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Chapter 8: The Queen’s First Blood
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2026-01-18 02:57:02The second man froze halfway between the vent and the floor, his eyes darting from his fallen partner to the small, steady hand holding the gun. He didn’t expect a "Princess" to pull the trigger. He expected a victim.
"You little bitch," he spat, his hand reaching for the holster at his hip. "Do you have any idea who sent us? The Council doesn't—" Bang. I didn't let him finish the sentence. The recoil of the pistol jolted up my arm, but I held my ground. The bullet grazed his shoulder, spinning him around. He let out a "furious" cry of pain, lunging at me with a desperate, clumsy speed. I didn't have time to aim again. We collided, the weight of him slamming me back against Malakai’s mahogany desk. The gun skittered across the floor, out of reach. His hands—rough and smelling of grease—clamped around my throat. "Betty said you were a brat," he wheezed, his face inches from mine, "but she didn't say you were a killer. I'm going to enjoy breaking you before I hand you over." I couldn't breathe. The spots were dancing in my eyes, but I remembered the "no joke" weight in my other hand. The dagger. I didn't think. I didn't hesitate. I drove the blade upward, catching him right under the ribs. His eyes went wide, the pressure on my throat suddenly vanishing as he gasped for air that wouldn't come. I pushed him off me, watching as he collapsed onto the expensive Persian rug. I stood there, gasping for breath, my silk slip torn and stained with the blood of a man who tried to put a leash on me. "Leona!" The library door kicked open so hard it hit the wall with a crack. Malakai stood there, looking like a god of war. He was covered in soot and blood, his chest heaving. His eyes scanned the room, taking in the two bodies on the floor and then landing on me, standing there with the bloody dagger in my hand. For a second, I thought he’d be angry. I thought he’d tell me I should have stayed in the box. Instead, a dark, "sex freak" grin spread across his face. It was the most terrifying and beautiful thing I had ever seen. He walked over the bodies, ignoring them completely, and pulled me into his arms. He didn't care about the blood. He didn't care about the "bloodbath" outside. "That’s my girl," he whispered, his voice thick with a new kind of obsession. He tilted my head back, his thumb tracing the faint red marks on my neck where the man had choked me. His eyes turned "furious" again. "He touched you." "He’s dead, Malakai," I whispered, my voice sounding older, colder. "They're both dead." "Good," he growled, pulling me into a kiss that tasted like iron and victory. "Because we have to move. The 'bitch ass' Council is sending reinforcements, and Betty has leaked our coordinates to every bounty hunter in the state. This house is compromised." "Where are we going?" I asked, looking at the fire starting to lick at the curtains in the foyer. "To the docks," Malakai said, picking up the fallen pistol and handing it back to me. "We’re leaving the country. If they want a war, we’ll give them one—but we’re going to fight it from a place where the sun never sets on our sin." He grabbed a heavy duffel bag from behind the desk—filled with cash and passports—and squeezed my hand. "Are you ready to be a Queen of the shadows, Leona? Because after today, there is no going back." I looked at the bodies on the floor, then up at the man who would burn the world for me. "I’m ready."
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The chandelier light shattered against the gold-leaf ceilings, but the warmth of the room felt like ice against my skin. Malakai and I moved through the crowd like a twin-edged blade, silent and incisive. Every bloodthirsty socialite in the room looked like a ghost to me—only two people mattered. "Wait for my signal," Malakai whispered, his voice a clandestine rasp against my ear. He didn't look at me; his focus was locked on the Chairman and Betty. They were moving toward a private balcony, away from the prying eyes of the Roman elite. This was our window. We followed them, slipping through the heavy velvet curtains just as the cool night air hit us. Betty was laughing—that high, tinkling sound that used to make me want to hide under my bed. "I'm telling you, Chairman," Betty said, her voice dripping with calculated greed. "Malakai is obsessed. He’s impulsive. He’ll take her to the Mediterranean and stay there until he runs out of lead. You have him cornered." "And the
Waking up to my sin Chapter 15: The Roman Masquerade
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Waking up to my sin Chapter 14: Echoes of the Hunt
The serenity of the island was an illusion, and we both knew it. By the third day, the air felt heavy, charged with the kind of static that precedes a lightning strike. I was on the terrace, cleaning the soot from my palms after another session with the steel, when the silence of the cliffs was shattered by the rhythmic thrum-thrum-thrum of a distant engine. It wasn't a boat. It was a helicopter, black and sleek, cresting the horizon like a hornet looking for a place to sting. "Malakai!" I called out, my voice tight. He emerged from the villa instantly. He didn't look surprised; he looked resolute. He was already carrying a long-range rifle, his movements fluid and calculated. He didn't even look at the sky; he looked at me. "Get inside, Leona. Down to the cellar. Now." "No," I said, the word coming out sharper than I expected. I felt that furious surge of rebellion in my gut. "You said we were partners. You said the bloodthirsty Council would come, and I’m not hiding in a h
Waking up to my sin Chapter 13: The Iron Lesson
The island smelled of wild rosemary and gun oil. It was a jagged tooth of rock jutting out of the Mediterranean, a fortress of solitude that felt a thousand miles away from the "bitch ass" politics of Newtown.Malakai led me up a narrow, winding path toward a stone villa that looked like it had been carved directly into the cliffside. He didn't look back to see if I was keeping up; he knew I was. He had a way of commanding the space around him, a raw, sovereign energy that made the local wildlife go silent as he passed.Once we reached a flat plateau overlooking the sea, he stopped. He pulled two crates from a hidden cache beneath a tarp. One contained water; the other was filled with enough hardware to start a small revolution."The Council is going to send their best 'Cleaning Crews' after us, Leona," he said, his voice as cold as the steel he was handling. "They think you're a weak link. They think I’m distracted by my obsession. We’re going to prove them wrong."He handed me t
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Waking up to my sin Chapter 11: Salt and Sin
The roar of the yacht’s engines was the only thing drowning out the frantic thudding of my heart. Newtown was nothing more than a faint, glowing orange smudge on the horizon, a tombstone for the girl I used to be. I stood at the stern, my fingers white-knuckled as I gripped the cold railing. My red silk dress was ruined—torn at the hem and stained with a mixture of salt spray and the blood of men who had tried to keep me in a cage. I looked down at my hands; they were shaking. "The wind is picking up. Get inside, Leona." The voice was low, vibrating through the floorboards and straight into my heels. I didn't have to turn around to know it was Malakai. I could feel the "furious" heat radiating off him, a silent storm that followed him everywhere. "I can't," I whispered, my voice cracking. "If I go inside, it becomes real. If I go inside, I’m not just running away... I’m yours." I felt him move. He didn't walk; he prowled. Suddenly, he was directly behind me, his massive fram
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