The Prince (The Original Sinners 3)

Thirty years ago he’d made an offhand remark after being beaten and f**ked halfway to unconsciousness…and three decades later Søren remembered it word for word. Remembered the words and remembered the pain.

“Mon Dieu…I never thought the day would come. Finally and for once, I have hurt you.”

Kingsley did laugh then—loudly and decadently. And Søren only glared at him until he, too, laughed.

“God, Kingsley, we were children then. Foolish children playing dangerous games after dark.”

“Games? Is that what it was to you? My blood on your body, that was a game?”

Søren sighed heavily. He clasped his hands almost as if in prayer and gazed at Kingsley over the steeple of his fingers.

“No. Not a game. Not at all. In a way, what you and I had…it was my salvation. I thought of it as such back then. Prayed that’s what it was, prayed that God had sent you to me. When you said God wanted nothing to do with us…yes, it hurt.”

Kingsley kept his face composed and tried to pretend Søren’s words didn’t fill up his heart like water poured into a cupped hand.

“I saved your soul by shedding my blood for you. How Christian of me.”

Søren gave him a wry smile. “God saved my soul. You, however, saved my sanity. Before you, I thought…”

Søren’s voice trailed off and Kingsley found himself leaning far forward in his seat. He wanted to touch Søren—his knee, his hands, his face—but dared not lest the moment shatter. Søren did confess to him on rare occasions. Late at night at the town house, at the rectory, when they’d both had too much wine and too little sleep…Søren would sometimes bare his heart a little to Kingsley, just enough for him to remember that Søren did have one.

“What did you think?”

“Horrible thoughts, mon ami.” Søren smiled. “After what happened that summer with Elizabeth. I thought I had to stay apart from everyone, far away from them lest they be contaminated with whatever it was that had turned me into this. Even before Elizabeth I knew there was something different about me. With her I discovered what it was.”

“You inherited your father’s sadism like I inherited my father’s eyes. But I am no more my father than you are yours. You have a conscience. He didn’t.”

“I know that now. As a child…I didn’t understand, couldn’t understand. I thought I’d been born broken.”

“Broken?” Kingsley could hardly believe his ears. “When I saw you the first time, I felt…healed. If you are broken, then I only pray someday I break, too.”

Søren lowered his clasped hands and held them between his knees. Once that had been Kingsley’s home. He loved sitting at Søren’s feet between his knees. At the hermitage, after they’d spent their lust and brutality on each other, they would turn from beasts back into students. Søren would read and grade papers while Kingsley rested his back against Søren’s shins and work on his own studies. Such civility after such violence…neither one of them ever noted the strange irony of it. It felt right to them in the moment. It would feel even more right…right now.

Kingsley slid out of his seat and knelt on the floorboard at Søren’s feet. He slid his jacket off and tossed it aside. He kicked off his shoes, his socks, took off the tie and unbuttoned his collar. It had been so long since he’d done this, let his submissive side take over, that he’d almost forgotten how to sit. But as he sank into the floor it came back to him. Respectfully, he lowered his eyes to the floor. He didn’t speak. He relaxed his ramrod straight posture and surrendered to his fate.

“Kingsley…” Søren sighed his name, and Kingsley rested his forehead against Søren’s knee.

“I know you need this, sir,” Kingsley whispered. “It’s dangerous for you to deny yourself. We both know that.”

“I’m fine.” Søren’s voice had a hard edge to it, but Kingsley heard the crack in his resolve. “She’s only been gone a few days.”

“Even when she is here…you hold back with her. I’ve seen it. You worry about breaking her. You know I can take ten times the pain your Little One can. You remember, don’t you? How much I can take?”

Kingsley stopped talking and let the silence speak for him. Pain…so much pain. The things Søren had done to him when they were teenagers—it was a miracle Kingsley lived to be eighteen. Even on the hottest days, when the other boys stripped out of their uniforms to play baseball on the lawn, Kingsley kept his clothes on to hide the bruises, the welts, the cuts, sometimes even the burns. He drank pain in those days, drank it like water, got drunk on it like wine. For years now, his tongue had been dry with the thirst to drink it again. Eleanor Schreiber…Kingsley had taken Søren’s submissive and turned her into Nora Sutherlin, the most celebrated Dominatrix in the world. But he hadn’t created her for the world. He’d made her for himself. And after he’d trained her, he became her first client. He paid through the nose for sessions with her, and she earned every penny. But no matter how vicious and brutal she was with him, it never compared to the pain Søren caused him. Nora could hurt his body in beautiful ways. But only Søren could tear open his soul.

“This can’t happen again...” Søren laid his hand on top of Kingsley’s head as if to bless him.