Page 17 of Henrikk’s Masquerade

“I could honour the engagement, if you like,” he said with a slow smile. “I could bed you both.”

He meant it in jest, but realised the moment the words left his lips that he likely would do just that. He could and would marry that silly girl, especially if it meant he could see Asher’s lovely, dangerous, fiery eyes every day. If it meant that Asher would glare at him, just the way he was doing now, giving him ice and fire that burnt through his flesh and muscle, heating his bones and iron-hard cock.

“You’re despicable,” Asher said with disgust.

“Don’t sound so disappointed,” Henrikk crooned.

“You never used to be like this.”

Henrikk deflected the words, refusing to let them absorb, or think about the truth of them.

He must not be anything else but what he was.

Kill me Asher, he begged internally. Kill me, or bend over and let me fuck you and reach release, but do not look at me as if you see anything but a monster.

Do not make this role any harder to play.

Asher’s eyes narrowed, and one of the lines around his mouth ticked with tension. He was fuming. But somehow, he was still holding in his rage.

Just one more provocation to bring him to boil.

“I had hoped to be a peacekeeper, to mend severed family ties, but perhaps I overstepped,” Henrikk lamented with a manipulative smile.

Asher raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

“I will make amends.”

Asher snorted. “How?”

“I will dissolve the engagement quietly. I will not make her queen, but ensure she has a place amongst my courtiers, if she wishes to stay.” He had kept his face sombre, but his lips curled as he added, “And I will keep her in the royal suite as my secret mistress and fuck her regardless. Or perhaps I’ll make her watch as I take you. Which would you prefer? She could suck me off afterwards—”

Asher snapped, moving before Henrikk had even finished his sentence. A sword’s steel flashed menacingly as he swung, a strike delivered with deadly conviction. Henrikk dodged the sword’s arc and sprang for the curtained doors, laughing with mirth as he burst through.

Asher roared with rage and followed, slashing the heavy curtains and plunging through.

Henrikk stifled his laughter as he slipped around a mirrored corner. “I wonder if your dear sister has found her way back to the ball?” he called behind him as he darted through the disorientating corridors. “If I find her trapped in this maze, I’ll be sure to rut her the same way I took your ass.”

A loud impact resonated amidst the sound of mirrors shattering. Asher was trying to break a path through to him.

This is too easy.

Henrikk grinned triumphantly as he darted left, then right, then right again, his reflection magnified a thousand times in the mirrored walls, distorted beyond recognition.

The maze had fallen eerily silent, and the deeper he went, the fewer torches there were. Its dark depths did not scare him. The darkness was his friend, and he blended into the shadows as he stalked through the maze.

Asher was blinded by his rage, and though the silence pressed on Henrikk’s ears, he was confident that the oaf’s thumping footsteps would give him ample warning that he was near.

Henrikk licked his lips, savouring the win in advance, his fingers itching to get a hold on those thick, muscled hips.

Poor Asher. The hunter had just become prey.

Henrikk slipped out of the narrow corridor he’d been creeping through and approached a four-way intersection.

It was quiet.

So quiet, in fact, that he started to suspect that Asher had escaped the maze. Returned to the ballroom or gone back to the balcony and scaled down the castle wall.

Ridiculous.