Black Knight (Royal Elite 4)

“I’m a grown man.” He stomps his foot.

“Of course you are, Monkey.”

“I’m going to be Superman one day, Kimmy, and fly you out of here. Wait and see.”

“You will, huh?” His stupid obsession with the superhero would be amusing if Xander wasn’t the one fuelling him with it. I really hate to admit that Xander’s carefree personality is what made Kir come out of his shell and make friends at school.

If he’d followed in my footsteps, he would’ve become a loner like me, an outcast like me, a nobody like me.

Just me.

And being me is the last thing I’d wish on my baby brother.

Elsa was the first to approach me. Ronan, too. I’m shit at approaching people.

Whenever I think about it, that fog surrounds my head with toxic thoughts like no one would want to be friends with the hot mess that I am.

That if they get close enough and see me for who I truly am, they’ll run away, or worse, they’ll use it to torment me harder.

Even with Elsa, I’m always scared about when she’ll figure out the truth about me and throw me behind her.

She became suspicious during my last visits, and to say I’m dreading this one would be the understatement of the century.

However, Kir will throw a fit if he doesn’t see her and the rest of the ‘cool guys’, as he calls them, and I’m kind of weak when it comes to those puppy eyes and pouty lips.

“Come on, hurry up…” he trails off mid-sentence, his arms hanging limp, and I know who he’s staring at behind me without having to turn around.

“Where are you going?” Her low voice has a biting edge like those hairy spiders – or rather, snakes, harsh and unyielding.

“To Elsa,” Kirian says softly.

I swallow hard after finishing with his coat and smother his hair. “Go wait for me by the car.”

He nods, appearing happy to be out of here, but then he stops, turns around, and hugs me. His small arms wrap around my neck in a tight hold, as if he doesn’t want to let me go. I stroke his silky hair, biting my lower lip to not break down in sobs.

For Kir. You’re doing this for this little man with a brilliant mind and delicate small hands.

“Go on, Monkey.” I push him away.

He steps back and stares behind me. “Bye, Mum.”

And then he’s running out of the door.

I rise to my feet and slowly turn around to face the woman who gave birth to two children but has no ounce of motherly instinct.

She’s taller than me, with a model body that she’s maintained for decades. Her soft brown curls fall to her shoulders. She’s wearing elegant trousers and a camisole that I would never be able to pull off in a lifetime.

Jeanine Reed isn’t only known for her magnificent artistic talent that apparently touches souls with bare hands – the magazine

s’ critics talk, not mine – but she’s also a beautiful woman who appears in her late twenties instead of early forties.

She has high cheekbones and thick eyebrows that she passed down to Kirian. I have nothing from her. Not her talent, not her beauty, not her grace, and certainly not her model figure. The only thing we share is the eye colour, but hers are bigger and more striking, like a sparkling tropical sea.

I’ve always felt out of sorts whenever we’ve been in public together, and I stopped counting the number of times I wanted to bury myself when someone asked if I was her daughter and she hesitated as if not wanting to admit to the disgrace that I am.

“We won’t be long,” I say with a forced smile.

I’m surprised she came out of her studio at all. We rarely see her when she has an upcoming exhibition, and when we do, it’s only so she can parade us around for the press – or parade Kirian, not me.