Page 31 of The Umbra King

“I said, I wish you had been one of them,” she replied. The shadows tightened, and one wrapped around her ponytail, twisting her head to look at him behind her.

“Tell me,” he murmured. “Did you lure them to their deaths with the promise of a good fuck?”

Rory tried to burn a hole through his face with her eyes. “Why? Interested?”

His shadows moved, still restraining her arms and legs, but freeing her body and hair. Caius walked in front of her, tracing his eyes from her face to her chest to her stomach.

His eyes found hers again, and they were filled with such heat, she thought she would burn alive. “Are you offering?” Her entire body throbbed, which pissed her off.

Her mind flashed back to the image of him standing behind a naked Nina. “I prefer not to lower myself to Nina’s sloppy seconds,” she crooned with a snarky smile.

He stepped into her space and lowered his towering frame. “Do you prefer to be strung up, like your victims?”

The way Caius looked at her curdled her insides, and she strained against the shadows binding her limbs. “Do not pretend to be better than me,Bane, or Caius, or whatever the fuck you’re going by today. Iknow what you did.” She spit in his face for good measure, but a shadow blocked it from hitting him.

He remained unmoving as he studied her. Finally, he stepped back before rescinding his shadows. “And what is it you know?”

She shook her arms as the blood returned. “I watched you murder my sister and steal her soul.” Her words held such venom that she barely recognized her own voice.

He seemed to contemplate her words before saying, “I killed my own sister, Miss Raven. Why are you surprised?”

She forced her feet to stay rooted to the floor instead of lunging for him. He simply walked back to the counter, grabbed his bowl, and left.

Later that night,Rory sat under the shower’s hot stream and leaned her head back. Her hands had blisters the size of Erdikoa because, as it turns out, peeling potatoes all day isnoteasier than cleaning ovens.

She’d shoved a few rolls into her apron and snuck a piece of breakfast steak before the lunch crew came in, and it was all she’d eaten today. Her stomach rumbled, but there was no use in trying the dining hall again.

Once she was out of the shower, Rory climbed into bed, not bothering with pajamas. She was exhausted, and it wasn’t long before sleep pulled her under.

Rory was lyingin a field of wildflowers, staring at a ceiling fit for a king. A grey and black chandelier hung above her, and when she turned her head from side to side, the Umbra King’s throne room surrounded her. Her dark surroundings were in deep contrast with the soft grass beneath her. “Even in my dreams I’m stuck in Vincula.”

“Miss Raven?”

Rory looked up and saw Caius wading through the thick field and groaned. “Figures my first full night’s sleep would be haunted by the likes of you.”

His head appeared in her line of sight. “Your soul is black, Miss Raven. You are a walking nightmare in and of yourself.”

She sat up and twisted herself to glower at him. “You murdered your own sister, but you speak tomelike I disgust you for similar transgressions.”

He positioned himself in front of her and sat on the grass. “Thirteen,” he corrected her. “You murderedthirteenpeople. Not just one.”

“You killedtwo.”She ripped a handful of grass from the floor and threw it in his face. He had no shadows here, and his hand wasn’t big enough to deflect the entire assault. He tried blowing blades of grass from his mouth but ultimately had to pick them from his tongue with his fingers.

Rory leaned forward, laughing with satisfaction. “You deserved it.”

“That wasn’t very polite,” he said in a low voice. “You need to grow up.”

She threw another blade of grass half-heartedly. “Not everyone is five-hundred years old.” She eyed him skeptically, recalling his naked body positioned behind Nina for the hundredth time. “Which is really fucking weird. Why do you fuck women hundreds of years younger than you?”

He studiously ignored her as he picked the grass off his shirt. “Who else am I supposed to fuck? My siblings and I are the only immortals in the realms.”

Rory scrunched her nose. “It’s still weird.”

“It is not something you need to concern yourself with,” he replied. “I do not consort with people like you.” At his condescending words, she lost her composure.

“Will you shut up?” she snapped. “They deserved it. I saved people, you know.Me, not you. All you did was kill for your own gain. Do not judge me when your hands are bathed in blood.”

There was a breath of quiet before he asked,“What do you mean, ‘they deserved it?’”

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