Page 75 of Bound

Beck pulls me onto his lap, and Cian leans close, completelyencircling me. “I swear, brother, I have no idea how they consider you to bethe intellectual half of us. Your brain is constantly full of sex.”

“I’m also calculating the approximate amount of rainfallwe’ll need in order to bring in the spinach crop within the month. If we don’tget it, I have diagrams in my head for an even better irrigation system,” Cianexplains. “Another part of my brain is giving careful consideration to theargument I got into with Flanna about the monarchial system of government andits impact on the peasant class. I’m thinking about the fluctuations in thevampire stock market when they realize we’ve bonded. Sue and Dante are going tomake a killing. But mostly, it’s just sex.”

“Are you sure you want to experience what it’s like to behim?” Meg asks with a smile. “It’s crowded in that head of his.”

“I’ll take my chances, wife,” Beck replies and kisses mehard before resting his forehead to mine. “Is tù mo ghrà.”

I hold his head in my hands and give him back his words.“You are my love.”

I press my forehead against his, thankful for the strengthCian is lending me. He holds my shoulders and lets me feel his devotion. I openmy mind and, in a second, I become Beckett Finn.

Such rage. The emotion floods me like it did thefirst moment we connected. It’s different this time because he isn’t pushing itthrough me. There’s no madness to this. This is merely a piece of Beck. I hearCian groan behind me and know he’s formed his connection. Cian pushes nothingoutward but helps me take in what Beck needs to give.

Need. The idea takes over as I fall into Beck’s mind. Heneeds so much. He’s a lonely child. He misses his brother. They spent everysecond connected from the moment they were conceived until they turned fiveyears old. That’s when his father decides it’s time for the warrior to learn tobe a king. He discounts the importance of Cian’s input. In their father’s mind,the warrior is all that matters. Cian is an afterthought.

Beck often wishes he could trade places with his brother.

I’m suddenly staring out a palace window. In the background,there are men droning on about something or other. They usually complain abouttaxes or crop yield. Beck’s seven-year-old self doesn’t care. He gazes out thewindow and watches Cian running after their cousin, Dante. Cian catches theyoung vampire and screams something about him being “it.” Beck wants to run andplay, but his father explained that he’s different. He’s better. He can besthis brother at running and fighting. He can best anyone at those things. Hetrains only with the greatest warriors. His physical skills are not things totoy with.

But Beck wants to play.

He’s only twelve the first time he kills a man. It’s thefirst time someone tries to assassinate him. He can still remember the feel ofthe bright sun on his face as he follows after his father. There’s an Unseelieambassador in town, and it almost caused a riot in the square. His father istrying to normalize relations with the Unseelie, but there’s a faction of sidhewho will never accept it. They hate the Unseelie tribe. Many lost relatives inthe wars.

Beck shadows his father through town. His father is arrogantand sure of his peoples’ love for him. He only brings one guard with them. Hisname is Carlin, and he is the one who taught Beck how to play cards. Carlin issympathetic to Beck, sometimes slipping him a candied fig. He has two sons ofhis own, after all.

The arrow hits the guard squarely in the chest, knocking himback and off his feet. He’s dead before he hits the ground. I feel the angerthat suffuses young Beck’s being. His father tries to pull him to safety, butBeck unsheathes his sword and opens his senses for the first time. It’sinstinctive. His eye follows the logical track of the arrow. He rolls out ofthe way of the next one to come after him. I feel a charge of excitement as heshoots to his feet and pursues the assassin and hears his father’s anxiouscries.

I see the blood on his hands when he catches the assassin.He ignores the man’s pleas for mercy. Beck’s beast is loose, and he has nomercy. The large man took something Beck valued. He took from Beck, and he willnever do so again.

It’s the first time Beck realizes his father is afraid ofhim.

I groan as the scene in his head changes. Sex. This isBeck’s outlet.

A woman named Sorcha, one of his mother’s ladies, takes iton herself to teach him. She gives him permission to do what he wants, and hetakes her at her word. He dominates her. He owns and possesses her. He fucksher when and where he wants, and she obeys. It takes the edge off his rageknowing someone soft trusts him. Only Cian ever trusts him. Even Bronwyn looksat him with fear sometimes. Sorcha begs him to fuck her. She cuddles in hisarms afterward. That time is sweet, too. He enjoys taking care of her after.

I gasped at the pain I feel. His father hits him with theflat of his sword. He does it in front of fifty of his strongest soldiers. Hehumiliates his son for his perversity.

Beck swears to never give in to those urges again. Shamebecomes a mantle to wear as he does armor.

Then all is blood and carnage.

Acrid smoke fills my nostrils, and Beck’s heart pumps withrage as he realizes his father is dead. There’s a tiny part of him that revelsin the old man’s death. He’s king now. He’s in his rightful place. No one willtell him what to do or how to act again. If they do, he’ll take care of it. Hewill be king not by right of ascension, but because he can kill anyone whoquestions his place. Torin gave him this gift.

A wave of disgust flows through me, and I know this isBeck’s real torment. He’s torn by his own nature. His father abused andhumiliated him, but Beck loved him anyway.

The sword Beck holds as he surveys the decimation of Torin’sguard is the sword of the rightful King of the Seelie Fae. He uses it to kill ahundred of Torin’s advance guard. He slices through them with an easyefficiency. His body hums with anticipation of more. He enjoys it. He likes theblood and the feel of his sword penetrating flesh. He loves the dance ofbattle.

Through the smoke he sees Torin. His uncle is surrounded byguards. It’s easy to kill them, too. More are coming. Beck can hear them.They’re making their way through the chaos toward their leader. It won’tmatter. Beck circles his uncle. Torin will be dead as they walk into the greathall, and then they will join their brethren.

Torin isn’t willing to go down easy. He holds his sword, andhis eyes are no longer arrogant. “Even now, my soldiers are hunting yourbrother. They will cut him down where he stands.”

Beck’s blood is up. “It will not kill me.”

Torin looks disturbed by that statement. “It will,eventually. He is your brother.”

Beck smiles. He knows it’s a ghastly thing. He nods to thethrone where his father’s body lays, still and cooling. “There lies yourbrother. Perhaps we are more alike than you think, Uncle.”

Torin, who was always a pale imitation of Beck’s father,twists his unhandsome face into a mask of jealousy. “The crown should have beenmine. My father always favored Seamus. It should have been mine.”