fucking piece of wood up his arse and the fact that you were my woman fresh on his mind as he died.”

Standing on my tiptoes, I reached up so I could be a little closer to eye level with him. “Thank you.” I kissed his lips like I was his because, at the end of the day, I was. He gave me the choice to choose him before he told me about Yoro, letting me make up mind before I knew all the facts. “You have set me free.”

Letting go of him, I turned around for the box, and I brought it with me to the firepit.

I put in Yoro’s tongue first and watched as the flames made it disintegrate like it was nothing. Like he had been nothing. Next, I threw the finger, and I closed my eyes as the memory of him finger fucking me the first night he met me washed over me and let it go. Last I put his sex in the flames, and I watched it disappear, and I let him go. I let go of everything he had ever done to me go away.

He had never been my number one enemy; he was just another battle I had to conquer before I could move my final chess piece.

I was so grateful for my small victory. I didn’t think and ask how there was no retribution in his death, and that didn’t matter the moment I felt Gideon come and stand behind me.

“What are we going to do now, Petal?” he asked because he was in this with me. My war had now become his, and if I won, my kingdom would be ours.

Instead of answering him, I rose on my knees, and then I turned around. My eyes were at eye level with his waist as I reached for his jeans.

“Now, I’m going to do what every man forced me to do as a child, but I will do it because I want to—because it’s with you.”

“Stop,” he said as I reached for his already hard dick.

I didn’t listen to him. I ignored the memories, my teachings, and I was just in this moment with him. “I want to forget everyone else. I just want it to be you,” I said before I took him into my mouth.

“Fuck,” he hissed as his velvety feel glided down my tongue and hit the back of my throat. His hands came to my hair and petted me. He didn’t force me, just let me take him at my own pace.

Deep down, I was grateful.

My hands roamed his pelvic bone up to his abs. The way he groaned when I licked his tip, or how he cursed when I would deep-throat him had me trying to rub my thighs together so I could find relief.

“Fuck, Petal, stop,” he groaned as his dick got harder. I knew he was getting close, so I ignored him and kept going.

Pain shot through my nape up to my scalp as Gideon pulled my head back.

“When I tell you to do something, you fucking do it,” he spat through gritted teeth. He was done holding back, and I bit my lip to stop myself from smiling. He noticed the action, and his eyes got even darker. “Who do you belong to?”

“Myself,” I hissed as he pulled my hair even harder.

“Who are you kneeling for?” he mocked.

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