Page 18 of Broken Queen
“So take back your throne, love,” he said.
Frustration, arousal, and confusion fell over me in hot waves. I was edgy, desperate for action, to do anything to get my mind off of everything being torn away from me.
And Hazard wanted me to take back my throne?
“If you need to conquer those enemies, then do it,” he added as he wrapped his hands around me and placed the gun in my hands.
The gun’s weight was like a human head weighing down a scale. I had never killed before. Instead, I had ordered other people to kill for me.
And right then, more than anything, I wanted Hazard to kill Logan.
“Have you done it before?” I asked.
“Given my queen a weapon so she can rightfully get back what belongs to her? No,” he said playfully. “Killed people?” he paused, pressing his lips against my ear. “Yes.”
There was something so erotic about the way he said that. Hazard didn’t care about getting involved with taking another person’s life. He wasn’t obsessed with being perfect and following the rules like a good, honest child. He had no desire to keep his hands clean.
Hazard did as he pleased.
“Is that how you got here?” I whispered. “By killing people to get the placement?”
He pressed up against me, his cock biting through his jeans, hungry for more.
“Is that what you want to hear, love?”
I wasn’t sure what I wanted his answer to be, but I wanted to know everything about Hazard. In many ways, he was different from me, but he called to this longing deep inside of my core that wanted to do something destructive by myself for once. To do something horrible and have everyone bow down before me, begging me for mercy.
He cocked his chin to the side. “Your father thinks he hired a man named Chris Cox. Do I look like a ‘Chris Cox’ to you, Bloomy?”
I couldn’t help it. I laughed. He could have been a Chris Cox, but the name Hazard fit him so well, like a warning flashing in the night. A bright yellow triangle telling me to stop in my tracks. Cautionary words that I should listen to, but refused to hear.
Hazard was dangerous, not because he had hurt me in any way, but because he called to that tendril inside of me that wanted to be dangerous too. And that was a threat against everything I had been pining for.
The banquet hall cast a dim light in our direction, shimmering against his red hair.
I raised the gun, aiming it at his heart, and his lips pulled back into a smile, as if daring me to do it. Blood thrummed in my ears. Hazard didn’t care what I did; he just wanted to see what happened when I had the power in my hands. He even gave it to me.
I liked that.
“Don’t start something you can’t finish, love,” he said. “Trust me. Once you get a taste of blood, you’ll never be able to give it up.”
I dropped the gun to my side, then stepped closer. I wanted to kill Logan and my father; that was the honest truth. But Blooms never got their hands dirty. They arranged things so that other people got messy for them. That was what a true leader did.
And perhaps that’s why I liked Hazard. I could use him to do my best work for me.
“You want a taste of me, don’t you?” I said. “You think giving me my father’s gun will give you that?”
He licked his lips. “You’re tempting the devil in me,” he said. “You know that.”
Elation mixed with curiosity swelled in my chest, tingling like a sac of spider eggs ready to burst. I headed toward the ladder. Then, facing him, I lifted the gun in the air.
“I’m going to keep this,” I said. “Hope you don’t mind.”
“It’s yours,” he said, fanning his arms out as he bowed toward me, still standing on the roof. “And just like that gun, I am yours, my queen.”
At that, I gave him a real, genuine smile. Hazard was so full of shit. Completely and almost pathetically trying to get me to like him simply by flattering me and tempting me through violence. I could see his game as clearly as I saw the moon in the sky, because I played that game myself.
He’d be useful one day.
