Reign of a King (Kingdom Duet 1)

I open my mouth to scream, but it remains slack and nothing comes out. I contemplate pedalling straight off the edge of a cliff.

Maybe if I do, I won’t feel Dad’s betrayal and Alicia’s loss.

Maybe I can erase today from my memories and I can call Alicia and she’ll pick up. I can solve a puzzle with Dad and make him pizza afterwards and we’ll binge-watch true crime on Netflix.

But driving myself over the edge won’t solve anything.

It won’t bring back life to the dead woman he drug across the ground.

I pedal all the way to the town centre, ignoring the screams of my exhausted leg muscles and the funny way people look at me. Some greet me, but I don’t reply. I can’t.

There are only a few words in my mouth, and none of them are meant to be said back as a greeting.

I stop in front of a shabby building, throw my bike aside, and forge in. I hesitate at the threshold, but then I recall Alicia’s soft voice.

‘The silence of an accomplice is similar to committing the crime.’

Alicia, whom I can’t see again. Alicia, who was stolen from my life as if she never existed.

I barge inside and a few officers pause at my entrance. I must look like a mess, soaked in rain, my clothes glued to my skin, and my face must be pale, lips blue from the cold.

A black officer approaches me, his eyes firm but welcoming. “May I help you, Miss?”

“I…I want to report a murder.”

21

Jonathan

Aurora isn’t home when I get back.

She isn’t answering her phone either. And my last email is still without a reply.

I’m not to be ignored. If she’s throwing one of her fits or acting out, I’m going to take it out on her arse.

Only, she’s not the type who throws a fit withou

t a solid reason. This morning, she came all over my fingers after she licked her plate clean.

When I let her go, she smoothed her skirt and grumbled that she needed a change of clothes as she headed back to her room.

There was no need for a fit.

No matter how she feels wronged, Aurora realises how much she needs the touch only I can provide. She knows that she can’t fight herself when it comes to me. The harder she denies it, the faster her body falls under my command.

There’s euphoria in the way she falls, even when she doesn’t want to. I’m slowly shaping her to be my perfect submissive, but at the same time, I don’t want to extinguish her fire. I also don’t want to erase the way she glares up at me every time she comes down from her high.

She hates that she can’t resist of her trance when it comes to me. And because she can’t do anything about it, she directs that hatred towards me.

I’m fine with it. As long as I have her in my grasp.

It started with the need to unravel her and the blasphemy of thinking she could keep a secret from me.

Now, it’s more.

I don’t even understand it myself, but I’m ready to see it until the very end.

Which brings me to her flat.