Cruel King (Royal Elite 0)

“Let’s run,” he repeats.

“The answer is still no.”

He slides beside me, crowding my space. His eyes gleam with menace and the air shifts.

The park and its runners hush in the background. All I can hear is the thumping of my heart and all I can smell is Levi’s clean, intoxicating scent.

“We can sit here and catch up about what happened on Saturday. You know, the whole part about eating you up,” he whispers so low, it’s sinful. “Do you want to know if I jacked off to your orgasm face?”

I jerk up and start running to hide the heat creeping up my cheeks.

Did he really jack off to me?

Wrong thought, Astrid. Super wrong thought.

Levi catches up to me, chuckling softly. He must be finding all of this too amusing.

Bastard.

While I put every ounce of energy I have to run, Levi seems like he’s strolling in the park.

His legs don’t flex as much as mine — stupid tall people. While I’m already sweating like a pig, there’s not an ounce of sweat on his forehead.

When I glance at him, his hard stare is on me. He’s not even putting up an effort to run and is only keeping up with my pace. It’d be suicide to ask him for a race.

His muscles expand and move with ease. Even his breathing comes in and out with ease, unlike my choppy one.

After a few laps around the park, sweat coats my temples and my hands. My legs scream to be put out of their misery as if I just finished a marathon.

I fall against the bench, panting so hard my heart almost leaps out of my throat.

“I’m done. So done.”

Dark laughter fills my ears as a bottle of water is thrust into my face. I don’t know where he got that from, but I don’t care as I gulp half of it down in one go.

Levi slides beside me, his chest rising and falling steadily while mine nearly breaks down from the erratic breathing.

When I glance at him, he’s taking a sip from the same bottle I did, that familiar spark taking over his eyes.

I lick my lips. He’s drinking from it on purpose, isn’t he?

“How do you aliens do this all the time?” I stare ahead to distract myself from his glistening lips.

Damn his lips.

“It’s all about stamina. Besides, you’re doing it all wrong.”

I wipe the sweat off my eyebrows and my temple. “I’m doing it all wrong because I’m not supposed to be doing it at all.”

He smiles. “No, I meant that you shouldn’t waste all your energy at the beginning. You have to divide your strength and pick up slowly.”

“Like at the games?”

“Sort of.”

I peek at him, not sure if I want to poke the bull by his horns. “Then what happened last game?”

His face closes until there are only unreadable lines. It’s like he had his guard down and now he’s closing the fort.