Fucker.

“What’s happened here?” Kong asks, approaching me while I cradle this tiny creature in my arms. A Common Silk Girl with the audacity to touch me—stroke me—without permission.

I can barely look at him.

Scowling, I shake her hand from my face, and it drops. “I’ll have the doctors look her over when we return to The Estate.”

He stops. “We are bringing them back with us?”

Them? I look across at the other one being carried by a Guard. A redhead with a full body—perfect proportions for a Silk Girl.

“Cairo wants heirs. Yes?” I stare at Kong again. “We have two Silk Girls here. That’s a complete set for my Collective. Why return them to the aviary when we already have them.”

It wasn’t a question; I don’t know what bullshit it was.

“What a successful campaign, then?” Kong mentions. “It couldn’t have gone any better if Cairo had planned it himself.”

I hiss, “I thought you wanted a damn heir.”

“I do. If this is how it happens then good. I only want to make sure you see the big picture every time. Not just the pieces but the player, too. What do you know about this Silk Girl?” Suspicious, Kong gets inches closer, but instinct forces my hand out, stopping him before he gets anywhere near the fragile girl in my arms.

He lifts his hands. “Easy”—his cunning gaze measures my expression— “I was going to take her to the other tank for you, Sire.”

“I’m quite capable.” I don’t like the idea of handing her over for reasons I do not know, and don’t care to dissect at present. It’s simple. Surely. She’s my property, and her current condition is unacceptable.

The CR Guard follows me, focused on capturing such a moment of pure altruism from their king. Yeah, I hate every fucking second. I stride to the tank, using my body to shield her from the winds.

I stare straight ahead, but feel her eyes mapping my face, hear her heart’s rhythm race, fearful or anxious, so I hold her tighter.

“Close your eyes,” I demand, and she does.

Needing to focus, I climb the outside of my tank with her scooped to my chest. The wind blows her black hair around, whipping it through the red gale.

Talons scrape on metal.

On top of the tank, Odio opens his enormous wings to hit the desert skies, but stops. Intrigued by the creature in my arms, he hovers on the current.

She has her eyes squeezed shut as he looks her over, head cocking, beady gaze shuffling. He blocks the wind to get a better view.

I climb inside and shut the hatch.

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter Seven

Rome

She opens her eyes just as the hatch closes. Her head rolls with the gas, seemingly heavier than her neck can handle.

I set her down on the green cushioned bench and ignore the backward glances from the Gunner at the front. This is foolishness. Bringing her into my space. She has already occupied too much of my interest and now I am practically alone with her. This isn’t good.

The first time I saw her at the parlour, she walked backward into me. I thought she was pathetic in that second, a small, insignificant little Common girl who would never be selected for my Collective…

Then she looked up at me.

Those eyes…

She didn’t drop to her knees; she leaned into me, spoke out of turn, and touched me without asking. She rambled about flowers and cities, too many damn spare thoughts, and I wasn’t bored at all, a rare state for me, especially in the company of silly, little girls.

So, intrigued as I was, I felt the need to thank her for that, for making me feel something.

And now I know.

She is bound to the fibres of my last human cells, the parts of me that dwindle from nearly two decades ago when I was an idiotic boy who wanted to be a saviour.

She stares at me as though keen to map my bone structure. Blinking the cloud of gases and dust from the warehouse, my nictitating membrane slides across my cornea. She follows the sweep of the eyelid, seemingly fascinated.

I clench my teeth. Hate it. A shiver rushes the length of my body. The intimacy she presses without knowing is utterly torturous.

“Have you been inside a tank before?” I ask, sliding down the bench, adding space between us. Space that adds a much-needed reprieve from the intoxicating way her scent rouses my cock.

She is slumped backward against the inner wall, barely propped up, and I notice she holds her wrist protectively. “No, my king. Never.”

I frown. “Were you not taught to address me as Sire?”

“Sire.” She swallows, her tongue moving around her mouth in an odd way. “I’m sorry.”

I prefer my king from her lips.

“My king will do.” My forehead tightens further. “Why are you holding your wrist? And your mouth, why are you working your jaw? Are you hurt?”

“I’m sorry.” She closes her eyes and shakes her head over and over. “It was naïve. I thought about taking off my clothes and pushing them down the drain for The Trade to find but I didn’t want to take them off. The boy… He seemed to hate the tattoo. I let him. It’s my fault. I didn’t fight him.”

“The fuck did he do?”

She smiles at me. “Are you real, Sire?”

She is out of her damn mind.

The tank roars and moves, and she shuffles around, nervous to feel the motion as it speeds up.

“My king,” I correct, somehow cementing a unique relationship with this girl, one that bothers me, but I keep engaging in. She is like a kitten, erratic and endearing. Her energy is odd and entertaining—innocent.

Why do I care?

I can accept this interest as akin to one between an owner and a pet—nothing more. I owe her nothing. She is safe now.

I kept a foolish boy’s word.

Though… Cairo would hate anything outside of the approved sequence of Trade interactions. I smirk. He would hate the conversations we have already had and the way she addresses me so informally.

I like that.

“You don’t think I’m real?” I close the gap between us, inhaling as I catch her scent again. Maybe I should make her moan; she would know how real I am then. Does vulnerability have a damn scent? Well, if it does. This is it—Aster.

I reach out and grab her little wrist to inspect the place she is cradling so carefully. She winces. Fuck. I loosen my hold on her bony wrist, never knowing my strength nor usually caring.

I feel her pulse racing beneath her skin.

A frown tightens my forehead. My mark has been skinned from her, a smooth valley down to the weeping muscles. The raw area pools with white and pink fluids, and tiny beads of blood.

Anger spreads a red mist over my eyes.

“I may be dreaming,” she repeats.

I grip her chin and tilt it upward. “Open your mouth.”

She blinks but does as she is told.

Hesitantly, she spreads her pretty lips, revealing a pink centre but then… Her tongue flashes at me. The middle crease has a long gash, as though she has been sliced with a knife.

“Which one did this to you?”

I release her, but she doesn’t move her chin, still peering up at me like the little kitten Tuscany was gifted the day after her rite. It was an offering to comfort her and bring her back to life. Tuscany was too gentle for this world…

I should have stopped him.

Could have saved her.

The kitten was her sanity manifested.

It was desperate for attention, but Tuscany had nothing left.

She ignored it.

It starved to death over the three weeks that she refused to move from her mattress. The little thing gnawed at the tips of Tuscany’s fingers while she was catatonic. My sister still has tiny scars on each digit from the desperate teething of her sanity.