King’s (The King Trilogy #1)(28)
Author: Mimi Jean Pamfiloff

The call ended, and I simply stared at the empty screen. The breath slipped from my lungs, and the life drained from my body. I felt myself being washed away, carried off in the current of this nightmare. The tears trickled from my eyes. “I can’t go home, Justin,” I whispered. I was now stuck in this mess, too.

CHAPTER TEN

When I arrived at the Edinburgh station, it was just before midnight, and I immediately asked around for the nearest hotel-slash-motel-slash-whateverwithabed. I needed to close my eyes somewhere safe and think things through. The long train ride had done little more than give me another migraine and heighten my sense of dread. Was it because I knew that running from King wasn’t a permanent solution? Sooner or later, that man would find me. After all, he could find anything or anyone. Except the Artifact and my brother, apparently.

Shit. My brother…What was I going to do about my parents? It wasn’t like Justin to be out of touch for so long, and the lie I’d told them had expired. I should be back at home by now from my fake trip. With me nowhere to be found, they’d be panicking. They’d be shattered. But what the hell could I tell them? The truth was out of the question, they wouldn’t believe another lie, and if I tried to feed them the bullshit that Justin fed me, then they’d do exactly what I had: come looking.

“What a shitty situation.” I trudged my way up the stairs to the third floor of the small hotel. The building was old and smelled like an antique shop. I had no clue why I chose this city of all places, but I simply wanted to get out of London, and Edinburgh was the next train to depart.

I supposed, too, that King wouldn’t look for me here. Once he figured out that I hadn’t gotten on any flights, which I was sure he would, then he’d start checking places he’d know were familiar to me and, perhaps, traveled to previously for work. How would he know that? That man probably knew everything about me, including my bra size. He’d known about Sean—the guy in New York I “dated” casually. No one knew about him. Not even Becca. King also knew that I hummed Beatles songs when I got nervous and that my favorite “stress-elixir” was whiskey.

I unlocked the hotel door, flipped on the lights, and sighed. It was a gloomy, cramped room with brown carpet and a small bed. Still, it was better than nothing.

I locked the door behind me, flipped off the lights, and lay down, covering my eyes with my forearm. Tomorrow, when my head cleared, I’d think out options.

“Hello, Miss Turner.”

I bolted to an upright sitting position. The tall, imposing shadow of King’s frame lurking in the corner was unmistakable.

I blinked several times. “Impossible,” I whispered. This had to be another one of those crazy dreams.

King stepped toward the bed, the lights from the street illuminating his face. His beautiful, luminescent eyes burned with the kind of fury that could stop a person’s heart. “No. Not impossible.”

“But how?”

He grabbed my wrist and yanked me up from the bed as if I were no lighter than a feather pillow. “Have you forgotten?” His hard body pressed against mine as he towered over me, his iron grip threatening to crush my bones. He turned my wrist over, shoving his brand in my face. “I own you, Mia. You cannot run from me, but you can be killed.”

“Is-is that why you’re here? T-to kill me?” Because I feared for my life. I truly did. How the hell had he found me?

A sinister smile crept over his gorgeous mouth. “You’re of no use to me dead. But I do plan to punish you.” He released my wrist and forcefully cupped the back of my head. When his lips smashed into mine, his mouth was hot, his kiss rough. My knees buckled. He wrapped his arm around my back and pinned me to him. I wanted to pull away, but the friction of his stubble, the silky heat of his tongue invading my mouth, and the hardness of his male body subdued me. Or was it this strange power he held over me? I didn’t know. I just wanted more. My ni**les contracted into sharp little points, and a throbbing ache deep inside urged me to lean deeper into his hips, to seek the hard flesh I knew was there, to find that release of tension he triggered inside me.

What was happening to me? Why couldn’t I stop myself from thinking that if I was his, then he was mine? Mine to use. Mine to take from. Mine to ravage and savor and claw at if it pleased me.

“You want me, King?” I growled. “Then I hope you can f**k like a beast.”

King’s large hands slid down the small of my back and gripped my ass. He ground himself against me and released a deep, throaty groan. “I’m going to break you, Mia. Fucking break you.”

My eyes popped open, and I gasped, finding nothing but an empty, dark hotel room. “Crap.” Not again.

I held my hand over my heart, hoping that it might stop the pounding. But it didn’t. I ran my hand over my hair and felt the sticky sweat covering my skin—forehead, neck, and chest. I couldn’t run from him, could I? He was in my head. My body was saturated with him or his energy or…crap…something. I didn’t know. I realized that the repeated dreams weren’t simply random fears trying to escape my subconscious. They were a glimpse into some twisted part of my soul that felt connected to this man. But that part of me could never see the light of day. Never. Because wanting King was like wanting to have a he**in addiction. It was like wanting to die a slow, painful death.

Still sitting on the bed, I hung my head. “What am I going to do?” I mumbled.

“You are going to get the f**k up from that f**king bed before I tie you up and ship you off in a box to Vaughn.”

I gasped. “King?”

“In the f**king flesh, woman.”

King flipped on the lights, and I leaped from the bed, trying to put any sort of distance I could between us. His face looked different somehow, as if it was an angrier, more lethal version of him. But he wore his crisp, tailored, black suit. He smelled like King’s expensive cologne. That scowl on his face was certainly his. Yet, it wasn’t King. An imposter. Because there was no physical way King could be there with me.

“Who are you?”

King tilted his head to one side. “Who the f**k do you think I am?”

“You’re not King. You can’t be. I left King back in London.”

“Mia, I don’t have time for this bullshit.”

“I’m Mia, now?” I grabbed the phone from the nightstand and raised the hand piece into the air. “Stay away from me.”