Page 39 of Vicious Prince (Violent Kingdom)

Gloved fingers squeeze at my cheeks, forcing my mouth open. I try to bite down, to close my mouth, but whoever this guy is — he’s too strong, and I’m too drugged to react quickly enough. Something cold and metallic is shoved between my teeth. I don’t register what it is at first — until I hear the click.

“A gun!?” Rome yells, at the same time I realize, yes, there’s a gun in my mouth. A revolver. The clicking sound was the hammer being cocked.

I have a loaded gun in my mouth.I whimper around the cold gun barrel as it scrapes against my teeth, trying not to gag.

Why can’t I see? Am I blind?

“You’re putting a gun in her mouth?” Rome’s voice echoes through the tiny room.

I’m trying desperately to breathe evenly. I’ve never considered what a gun barrel might taste like before, but even if I had, I could not have imaginedthis. The metal is cold, and it makes a sickening scrape against my teeth as my captor forces it past my lips. It tastes oily, and metallic, and I’m struck for the first time by how similar a gun tastes to blood.

“Jesus, fuck, leave her alone,” Rome grinds out. I can hear the raw edge of panic in his voice, a voice that was controlled before.

Not anymore. Not down here. We’re in the wild, now. The gun is suddenly gone from my mouth, and I suck in deep breaths, choking on the air I didn’t realize I needed.

A hand comes to rest at the base of my throat again. I blink rapidly,why can’t I see?I try so hard to grab onto my consciousness long enough to figure out what’s happening.

There’s material against my eyelashes. I’m blindfolded again, still rubbery and pliant from the drugs. That’s why I can’t see. I want to fight back, to kick and claw at the violent hands at my throat, but it’s such an effort to even breathe. All of my energy was focused on that single punch, and now I’m ready to pass out again.

My prayers are answered; the hands let go of me. I fall through the air for a split-second, and then I’m landing on something hard, something flat that the back of my head thwacks against. It’s blissful, that millisecond when I’m suspended mid-air, a relieved moan escaping my lips as I fall in slow-motion. My captor's hands are no longer on me. But the hard surface of what feels like a table breaks my fall, knocking the wind out of me. I’m sprawled awkwardly, my legs bent at the knee, dangling off the edge of what must be a table, or a countertop. With every ounce of energy I possess, I lift my arms to my face and tear off the material blindfolding me.

A hand immediately goes around my throat again, as I take in the features — or rather, the lack of features — of the man cutting off my air supply. He’s dressed differently now, a black hoodie pulled snug around his ears, the black balaclava still on underneath. The hoodie casts a shadow over his face, and I can’t make out any of his features; not the color of his eyes, the only things visible through the twin holes in the tight material, nor the shape of his head.Nothing. I follow his outstretched arm, the one that isn’t pinning my throat, finding the gun in his hand. It’s pointed at the corner where Rome’s voice was coming from.

A hand grabs at my wrists, yanking them above my head, and a second later I feel heavy metal circling them. I try to move my arms, but they’re stuck — handcuffed to the top of the table. It’s so dark in here, I can barely make out anything other than superficial outlines.

I turn my head to the side, my eyes struggling to make out the figure in the corner.

“Fuck her,” a deep, distorted voice sounds from the hoodie guy. He’s looking at the figure in the corner.

He’s looking at Rome.

My captor’s voice is unnaturally deep, as if there’s something against his mouth, under that black mask, that’s changing the sound. He sounds like a mixture of Christian Bale’s gravel Batman voice, and the abrasive voice-changer the murderers used in the Scream movies. It probably wouldn’t be so terrifying if I were listening to it on a TV screen, but I’m not, am I? This is real life. This is happening. This isn’t make-believe, or a nightmare I can wake up from.

This is brutal, violent truth, and it’s only about to get worse.

“Fuck her, or I will,” the deep voice repeats.

A wail starts deep in my belly and fills the room.Fuck her. Of course I’m chained to a table with no way to escape. Of course there’s blood all over my face, down my throat, making me cough every time it drips a little down my nasal passages and slides back down my throat. Of course I’m wearing the clothes Rome gave me while he stands in the corner wearing nothing but his boxer shorts.Of course.

Rome moves closer to the table. “I’m notfuckingher,” he spits. “And you’re not touching her.”

In the next moment, three things happen that make me understand that things are not the way I believed them to be. Firstly, Rome charges at the hoodie guy. Second, there is a deafening shot as hoodie guy pulls out a gun and shoots Rome, who goes flying back into the wall with a crash, sliding down to the floor and leaving an oily streak of red in his wake.

Nonononono.

My ears scream at the sudden gunshot, their timbre settling to a steady ringing that makes my teeth hum and drowns everything else out to static buzz. My jeans — Rome’s jeans — are ripped away from me, and I’m naked from the waist down again. Masked Psycho doesn’t bother getting the t-shirt off this time, I guess because my hands are restrained above my head. Instead, he pushes the shirt up my stomach, right up to my neck, so that my tits are visible. He presses a hand over my mouth to stop the screams that I can’t control, and if I thought his mouth on me was bad, this is something unthinkable. The faceless nightmare of a man who looms over me undoes his fly slowly, every movement a taunt of what’s to come, as we communicate silently. He cocks his head to the side and eases the pressure of his palm on my face just slightly, and somehow I know what he means. He’ll take the hand away if I stop screaming.

I nod, pressing my lips together as tightly as possible, and the hand on my mouth disappears. I take a great gulp of air.

“You shot him,” I say, dazed.

My captor nods. My ears scream with static. Fingers drag up my thigh, closing in on their destination with horrifying speed.

“Please don’t,” I beg, craning my neck. “I’ll do anything.”

A low chuckle sounds from under his mask, the vibration traveling through his fingers that clutch my thigh, sweeping through my body, a horror I don’t fully understand but know I will. His fingers leave my thigh and sweep across my pussy, my muscles tensing in shock. “Anything?”

I let my head loll back onto the table, the weight of holding my head up too painful. “Anything butthat.”

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