TO KILL A KING

NINETEEN-THEANIMAL

KING

He still wouldn't admit his jealousy, but I didn't press it. I knew I had won that fight.

We dragged our clothes back on, shooting each other sideways glances. I couldn't help but watch the way his dexterous fingers swiftly buckled his belt, like he had a thousand times before.

I smoothed my dress down, ridding the little creases that had formed from it being hoisted around my waist.

"How do I look?" I asked, turning around to him.

The corner of his lips tugged upwards in a smile. "Like you've been fucked."

"Seriously?" I groaned, digging in one of the desk draws to find my compact mirror. He was right, I thought as I held the mirror to my face. My hair was more tousled than before, my makeup less sharp, the dark liner around my eyes had blurred slightly, more than likely from his eye watering length...

"Here." He tumbled as he came up behind me, "Put this on."

Cold silver made me shiver as it grazed my skin, a diamond necklace resting around my neck as he fastened it from behind.

I rolled my eyes now realising why he had given me the necklace. "Next time can you be a little more conservative with the hickeys."

At least it hid some of the deep purple bruises that had begun to form along the length of my throat.

"Next time?" He raised a dark eyebrow at me.

"If you're lucky."

I took a moment to fix my makeup and tidy my hair, all the while he drummed his fingers impatiently on the desk. "Are you nearly ready yet?" He asked for the thousandth time.

"The more you ask the slower I'll go." I growled, making the final adjustments to my eyeliner before I stood back up, perfect. "Are we walking back in together or separately?"

"Why?" He chuckled, "Are you afraid of people thinking we f****d?"

More like knowing we f****d, I thought.

I wasn't too sure how I felt about that. We would return to a ball full of people we didn't really like but tolerated none the less, only for them to judge us within an inch of our lives. To whisper to one another about us, as if they knew us.

Should we just pretend like nothing had happened?

-But something had happened.

A beautiful something and an irreparable nothing.

Sins came in many shapes and sizes, I of all people should know. I had committed more than my fair share, but little did I know that my next shape would come in the shape of my worst enemy.

"Fine." I snapped, straightening his crooked tie. "Let them know. I don't care."

His finger lifted my chin in a lightning strike of sparks. I hated the way he made me feel. He forced me to look him in the eye. "We walk in together. We need to show them that you're mine."

I laughed, assuming he was joking. But his face didn't change and his eyes only grew harder, telling me he was deadly serious.

I slapped his hand away, "Excuse me?"

He scrunched his handsome face as if confused by my response. "What's your problem?"

"My problem?" I laughed, "I'm not a f*****g dog, you can't just own me!"

"Relax." He bayed as if I were a scorned pup. Was I just an inconvenience to him? A child? 

"The other Alpha's need to know that you're spoken for."

"Spoken for?" I scoffed, the words were bitter and burned my tongue. "We f****d. That's it. Nothing more nothing less. That doesn't suddenly make me yours."

"Your mark says otherwise." He said darkly, his eyes glowing with unguarded want as everything seemed to click into place in my mind. Like the final pieces of a jigsaw puzzle coming together, to show a macabre and ugly image.

That bastard.

"You used me!" I cried, the realisation hitting me like a ton of bricks. My mark. The consummation.

We were fully mated, together as one. 

Inseparably bonded. 

He was right, I was his. 

It wasn't right. It wasn't fair.

I felt so angry, the emotion welling up within me so hot I feared it may explode, destroying everything in its irreparable wake.

I launched at him, throwing my fists into his chest as hard as I could. "What have you done!"

I wanted to hurt him. I wanted to see him bleed. 

I raked my fingernails down his pretty face, watching with sickening glee as red streaks trailed in their bloody path.

I pounded my fists into every inch of flesh I could find. But none of it fazed him. He stood there, taking all of it without so much as a flinch.

It was like punching a wall. Hard and unresponsive.

Eventually he had had enough as he grabbed me by the wrists. "Are you done?" He growled.

I refused to give him the satisfaction of crying out as he increased his grip when I didn't reply. "f**k you."

"You already did." Even the sight of his face made me want to explode with undiluted rage. It burned hot within me, like streaks of fire coursing red and thick through my veins. Let alone the deep rumble of his voice.

I hoped that my eyes would tell him what my words could not.

I hate you.

But it was more than that. Something deeper, more powerful. Words couldn't even describe the inferno of emotions I felt towards this beast.

He had used me. He had manipulated me.

He had done this all deliberately to demean and undermine me.

We were fully mated. There was no escape now. And I was nothing more than property.

He threw my wrists down to my side. "Stop acting like a f*****g child and grow up. Realise that this isn't about me or you. This is bigger than both of us."

My hand flew through the air before I could stop it.

How dare he make me feel like my emotions weren't valid.

I hit him. I had meant it in the moment, but the second I saw the change in his eyes I was sure that I had never regretted something so deeply in all my life.

I was thrown into the wall. The world spun and darted about like I was on a ride. Bright colours danced as light fairies before me. 

In this world of barely tangible light I could make out one thing. His face, mere inches from mine. 

"Don't you f*****g dare." He roared. All semblance of control had vanished. Now only the raw of the wild within remained.

"If you ever lay a hand on me again-" Every syllable he spoke was like a punch to the gut. 

He didn't need to use his fists. 

"-I swear to god I will kill you. Woman or not I will tear your heart from your chest and bury you were you stand."

So this was it. This. This was the real him.

The real North. The real King.

This was everything he had been holding back. 

The true beast within.

This was the man people told their children stories about, and I knew they were true as I stared into the eyes of the monster before me.

Empty. Hollow. Hurting.

That was what I saw before me, a shell of a man.

An aching, defensive, shell of a what was once a man.

This was the man people feared and respected.

Now I wasn't so sure what he was.

But whatever he was, it scared me. 

It actually, genuinely frightened me. 

So much so that it forced the one word from my lips that almost no one else could. "Sorry."

It seemed to soften him slightly, or maybe I was seeing things but though his body remained rigid and unmoving, the hardness behind his eyes lessened. Only a little but it softened none the less.

It was something, and something was a whole lot better than nothing.

"Come." He said from between gritted teeth. He could hardly stand to look at me as we walked back to the bustling life of the ball in complete silence.

God knows what people would think now, me with hickeys and him with three bloody claw marks raked down one cheek. 

He still looked devastating, but in a far more sinister way.

His dark hair perfectly tousled from our encounter, and my marks only severed to make him look more... Dangerous.. More.. Feral.

It only made me angrier that somehow my hatred had only made him more beautiful.

My body tensed as his rigid arm slid around mine.

We were both unnaturally stiff and still reeling from our fight. Truth be told I didn't want him anywhere near me right now and given the chance I would claw the other half of his handsome face.

  We approached the gathering of Alphas that North had previously been talking too. They eyed me with a  kind of mix of reproach and want.

He gave my wrist a subtle squeeze. "Behave."

"Who's this?" One of the men asked. He knew damn well who I was, I had f****d him too once upon a time after all. Theos' eyes lulled lazily down my dress, probably eager to see who I was pretending to be now.

"Theos, this is my mate, King." North pulled me a little tighter as all of the males raked over my appearance. "King, this is Theos."

"Nice to meet you." I said, plastering a bitter sweet smile on my face before offering my hand to Theos.

He took it after a shocked hesitation and said slowly, "You too."

He stared into my eyes as he firmly shook my hand. His eyes asking all the questions that he couldn't say aloud in this situation.

North introduced me to the rest of them but I stopped paying attention, instead choosing to stand mutely as he conversed effortlessly with them.

Every time I looked over I caught Theos' eye.

Mate? He mouthed, c*****g an eyebrow. I simply scowled at him in return, edging in a wordless later.

Theos was Artemis' mate.

Obviously I had f****d him well before they met, as soon as Artemis arrived all fun between us slammed to a halt, he was damn near obsessed with the girl.

I could feel their hungry eyes on my throat. The bite. The red marks. Ordinarily I would've shown them off proudly, used them as a sign to show what control I had over North, that I could seduce him. A kind of power over him that they could never have.

But now I knew it meant something entirely different. I was an object. I was a possession.

I was owned.

A slave to a master, by a contract bound in blood and fire.

Females always bore the bite as a claim. But the males were never claimed by the females, it was seen as improper for a female to claim a male the way they claimed us. 

A female biting a male would infer we were equal, and society would never have that.

"-Isn't that right King." One of the men joked, but I hadn't been paying attention, so I just gave him a tight lipped smile.

"Lennox." North warned, he must've said something cutting because the male besides me tensed as if ready to pounce. His face was murderous as he glared down a sandy haired male with striking grey eyes.

"What? It's true." Lennox chuckled, tipping his glass in my direction. "Isn't it?"

"What?"

"I said-," The fair haired man drawled, as North's face only grew darker. He was ready to kill him. Right here and now. "Orian weak if he lost to a woman in strength and combat. A weak man is a dead man."

Some sick glee emanated from his cold eyes, he was enjoying torturing North. 

"I wasn't stronger than him." I deadpanned. "Only smarter."

With that I gave North's rigid arm a subtle tug and we left the group.

Red hot rage rolled off of him in waves, so heavy and thick they could fill the entire ball room.

"Calm the f**k down." I hissed. "It's not that deep."

"He got under my skin..." He said quietly, more to himself than anyone in particular.

"You think?" I replied sarcastically.

His fury was enough to drown me, rich waves so suffocatingly plentiful they almost made me knees buckle.

This was an Alpha's affect. A real Alpha, born into the title by blood.

Rather than a nameless bastard like me who had merely bought the title with it.

***

QOTD-What do people think of North?

Any thoughts? Theories?

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-TFOA