Page 57 of The Only King to Claim Her

ight and brilliant, like the sun that had been hidden from her for all those years. And it was nearly too much for her to bear. But also, she was sensitive to it. More perhaps than most because she had been kept in the darkness for so long. Because she had been kept away from people. And this thing between them... It was magic. It was more than necessity.

More than sex. She was certain of it.

She tried to remember back to when she had thought that sex was merely an appetite, as he had said. That he was a pastry she could go about sampling before she had another, and she realized what a foolish thing that was. There would never be another. Not for her. It was this broken man. With her. All broken. Together.

Yes, life was filled with tragedies, but looking at him now, she felt all of the miracles it contained as well. For he was a miracle to her.

She only hoped that she could be one for him.

And she would not let him pull away. Not tonight. Not on the night of their wedding.

She might have been a virgin only recently, but she was not afraid to seduce him.

She was not afraid to show him what was in her heart.

He had taught her about food, and the pleasure she might find there. His body, and all the joys that it contained. And now perhaps she would teach him about love. In the way that she understood it.

Love after brokenness.

After all these gifts he had given to her... Could she do anything less for him?

* * *

The wedding had left him feeling grim. Yes, it had been his idea, and yes, he had made many a bold declaration inside of himself that a wedding meant nothing, but he found it seemed less true than he would like.

By the end of the evening Annick was tired, he could tell. So when all the guests had left, he took himself off to his own chamber. He had a need for distance. His family was still in residence, and interacting with them was always a chore. Being that charming playboy that he was so accustomed to being... It was becoming a chore.

So what are you, then? The soldier?

He feared that it might be true.

That everything about Maximus King was simply a shell. That the one who was real was a man who took orders, carried out missions other men shied away from.

The one who pulled the trigger without mercy when necessary. The one who existed in a space between revenge and vigilante justice.

He had done good, but the question was, how much did he even care about it anymore?

If he were honest, he had lost that connection to Stella at some point over the years.

He no longer felt that deep, aching grief that he once had for her. No longer felt as if she was some sort of eternal love, a guiding light.

No. All had become darkness at a certain stage. Except Annick.

When he had walked Annick down the aisle today, when he had seen her in her gown, she had been light.

And he felt...reluctant to touch her. Like if he put his hands on her snow-white dress he would leave behind oily dark fingerprints. Or perhaps blood.

There was blood on his hands and he couldn’t even bring himself to feel guilty about it. And that bothered him more than anything.

At first... At first it had had a cost. Killing. At first, he had felt the weight of every life he had taken. Yes, it was no different than war. These military operations. He knew that; he understood it. Many men did such things. They fought for the safety of their country, the lives of their countrymen, and what he was doing was that. He killed dictators’ investments. Assassins. Murderers. None of them were innocent. But at a certain point, he had lost his own claim to innocence. He might be able to justify each and every thing he had done, might be able to weigh it against the lives those men would have eventually taken. But it did not make him a saint. It did not make him right.

He wondered sometimes if he was simply a man in darkness, the same as all of them. Choosing a side, and deciding it was right.

If the right evidence had been presented to him, would he have been involved in the removal of Annick’s father?

He wanted to say no. But there had come a point where he had chosen who he believed. About who was good and who was evil.

No, he never, ever would have harmed a woman or child, but even so.

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