A Kingdom of Venom and Vows (Stars and Shadows #3)(12)

“My mate.”

There was a flash of anger on his face as he stepped closer to me, reached out, and pressed his hand against my cheek. I reached up to stop him, but one of the guards snatched my hand back before I got the chance. Gavril caressed my skin like that of a lover, and bile rose in my throat as I stared up to him.

“My brother was always good at convincing others to believe exactly as he wanted them to. It would appear that you have fallen exactly where he wanted you to lay. With your legs open and your loyalty to the enemy strong.”

I tried to control my anger, but it raced through me, desperate to attack. I felt hollow where my power used to be. Empty without my magic, but my anger filled up the space before I could stop it, and I reared back and spit in Gavril’s face before he could utter another word in my direction.

The sneer on Gavril’s face brought a smile to my own, but fear sank deep in my gut as I watched every ounce of his fa?ade melt away and nothing but the pure evil prince I knew him to be staring back at me. He wiped his hand down his face, looking as unbothered as he had been just a moment before, and his grip tightened around the dagger as he moved closer to me.

“Where do you think my mark on you would bother Evren the most?” He pressed the tip of the dagger into my knee before pressing his own between my legs to force them apart. He ran the blade along the length of my leg, dragging my dress along with it, and I wanted to scream.

I begged that tendril of power I felt earlier to do something. To do anything. To explode inside me and become more than what it was. I wanted to fight him, to throw him off, but all I could do was swallow the cry that built in my throat as I stared at him. I would not let him see my fear. I would not allow him the pleasure.

“Where is my brother’s favorite part of his whore?” His gaze trailed along my bare thighs. I tried to clamp them together, but I did nothing more than press them harder around his leg.

“The others before you told me that Evren had a thing for thighs.” His dagger pressed harder, digging into my skin, and I bit down on my bottom lip as pain sliced through me.

“But others…” He raised the dagger higher, dragging it over my dress that lay against my stomach until he pressed it just at the top where it lay against my breast. “Told me that Evren was a fool for breasts.”

I tried to block his words. I didn’t want to think about Evren’s past lovers. Not now. Not ever, and Gavril knew exactly what he was doing. Trying to break me. Break my spirit, my body. Everything he could get a hold of, but I released my lip and stared straight ahead. I refused to give him anything.

“But I think we should start here.” Gavril’s hands dropped and gripped my hips before jerking them to the edge of the throne. My dress was still high against my thighs, and I felt completely exposed to him, the move had shoved his leg farther between my thighs, and I felt it pressed against my sex.

Panic clawed at me, but I didn’t know how to stop him. To stop this. Gavril dropped to his knees for me while still pressed between my legs, and he widened my thighs even though I tried to fight against him. He pressed a soft kiss against the inside of my thigh. The one opposite to the one that now held Evren’s mark, his lips had barely left my skin before his dagger replaced it and sliced through my flesh.

I couldn’t stop the cry that left my lips. It was too much. The pain too severe, but Gavril didn’t care. His mouth met my bloody thigh, and I tried to jerk my arms away from the guards as his mouth tightened around me and he drank the blood from my body.

He was taking from me as he did once before, and though it hurt, there was no power for him to take. I could feel none of my power leaving my body, and my eyes closed as he continued to take. Draining and draining, searching for what he wanted most but would not find.

His hands tightened against my thighs, fingers digging into my flesh, but I didn’t react to the pain. I kept my eyes closed and prayed for it to end. I thought of Evren, of his face, of his smile, of everything he would do when he found me again. I let myself think of nothing else as l blocked Gavril from my mind, and my chest ached.

“What have you done?” Gavril’s booming voice called out to me from between my thighs, but I still refused to open my eyes. “What the fuck have you done?”

I finally blinked up at him as I felt him rise from where he had kneeled before me, and I didn’t let him see anything on my face. It was nothing but dead emotion staring back at him, and I would give him none of my truths.

“What could I have done, Your Highness? I am nothing but a whore, remember?”

Red smoke poured from Gavril’s fingers, magic I’d never seen him use, but I knew he wasn’t in full control. Whatever Gavril had done, whatever power he had, it was not his to control.

And the lack of my power in my blood forced something to snap inside of him that he had been clinging to.

“Take her to my room.” He wiped my blood from his mouth with the back of his hand, the trail of red smoke following his movement. “If you want to act like a whore, you’ll be treated as such.”





CHAPTER 5





EVREN





T he people of my kingdom were frightened, and fear hung in the air where there had been none before.

Many of them were still in my palace, and I scrubbed blood from my hand as I stared out over the kitchens where the staff was preparing food for all those who had stayed.