Tragic King (The Dominant Bastard Duology Book 2)

by Sparrow Beckett

  “Why don’t you just use the pool, you crazy fuck?”

  “Pools are boring.”

  “Pools are civilized.”

  Severin grimaced at his idiot brother.

  “Oh. Right.” The kid laughed. “Civilized is your worst nightmare.”

  No, he’d had his worst nightmare hours before. Well, one of the worst. At least Minnow and Rodrigo leaving him would be preferable to them dying.

  He stripped off his clothes and dove in, evading the worst of the bugs.

  The lake welcomed him like it always did, its blue-green depths cool and remote. When he was under he regretted having to breathe. The weird silence of it soothed something deep in his chest. Watching the outside world through the shining liquid mirror of lake water gave him a similar peace to what he found after hard sex or a lot of beer.

  He rose to the surface after what felt like an hour, his lungs screaming for the air he resented needing.

  His brother was still standing on the beach, swatting at bugs.

  “If you come in, they’ll stop chewing you. Mostly.”

  Loïc grimaced in disgust. “Swimming in a lake? Next you’ll be challenging me to eat fast food.”

  “I’m sure we’ve both had worse things in our mouths.”

  “Oui, c’est vrai.” Loïc laughed. He stripped too then stepped into the water, frowning as he looked around his feet, as if he might get devoured by piranhas. A moment later he was slapping bugs off him, then made a dash into deeper water and dove in.

  “See, it’s not so bad,” Severin said as his brother bobbed to the surface.

  “I just never swam in a lake. Lakes are for fishing, and pools are for swimming. For that matter, I’ve only ever gone swimming to work out or tan, because being pretty was part of my job.”

  “While we entertained men, Martine was selling them what?”

  Loïc cocked his head to the side, his expression saying he was considering a lie.

  “Mostly teen boys. She rescued them from workhouses in other countries, where they’d been trained in obedience. She found them benefactors. Her argument was that many of them would end up doing the work anyway, and in worse conditions. She prided herself on being a good judge of character when it came to her clientele and said she wouldn’t send a boy somewhere to be beaten or murdered.”

  “Right.” Severin sighed. “Sounds like she was quite the humanitarian.”

  “Her awards lined our mantle,” Loïc said with airy sarcasm. “You really wanted your exile to be your fault somehow. It wasn’t. You were like Aurelie and Camille – innocent pawns. You just found your way out faster than they did.”

  “And you.”

  Loïc gave a short, bitter laugh. “No. I cooperated. I helped her. By the time I was eighteen, I was helping her run her empire. I could have turned her in to police, but I...I thought I was in love with her. There were parts I didn’t know, but I knew the worst of it and didn’t argue. The problem is that loving an evil person doesn’t make them good. Every bit of the wickedness you chose to ignore pierces into your soul. It takes root.”

  “You were raised to be helpful and not to question.”

  “But even sheltered in the strange way I was, I still knew better.”

  “Name one evil thing you’ve done.”

  “Work for her willingly, knowing what she was selling. Burning our house to the ground.” He chewed his lip. “Murder.”

  “Murder?” Severin arched a skeptical brow.

  Loïc acted as if he hadn’t heard him, and dove down into the water, surfacing a few moments later and floating on his back until the bugs started to bother him again.

  “Who did you murder?”

  Loïc sighed. “Martine’s death wasn’t from natural causes, no matter what I paid the coroner to say.”

  “You dropped a house on her?” Severin asked, tone impassive. Asking felt like an invasion of privacy. Hell, they both had reasons for wanting her dead. It wasn’t a shock that Loïc had done it. The day Loïc had arrived on his doorstep, Severin had wondered if that had been the case.

  “No. Nothing that satisfying. I got her very drunk on sleeping-pill-laced Pinot Noir.”

  Severin nodded, not sure what to say. It would probably be wrong to thank him.

  “What finally made you do it?”

  Loïc’s face reddened, and he averted his pale gaze. “She’d hired a landscaper to redesign the gardens. Christian. He was from Germany. He was handsome, funny. I asked for permission to entertain him. I’d never asked before, to be with someone I wanted.” He gave a small laugh, as though it had been stupid of him to make such an outrageous request. “She had her guards beat me and take me hard. She watched.”

  He looked out at the sun skimming the horizon, casting the evening in mellow blues and purples.

  “Until then I’d thought someday, maybe, I’d be free. That if I was a good son, a hard worker, a satisfying lover, that she’d let me decide some things for myself. To have things that were mine.” He flicked at a bug floating on the water. “Like a person.”

  “You were living in a mansion and peddling your ass, and nothing was yours?”

  He shrugged. “No. Everything in the house was hers, including the clothes on my back. I had to ask to use things. To watch the television. To use the shower. To eat.”

  “You were a slave.”

  “Oui, but what does a slave know about being free, mon frère? Nothing. My freedom terrifies me. I’m like a dog raised in a cage. One day the cage door is left open and the dog isn’t overjoyed. He’s afraid and confused, and wishes there was another owner, who maybe wasn’t so cruel.”

  Severin clapped him on the shoulder, not sure what to say. “You’ll get used to it.”

  “Peut-être. I wish I could find someone to care for me the way you care for your slaves.”

  “You should try being free first, and see if you like it.” Severin tried to give his brother a reassuring smile, but he wasn’t sure it came out right. “It’s time, though. You need to get your own place and figure out what to do with your life. I’m glad we’ve gotten to know each other, but I have to get on with my life too. Things with Minnow and Rodrigo are new, and I don’t want to ruin things by keeping them away.”

  Loïc’s eyes widened. “Where will I go?”

  “We can find you a place close by. We can hang out all the time, but you should have your own space and your own life.” Was this how Church had felt about Severin when he’d left? Suddenly it all made sense.

  “My own house?” He stared at Severin. “I have no one to put in a house. I have nothing.”

  “We can help you get furniture and meet people. Rodrigo knows a lot of people. Maybe you’ll meet someone you like.”

  “Who’s going to like someone like me? I don’t know how to be a person. How to have relationships. So what? I’m going to buy a house and sit in it all day watching television? You’re all I have.”

  The echo of Rodrigo’s statement about his drowning brother pulling him down to his death seemed suddenly all too real.

  “I’ll still be around. We can figure it out together, but it’s time you moved into your own place.”

  His brows drew together anxiously. “I wish you’d let me stay. I’d be good to you and I swear I’ll never poison your wine.”

  Uneasiness settled over Severin. Did he mean...

  “Loïc –”

  His brother bobbed closer, the muted colors of sunset reflected in his eyes. “I love you. Please don’t send me away.”

  Loïc’s hands slid around Severin’s waist and he pulled him close so fast that Severin didn’t have time to react. His lips met Severin’s, and he pushed his tongue into Severin’s mouth. For one horrifying moment Severin froze, helpless.

  He was small and the man was big.

  The man was shoving something was in his mouth. Something he didn’t want there. He couldn’t breathe.

  Air.

  He shoved, but the man didn’t let go.
>
  He fought to get free.

  The buzzing in his ears deafened him.

  Chapter Eleven

  He hadn’t said goodnight.

  Sometimes he didn’t respond to texts or calls for hours, but at five in the morning Minnow woke, feeling antsy and wrong.

  A dream maybe?

  She checked her phone, but there was nothing from Severin. Anxiety made her queasy.

  Arrogant bastard. He was probably working on something and didn’t feel like checking in – or he’d crashed for the night and set his phone to silent.

  She smooshed her face against Rodrigo’s bare chest, inhaling his comforting, masculine scent, but the feeling wouldn’t go away, even when she tried to turn herself on by running her lips over his tattooed muscles. There was no reason to wake him – he had a long day of meetings coming up, and deserved sleep even after having been a cruel, belt-happy bastard the night before. Her ass still ached.

  But what if...

  Severin and Loïc living alone made her nervous. There was too much fucked-upness between them without anyone there to be the voice of reason.

  She slid out of bed, tiptoeing over snoring dogs. Rodrigo’s discarded dress shirt was better than a robe, and it still smelled faintly of his aftershave. The hint of dawn floated, hazy orange and blue, up from the horizon. She sent Severin a text telling him that she loved him, but there was no response.

  He was probably asleep, right?

  A small, miserable knot formed in her chest, and she felt wrong. Tears welled, spilled over. She swiped them away, but more came to take their place, and then she was sobbing, curled in the chair by the front window, willing him to come prowling up the driveway on one of his ugly creations.

  He didn’t come. Of course.

  “What are you doing down here, preciosa?”

  She hadn’t heard Rodrigo’s approach until his fingers traced a shivery path over her nape.

  “Hey,” he said as soon as he saw her face. “What’s wrong?”

  He swooped her up and sat, settling her in his lap and leaning her against his chest. He wiped her tears with his hand, but had no shirt on to use as an improvised handkerchief. The sound of paws on hardwood filled the room with a familiar hubbub.

  She shrugged miserably, not sure what to say.

  “I feel strange. There’s something wrong, and I’m scared.”

  He raised a brow. “Do you need to see a doctor or something? I’ll call one over.”

  “No, no. It’s Severin. I think...I’m going to go over and check on him,” she mumbled. “This is stupid.” She tried to dry her face on her borrowed shirt’s sleeve, but it just smeared moisture over the parts of her face that weren’t wet yet. One of the pups nosed her hand, and two of them had started an anxious whining.

  “When was the last time you heard from him?”

  “I don’t know. Twelve hours ago? I was nagging him about eating but he was in the middle of a project.”

  “I talked to him about seven. He’d finished that for the night and was thinking about going for a swim later.”

  She leaned into Rodrigo harder, feeling as if only his arms were holding her together. He tightened his hold on her and murmured beautiful Spanish words. Even though she wasn’t quite sure what he’d said, it sounded reassuring.

  “Come on. We’ll call, and if he doesn’t answer, we’ll go.”

  “But your meetings!” she objected, feeling stupid for making him go to the trouble. “I’ll go. You’re booked all day today.”

  “I’m the one with the purse strings. They’ll reschedule and count themselves lucky I’m not canceling entirely.”

  The drive home felt longer than usual, and no matter how hard Minnow tried, the lump in her throat wouldn’t go away. Rodrigo held her hand, their fingers laced together, as she tried not to imagine the worst.

  Her stomach roiled. For the first time since she was a kid she got car sick, puking her guts out on the side of the road while Rodrigo held her hair and rubbed her back.

  By the time they got home, the dogs’ anxious whining had become the soundtrack on replay in her chest.

  Rodrigo had barely put his Mercedes GLS in park before she was stumbling out the door and across the grounds.

  “Don’t you want to check the house first?” he called as he let the dogs out of the tailgate.

  “He’s not in there,” she called back, feeling the certainty of that as she headed behind the house.

  Rodrigo and the dogs chased her over the manicured lawn, and she hoped like hell this was a stupid lark and they’d be laughing about it in a few minutes.

  The forge was empty and cold. She plunged on, heading into the woods and taking the path toward the lake, as though she had some sort of internal Severin GPS.

  “He could be in bed for all we know,” Rodrigo pointed out.

  She wished her legs were as long as his.

  “If he’s in bed, he’s probably safe.”

  “Good point.”

  They made their way down to the beach. The lake’s smooth surface was the antithesis of the feeling in Minnow’s belly.

  “Not here,” Rodrigo pointed out, but there was no reproach in his tone.

  A dark patch in the sand made Minnow crouch to see it more clearly. Red and wet. Blood?

  Rodrigo moved up beside her, then examined the palm-sized spot himself. “Maybe a nosebleed. It’s not a lot of blood.” But he didn’t sound certain.

  The dogs tried to take off into the woods, but Rodrigo held tight to their leashes.

  “Severin?” he called. “Loïc?”

  “He’s gone.” Severin’s voice came from the direction the dogs were eager to get to. There was a rustling sound, and their gazes were drawn up into a nearby tree, where Severin sat, one leg dangling casually, as though he wasn’t about forty feet in the air with an almost empty bottle of whiskey swinging from his fingers.

  A mixture of relief that he was alive and concern that he didn’t look well washed over Minnow. The stupid tears came again.

  “Loïc is gone?” Rodrigo asked, his gaze flicking back to the blood on the sand. “Where?”

  Severin ignored the question, taking the last long swallow of alcohol before dropping the bottle, which hit several branches and shattered before landing in the long grass. He leaned his head back against the tree trunk as if holding up his brain was tiring out his neck.

  “Mister Leduc, please come down,” Minnow said.

  “The long way or the short way?” His ice blue eyes seemed dead in his dispassionate face.

  “The long way, asshole,” Rodrigo barked. “Get the fuck down here before you give us both a heart attack.”

  Severin stared out at the lake and didn’t reply.

  “You had a fight?” Minnow asked. What the hell had happened between them?

  From his lack of reaction to her question, she wasn’t sure he’d heard her.

  Rodrigo led the dogs to a tree on the other side of the beach and tied them there before joining Minnow at the foot of Severin’s tree. He started to climb.

  “Fuck off, Ro.”

  “Come the fuck down.”

  Far too quickly, Severin swung from a sitting position to standing on the same branch. He lost his balance and almost tumbled off then caught hold of the branch above him at the last second.

  Minnow shrieked with fear, her heart in her throat.

  “You’re too drunk to be playing in a tree, you ugly bastard,” Rodrigo growled up at him, climbing faster.

  “I wasn’t this drunk when I came up here.” His body swayed precariously.

  There was a loud crack and the branch Rodrigo had grabbed to pull himself up snapped off in his hand. He flailed, but caught hold the next branch over.

  “Don’t come up here, puppy. It’s not safe.”

  “I’m coming up there because you’re not safe. You’re hammered. Why are you so fucking drunk?”

  “I miss Church,” Severin mused. “The universe sent me Loïc becau
se I didn’t appreciate Church when I had him.”

  “What do you mean, Mister Leduc?” Minnow asked, hoping conversation would make him sit down again.

  “I’ve had a taste of what it’s like having a fucked-up brother you have to take care of. I’ve learned my cosmic lesson.” He started to laugh, but it wasn’t a fun laugh. He’d gone from cold to out of control in mere moments. “Are you two the ghosts of Christmas present?”

  “Where’s Loïc?” Minnow asked.

  “I busted him up and told him never to come back,” Severin admitted. “I don’t know where he went, and I don’t fucking care anymore. I’m a shit brother.”

  “You’re not a shit brother,” Rodrigo said, slowly making his way up the tree. “So you had a fight. It’s not the end of the world.”

  Severin’s laughter boomed across the lake, and he hung from the branch above him by his hands. In just his jeans, with his hair unbraided and snarled with twigs, he looked more beast than man, all dark tattoos, muscle, his eyes wild.

  “I should have gone to Marseilles and found him years ago. Maybe he’d be less fucked up.”

  “You didn’t even know he existed,” Minnow reminded him. “You can’t claim responsibility for things that happened before you knew him.”

  “No matter how fucked up I get, I’d never hit on Church.” His feet found purchase on the branch below him again. “I’d never kiss him.”

  Ohhh, fuck.

  Rodrigo was almost to him, but Minnow couldn’t figure out what he was going to do other than fall with him. They needed to talk him down.

  “Loïc kissed you, Mister Leduc?” she asked.

  Rodrigo made a sound of disgust, but didn’t say anything.

  “He knows people can’t touch me, so why would he think that was okay?” Severin shook his head. “I didn’t know he was so fucked up. I guess he was with Martine so long he doesn’t know right from wrong. He thought he’d be able to stay if he seduced me.”

  Severin blew out a breath and shook his head, making the branch he was hanging onto creak alarmingly.

  “You were right, you know,” he told Ro. “When you said he was drowning and he’d drag me under. I had to cut him loose, but that doesn’t mean I don’t feel like shit about it.”