And that’s when I fucking snap.
Chapter 16
Crymson
My heels click ominously as I walk casually through the open door. It’s an eerie calmness that takes over my aggression. Fury burns in my chest, but there’s a poise to every step I take in the beautifully slutty ballgown.
I feel like a fucking force to be reckoned with. Maybe it’s the dress, or maybe it’s their fucking audacity, but either way, I’m so goddamn sick of men treating me like a thing. Like I’m something that can be used up and forgotten.
When it’s all said and done, these vampire men might use me up entirely, but they’ll never fucking forget me.
Not this time.
The moans of the room and the breathy giggles are a stale silence in the room when I enter. Rorrick and Seven sit at the far side of the room. Neither of them touching the women in their laps now. Neither moving a damn inch. Three women send glinting glares my way, but each one of them looks to Christian, clearly waiting for him to dismiss me like the future king of this disgusting kingdom that he is.
Seconds tick by on the hands of the sleek gold grandfather clock in the corner of the study. Everyone waits for their prince to speak.
“Go back to town. Our driver will take you.”
My brows crease hard, but the pop of the woman’s mouth sends understanding all through me. Her head spins toward him, and she looks like a child about to throw the most epic tantrum. She should probably put her boobs away before she starts flailing on the floor with beating fists and kicking feet though.
“You’re dismissing us, my lord?” Her cherry lips wobble with outrage and frustration.
“My driver will take you wherever you need to go,” he says on that typical empty tone.
He distances himself with that tone. He did it to me when I first arrived, and he’s doing it to them now.
And then he stands so stiffly, she stumbles out of his lap and only catches herself with her palm on the tile floor, inches from landing on her ass. Hastily, she pulls the top of her gown up over her nudity. A brunette comes quietly over and takes her friend’s hand to help her up, but the woman jerks away from her with apparent pride that I didn’t know she had when her boobs were bouncing around like beach balls at a Post Malone concert.
“You’re choosing a used-up whore from your father’s bed over me?!”
At that, Rorrick’s chair shoves back from him with so much force, the legs scrape into the tile with a puff of wafting dust. He stands tall, a giant of a man in a room full of tiny, fragile women. I watch him suddenly, but he doesn’t lift a hand to any of them. His fury is tense across his scarred face, and it’s a shaking tone that slips from his clenched jaw.
“Leave like our prince asked you to. Or I’ll drag the three of you out myself.”
Seven’s quiet, watchful gaze passes from his friend to me, never once remembering the other three women that are still in the room. But it’s the questioning look in his knowing eyes that lingers in my mind.
What does he know? How does he always know?
Two of the girls quickly slip from the room, their heads down and not a word spoken from them. The third one, though, she holds a glare like a knife to my throat the entire time she walks toward the door. Of course, her shoulder jars into mine on her way out.
Rorrick takes his seat once more, exhaustion pressing down on his shoulders.
The weight of Christian’s gaze fully on me sends unease all through my body. All that fuck-you confidence I had moments ago scurries away. My thighs shift with anxious nerves, my stupid pussy wanting us to climb him like a tree while my furious mind wants us to walk right out of this room and never look at the cruel prince ever again.
“Was there something you wanted?” Christian asks on that same steely tone.
A second passes while I hold his challenging stare. That logical mind of mine is really pushing for me to walk away.
Walk. Away.
But my mouth is always faster than my mind.
“Yeah. There is. Iwantedyou to be the guy that made me forget for a little while in a dirty club in New York City.” A line pulls between his brows. “I wanted you to be the nice guy who gave me his shirt when I lay naked in a room full of hungry vampires.” My glare slides to the man sitting tired and confused, and a wounded look passes over his handsome, cutting features. “And I wanted you to be the friend you fucking pretended to be.” Tears sting my eyes when I look at Seven. His Adam’s apple bobs but he shows no full emotion. “You three may be beautiful immortals, but you’re just like human men: fucking assholes.”
“You wanted us to not feed?” Anger stings the prince’s slow, careful words. “Tell me, Pretty Pet, what would you suggest three vampires do instead of feeding off of willing village women? Do you want us to go out and take it from strangers? Chase down rabbits and lessen our strengths? Would you rather I was more like my father and fucking have a stock of women at my beck and call? What do you want, Crymson?”
“I’m willing and right here!” The words rip from my lips before I can even stop them.