“He can only see and hear you. As for me, I am visible only if I will it. However, he has stripped away all of my powers and created a barrier of some sort to keep me trapped inside the confines of this basement. Please, Mia, open the door.”
“Whatever you have to say, you can say through the door.”
I heard him sigh. “All right, but you’re being childish.”
Says the man who wants to kill me.
“Yes. Says the man. He is also going to tell you not to speak, but to listen. I can hear your thoughts. Vaughn cannot hear me speak. This provides us with one small advantage: privacy.”
So, you want me to talk to you like this?
“Yes. Very good.”
I can’t wait to hear what you have to say, evil bastard.
“Miss Turner—”
Oops. Sorry. Your Royal Evil Bastard?
“Mia. Enough.”
Or what? You’ll kill me?
King made a loud sigh. “I’m coming inside.”
“No!” I pressed my back firmly to the door. “Don’t come near me.”
“Mia.” King appeared right in front of me, his hands extended.
I yelped and then reached to open the door, realizing how futile that move might be; there was nowhere to run.
King slammed the door before I had a chance to crack it open. “Stop!” He grabbed me by the shoulders and pressed me to the door.
My eyes stared at his hands. “How do you do that?”
“Touch you?”
I nodded. “And the door.”
“I am very old and have learned how to manifest myself in brief intervals if I focus. As for you…” He grabbed my wrist and placed his palm over his mark. My skin tingled, and a pleasant wave of peacefulness washed over me. “The tattoo connects us. It allows you to see and feel me even during the dark hours.”
Dark hours?
“My sundial gives—or gave—me two hours each day to walk in the world of the living with little effort.”
How is that possible? Oh, wait. I held out my hand. Don’t tell me. You don’t ask how.
“As you’re aware, I’ve dedicated my existence to finding…” he hesitated, “particular people and things. The sundial was an acquisition from a Tungstic shaman. His gift was temporarily resurrecting the dead.”
Amazing. I wondered how he found the man or how it worked. Why only two hours?
“Even with the sundial, I expend an enormous amount of energy being sentient. I have to use it sparingly.”
“Wait. Was that why you always called me on the phone?”
He nodded. “Yes, I use the phone quite often, especially toward the end of the day when I am running out of steam. My,” he paused as if choosing his words carefully, “interests keep me very busy during business hours.”
I mulled over this shocking information briefly, specifically about a ghost using the phone. Fuck, and driving a car. And walking around talking to people. It was frigging creepier than hell, but explained so much, including his obsession with punctuality. It also explained why the time we were in Edinburgh, he had me do all the talking. The people around us couldn’t see him. How fucking weird.
“Yes. Quite.”
And the collar tattoo? What did that do?
King didn’t reply right away. “It was nothing. Nothing worth sharing.”
I wasn’t sure I believed that. Then why did Vaughn remove it? And your sundial?
“I am not sure. Probably because the man is paranoid and thinks I’ll use them to escape again.”
Are you sure you still can’t leave?
King shook his head no and then sat on the bed as if trying to solve a very complex puzzle in his mind. “When he first took me, I woke up down here and learned he’d bound me to this place somehow. However, I still had enough strength to leave for short periods of time.”
Is that when you came to see me?
“Yes, as well as a few other people. I’d hoped to find a counter to whatever he’s using to hold me here. However, I believe Vaughn found out I wasn’t completely contained. He pulled me back here by whatever force he’s bound me with. Then he…knocked me out. He’s got some sort of…I do not know what it is, but I lose consciousness.”
I thought about how they’d knocked me out, too. Maybe knocking people out was Vaughn’s special ability along with being a depraved, smarmy degenerate.
“When I woke this last time,” King pushed up his sleeve and rubbed his hand over the spot on his wrist where his sundial once was, “my tattoos were gone, and I no longer had the strength to leave.”
It sounded like Vaughn had been doing some serious preparation for this “special” day. And here we are.
“So we are.” He stared for several long moments, and I felt the air in the room thicken with tension and the temperature spike ten degrees. The look in King’s eyes transformed from calm and pensive to fierce and foreboding.
Wanting to move away but having nowhere to really go, I pressed my back firmly to the door. I didn’t know what was coming, exactly, but with King I never knew what to expect. Except that he had the ability to take complete control over me. Why did being near him always trigger a potent physical reaction? It was as if his smell did something to me. It flowed into my lungs and entered my bloodstream. It triggered my heart to beat faster and my skin to tingle. It instantly sparked a carnal tension between my legs and deep within my core that caused my knees to shake.
He slowly rose from the bed and placed both arms on either side of my face. “What I would like to know, Miss Turner,” he leaned in to whisper, “is why you disobeyed me, yet again.” He then stared at my lips with those hungry, beautiful eyes surrounded by thick silky lashes, waiting for an answer.
W-w-which time?
“When I told you to run.”
I shrugged. It’s hard to explain.
“Why don’t you try?” He brushed his warm knuckles across my cheek.
What could I say? I didn’t fully understand my feelings for him. All I knew was an inexplicable, irrational, and overwhelming sensation of desire continued to hammer its way through my body. I wanted to kiss him. I wanted to feel him, to touch him, to taste him. Even now, after everything. Don’t be stupid. Fight it.
“It isn’t stupid, Mia. You are the reason I am changing.”
Changing? From what to what? I glared up at him. You just confessed you want to kill me. So please stop whatever game this is, whatever it is that you do to cause this—this thing between us. Because I’m not stupid, King. I know it isn’t real.
“You know nothing.” He scowled.
I read that story, King. And I’ve felt your pain, which is the only thing I need to know. You are dangerous and angry. You’d do anything to end your suffering and get revenge on Hagne.
He brushed my cheek, leaving a trail of prickles. I closed my eyes and tried to ignore how damned good it felt when he touched me.
“This is why I would never hurt you simply to save myself, Mia. You…” His voice trailed off.
“Yes?” I folded my arms across my chest and stared defiantly.
He stepped back and ran his hands through his thick black hair. It was amazing how even now, his hair looked perfect. Perk of being a ghost, I guess.
“Yes. Lucky me. Trapped to walk the earth, incapable of feeling any emotion apart from sorrow and pain, for eternity. But at least I have nice hair.” His expression was one of pure annoyance, but he wasn’t getting any pity from me. Not now.
“Don’t forget the private jet, hookers, and champagne.”
He shot me a scathing look. “Cruel is not a good look for you, Mia.” He then sat on the bed and released a slow breath.
“I’m sorry. I’ll try to be nicer to you. Thank you for honoring me, Draco, by being the one to end my life. It is so very kind and noble of you, my king.”
King moved with a blur and had me up against the wall. “Do not,” his voice trembled with rage, “mock me, Mia.”
I pushed at hi
s hands, which were now gripping my shirt tightly. “Fuck you, King.”
Once again, I found myself staring into those seductive eyes and caught in his net. His effect on me was instant and profoundly carnal. My pulse raced, my body temperature spiked, and my most intimate parts fluttered wildly. Why does he do this to me? Why does he make me feel this way?
“Because,” he replied to my thoughts, “I feel the same way for you.” He let me go, and when he did, my wobbling knees forced me to prop myself up with my back to the wall. “You are the first person since being cursed who has allowed me to feel something other than pain. This is why I chose you.”
I looked away. You killed off all of the Seers. You were going to kill me.
He gently turned my head towards him. I could smell his sweet breath and feel the heat of his body. “Mia, I speak the truth when I say that my intention was never to kill you. Remember, I never tried to discover who you were. I never went looking for you. I never hunted you. You simply strolled into my office as if handed to me on a platter by fate. Yet, not once, not even for a second when I realized who you were—a Seer—did I think of ending your life.”
I wanted to believe him, I did. But trusting him or anyone had gotten me very little. Besides, I’d seen King’s true colors. I knew what lay behind those mesmerizing eyes. Desperation. Darkness. Pain. He’d do anything to make it all end. And take his revenge.
He tilted his head to one side. “Yes, you do know what lies inside me. So then ask yourself, Mia, what it means. If you understand the torment I live with, then imagine what it would take to simply walk away from salvation: killing you. Imagine how badly you would have to want something else. That is what I felt when I saw you. Because for that one second, I truly felt human again. I felt something good. I felt alive.”
He stepped in closer, and the heat from his body drew me in. As did his smell. As did his words and their meaning.
All I could do was to stare into those eyes and ask myself what I was going to do. Because I wanted to kiss him. I wanted it so badly that I’d give anything for it.
“Don’t fight this, Mia. Just…accept that you are mine—my most cherished possession. And there is nothing I wouldn’t do to protect you.” He lowered his head and slammed his lips to mine. His rough kiss was filled with the intensity of a man who’d been denied everything that was good in this world—light, love, compassion—but had found all of those missing things within me.
His hand slipped to the back of my head, and he deepened the kiss. He pressed his large frame into my body, lighting it up with sinful pulses and tingles. I knew it was wrong to feel this way. I knew it was wrong to want him. But I did. I couldn’t explain it, but I did.
I slid my hands around his waist and held him to me. I didn’t want to let go. Not ever. He felt as real as any man in my arms, and I couldn’t help but thinking how I’d never wanted anyone more than I wanted him.
His mouth continued to work over mine, his lips moving in that erotic, sensual rhythm that signaled what he wanted to do to my body. And when I felt his large cock pressing into me and heard the panting of his breath, I knew I would never be able to resist him.
If my last day on earth was today, then being with King—his muscled body, his beautifully masculine face, his smell and taste—wouldn’t be a bad way to go. Except that…this isn’t real.
I pushed him off me. “Stop. I’m not letting you do this. I’m not letting you lull me with some sexual fantasy when you’ll just kill me later. After you’ve got your revenge on Hagne.” That is why you want the Artifact, isn’t it? That’s what you wrote in the journal.
He pulled me back toward him and placed both hands on my cheeks. “Look into my eyes, Mia. Do you see anything? Do you feel anything that would make you believe I want to hurt you?”
No. But that doesn’t mean a thing, I thought.
“It means everything,” he said with a low growl. His hand moved to my shoulder and glided down my arm. He grabbed my hand and held it between us. “Because the ring will not bring you back if you do not wish to return.”
I glanced down at the shimmery rock on my finger. The ring? What does it do?
“The diamond is one of my earlier acquisitions. It was said to have the power to bring back the dead, which is why I hunted it. However, I discovered that it only works if worn at the time of death. Far too late for me, I’m afraid.”
So this is his plan? I thought to myself, not entirely clear on the rest of it.
He nodded. “Yes. It halts ageing, illness, and it will bring you back as long as your body isn’t destroyed. However, you must want to return to your life…” His voice trailed off as if he wanted to say something, but couldn’t.
“And?” I asked aloud, trying to comprehend what he was dancing around.
He lifted my hand to his mouth and placed a soft kiss on my palm. “If you really believe that you will return only to be killed by me, if you die thinking that it is my wish to see you gone, then I fear you will not return.”
Now I understood. And he was correct; I still believed he wanted to kill me to end his curse. Maybe not now, not today, but someday soon when he’d fulfilled his lust for revenge.
I slipped around him and went over to sit on the bed. I pulled my knees to my chest and buried my face. I couldn’t think straight. My heart wanted to believe that King was good, but his actions had shown me he was capable of incredible cruelty and deception. He himself admitted that the curse robbed him of any sense of emotion for others. If that were they case, then he couldn’t possibly feel any genuine concern for me.
“I understand why you might feel that way, Mia,” he said, replying to my thoughts. “However, you are not looking at the situation from the correct angle. Your options are to die by Vaughn’s hand, which will involve hours, perhaps days, of agony while he strips the skin from your body, piece by piece. Or taking a leap of faith with me. Those are your choices.”
Why not just tear off Vaughn’s head?
“I tried. But Vaughn knows what I am. He began to suspect the night I killed his two men.”
That night in London was the first time I’d met our current host. King suspected that Vaughn had the Artifact, so he set up a meeting, using me as the enticement. King told him I was some woman that Vaughn might enjoy for his collection, but really, I was there just to use my Seer gift and look for any traces of the Artifact. The meeting ended with King telling me to close my eyes. A second later two of Vaughn’s men were dead.
King sat next to me on the bed. “But after the night at the party, he finally put it all together: the Artifact, my appearing in the room…”
Don’t forget removing his arm. I’d never seen anything so horrific, and King had done that with the force one might use to shake hands.
King scratched his unshaven jaw, and I wondered what it felt like to be him. Did he really itch, or were his gestures just out of habit?
“I realize that it is difficult for you to trust someone like me. But I hide nothing from you, Mia. I would rather remain cursed and miserable forever than destroy you. And I will be damned if I stand by and watch Vaughn torture and rape you before he takes your life.”
I blew out a stress-filled breath. But if you kill me and I come back, then what?
“The Club has a body disposal service, and Vaughn will surely use it to get rid of yours.”
I remembered Mack mentioning the service. How could I forget something so creepy? It was one of the many benefits of belonging to the Club, along with free tax evasion, a fast-pass through Customs, and basic diplomatic immunity.
“I have paid them well, and they will know what to do,” King said. “Vaughn will never suspect.”
I blinked. What the hell, King? A ghastly uneasiness washed over me. He’d somehow seen all of this coming and had the foresight to make arrangements for my body?
Wow, 10 Club’s perks sure come in handy.
He placed his warm hand on my leg. “I began making arrangements the mome
nt I decided to give you the ring. Just in case.”
One hell of a backup plan, King. I’m still not sure it solves our trust issue.
“It was not intended to win your trust. You asked a question. I answered honestly, Mia. And now you must choose what comes next. I cannot force you to trust me.”
Oh Lord, I knew King was right. Hell, now that I’d thought about it, even if he said the ring wasn’t going to bring me back, I would still choose a death by King’s hand over Vaughn’s. The only issue was that I wasn’t ready to die, and I certainly wasn’t ready to trust King, no matter how hard I might want to.
I shook my head and then gazed into his unsettling eyes. They were filled with emotion and determination, like he was willing me to accept the truth he wanted me to see. I want to believe you, but I can’t.
He slid his arm around me and pulled me into his side. “Again, I have erred. If I had not been so reluctant to believe you would see past my scars and pain, I would not have been so cold, so secretive. But I know you were brought to me for a reason. I truly believe that. You are a chance for me to redeem myself.”
Such sweet words. Too sweet, in fact. Actually, I’d be an idiot to believe anything he said. Because the opposite side of the coin told me he was cold, mean, and had zero issues with lying or manipulating people.
“What other choice to you have, Mia? Do you think Vaughn will let either of us go?”
I shook my head. But you’re basically saying the ring won’t work unless I trust you.
“Yes. You have to want to return. But will you? Will you, if you believe I wish to harm you, murder you?”
I guessed I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t want to die and come back just to die again.
“Then,” King said, “I have one day to change your mind and convince you of who I truly am.”
~~
To relax my body, King had me lie down on the narrow bed. He started by rubbing my feet and legs, then my arms and fingertips. As he massaged and glided those warm strong hands over my skin, I fought hard not to think about how his touch was so alive, so sensual, so completely enrapturing and so unlike what my mind thought the touch of a ghost should feel like. But the harder I tried not to focus on the physical effects of contact with King, the more my body reacted, lighting up in ways it never had for any man. Yes, without a doubt, King was no ordinary ghost. Or man. Even in captivity, he continued to exude a seductive, alluring, masculine power that drove me mad.