Page 94 of Warlord's Plaything

I stop breathing.

The world stops moving.

A king dies in my hands.

And a warlord is born in chains.

"Xyron, Lord of House Herox,"Kaelith announces, stepping forward with the air of a fucking executioner."For the crime of regicide, for the murder of your own father?—"

I lift my head, slow and lethal."Say it."

Kaelith smiles."You are stripped of your title, and sentenced to death."

31

HIRA

The air still tastes of him.

Of fire and sweat. Of war and ruin.

Of the one thing I swore I would never fucking want.

And yet, I’m drenched in it.

Sore. Bruised. Marked.

Not just by his hands, but by the way he looked at me.

Like I was something more than a game.

Like I was something his.

Fuck.

I roll over in the massive bed, sheets tangled around my legs, my body aching in ways I don’t want to think about.

I can still feel him.

The phantom press of his fingers.

The imprint of his teeth against my throat.

The unspoken war in his eyes before he claimed me like a fucking conqueror.

I let him.

I fucking wanted it.

I opened myself to the enemy.

And now, I can’t take it back.

I exhale sharply, pressing the heels of my hands against my eyes.

Get up. Get the fuck up, Hira.

I force myself to move, sitting up, gripping the edge of the silk-draped bed like it might ground me. But nothing feels real.

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