Page 34 of Vicious Prince (Violent Kingdom)

More words tumble out of my mouth that I don’t even know I’m saying. Pleading, begging.

Please.

Don’t.

It’s as if someone has poured cold water on me when his jeans hit me in the face, then land on the mattress in front of me.

“You’re freezing,” he says, through gritted teeth. “I’m not going to rape you. This is probably hard for aCapuletgirl to understand, but I don’t need toforcegirls to get my dick wet.”

I look down at the pair of jeans in shock, then up at him as he moves away from me again. My eyes, once blindfolded, are continuing to adjust to the dim light of the room. “Thank you,” I say, taking the jeans and carefully sliding them onto my shaking legs. Why am Ithankingthis guy? Maybe I just want to appease him, behave, avoid aggravating him. But also, I want the jeans on, an added layer of protection for my poor body, something to cover myself with since my panties are long gone, along with the rest of my clothes.

The jeans are too big. They swim on me, but I’m still so grateful for them I could cry. Actually, I could cry regardless. My thigh is starting to hum with pain, and the drugs I was injected with earlier are fucking with my sense of balance something wicked. My lip feels puffy and tastes metallic from where he hit me earlier. And between my thighs, I’m on fire, that unwelcome kiss seared into my flesh and leaving a burn in its wake.

“So,” he says. “Avery Capulet.” He says my name like the words are poison he’s spitting on the ground. “You want to tell me what the fuck is going on?”

That gravelly voice. The mussed-up hair, long on top, short on the sides. He has more tattoos than he did the last time I saw him. The same morning I found my sister dead, floating in our swimming pool, her hair strewn out around her like some kind of mermaid. He was the one who helped me fish her out of the water. He was the one who started CPR, while I lost my fucking mind and screamed for her to wake up. I remember staring at the dragons and the skulls inked onto his arms as he pumped her lifeless chest up and down. They’re everywhere, starting under his ears, threading down his neck, right down to the tips of his toes. There’s not one part of him that I can see that isn’t inked, other than his face.

His bloody, swollen face. He looks like he’s been in a fight. Maybe there was a struggle after I passed out.

And finally, I can see his eyes. It’s too dim to make out the color, but I can see their shape. I can make out the outline of his lips.

I know who you are.

It’s as if somebody has ripped my heart out and smashed it on the dirty floor. I’d know those lips anywhere. They were the first lips I ever kissed.

How could he, of all people, do this?

“You,” I whisper, recognizing my captor.

“Hey, Princess,” Rome Montague says, his cheery tone dripping with sarcasm. “Or, wait, I guess you’re the Queen now, right? It’s been forever. When’s the last time we hung out, anyway?”

I grit my teeth, wincing as pain throbs in my thigh. I wish I had enough energy to jump up and rip his smug fucking face off. “The last time wehung outyou were giving my dead sister mouth-to-mouth. But I’m sure you remember that.”

His smugness vanishes. His eyes narrow, his breathing quickens — did I just rattle Rome Montague with a single sentence? “How could I forget?” he shoots back, his words full of acid and barbs. “But you’re forgetting, aren’t you? That’s not the last time we saw each other at all.”

His words are designed to hurt me, and they work. I hang my head in shame, guilt thick in my throat as I think of what happened to him because of me. “Is this payback, then?”

“Little girl, this wouldn’t even becloseto payback for what you and your family did to me.”

Little girl. I might be twenty-five and all grown up, but under Rome’s eyes, I’m still a child that needs saving. Only, this time, he’s the one I need saving from, not the one who will pick me up in his strong arms and take me to safety.

Grief is like a flash flood; it crashes into me, unexpected, unwanted. I nod as I digest my situation, the shock too fresh for me to think of a way out. I study my surroundings again, different now with the knowledge of who took me. Fitting, even. Because once upon a time, I betrayed Rome Montague in the worst way imaginable. I took away his freedom. In a single moment, a debt was forged that I knew, deep down, he’d come to collect one day.

I just didn’t think it would be today.Not like this.

“You were kind when I knew you,” I whisper. “You weren’t cruel. Not like this.”

Rome’s lips tug up into a smirk. “If you think me bandaging your wounds and giving you my clothes is cruel, I’d hate to see what your definition of kindness is.”

“Kindness would be taking me home,” I say. My eyes have adjusted somewhat, and I can make out the color of his eyes. They’re bright blue, the exact color of the bottom of the pool where we found my sister, still and floating. His eyes are as cold as that pool, too, but there’s something about Rome Montague’s stare that makes me dizzy with fever. It’s the knowing. It’s the guilt. Being complicit in the downfall of somebody you used to love burns hotter than any sickness can touch you.

At least, I think I used to love him.

“Kindness would have been you telling the truth,” he replies flatly. “But there’s no kindness left in you, is there? Only your daddy’s blood, pumping through your veins.”

My cheeks burn when he talks like that. Because he’s right, just like Will was right. All I’ll ever be is a girl with daddy issues. A girl who would lie for her father, steal for him, cheat for him. A girl who has done all three of those things.

“Are you going to kill me?” I ask him point-blank.

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