Monsters: (A Dark Gods Romance) (Gods and Monsters Book 6)

by Klarissa King

  Prince Poison had made sure our meeting stayed private, and I wasn’t sure that was a good sign.

  As Adrik helped me onto the wood pier, Jasper stayed on the swaying boat. The Prince’s aniels stayed down the far end of the pier in the shadows, so I gestured for Adrik to stay in the boat. With a sour look at the Prince, he obeyed, unhappily.

  “You have my aniels trained well,” the Prince drawled, his tone glacier, like smooth, dangerous icebergs. “I suppose with what you did to Felicks, they are too afraid to challenge you.”

  I peeled back my shawl and faced the Prince. His face slackened as he laid eyes on my fresh look.

  His gaze was snatched by the small horns poking out from my pinkish hair, before he dropped his attention to my eyes—white glowing orbs almost to match his pearlescent eyes.

  Questions were written all over his face, in the creases of his flattened mouth, the gleam of his gaze. His mind churned behind his calculative eyes, and he came up short.

  “What happened to you?” he asked coolly.

  “Phantom,” I said, and kept the distance between us. Close enough to hear each other, to talk, but far enough that I could jump back in the boat any second and make for the ship.

  I just hoped it didn’t come to that.

  “Where is your lover of darkness?” His mouth twisted into a sneer at the reminder of Damianos. “Keeping your bed warm on your honeymoon ship?”

  The smile that touched my lips was sad. “He’s dead. I had to kill him.”

  His eyebrow hiked. “Is that so?” Curiosity clung to his tone, and he watched me with a new gleam in his moon-eyes. “And when you say killed…”

  “He’s as dead as a decapitated vilas. I made sure of it.” I offered my hand. “Want to see?”

  The Prince gave a small smile and, with a quick glance up at my horns, said, “I doubt I will see your blood memories very well. It appears you have … evolved.”

  “But I’ve seen yours, and you’re a First,” I challenged.

  He didn’t look surprised. He must have suspected it already, maybe not long after I escaped, or maybe the vilas in the dungeons saw more than he let on and traded my secret for freedom.

  “I want a peace treaty,” I said. “And if this is how we come to peace, then so be it.”

  I shifted my outstretched hand to the side, where it hovered above the boat.

  Adrik slashed a blade down my palm and caught the blood in a flask. He handed it to me.

  The Prince watched as I dangled the small flask of my blood. “I don’t want a war,” I told him. “And this will prove it. I just want my freedom.”

  His eyes hooked onto mine, a new gleam to them, fresh and ferocious. “Freedom,” he spat. “Isn’t that what your Phantom promised you? Did he deliver?” The Prince took a dangerous step forward. “There is no freedom to be had, Valissa. We all are tied to each other, bound by the power of this world. And you—yes, you stand before me with the power and presence of a First, but you are not yet trusted. You came to us less than a year ago, and you want the trust we have earned over centuries.”

  “Yes.” I tossed the flask at him. He caught it easily. “That’s exactly what I want. Consider it a thanks for killing your great enemy.”

  The Prince pocketed the flask, his murderously glinting eyes piercing the heavy darkness crawling over the sky.

  “Don’t forget,” I added, “I never would have run away from you if you didn’t trap me.”

  The Prince said, “You are so confident you have means to bargain with.”

  My veins chilled and prickles swept all over my skin. Still, I kept my gaze steady on his.

  “I’ll be the last of my kind,” I said. “I’m a fluke—and so was Aphrodite. That gives me a lot to bargain with. If I die, you’ll spend your eternity alone. And,” I added, wearing a smirk filled with more confidence than I felt, “you want me. There were so many times you could have killed me, maybe you should have. But it’s me you want, and that is my trade.”

  His face darkened and his eyes turned to grey storm clouds. I turned my back on him. With Adrik’s help, I dropped into the boat.

  Jasper unhooked us and pushed us from the pier.

  “I’ll wait to hear from you,” I said to the Prince as Jasper began to row.

  He didn’t chase after me, throw toxic agony my way, or send his aniels to hunt us down. He watched me go, and the flask stayed tucked in his crimson coat pocket.

  For all his cruelty and harshness, the Prince revealed a weakness—me. I hoped to hear the answer I wanted from him, but that night, I would get no answers.

  Back at the boat, I marched straight into the cabin.

  14

  I woke to Adrik shaking my shoulders, rattling me out of a deep heavy sleep. I opened my eyes to his face above mine.

  “The Prince is coming,” he said, urgent. “Sailing to our ship right now.”

  I was out of bed quicker than a bolt of lightning stretches across the sky. I grabbed for the black breeches and shirt crumpled on the floor and staggered into them.

  “I’ll wake the others.” Adrik kicked over my boots, then swept out of the cabin.

  With Jasper gone, I only had three aniels all up, and though I inherited them, I couldn’t guarantee their loyalty to me.

  Any one of them could turn around and plunge a knife into my back. At least, that’s what I assumed could happen.

  I didn’t know a whole lot about inheritance, laws of aniel trading. One of the reasons I kept Adrik around, and he seemed to have warmed to me. His loyalty was the sturdiest thing I could lean on in times of panic.

  And I was in a flurry of panic.

  Hastily, I rammed my feet into the boots, then threw the wispy crimson shawl over my shoulders.

  The Prince could be coming to wage war, attack, and throw my proposed treaty in my face. I had little to fight back with if he chose to do any of that, and he knew it.

  This moment was tilted in his favour.

  My new worshipper came barging into my room, his face twisted with worry lines.

  “Light the fire,” I ordered with a flurry of the hands.

  He rushed to do my bidding as I poured a healthy glass of chevki from the decanter, then deposited myself onto the damp armchair.

  Everything in this godforsaken ship was damp. Even the sheets that were meant to keep me warm at night had a chill to them beneath the smell.

  Just as I brought the glass to my mouth, the door opened and Adrik stepped in, his spine stiffer than mine. He slipped to the side with a bow, making way for the God at his heels.

  I saw his gleaming moon eyes first.

  Prince Poison stepped into the cabin, a lazy touch to his footfalls, and he looked around. His gaze lingered on the wrinkled sheets for a beat.

  With a jolt of the heart, I suspected he was reliving memories of him and me, crumpled sheets, flames crackling in the fireplace.

  “Want a drink?” I asked, lashes lowered on him.

  He turned to face me, shadows creeping up the marble pallor of his cheeks. He looked haunted, more because of the shadows, but his eyes dimmed to a dusty grey like storm clouds, and my tummy twisted inside of me.

  He misses me.

  Prince Poison dropped into the chair opposite me. For a while, he just watched me. His gaze pierced through me, into my twisted mind and warped stained soul, until he finally cut his attention to the decanter.

  Clicking his fingers at the worshipper, he silently ordered a glass of chevki.

  “Leave us,” I said, and looked at Adrik who lingered by the door.

  Adrik cursed me with a worried look before he bowed and shut the door behind him.

  For long moments, all that filled the room was the high-pitched whistle that comes with the sea winds, breaking in through cracks in the wood. It was a comforting sound, one that had me craving hot cocoa and thick blankets and my old bedchamber.

  “I’m not sorry I left,” I told him, my voice wearing the thickness of the fresh slee
p I was stolen from. “I am sorry for how things soured between us, for the things I did, and for the things you did to me. But leaving?”

  I shook my head and swirled the chevki around in the glass. “Leaving was the best thing I ever did, because of who I am now. I had to break free of all my chains to find myself, and now, I’m a God. A powerful one who can match you, toe-to-toe.”

  I looked up at his stony, studious face from beneath my lashes. “From my blood memories, I hope you realise that a fight isn’t what I want.”

  “What do you want, Valissa?” A rawness sawed down his normally smooth voice, and I sniffed out his vulnerabilities in seconds.

  He stopped me before I could answer—

  “Beyond freedom,” he said, “what do you want?”

  “Safety for my aniels.” There was more courage in my voice than in my heart. It started beating harder and faster the longer his piercing stare cut through me. “A place at the palace. A temple of my own. What I want is simple, Prince. I am your equal, and I want to be treated like one.”

  His smile was dark. “If you knew what that meant, you never would ask for it.”

  He paused and took a long sip from his glass.

  As he brought it down to rest on his lap, his grip loose, he said, “I do not speak on behalf of all Firsts, Valissa. But I can offer you a way to begin establishing yourself.”

  I watched, tense, as he set the glass on a side-table and reached into his inner-coat pocket that was as crimson as blood. From the pocket, he drew out a long red ribbon, its edges jagged with pinkish hues.

  Our ribbon.

  “Accept me,” he said, “and others will, in turn, accept you—in time.”

  He offered me the ribbon. I stayed put in the armchair and set aside my own glass.

  “Offer it to me the way it’s meant to be given,” I said, my voice breathless.

  In my chest, my heart writhed.

  He wasn’t just wearing a ribbon to match my dress.

  As he rose up from the chair and advanced on me, the writhes travelled down to my gut and flutters attacked my insides. He was dropping to one knee, and offering his ribbon.

  That was much more than I expected—more than I could have hoped for.

  This was a union.

  A sincere smile twisted my mouth and I extended my arm. He twirled the ribbon around my wrist, once, twice, until it was snug on my bones and he finished it off with a small bow.

  “I don’t have a ribbon for you.” I said, tracing the pink edges with my fingertips.

  The Prince tugged back his sleeve. On his wrist, an identical ribbon was fastened, the red gleaming in the firelight.

  “No more lies,” I told him, though I hardly expected him to live up to the oath. “No more cages or punishments or prisons. You will have me just as I am or not at all.”

  He reached up his cold hand for my face. Fingertips a breath away from my skin, he hesitated. I wore no bracelets.

  A smile danced on my mouth as I leaned my cheek to his hand. He was startled, and drew back, but not before his poison left bruises on my skin—and disappeared.

  Awed, he pressed his hand to my cheek and cupped. The soft pad of his thumb ran along the length of my cheekbone.

  My lashes fluttered as his fingers threaded through my hair, and he studied the horns taking all of the poison out of my body. Eternal, never-full bracelets.

  “No more pain,” he promised me, then drew me closer to him until I was sliding off the chair and into his lap. His hand came up my back, bringing a shudder with them.

  And he kissed me like he missed me.

  15

  His lips were cold against mine as he whispered a secret to me. “My name is Draco,” he said.

  My mouth curved into a wicked smile. “Draco.” The name rolled off my tongue like thick sugar.

  Hearing me speak it had the Prince whispering a moan along my jawline as his lips explored. “Say it again.”

  “Make me.” The challenge was in my tone and the glint of my gaze.

  The Prince’s hand raked over my bare flesh beneath my loose shirt, moving upwards to my small, perky breasts.

  The air had a nipping chill, hardening my nipples—his hand melded against my left breast, and his thumb flicked over my hardened nipple, sending a jolt of cold pleasure through me.

  His lips travelled gently down to the crook of my neck. Wrapping my legs around his hips, my head lolled back at the exquisite sensations coursing through my body, my core on fire.

  One hand cupping my breast, the Prince used his free one to gently peel off my loose breeches. They fell onto the floor beside us with a light thump, forgotten in the heat of our reunion.

  This, this is exactly what I was hoping for.

  My hands moved between us, dexterously unfastening the buttons of his breeches. A thick and long erection sprung free, the underside of his cock resting against my pelvis.

  His fingers tweaked and pulled at my erect nipple teasingly. Gasps were pulled from my lips by his ministrations.

  Hand between us, I grabbed onto his shaft and positioned the head at my slick folds. His mouth found mine again and, as I lowered myself onto him his tongue delved into my mouth, invading me with the taste of peppermint and secrets.

  Our moans tangled in perfect unison as I sank onto him, his shaft filling me to the brim. His free arm snaked around me, holding me to him, as I started to grind.

  Every push was slow, leisurely, and we savoured our moment together. Pleasure danced along my nerves, building slowly, like hot embers growing into a fire.

  My hands clutched onto his muscular shoulders and I gasped into his mouth as he stretched and filled me with a sudden jut.

  I moved with his rhythm.

  Our pace quickened, until flames now burned inside of me, and our breaths came out in harsh, quick sounds.

  He pistoned in and out of me, my nails digging deep into his shoulders, and I buried my face in the nook of his neck. One by one, muscles started to seize beneath my skin until they all froze and—

  Time was still for a beat before I fell.

  I threw my head back and let out a strangled cry. I shivered against him, the brunt of the blazing fire hitting my every nerve.

  The Prince fell with me, his dark, guttural growl shuddering against my body.

  I pulled a sweet moan from him as I whispered one word, breathlessly—

  “Draco.”

  16

  Prince Poison watched me pour two fresh glasses of chevki, sheathed only in a gauzy sheet.

  His pale eyes felt like ice against my cold skin. I lowered my lashes at him, a knowing smile on my lips.

  He studied my new appearance. The peculiar scars that ran down my back, little nicks running alongside my spine, and the most confronting change, the horns. I wasn’t sure I would ever get used to them, let alone embrace them.

  “I can feel your power,” he said, lounging stark-naked across the bed, as though it belonged to him.

  He had that about him, making every room look like his own in a matter of moments.

  “It’s an aura,” he went on, head cocked to the side as he watched me, “all around you, pulsing. It is strong, as strong as a First.”

  “Fuck First.” I carried the glasses over to the bed and dropped down at his obscenely positioned legs. “I’m a Last.”

  He took the glass and held it loosely. “Is that what you’re calling yourself?”

  “Well, daemon was taken, and I refuse to be called a Third, so,” I finished with a shrug and flopped down, on his legs. “Last.”

  Over the rim of the glass he sipped from, the Prince kept his eyes on me.

  “You know, you could always have me painted,” I said. “Better than just staring at me all day.”

  “Perhaps I’m still debating your fate,” he said.

  A hollow pit opened in my stomach. It sucked in every scrap of confidence within me, and the pit fluttered uneasily.

  “Maybe I’m debating yours,” I
challenged. “You’re not stronger than me anymore. I can match whatever you throw at me. I would just prefer,” I finished with a shrug, “not to.”

  His smile tickled my insides. “So a temple,” he prompted, side-stepping our pissing contest.

  “In the Lost Square.” I was adamant. “I like it there.”

  The Prince reached out for a loose strand of hair and tucked it behind my ear tenderly. “A temple, unharmed aniels, freedom—is there anything you aren’t demanding?”

  “Your death.” A sickly sweet smile tugged at my lips like the tight pull of harp strings. “Revenge for putting me in your dungeons, for torturing Ava, for torturing me. I call us even.”

  A knock came at the door.

  I rolled onto my back and shouted, “Come in.”

  Adrik slipped inside. He bowed—only at me. I could feel the Prince’s aura shifting.

  I shot him a dark warning look.

  “Ms Ava is departing,” Adrik said. “She asked to have a moment of your time before she leaves.”

  I shook my head, a burn of anger igniting in me. “No,” I said. “I don’t want to see her. Let them go.”

  Adrik bowed, but before he slipped out of the room, into the winds of the sea’s night, he hesitated.

  Prince Poison studied me, hard. “I might need an eternal glass of your blood memories to understand you,” he said. “Even then, I suspect you will forever be a mystery to me.”

  I turned a smile on him and flopped onto my side. Supporting my head on the heel of my hand, I said, “That’s the fun of it. You have forever to be confused.”

  He smiled, something fleeting and tender.

  I shot a glance at Adrik, who still lingered by the door, doubt etched into the harsh lines of his face.

  “What is it?” I pushed myself up.

  “It’s Jasper,” he said after a moment. “You promised him…”

  “Mortality,” I finished, recalling the bargain I’d made with the aniel. “All right.”

  I threw off the sheet and climbed into my black breeches and shirt. Barefooted, I trailed Adrik out of the cabin, aware of the Prince pulling on a pair of breeches before he shadowed us.