He passes it to Rorrick, and the skinny white paper looks even smaller between his enormous fingers. Crimson burns bright across his hard features before he flicks it to the ground and scuffs out the smoke with a drag of his boot across concrete.
Whatever that drug was will do next to nothing for them. They’re too old. Too powerful.
Nothing like the delicate woman in my arms.
“She’s only twenty-three,” I tell them, her smooth, soft features capturing my attention once again.
Two perfect bruises kiss her throat just above the green and yellowing of older bruises that taint her pretty flesh. My thumb brushes back and forth there against her wounds. She’s been hurt. A lot.
I lean my head against hers, and more of her reality flickers from her mind and into mine. “She had a birthday last week.” I flinch at the next faint image of messy tears streaming down and across her puffy lips. “No one knew. Her ex kicked her out of the house. She celebrated in the bathroom of a dirty pub with a guy who finished without even making her cum.”
“Bastard!” Rorrick growls with a curl of his lips. “Ever-one deserves a fuckin’ birthday cum-iseration.” His hand jerks off nothing but air, but the smile on his face is the only hint that there’s anything good left in this world.
He’s the good one, and he’s the one with the shortest fuse too. You wouldn’t think it by the scars that pepper his face or the gruffness of his tone, but he’s the only dark one I know that has a heart of pure gold.
I hate him as much as I admire him.
If we’re not careful, he’ll get too close to her.
And it’s not good to get too attached to your food supply.
Especially a supply as powerful as hers. Especially a supply that’s meant for kings.
“She’s too young.” Christian paces the dirty sidewalk, his shining shoes not making a single sound as he goes. His black button up is finely pressed aside from the sleeves he’s rolling up harshly. “I don’t like it.”
I don’t like it, either, but when you’ve been used as much as I have, you tend to not have a fucking opinion.
About anything.
I’m barely even a vampire to most of my kind. I certainly wasn’t raised as one. I was a half-breed number. A forgotten name that even I don’t remember.
Christian put a stop to that though. Rorrick helped. Slightly. When you’re the sons of kings, your voice is heard. And the people they care about, those people are seen. I never realized that until they saved me.
“We have to take her,” Rorrick tells him with a lift of his big hands at his sides.
He’s right. I know he is. Christian knows he is too.
We just fucking hate it.
Chapter 4
Rorrick
The court women’s eyes sparkle like they’re studying diamonds when Christian walks through the quiet halls. They look at his perfect features and his perfect clothes, and they see money signs. They see a walking crown. Even with the blood that splatters his neck and hair. They smile and bow for the scowling prince. They grimace when they see me. Like finding dog shite on their Sunday slippers.
Fuckin’ royal cunts that they are, they don’t return the gesture when I smile and wink at them. Their appalled glances are all that I get.
Sometimes I think it’s because I’m the son of the old king. I’m nothing special.
Not like Christian.
But I know what I look like. I’m the monster’s son. I’m the disgraced man without a title and only a face full of scars to show for the battles I’ve fought at our borders for these classy cunts.
My boots are heavy and loud as I stride into the glittering room and stop abruptly before our king.
He’d kill me if Christian would let him. I’m a risk. He thinks he can’t trust my loyalty.
And he’s right.