Claiming His Prize (Killer of Kings 5)

Rubbing her hands together, she took a deep breath. She didn’t want to run. Even if she knew she could get away with it. The life he’d taken her from wasn’t anything to covet. In fact, the life she’d led had been a fucking nightmare. Work, dealing with kids, and more work. Loneliness and sadness. She didn’t want to go back to that life, and yes, she did also want to be a little bit selfish.

Chains made her feel so many things. Carlton had disgusted her, and she’d hated his touch. She never wanted any part of him or his lifestyle, and always fought to stay away from him. With Chains, it was different. She wished he’d take what he wanted, but he had the control of a saint. He always looked her up and down, but it felt like a caress, a brand of ownership. She wanted to belong … to him.

Her body felt alive when she was with him, and she liked to push, just a little, to see if he’d snap. He wouldn’t snap. She knew it deep down in her core. Out of the entire world filled with women, Chains had picked her.

When everyone else overlooked her, and she’d been cast in shadow, feeling lost and alone—he’d noticed her.

Leaving the bedroom, she passed several windows, and even the main front door, and stepped into the kitchen. He stood, arms folded, leaning against the counter. Putting a hand on her hip, she winked at him.

“Thought I was going to run?”

“Any sane woman would have.”

“I never claimed to be sane,” she said.

He moved out of the way, and she saw some fresh cartons of Chinese food. She sat on a stool and picked up the chopsticks to eat.

For several seconds, he watched her eat, before doing the same.

“I like watching you eat,” he said.

“That’s not weird at all.” She took another slurp of noodles. “I think I’ve eaten more in the past week than I ever have before. You wouldn’t think that for looking at me though.” She ran a hand down her backside. She’d always been a big girl with fuller curves. It didn’t matter how much she tried to diet. By diet, she meant starve herself. Being part of a poor family, she didn’t exactly have money to waste on fancy diet plans. She swore she gained weight by air alone.

Eating no food was simply a cheaper alternative.

“You’ll never go without food again.”

“You know what it was like to go without anything?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Sucks, doesn’t it? Did you have any parents?”

“No parents. I was in the system, or what people tried to claim was the system. Far from here.”

“Oh, at least I had parents … I guess. Whenever I’d go to them to ask about getting food, they’d always need cigarettes or beer. Mom would constantly be spending money on new clothes, and she always said it was her money, and we should just be grateful that we had a roof over our heads.”

“You never should have given your money to them,” Chains said. “I’m surprised you didn’t tell them to fuck off once you turned eighteen.”

“I tried to help out. I thought I was doing the right thing, and it was all wrong. I was just helping them spend more money on themselves.”

Her appetite was gone, so she put the food back on the counter, and shoved her hands into her pockets. “I can be a real downer at times, huh?”

Chains chuckled. “I’ve never been called the life of the party.”

She didn’t know why she found his words so funny but she did, and held her stomach as they both shared the laughter together. He looked past her shoulder, outside. “Would you care to go for a walk with me?”

“I’d love to.”

He offered her his arm, which she took. Chains opened the front door, and as she crossed the threshold, she found herself gasping, almost believing leaving the house wasn’t possible.

Once he locked the house, she held onto him tightly, not wanting to let him go. His arms were thick and hard with muscle. It was in that moment that she realized she didn’t want to run from him. The short time she’d been with Chains, he’d made her feel so much happiness that the thought of not seeing him again filled her with dread.

They walked away from the house, and for a good ten minutes neither of them spoke. She loved the feel of the cool breeze on her skin, and the freshness in the air. Everything felt surreal, and amazing. Like the first day of forever.

Opening her eyes, she spotted a park, and quickly urged him over toward it. With it being so late, there wasn’t anyone around, and she made him take a seat in a swing.

“What are you doing?”