Page 4 of The Only King to Claim Her

She blinked against the invasive brightness. She had seen pictures of him, but they did not do him justice. He was a very large man, broad, with dark brown hair.

His face was handsome. Uncommonly so. She had never seen a man with quite such a competent scaffolding. A strange thing, human beauty. For it was just an arrangement of features and skin placed over bone in a particular

fashion.

Yet his was quite striking.

And it made a sensation stir low in her belly. One that was foreign to her. It reminded her a great deal of fear, but it was not that. She was not afraid. Then she noticed that in one of his hands he still held the gun. The light revealed the weapon she had known was there all along.

Though she had the sense just then that the true weapon was the man himself.

“Please do not shoot me.”

“I’ve no desire to shoot you. Therefore, to please us both—you and your desire to not be dead, me and my desire to not shoot a woman—I suggest you leave, and forget this conversation ever occurred.”

“I cannot. I cannot, because it is what must be done for my people. I have been over many solutions. Many. Are you a man who desires power? As my guard, as my...my right-hand man, you would be very powerful.”

“No. If I desired power, don’t you think I would have filled one of the vacant positions I left behind already?”

“And that is a strange thing,” she said. “Because most men do desire power, do they not?”

“I suppose, to an extent. But then, I often wonder if such men have ever been up close to it.”

“Yes, a good observation, I think. For power does not entice me, personally. It is only that I must take it, as is my responsibility. My birthright. All my family are dead.”

“I’m sorry. But you have presented a scenario wherein my family might all be dead.”

“It is not what I want, Maximus King. I hope you understand. What I want is for the safety of my country to be secured. What I want is for you to help steady the situation that you have created.”

“Again, the situation was not mine.”

“Whose?”

“Your neighbors to the east, in Lackland. I believe they thought it better to depose the despot in power for their own reasons.”

“Yes, for reasons likely of taking over. Which I do not want either. So, you can see the situation I find myself in. I need money. Would you not like to have this power?”

“As I said, I am not overly enamored of power.”

“Then why do you do it? Why do you do this...this insipid job you pretend to do? What is it, repairing the reputations of Hollywood stars? And you kill people for money.”

“I carry out missions assigned to me. And often that results in the deaths of men who would kill countless others. Countless innocents.”

“You and the government then decide who is good and who is bad? What is that, if not an exercise in power? Playing God. Playing God with public opinion, playing God with life. Do not tell me you don’t wish for power. I am not stupid, me.”

She wondered, for a moment, if she had gone too far. He did not frighten her, not really. But she was very aware of the fact that if she pushed him too far, she would not get what she wanted, and that did frighten her. For she had no other plan. No other idea for how she might bail her country out of the disaster it found itself in.

“What other enticements have you to offer?”

She fortified herself with a breath. For she had been prepared for this moment. “Me. My body.”

He looked her up and down. “Please do not take this the wrong way, but I have no need.”

She narrowed her eyes, feeling insulted. “What does that mean?”

“I do not need to take a woman in trade for anything. If I want a woman, I simply have her.”

“Not me.”

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