Page 14 of Pain Run Rampant

“My mom cut the threads between worlds after she left me with my dad,” I whisper, warming my hands by the fire.

“Yes, what a pain, that,” Invictis says.

“So this… face,” Frederick goes on, “it’s not yours. Whose is it?”

Invictis doesn’t answer, but I do: “He possessed Morimento’s son. She died casting the spell that bound her son and Invictis to the throne. This probably is what he would’ve looked like, if he wouldn’t have died on that throne.”

“Ah, that’s right. You did say you were tricked.” Frederick frowns, and I bet he’s thinking something along the lines: another reason to hate Invictis.

“Tell me, Frederick,” Invictis speaks slowly, his accent leaning more heavily on certain words, “what bothers you more? The fact that I’m not truly defeated, or the fact that I am now bound to the woman you—”

“Don’t,” I say, stopping him from finishing that question.

Frederick’s hands curl into fists, and he glares at Invictis over the fire as he leans forward. “Why don’t you tell me what bothers you more? The fact that you were bound by Rey, or the fact that even though she’s stuck with you, she likes me more?”

I throw up my hands and say, “Remember what I said about getting along? This ain’t it. I don’t need to hear you two constantly trying to piss the other off or trying to prove something. Seriously.”

I turn away from them both and lay down, giving the campfire my back. If there’s one thing it should tell them, it’s that I’m done with that conversation.

The funny thing is, I’m not tired. I haven’t really been tired this entire time. Granted, only a few days have passed—and we have a lot more to go before we reach the labyrinth nestled deepwithin Pylos—but usually I’m knocked out cold by now. Sleep has always been something I’ve lacked in the past, so I made up for it any chance I got.

Now? Now it’s like the opposite. I can’t make up for it. I’m constantly awake, too anxious and concerned over every little thing. Who knew becoming a kingdom’s high empress would mean I’d lose sleep over it?

The guys don’t say anything else, so at least they get the picture. Eventually, I hear one of them smother the fire, and the night goes silent. In spite of all the irritation inside me, I manage to fall asleep.

Except can you call it sleep when you dream in such vivid detail it’s basically like being awake? Because that’s what happens. Yay me.

I stand near the front end of the store I got fired from a few weeks before everything changed. A cart with returns sits in front of me, although the items it’s full of, I don’t recognize. I have a split-second panic about not knowing where to put everything before realizing this is just a dream.

How do I realize it’s a dream? Invictis.

The damned asshole himself is checking everything out, looking at the registers, and the high warehouse ceilings, even at the tiled floor. Once I see it’s him and I know it’s a dream, the objects in the cart materialize into real things: toys, clothes, the like.

“What an interesting place,” Invictis muses as he finally struts over to me.

“It’s not interesting. It’s a hellhole that barely paid the bills,” I mutter. I set a hand on my hip as I glare up at him. “Stop antagonizing Frederick. He’s only here with us because he doesn’t trust you to be alone with me.”

The smirk he flashes me after that makes my stomach twist… and not in a bad way. It’s the kind of bad boy smirk that makesgirls weak at the knees—and if there’s one thing I like, it’s a bad boy.

Invictis is just ten thousand times worse than any bad boy I’ve hooked up with in the past. Maybe even ten million times worse with all the death and suffering he’s caused.

“Nor should he. If we were alone, imagine the things I would do to you.” He has no business saying something like that to me given the fact that I control him and not the other way around, and yet that doesn’t stop him from saying it.

And sounding way too sexy while saying it.

Of course, he probably means he’d hurt me, try to kill me, yada yada yada, if we were alone, and not anything of a sexual nature, but I can’t help where my mind goes. Usually it’s to the gutter, and if I’m being honest, the way he stared at me when I was naked didn’t help.

The indifference that slowly changed, second by second, until something else took its place, something primal. The hunger that made him take every part of my naked body in with no hurry whatsoever.

Fuck. I need to stop myself from thinking about that. There’s no way that can lead to anywhere good.

“It’s kind of funny you think you can do anything to me,” I say, angling my head up to him as I abandon the cart and move closer to his tall frame. “Last I checked, I’m the one with the power here, not you. What did you say before? You’re my weapon now.”

“Your weapon, your chaos, and ultimately, your undoing, yes,” Invictis says with a vicious smirk. “I am all that and more, and the fact that I am bound to you and your… commands is incredibly irritating, but one day you will set me free, and when you do—”

He steps closer to me, his towering frame all I can see. The intensity comes off him in waves, and even though everyone intheir right mind would be terrified if they were in my place, I’m not. The opposite, actually.

I’m not scared of him. His threats don’t make me cower in fear. If anything, they’re amusing—and I only say I’m amused so I don’t have to face the reality that his threats make certain parts of me clench in anticipation.

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