Glow (The Plated Prisoner, #4)

by Raven Kennedy

I won’t allow another storm to touch Auren. She has been flooded and wrung out, left to take the barrage without shelter. But so long as I’m here, I will be her shelter.

“We’ve all got a little rotten in us, and I wouldn’t change that for anything. It’s how we’ve survived.”

“You don’t have to be cruel to be strong. You don’t have to be mean to seem brave. You don’t have to look down on others in order to stand tall. Having emotions does not mean you’re weak. It means you’re smart enough to let yourself feel.”

“Captain, you wound me. I’m romantic as fuck. If I was propositioning you, I’d knock your Divine-damned socks off.” “Just so you know, my socks smell like shit.”

When she stops in front of me, there’s a gleam in her eye. Anyone else standing here would probably be pissing their pants. At the very least, trying to yank out of their boots and run. But me? I’m just turned on.

“Come out to play, Goldfinch, and I’ll kiss you all you like.”

I want to consume her. Bury myself so far into her that she will feel me forever, sear my words into her thoughts.

“My tongue is so confused right now.” Lu smirks. “I’ve heard women give you that very same critique.”

But what is the value of strength when it’s just a facade?

I’ve always been treated like treasure, but with Slade, I’m simply treasured.

That’s the thing with trauma to the body—it shows up instantly. In breaks and bruises, in burns and in blood. But the trauma on the inside, that’s harder to see. It creeps around your mind, poisons you with disquiet. It can hit you out of nowhere, debilitating and ruinous. There are no marks visible for those. None, save the shadows in your eyes.

I may be empty, but I am not alone. And that, at least, is something.

Maybe none of us truly know our own strength. Not until the world has hacked away at us. But the point is, we aren’t strong because of our trauma. We were always strong to begin with. We just needed to figure it out for ourselves.

“So then...you don’t sit awake in your pallet at night, thinking about arguing with me just enough to get our blood heated, and then wrapping those long legs of yours around my hips and fucking me till you see stars?”

“No longer live the fucking king. And may you kick anyone’s ass who ever tries to hurt you again.”

“Oh, Goldfinch, I’d follow you to the end of the world and tip right off the edge, all because of a crook of your finger.”

“So you’re not going to tell me to live and let live? To work through my anger and move past it?” “Absolutely fucking not. I’m going to teach you to use it.”

“I won’t ever again give myself to someone who doesn’t give himself back to me. So if there’s someone else here…I need to know about it.”

“Oh, Goldfinch. I would’ve found you in whatever world you were in. In whatever life.”

With the right person, there is power when you kneel. There is adoration with submission. There is balance with control.

This is my power. I control it. It answers to me and me alone.

“One person’s pain doesn’t negate another’s. Our heartaches are not competition, but the bridge to empathy. So that we can look at one another and know that on some level, we understand. That’s one beautiful thing about grief, I think. That sometimes, we can find someone in the world to look at from the other side of the bridge of our torments and know that we are not alone.”

She’s basking in the sun, and it looks as if that’s all the daylight was ever created for. She’s so breathtaking up here in only my shirt, that I have half a mind to drag the guards back and demand they pluck out their own eyes for seeing what’s mine.

“This is your life, Auren. If you wish to stay away from prying eyes, then that’s what we’ll do. But you don’t have to hide here. You are nobody’s pet to be kept. Your life is

But maybe that’s just what home is. A feeling.

“You want to experience things, so let’s experience them. We’ll start with seeing if your pussy gets wetter with a hint of exhibitionism.”

“You’re mine, Auren. As wholly as I am yours. If there’s something you crave, if there’s some freedom you want to try the taste of, then you will do it, and I will be right there with you. Watching you devour your wants. And then I will devour you.”

“Go on, Goldfinch. Slip your fingers down to my cock and claim what’s yours.”

I may be the one kneeling, but there is power here on my knees, with him in my mouth, with him beneath my grip.

“Did you forget about him?” I ask with a smirk. “Because when he gets here, not even your gods will be able to save you.”

I’m really tired of monarchs using me for their own narratives, when all I’ve ever wanted was to be left the fuck alone.

Hot tears score lines down my shaking cheeks. But I try to pull them up. Try to give him a smile. “Find me in another life.”