A Thousand Cuts (Underworld Kings)

I wasn’t a romance kind of girl. Then there were the other minor details that our courtship had been forced, this wedding proposed and planned under the threat of murder.

However, I despised the falsity of it all, everyone playing a part, pretending that love was sunshine and rainbows, like it was forever. Like there wasn’t a fifty percent chance it was going to end in divorce.

Cristian and I didn’t pretend. About anything. If what we had was really love, it was at the opposite end of the spectrum from what Hollywood and Disney peddled to the masses. What we had was messy. Ugly. Toxic. And I knew with every part of me that it was going to last forever.

Though the wedding was important to the family and future relationships with other powerful organizations around the country, it did not last into the night. Cristian disappeared to his office for a handful of minutes, but he was back at my side, skirting me away from Jessica before I could wonder for too long what he was doing.

But not long after dinner was served, an hour of dancing done, Cristian managed the unthinkable. He got a crowd of hundreds to disperse. It happened quickly, and before I knew it, we were alone in the house once more.

Our home.

Not truly alone, of course. There were staff, still cleaning up.

The guards, triple the usual amount, still prowled the grounds. Cristian had obviously expected something to happen, someone to strike. I wasn’t sure who, since he’d made peace with all of his most formidable enemies.

I’d asked him, in the days leading up to the wedding as I watched him make preparations.

“I thought we were at peace.” I trailed my fingers along his shoulder. He was sitting at his desk, going over background checks for every single person attending the wedding. Surveillance on those he considered high risk. “It looks like you’re preparing for war.”

Cristian turned in his chair, hands on my hips to pull me in between his legs. “Si vis pacem, para bellum,” he murmured, eyes on mine.

“If you want peace, prepare for war,” I translated.

He raised his brow in surprise, and I grinned at him. “You don’t know everything about me,” I teased.

Cristian’s eyes were liquid, something I wasn’t accustomed to. Seeing him carefree. I figured it was something that wouldn’t happen often.

He pulled me down onto his lap, and I went willingly. I didn’t fight it anymore. His touch. My response to it. It was much too late for that now. My mind went to Greg Harris, as it did often lately, the wedding date rushing closer, my feelings for Cristian becoming impossible to ignore. The realization that this wedding was going to happen, and, moreover, I wanted it to happen.

“I’ll be married to you for a lifetime, and I am quite certain you will continue to surprise me until the end,” he murmured.

My stomach dipped in an uncomfortable way. I wasn’t used to this. To a kind of ... sweetness to this menace of a man. I hated it and loved it at the same time. I didn’t want us to be sweet, speak in forevers like naïve lovers.

“Now get up, take off your panties and sit on my desk, legs spread so I can eat your cunt,” he ordered, his voice a low rasp.

Another stomach dip.

An entirely good one this time.

There he was.

My filthy villain.

Cristian was not lighthearted at all after that moment in his office.

He was tense. Coiled tight. Danger emanating from him. It made me fucking insatiable for him. The more dangerous he got, the more unhinged, the more I wanted him.

And it all came to a head on our wedding day when he showed me just how far he was willing to go for me. For us.

That he was willing to share me with another man, one I’d wondered about, one I’d wanted since I’d arrived here.

Felix.

He was still around somewhere.

He was never far away.

I didn’t love him like I loved Cristian. I’d never want him like I wanted Cristian, nor would I try and replicate what happened today ever again. But he was a part of my story now. A part of me. Woven into the core of me. He was wretched, cold, merciless. But I could not imagine him not in my life.

Cristian wasn’t going to hurt Eli or Jessica. Maybe he might’ve, in the beginning, if I’d tested him before we got tangled up in each other. But now, they were safe. I’d known that on some level for a while. It had really registered this past week. At the engagement party. That was when I could’ve run. Could’ve turned in all the evidence I’d collected. Instead, when Cristian was out, I’d made a fire in his office and burned it all.

Now I was standing in his office, wearing my wedding dress. He’d told me to wait here while he ‘took care of something.’ Knowing Cristian, that could mean murdering traitors or tipping the caterers.