King’s (The King Trilogy #1)(46)
Author: Mimi Jean Pamfiloff

Mack began to speak, but I cut him off.

“I’m King’s.” I showed them my brand.

They quickly moved out of my way, and I knew there was no going back.

I was the property of King.

And a dark part of me really liked it.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

By about one in the morning, Mack got us back on the jet, heading to San Francisco. We didn’t talk much during the flight even though I sat in the cockpit, wrapped in a blanket, thankful for the black dress—sans blood—I’d brought with me.

The entire flight, I stared down at the veins and clusters of lights as we flew over towns and cities. I thought of the people tucked in their cozy beds, blind to the existence of 10 Club. Congressmen, CEOs, influential celebrities, I saw them all tonight. 10 Club was like a living, breathing cancer roaming the earth, with a deep, influential reach into our everyday world. I wanted to feel numb or afraid, because I think that’s how a normal, rational person might feel, but I didn’t. I felt…hungry. Not for food, but for truth. I wanted answers. And I didn’t mean from Mack. Not that he would have said much anyway. He was loyal to King, and now I knew that King was loyal to us, too, in some strange way. That’s what Mack had meant when he’d said that no one messed with you if you belonged to King. I couldn’t deny that it felt like a drug. It instantly turned you from victim to an absolute. Yet, at the same time, I realized how vulnerable I was without King. Tonight, Vaughn had decided to break “the rules” by touching me. It meant that whatever laws 10 Club had, they were subject to being broken just like any law. That got me thinking again about “might makes right.” It was the only thing that truly kept me safe: King’s ferocious might and his ability to protect what was his from those animals.

How the hell did you get mixed up in this whole thing, Justin? I still couldn’t believe it.

When we landed in the dark drizzle at the S.F. airport, Arno was waiting in the SUV just outside the chain-link fence, but I didn’t want to go home. I wanted to see King. I wanted to rip myself wide open to the truth. I know, it sounded savage, but that’s how I felt. I was knee-deep in this strange world where the rules of civilized men were dead and laws of the physical world—at least the one I knew—meant nothing. I wanted to be armed. I wanted to survive. I wanted to save Justin if there was any hope of it at all.

“I want to see him. Where is he?” I asked Mack before I stepped out onto the Jetway stairs.

Mack shook his head. “He’s not going to be pleased about how the party went, Mia. You might want to let him cool off for a day.”

“I’m not afraid of him,” I said.

“You should be. He gave you specific instructions for the party. You disobeyed him.”

“That thing with Vaughn wasn’t my fault. He attacked me in the bathroom,” I argued.

“Perhaps, yes. But he also told you to keep quiet.”

I nodded. “I know.” I wondered if I’d done any real damage, but that wouldn’t matter. King would only care about the “disobeying” part.

“Go home, Mia. You need to get some rest.”

“Don’t tell me what I need.” Because not even I knew that. But I knew I wanted to see King.

Mack looked into my eyes and smiled with pity. “He’s not far. He never is.”

“What does that mean?”

He reached for my cheek and stroked it affectionately as if wishing me some sort of luck. “Good night, Mia.”

“Good night, Mack.”

I got into the SUV with Arno, and we hit the freeway. “Take me to his office, please.”

Arno glanced at me in the rearview mirror. “As you like.”

The entire drive, I thought about what I might say to King. I wanted to thank him for stopping Vaughn; however, I also needed to draw a line. Because now I fully understood King’s world. Weakness would get you killed, and the only thing these people respected was power. That meant I had to be strong. I had to stand up for myself. I had to start with King. Otherwise, I would end up placed in these sorts of dangerous situations over and over again. And some day, King might not be able to save me.

Thirty minutes later, I stood in King’s dark empty loft, desperately hoping he’d be there. I knocked on the door to his personal office, but no one answered.

“I am here, Miss Turner.” His masculine silhouette emerged from the shadows of the corner just like it had that first night we met. Only tonight, he still wore his tuxedo from earlier.

Suddenly, I couldn’t speak. So many questions flooded my mind that they became jumbled in my throat, sounding like an epic fit of stuttering.

King stepped into the light, and I caught a glimpse of his carnally sinful lips. “I am still amazed that my assistant isn’t able to speak, answer phones, or,” he paused briefly, “follow a simple set of f**king instructions.”

I nodded. “True. All true.”

“And yet,” his eyes washed over my body, “you do know how to make a man do incredibly stupid things. Like lose his arm.”

Every girl’s aspiration.

King stepped a few feet closer, and I felt the raw, virile energy raging off his body. The room suddenly felt smaller. And hot. I suddenly felt smaller and hot.

I took a step back and bumped into the desk.

Be strong, Mia. Stand up to him.

King looked at me expectantly, his beautiful silver eyes drilling right through my soul.

I took a solid breath. “Who are you really, King? How can you vanish into thin air? How can you hurt someone with just a touch? How did you track me to Edinburgh using a stupid tattoo and then just happen to have a suite at the nicest hotel in town?” I could’ve gone on for an hour with all of my questions, but it was pointless. Everything about King boiled down to two things: he had powerful abilities that defied logic, and he commanded complete control over everything in his world. Except for me. And I wanted to keep it that way.

He rubbed his thumb over the scruffy tip of his chin. “I travel extensively for business, Miss Turner. There’s hardly an inch of this world that I haven’t touched, but Edinburgh happens to be a frequent hunting ground of mine. As for your other questions, I am just a man. One who’s taken an interest in acquiring unique objects and abilities.”

“You mean magic?”

“Magic,” he scoffed at the word. “We had this conversation already. Magic is a fantasy. It has no basis or foundation in reality. My gifts, as are yours, are real. We merely lack the science and technological sophistication to explain them. Just as cavemen lacked the knowledge to explain gravity. Just as early explorers were baffled when their ships did not sail off the edge of the world.”