Cruel King (Royal Elite, #0)

by Rina Kent

To the invisible ones.

I want to complicate her. Ruin her. Crush her innocence. Then watch it all burn. But again, that’s what I feel about most beautiful things. If my soul is black, why does the world need colours?

I have two thoughts about him. His arm needs to be broken. He should be black, too, for witnessing her laughter.

“I don’t like it.” Levi’s voice stops me in my tracks. I slowly turn around to face him. “You don’t like what?” “When others touch you.”

“I made you visible, huh?” “You did! You screwed up everything.” “You were never supposed to be invisible, Princess,”

“The rain,” Levi whispers, still closing his eyes. “My father taught me to feel the rain.”

I don’t know what pissed me off more. The fact that she wasn’t there for me, or the fact that she was cheering another guy’s name right in front of me.

“What you saw isn’t what it seemed,” he says in a cool tone like we’re discussing the weather. "Sure thing. I definitely didn't see you getting your dick sucked by Nicole, King." “Don't call me that.” “Isn’t that what you demand everyone to call you, King?” “Not you.”

“Call it an obsession or foolishness or fucking madness,” he grunts, squeezing my throat. “But you keep your eyes on me.”

“You came to one game and now you’re an expert on how I usually play?” “How do you know I didn’t come to the previous games?” “I would’ve noticed you.” “No, you wouldn’t have, Levi. I was invisible to you until that stupid party.” He says nothing. The silence stretches long enough that it becomes uncomfortable. I fidget with my backpack’s straps. “Do you believe in fate?” he asks. I’m taken aback by his super out-of-character question. “Not really.” “Me neither, but I’m starting to.” My pulse quickens at the irresistible drop in his tone. “Why is that?” He fists my hair in his grip so my head is angled up. “I would’ve found you no matter what, Princess. It was a matter of when, not if.”

There are two things I learn when I drop Astrid off at school. A- She doesn’t want to be seen with me. B- I fucking hate it.

I fight the tears of helplessness and anger blurring my vision. I hate him for making me feel like I’m at fault when I didn’t do anything wrong. It’s so similar to Dad, and I swore I’d never let anyone belittle me anymore.

“Those who don’t play chess think the king is the strongest piece, because the game ends when he dies, but they don’t stop to think that if the queen dies first, the king doesn’t have a chance to survive.”

He thought he broke me, but he shouldn’t have let me pick up the pieces, because what doesn’t kill me, better run.

“You can be upset and angry all you want, but don’t bring another man in my presence again.” “Or what?” “I’ll end them. Every last fucking one of them.” My lips part. “You…you wouldn’t.” “Try. Me.” His breath tickles my skin and he darts his tongue out to lick the shell of my ear before he murmurs in dark, hot words, “I dare you to fucking try me, Princess.”

“You know, it was pouring the day I lost my mum. Since then, I’ve hated rainy days. Until —” she glances at me with a strange vulnerability “—you showed me how to enjoy it again. Thank you.”

It’s like an alien has sucked his soul and left this person behind. He smirks in that cruel, sadistic way. Then his next words undo me. “We were never something to be over.”

“Stop acting like you can belong to someone else.” He grips both my hips and pulls me into him. “There hasn’t been a moment where you weren’t mine.”

Astrid once told me I was a dark night. It’s on dark nights that stars like her shine the brightest.