Rebel Obsession (All the King's Men)

by Donya Lynne

  “Lock him up,” Bain said to Donovan. “In the basement.”

  Few prisoners were held in-residence, but he had special plans for Io. Bain wouldn’t risk his escaping by transporting him to the off-site dungeon. And keeping him here hardly mattered, since he wouldn’t survive the next twenty-four hours.

  They dragged Io away, leaving Bain to consider what to do about Miriam. She had lied to him. She had defied him and knowingly broken the rules. And she thought Io was her mate, but he couldn’t possibly be. Io wasn’t good enough for her. Bain had envisioned so much more for Miriam than Io could provide, and in time she would see that.

  Bain turned and headed up the stairs and down the hall to her room. Guards were posted outside her door and stepped aside to allow him in.

  Miriam was sitting at her vanity, her face in her hands, shoulders hiccupping as she sobbed.

  He frowned, pain blooming in his chest. When was the last time he had seen her cry? Seeing her upset…affected him. “It’s for the best, you know.”

  * * *

  Miriam jumped and spun around to see her father standing in her doorway. She spat at him. How dare he try to tell her what was best for her.

  “For who? You? The people?” She sniffled and wiped her face with her palm. “It’s certainly not the best for me, or have you even noticed?” She sure as hell hoped her father hadn’t come in to give her a you’ll-get-over-this-and-see-I’m-right-someday pep talk, because she really wasn’t in the mood. As in, not even remotely close.

  “You don’t know what’s right and best for you, Miri.”

  “Don’t be so casual with me,” she said, her words snapping like whips. “I’m to be called Daughter of Bain, or haven’t you heard? I have no name. I am merely a poster child for propriety. My life isn’t my own, and I my father is a bastard. Hell, I don’t even have a father anymore.”

  Her father flinched, her words leaving their mark.

  “That’s right.” She continued, marching across the room to grab a tissue so she could wipe her nose. “I haven’t had a father since I was a little girl, and even then, he wasn’t much of one. Work always came first. I always took second seat…to the point I eventually became invisible and he could no longer hear my voice.” She turned and glared at him, catching her momentum. “And how dare you tell me I don’t know what’s right. Io is my mate, Father. He mated to me. His soul chose mine, and mine chose his. And now you’re going to punish him because of that.” She waved her hand as if to dismiss him then turned away toward the heavily draped window.

  “Miriam, he is not right for you. Io is not of your standard. He—”

  “How dare you insult my mate!” She whirled on her father like a cyclone, her words flying fast and hard, punctuated by jabs of her finger. “And how dare you dispute the mating call you so adamantly uphold in your own court. I’ve seen you hand down orders and verdicts against suitors trying to stake a claim to a mated female. You have always upheld the rights of a mated male. Even in a case where a female was already wed, you have supported the dissolution of the marriage to allow a mated male the right to the claim nature granted him.”

  “That’s different.”

  “How? Why? Because I’m your daughter?” She scoffed. “Really? You can’t be serious. Do you realize how hypocritical you sound?”

  “Miriam, you are special. You deserve more than Io can give.”

  She laughed, mocking him. “I wish you could hear yourself, Father.” She shook her head and barked out a staccato chuff of a laugh. “I deserve what every member of our race deserves: the right to be with my mate. If I had not been intended for Io, nature would not have seen fit to bond his soul to mine. So excuse me and go fuck yourself.” She took a step back and crossed her arms, glaring at him.

  Her father shook his head and turned for the door. He looked defeated but resolute.

  She wouldn’t let him leave that easily. “If you deny him, you break your own laws, Father. And if you hurt him, I will hate you forever.”

  Her father stopped, hesitated, then turned his head slightly to the side without looking back at her. “You already hate me.”

  With that, he walked out of the room.

  Miriam could only watch him leave, stunned silent by the revelation that he might be right.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  Io awoke in the dark cell to his own voice shouting uncontrollably in a single, long wail that only broke long enough for him to breathe before continuing.

  Excruciating pain pounded through his body, making his muscles feel like raw meat under a tenderizing mallet. Pound-pound-pound. With each beat of his heart, the sharp ache pulsed, driving him mad with agony.

  And he had a hard-on as solid as steel.

  Fuck! He had entered his calling with Miriam.

  Snapping his mouth closed, he sat up and looked through the shadows for her. He needed her. Now! They needed to mate!

  But she wasn’t here. Miriam wasn’t with him.

  Shooting up off the dank mattress that felt like hardened, lumpy oatmeal, he attacked the iron bars, trying with all his might to pull them apart, but they wouldn’t budge.

  “MIRIAM!’ He cried out for his mate, needing her in a way only a mated male understood.

  When she didn’t answer, he renewed his efforts to break out of his cell, flailing and throwing himself against the bars as he pulled and pushed.

  Io needed release, and he needed it now. He felt like he would die if he didn’t get it.

  Pushing back from the cell door, he thrust himself into the darkened, back corner and shoved down the sweatpants he was still wearing and latched on to his cock with his fist. Pumping furiously, he cried out as he came almost instantly, not caring if he spilled on the wall, the floor, or wherever.

  Still hard and in need, he continued fisting himself until he came again. The orgasms held no pleasure, only a harsh ache that ebbed as he shuddered through the last of the agonizing release.

  His body eased up enough for him to collapse back to the mattress, but within minutes, the pain returned. Once more, Io lunged for the door, manic in his need to be with his mate.

  “MIRIAM!” He cried out as a jolt of pain doubled him over.

  * * *

  “Do something!” Miriam stopped pacing and shouted at the guard at her bedroom door, tears streaking her cheeks. Her thumb rubbed up and down against her sternum, between breasts that throbbed with a kind of pain she had never felt. Why were her breasts so tender? Why did her chest ache so badly?

  The sun had risen and set since she and Io had been dragged back to her home. Without Io’s tonic, her arms itched and her head pounded, and she was getting worse. Listening to her mate in the dungeon below the house wasn’t helping to ease the growing symptoms of withdrawal that threatened to overcome her, either.

  “Can’t you hear him?!” Miriam rushed toward the guard and slapped him. “He’s in his calling, you asshole! He needs me! Let me go to him. Please!”

  The guard’s eyes wavered, probably because he understood as well as Miriam did just what was happening to Io right now. The calling without a mate was the equivalent of being kicked in the nuts with a sledgehammer dropped from a ten-story building, and like any sane male, just the thought was enough to make even the guard mentally cross his legs and wince.

  “My orders are to ensure you stay in your room, Daughter of Bain.”

  Miriam screeched in frustration, throwing her hands in the air before pounding her fists against the guard’s chest.

  “Let me go! He needs me! You bastard, he needs me!” And she needed him.

  Withdrawal was reclaiming her, and she didn’t have Io’s tonic. Any progress they’d made to get her off cobalt was about to go out the window, because if she didn’t get either tonic or cobalt soon, she would be in as bad a shape as Io, and it wouldn’t be pretty for anyone who got in her way, if her outburst at Io’s house the other day was any indication.

  Another heart-ripping cry shot up from the du
ngeon, and Miriam threw herself against the guard, sobbing.

  “Can’t you give him something? Something to ease the pain or knock him out again so that he doesn’t have to feel what he’s feeling?” Miriam clung to the guard’s shoulders, her head bowed in surrender. “Please. If you won’t let me go to him, tell my father to give him something so he won’t feel the pain anymore.”

  The guard shifted against her hold, and Miriam looked up. The guard’s expression was cautious and dark. He almost looked guilty.

  “What?” Miriam’s blood ran cold. Something was wrong.

  The guard remained silent, pursing his lips stubbornly.

  “TELL ME!” She shoved him back against the door, her mounting withdrawal making her strong as she screamed at him.

  He gasped and stared at her in shock, then said, “He who defiled you is to be put to death by moonfall, Daughter of Bain. He will be out of his misery soon enough.”

  By moonfall. By morning.

  Miriam stumbled backward, her mental faculties short-circuiting. “No.” The word licked from her on a staccato beat, and she fixed the guard in her gaze. “No. I don’t believe you.”

  “It is to be so, Daughter of Bain.”

  Her room seemed to draw in on her as if she were flying backward into a tunnel as the walls caved and collapsed. Io was her mate. He was her life. They had sworn themselves to each other in the ancient words of commitment and devotion. She couldn’t lose him. Not now. Not when she had just found him.

  Io had been the only one to understand her. He had made her feel alive again and had given her hope. Could her father really be so cruel as to take the one thing — the only thing — that mattered away from her?

  She turned and staggered away from the guard, scratching her arms violently. The news that Io would be executed within hours got along with her growing withdrawal about as well as T-Rex would get along with New York. She was sinking fast, her mind fritzing out and blinking back on as if she were a lightning rod in a storm. Io. Cobalt. Io. Cobalt. Each took turns being more important than the other in her mind as she fell further into withdrawal. Five minutes passed, then ten, her staggering turning to agitated pacing, her thoughts turning to drug-fueled need and obsession, as well as revenge.

  She had to make her father pay. Her father and everyone else who had stolen away her happiness. What had they taken from her again? Oh yes. Io. That’s right. Io…Io…where was he again? Her brain was misfiring. She couldn’t remember. Where was she? She looked around her bedroom. The place looked familiar, but she couldn’t quite recognize it. Oh yes, this was her room. Where was Io? He should be here. She darted her head around toward the guard, scratching—endlessly scratching her arms.

  Through the drug-induced haze, Miriam was swiftly losing her mind. And behind the withdrawal, another feeling—a much stronger one that she couldn’t identify—tormented her, pulling and rattling her thoughts to…what? What was the important thing she couldn’t remember? Rage boiled inside her…and a need that was almost sexual. Reality became a blur. Something important was happening, but all she could see was cobalt, cobalt, more cobalt. And retribution. Her body trembled for both, inner voices screaming at her to run, just run, and find her next hit and then to punish her father for hurting her.

  Cobalt. She needed to find more cobalt. Now. And make her father pay. Cobalt and revenge. Revenge for…? Why did she need to make her father pay? She couldn’t remember, but it was important. He had stolen something precious from her, and she needed to hurt him as payback. She knew she had to get away and punish him.

  In a panicked frenzy, Miriam spun around and around, making herself dizzy as she looked for an escape. Out. She needed out.

  She grabbed her purse, her entire body twitching as the incessant itching intensified. Turning toward her bedroom door, she stopped and frowned.

  “What are y…you doing h…here?” she said to the guard.

  The guard looked at her as if she were a stranger. “I’ve been assigned to watch you,” he said slowly, as if he was confused by Miriam’s behavior.

  “Watch me?” Miriam spat at him. “My father’s lackey.” She curled her lip in disgust. “Get out of my way.”

  The guard stiffened as if readying himself to fight.

  “Move. Now.” Miriam took a single, stalking step toward him, her eyes narrowing.

  “I’m under king’s orders—”

  Before he could utter another word, Miriam rushed him, shrieking, rage and need making her powerful. She shoved him back against the door, which he hit so hard the thick wood cracked and splintered. With an animalistic snarl, she grabbed the collar of his shit-brown, military-style T-shirt and pulled as she fell backward and rolled, tossing him behind her. When she flipped herself up to her knees and spun, her wild hair fanned and flew around her face. Not giving the guard a chance to pull his weapon or defend himself, Miriam landed on him, clamping her legs around his torso on either side of his chest as she thrust the butt of her right hand against his nose, shattering it.

  The guard cried out then grunted into silence as she tightened her legs against his torso, rocked, lifted him, and then slammed him into the floor again.

  He tried to push her off, but she grabbed one of his wrists and twisted. As a pure-breed vampire, she was strong, but riding a violent wave of cobalt detox-induced withdrawal—and whatever else this sensation was that raged through her body—made her even stronger, and the guard’s wrist snapped like a dry twig.

  As he screamed in pain, she clamped her hand over his mouth, the blood from his broken nose coating her skin, and bent down so that her disarrayed hair hung in his face. “The k…king is a fool,” she said, her body shuddering violently. “You tell him I’ll m…make him pay. I’ll make y…you all p…pay. You’ll all be sorry for w…what you’ve d…done.”

  The door busted open behind her, the sound of splintering wood ripping the air, and Miriam spun around and hopped up in a crouch, hissing.

  More like a savage animal, she was lost in withdrawal’s grip—withdrawal and something else—something primal and savagely protective. Seeing her exit suddenly closed off, she hissed again, snatched her purse from the floor, and leaped for the window. She punched her fists through the glass and crashed through, somersaulting to the ground below.

  As soon as she touched down, she took off running. She heard footsteps behind her, but the farther she ran, the farther behind the footsteps grew. No one but her father could run faster than she could.

  A guard materialized in front of her, but she ran him over.

  The woods. She needed to escape into the woods. She could lose them there then dematerialize to the city once she could focus.

  Hustling into the shadows, she led her pursuers farther into the blackness. Quieter and quieter their footsteps became until she couldn’t even hear them anymore. But they were still following. She knew they were tracking her scent like the dogs they were. Her father’s dogs.

  Miriam ducked around the trunk of a large maple tree then shimmied down the slope of a hill sideways until she hit the bottom. Following the shallow ravine, she let her body calm and her mind focus so she could dematerialize to the city.

  Footsteps tromped over the leaves, growing closer, but they were too late. They would track her this far, but then the trail would go cold.

  Miriam closed her eyes and turned to mist and then was gone.

  Free. At last. She never wanted to set foot inside that house again.

  Never.

  But she’d left something behind. Something important. If only she could remember what it was.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  Micah looked around the small room where he and Trace were being held. He knew from the thoughts of those who had put them in the cell that this place wasn’t the king’s residence—it was too small and official looking for that anyway. The king conducted business here. Mostly trials and legal proceedings.

  Even though he couldn’t tap into the king’s thoughts, Mi
cah could feel his presence, just as he had when Miriam was taken to AKM to be returned to Io. Micah had been surprised to sense the king in the back of the limousine, knowing that King Bain never went out in public. It showed just how much he cared for his daughter, even if his way of showing it was unorthodox and a bit…well, tyrannical.

  Back in the Middle Ages, Micah had trained King Bain, who had only been a young prince then. He had been a serious student, and Micah’s training had likely saved his life on more than one occasion over the centuries.

  But now wasn’t the time to be thinking about the good ol’ days. He and Trace needed to talk about what had happened back at the apartment.

  Trace sat in silence next to him, his eyes closed and his head resting back against the brick wall.

  He, Sam, and Trace had developed an unusual, intimate bond in the past couple of months. One where they found pleasure in exhibitionism, voyeurism, and a touch of BDSM, but Micah wanted more from Trace. As in, more submission, more calling him “Master.” More desire to be tied up and dominated in a way only Micah could provide.

  Glancing at his friend, frustration welled inside him over how Trace had reacted back at the apartment. For two months, he had wanted nothing more than to become Trace’s master, but Trace hadn’t taken that step with him. Until today. Now Micah wondered exactly where they stood. Clearly, Trace wanted to be Micah’s submissive, but why now? Why hadn’t he taken that step before today?

  “What’s on your mind, Micah?” Trace kept his face forward, eyes closed.

  Micah stared at him, not sure if he was mad, excited, or confused.

  Trace’s eyelids cracked open and his pale eyes slid to Micah’s, all cool calm and impassive. For several seconds, they only stared at each other.

  “Why haven’t you approached me before today about being your dom?”

  Trace broke eye contact, sighed, and leaned his head back against the wall again. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He closed his eyes almost wearily. Or maybe he was just preparing himself for Micah’s response.