Page 68 of Hostile King

Love is a feeling, but this is something more. It surpasses emotions and claws beneath my flesh, crawls around my organs, and embeds into my DNA. The potency of it leaves no doubt that I am his.

Our silent moment of remembrance crumbles at my feet when his teeth bare and the hue of his irises flicks to baneful, engulfing pinprick pupils. A trickle of blood runs the length of his forearm where he’s ripped out the cannula that administered intravenous fluids. His posture vibrates, predatory and primed for attack.

I unstick my feet and smile, the sincere sentiment failing to appease the demonic glare he now projects to the men behind me.

“Carina.” The way he says my name, riddled in the current of a hellish temper electrocutes me with desire, propelling me towards him.

I feel his anger slicing the air with razor sharp blades.

“Where the fuck are we? And why are those motherfuckers daring to stare at you like they don’t know who you are to me?”

19

TOMÁS

I died and went straight to Hell.

Or so I thought when a frigid wind blew through me, its arctic glaciers freezing my veins. I did my best not to let go, to close my eyes and leave her behind. Carina needed me, and as it turns out, I needed her more.

I’d sank deeper, dropping from the earth she graced, drifting to the barren plains of the afterlife where my girl wasn't allowed to visit. It was fucking lonely without her—my new personal purgatory.

From the depths, I fought to reach her, battling the whisper of a death so final it would suck out my infernal entity and hang it beside all the lost souls I’d stolen.

I wasn’t ready to leave her alone in a world she hated. Nor did I want my enemies near when I wasn’t around to fight for her. Even sprawled out in the back of a shitty truck, my psyche was trained to defend, protect, and kill, but my treacherous mortality had failed me.

As time blurred, flames made light work of melting the frozen chamber I was imprisoned in and soothed the teeth-jarring shivers. The sub-zero no-man’s land I found myself in caught fire.

Scorching heat had replaced the formidable arms of a frozen tomb. I felt the essence of her soul seep into every part of me, taking up residency in the innermost parts of my being.

When my eyes opened and I found myself in a strange bed, flat on my back wearing only my boxer briefs, stuck to a bleeping machine with a long tube siphoning clear liquid into my hot veins and Carina was nowhere in sight—I glitched.

I didn’t care how my eyes stung from the dying daylight, how my head spun when I stood, or how my shoulder crashed into the wall when my knees gave way. I had to find her. The machine flatlined after I tore the sticky pads from my chest.

When I violently ripped out the needle stuck in the crook of my arm a crimson spray covered the bedsheet.

As I staggered along an unknown hallway, my hands went numb and my feet prickled, a thousand invisible needles and pins jabbing the soles.

My heart had levitated when her sweet voice sang in my ears, so close, so fucking desirable. Finding her in a room with two men I’ve never met, covered in a simple towel no less. Well, sanity all but left me.

Once upon a time, I was a man who believed I could walk the earth without a significant other—without a woman to share my fortune and passion. Why have one girl when many could offer temporary satisfaction, and feelings would have nothing to do with it?

Since finding my girl, I no longer have any sway in that belief. She’d arrived in my kingdom and stolen my full attention, bringing with her the unforgettable notion of ownership.

Those were the ideals of a foolish man. A traumatized asshole who associated love with death. And having survived the claws of death, I’d rather love her than lose her.

She could hate me, and I would always chase her—always—because the breath-taking woman walking towards me like a Grecian goddess, wearing dulled fingertip bruises around her neck belongs solely to me.

It’s an unnatural reaction to want to wrap my hands around her throat again. But I do, just to feel her racing pulse and know it’s me who made it happen.

The facts are, I will never share Carina Ferreira with anyone.

Each footfall of her dainty feet carries her exquisite form closer. She steps elegantly into my personal space and places a soft, calming hand on my cheek, her head proud on her regally poised neck.

I swear my heart jostles when her big eyes drink me in with complete adoration. It pleases me more than the billions hanging off my family name to know I’m still holding a firm grip on to the number one position in her life.

Ebony rich hair shines under a damp sheen, the minty fragrance of clean, smooth skin completely dick stirring. She means more to me than she’ll ever know. The warmth of her touch soothes the gnawing pang in my chest, the agonizing worry I have for her safety.

Where the fuck are we?

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