Page 18 of The Poison Princess and the Lord of Misrule

I need to stop.

There’s more than just pining after an unattainable princess that presents too many dangers. Tensions are running high within the court over the rumored revolt. Things are stirring. If I were more patient, I’d simply let them play out.

But I came here for a purpose, that it will bemewho ends the king, not a war.

And every day that I let myself be detoured, I feel as though I’m betraying more than my sister’s memory.

I enter a side corridor. The palace walkways are quieter in the mornings, before the court fully stirs. I’ve taken to walking them early, memorizing the layout. Which hallways lead to Aldric’s chambers. Which locations the guards rotate. Old habits from the criminal I used to be.

The king’s war room is on the second level of the east wing. He takes his councils there, surrounded by maps and advisors and the particular panic of men who’ve realized the countryside they’ve been bleeding dry is starting to bleed back.

I pass the door, my booted feet quiet on the stone, and hear the king’s rough voice through the oak. Low and deep, commanding. The voice of a man who revels in punishing anyone who so much as threatens his control over his kingdom.

I stop just around the corner as movement catches my eye through the cracked door.

Three people within the room that I can see. There’s a young woman kneeling on the stone floor while Aldric stands over her. His face is tensed, his jaw tight and eyes hard on her as his fingers fist in her dark hair.

“That’s it. Take me in, all the way to the back of your throat.” Aldric’s voice raises sharply. “Deeper.”

A flame licks through me, my muscles straining as I try to remain still, not to turn away at the tawdry,illicit sight taking place in the war room. The other man leans against the wall, stroking himself, watching.

And suddenly, a vile anger slithers into my core, the fear of seeing Sera’s sweet face as the woman on her knees. I shift closer, and the fire within me douses the moment I see the servant clothing she’s wearing, the bodice undone and the woman’s ample breasts spilling out the loosened laces.

The man groans and pushes off the wall. Then he’s lowering himself to the floor behind the woman, wrenching up her skirts, pushing inside her from the back.

Aldric snaps his hips. “Fuck her harder,” he commands through gritted teeth. “I want her sobbing, moans choked on my cock as I spill down her throat.”

The sound of skin slapping against skin rises above the salacious noises, and against my permission, my body reacts. Arousal builds in my veins, heat spreads through my body. My cock throbs until its hard length strains against my trousers—and I shamefully try to pull my gaze away but can’t.

The woman’s head is yanked back just as Aldric unleashes a guttural curse. Perched on her knees, legs spread wide, her body jostled and rocking from the impact of being fucked from behind, she stares up at the king with wide, teary eyes.

He smears his thumb across her puffy lips, an enraged sneer hardening his features. “You’re not her,” he mutters, right before he stabs his cock back into her mouth with aviolent thrust. “Fuck, I hate her—with her pouty fucking mouth?—”

Then his long, ringed fingers are wrapping her throat, squeezing. She chokes, gasping for air, as Aldric fucks himself hard into her mouth. He groans through his release, hips jerking as his shoulders hit the stone wall behind him, his hand forcing the woman’s mouth deeper onto his shaft as he ruts into her mouth until he’s finished.

Chest heaving, Aldric pushes her away.

Not wasting a beat, the other man splays the woman out on the floor—but my gaze is tracking Aldric, measuring the disgust he wears on his face, to where he stops before a window.

His trousers undone, they hang low on his hips. He anchors his palms against the sills of the tall window as he stares down. “Get out,” he says in a low, dangerous tone.

Fear flits through my body, urging me to back away from the door, but my gaze remains on the king, on the anger thrumming through his taut frame. Neither of them move, still invested in fucking on the floor. “Get out!” he roars.

They scramble to their feet, clothing being drawn up and fastened in a hurry. The man barrels past me without notice, but the woman nearly collides with me in the corridor. Her eyes are damp, her lips swollen and hair a tangled mess. She flinches, only to duck past without a word.

I remain here in silence and breathethrough my nose, my fists clenching until my knuckles ache. Anger churns in my guts. The king is right there, so close. A living, breathing sick bastard who fucks servants and punishes them for not beingher.

The greedy bastard who taxed the healers out of my village. The same man who will put his cruel, filthy hands on Sera in a matter of weeks.

And what will he do to her when he does get to have his way with her? How will he punish Sera for how much he claims to hate her?

My blood runs so hot I can hear it simmering in my ears.

I could do it. Seven hells, rightnow. Just walk through that open door, take the goblet from his table, smash it and drive the glass shards into his throat. I’d die for it in a matter of seconds—the guards would cut me down before his body hits the floor.

But it would be done, finished.

He would be dead, his legacy of cruelty with him.