Twisted Devotion (Kings & Consorts, #1)

by Poppy St. John

If you’re still with me, sit the fuck down and turn that page like a good girl.

“Don’t yuck my yum,”

I wanted to ruin her. Ruin her so fucking fully–so completely–that I was the only man who would ever know how to put her back together again.

I wanted her and I was going to have her, it was only a matter of when

“Look, I’m sorry. I think there was a misunderstanding.” “Bullshit. Grow a pair, old man.”

His voice finally got a little bass in it. Look at that. Sad sack of shit was standing up for himself

You’re being paranoid. You’re being paranoid. You’re being paranoid.

“I called to order a little sympathy,” I groused. “Not a steaming pile of brutal honesty with a side of bitch-you’re-paranoid.”

another guy who wanted to see where things went, getting boyfriend benefits without boyfriend responsibilities.

I mean, fuck, I’d cried harder watching pet reunion videos online than I did when we broke up. Actually, I don’t think I cried at all.

Whoever said the dead didn’t talk didn’t know a damn thing.

Tessa was always saying I needed more wine in my life. Maybe she was onto something.

He did not stand me up. If he did, that was it. I was fucking done. He could go back to pining over his pretty roommate and jerking off to free porn.

“No, little lamb. I’m not going to kill you,” he said, his eyes roaming my face in the dark, making me feel his intentions like a fire held too close to flesh. “I’m going to keep you.”

That’s right, little lamb, you want this. You want me. You crave the touch of the monster in the dark.

If Emily returned to this place, she wouldn’t be his daughter anymore, not the one he recognized. Already her past was burning to worthless ash. I was her future.

How the fuck… What the fuck was happening?

Next thing I knew the beast of a man who’d corralled me in here would tell me never to go into the west wing. What. The. Fuck?

This devil took me from my home. Held me down. Suffocated me. And now he wanted to ask me how I liked my fucking quarters?

She didn’t control me. She didn’t possess me. She belonged to me. Mine. Mine to touch. Mine to mold. Mine to break.

Touching her wouldn’t be enough. I wanted to possess her. Wanted to twist her into something that could fit against my broken parts. I didn’t just want her body. I wanted her heart. Her fucking soul. “I want it all.”

When I was finished with her, I’d hand her the key to her freedom and I wanted her to drop it at my feet. I wanted her to stay.

Was someone out there with my phone, tapping out replies to my friend, keeping up appearances? Or was my face on a milk carton somewhere?

I watched him take a sip of his coffee. A simple, totally benign action that every single adult human being on this earth did, and yet somehow he did it in a way that was superior. Like a king. Or a fucking god.

I am so fucked.

“Please,” he tried again. “Mr. Monroe… he’s threatened Emily. He said if I didn’t push for a higher increase in the fee he’d⁠—” I lifted my hand to stop him right fucking there. He. Threatened. Emily.

Don’t get involved. Don’t get involved. Don’t get involved.

There was only one solution. They both had to go.

Why, Nix? Why? Fucking bastard. He made this choice for me. He acted, knowing the consequences. His fault. His fucking fault. Not mine.

Why did people stop building houses like this? I felt like a time traveler in this place, a character out of a Gabaldon novel.

My hand flew to my mouth, covering the pained gasp there. …his father? His own father had tried to rape him? He killed his father.

Going back to work, I repeated the mantra that’d gotten me out of half a dozen panic attacks since my return. I belong here. I belong here.

I felt like I was on battery-saving mode. Like all of my body functions were working at half speed to preserve energy, leaving me feeling only half-charged. Half alive.

I was crying because still I felt virtually nothing when I thought of never seeing him again.

I was crying because instead of grieving the dead man in my arms, I grieved the loss of the one who killed him.

“Who shat in your cereal this morning?”

I drew in a steadying breath, pulling apart everything that’d happened and separating it into piles in my mind. The safe-to-tell pile and the absolutely-fucking-not pile.

“Just say it,” I sobbed into her hair. “Just tell me I’m fucking crazy.” “The whole bloody story sounds crazy, babe.”

“I know you said it couldn’t work out between you and your mystery guy, but stories like yours deserve a better ending.”

The door shut behind her, but she didn’t lock it. She never locked it anymore.

Crying

Even if she hadn’t left the door unlocked, it was an old key-handle type. The ones anyone with half a brain and a hairpin could pick.

Five minutes, I reminded myself. No more. And then never again.

“Don’t,” she begged. “Don’t go.”

My Emily. My perfect little lamb. Mine.

Emily couldn’t leave me. Not if she never had me to begin with. It was the only way to keep her safe.

“The little boy in here who’s been building walls his whole life…” My stomach twisted. “I need him to understand that I’m not going to leave him. He can fight and he can roar and he can go on building his walls, but I’ll just keep climbing them. He can’t keep me out.”

Drugs were everywhere when I was growing up. In my mom’s nightstand, in her purse, in her veins. In the pockets of most of the other teenagers in our neighborhood.

late model Honda

Who's beating up all these Hondas

Emily didn’t make me weak. She wouldn’t be my end. She made me strong. She would be my new beginning. My salvation. The light in my darkness. The thread of purity woven into my ugliness. My reason for existing.

Stories like yours deserve a better ending. I tried.