Semua Bab The Pretty Prince and the Beast King: Bab 1 - Bab 8

" Strip." The command was flat, followed by the metallic click of a safety being switched off. I did not move. Two Dreadfang guards stood over me in the windowless gravestone cell. These guys looked like they’d been sculpted out of determinedness and bad intentions. The fancy hallways of the manor house were gone, replaced by the damp, cold reality of the basement. " I said strip, Princey. Or we’ll do it for you." The guard on the left — a brute with a cauliflower observance — scowled. I did not say a word. I just reached for the buttons of my large suit jacket. My fritters were steady. I exfoliate the hair, the shirt, and the high collars I’d used to hide the verity for a decade. As the fabric hit the bottom, the guards’ trim aesthetics dissolved. They were not looking at a sickly scholar presently. They were looking at the corded muscle of my reverse and the jagged scars on my shoulders from times of silent, brutal training. " What the f**k is this?" the brute murmured, his eyes

"Left foot back. Weight on the balls of your feet. If you’re flat-footed, you’re dead."I didn’t shout. I didn’t have to. The three Dreadfang enforcers circling me in the manor’s gravel training yard were breathing like bellows. Sweat soaked their tactical shirts, and they looked at me with a mix of confusion and pure exhaustion. They were twice my size, built like brick walls, and they couldn’t touch me.One lunged. He swung a heavy, amateurish right hook that smelled of desperation.I didn't block it. I flowed. I stepped inside his guard, my palm catching his chin while my foot swept his ankle. He hit the gravel with a bone-deep thud. Before the other two could blink, I had the second man’s arm locked in a joint-break position and my boot pressed against the third man’s throat."Again," I snapped."Holy s**t," the man on the ground wheezed, spitting out a mouthful of grit. "Where did a Vaelis prince learn to move like that?""By watching people like you try to kill me for twenty yea

The silk of the royal tunic felt like grease against my skin. It was too soft. Too smooth. I missed the itchy wool of my old, oversized suits—the fabric that had been my camouflage for twenty-one years. Now, in the penthouse of the Navia Tower, there was nowhere to hide."Hold still, Your Majesty."The doctor, a man who smelled of latex and antiseptic, pressed a sensor against my neck. I didn't flinch. I was used to being a pin-cushion. Malrec had spent my childhood draining me; now the "liberators" were doing the same thing."The nanotech count in your blood is finally stabilizing," the doctor muttered, eyes glued to a tablet. "It’s incredible. The way your cells just... eat the virus. You’re a walking gold mine, Aradaa.""I’m a person," I snapped. My voice sounded hollow in the vast, marble room.I looked out the floor-to-ceiling windows. Below, the city was a graveyard trying to wake up. Black armored Dreadfang trucks patrolled the streets, their engines a constant, low growl. My p

"Where the hell is my sister, Voren?"Aradaa’s voice sliced through the clinking of crystal and the low hum of forced conversation. He stood at the head of the long mahogany table, his neck itching beneath the stiff, high collar of his black suit. Under the fabric, the port on his skin pulsed with a faint, sickly blue light.Kaelor’s fingers dug into the small of Aradaa's back. The heat from the King’s palm was the only thing stopping him from vibrating out of his skin. Around them, the dons of the neutral territories sat like vultures in tuxedos, their eyes darting between the "Beast" and his "Prince.""Patience, Aradaa. We’re here to celebrate, aren't we?" Kaelor’s voice was a low, dangerous rumble. He didn't look at the guests. He looked at the heavy oak doors at the end of the ballroom.Aradaa didn't need to look. He could hear them. Not the people, but their blood. The nanotech in the room was singing to him. He could feel the pulse of every man at the table—the jagged spikes of