Page 10 of The Crownless King
It was the last thing she saw before a bag was tossed over her head.
Chapter four
From the moment the black bag was ripped from her head, Levi knew he was in trouble. Her rounded heart-shaped face and high cheekbones were covered with deep mahogany melanin. Her eyes were large, almond-shaped and dark. From the thick lashes down to her full, pouty lips, everything about her was a work of art. Levi had seen beauties, but none had ever captivated him the way she did.
A demon knew his days were numbered when a woman could look them straight in the eyes. The dark beauty before him didn’t lower her gaze. No, she lifted her chin, the anger on her face daring him to break her. Despite the dried tears on her cheeks, she didn’t cower, and that intrigued him more than anything he’d ever encountered.
She was exquisite.
He had to have her.
Levi was a lot of things, depending on who was asked. A demon, evil, benefactor, savior, king… He’d been them all in one form or another. For her…he was willing to be more. It was interesting.
He turned to the male who was in direct contrast. The pussy had his head lowered, his body trembling. The male had twice the muscle of the beauty, yet he cowered under Levi’s infuriated gaze. Even the sickly woman that he had secured in one of the bedrooms upstairs had been quiet as she awaited their fate.
He leaned back in the throne that he’d unironically come to love. When he and his Bayi had taken over this particularcompound, he’d found the whole thing hilarious. It was where the moniker of ‘king’ had come from. Ten years later and it was stuck, along with the gaudy décor that decorated the mansion.
His fingers drummed along the golden arms as he stared at the two before him. Once he tired of the male’s whimpers, he spoke.
“You stole from me.”
A simple sentence, and yet both flinched.Interesting.
The male lifted his head but kept his eyes down. “It was a mistake. My niece can attest to that.”
The woman shot him a deathly glare that would’ve amused Levi under any other circumstance. In this, however, he was not amused.
“And can you, beauty? Attest to the truth of that statement?” Levi knew the male was lying, but he’d already lost interest in him.
His attention was wholly on the female.
Her gaze swung back to him and he could admit to being mesmerized. Her magic crackled around her, the chaos that ran through all their power concentrated in her curvy, voluptuous body. The creator didn’t play fair when he shaped this beauty, from the thick thighs encased in jeans to the ample breasts she had hidden underneath the hoodie she wore.
Hunger rumbled his chest.
From the moment he’d set eyes on her in the small but neat home they’d occupied, the night had stilled around him. The chaos of his mind had softened into manageable waves. He’d thought it a fluke, but here she was before him, the darkerimpulses of the stone curbed. A focus Levi hadn’t experienced in months was honed in on this beauty. Defiance was carved into the stiffness of her body. It contrasted with her sweet baby doll like face. He liked the dichotomy. Dark, dangerous thoughts flitted through his mind, for once not the result of the Akachi.
“Leave. All but her,” he told the room.
‘Levi?’His best friend and captain of his guard questioned him gently.
‘I’m under control,’he reassured Bas, though that may or may not have been the truth.
He didn’t know what the feelings rioting through his chest meant. From the first moment he’d touched the Akachi piece, his thoughts and emotions had been out of his control. Now, in front of this beautiful woman, he was able to breathe…to think. What did that mean?
His men moved to do as he ordered, dragging the male off with them until there was just him and the beauty.
“Your name, baby doll,” he demanded.
She didn’t speak. It pulled a smile from him. He left his throne and stepped down until he was close to her. The pulse at her neck thundered, but the female wasn’t scared. Interesting indeed. He pulled her scent into his lungs, deciphering the layers of her recent surroundings from just the smells that covered her lovely body. He took it all in, from the smell of her shampoo, the scent of the dark night she’d moved through, even down to the odor of cedar and old books that told him she spent a lot of time in a library. Likely the Archive.
Did that mean she was a librarian or a simple student who studied there?
Her face gave nothing away of her age, so either statement could be true. The cool scent of her magic confirmed her as Chawi, but even without that, the press of her power against his skin marked her as such. What kind of magic did she hold? It was something he could discern later in the time he’d spend with her.
He decided in that moment that he would be spending a lot of time with her to find out.
“Do you have nothing to say of your situation?” he said softly, his breath brushing against her ear.
