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“For your sake,” the prince said softly, “I’d advise you not to say another word about her.”
“Her? Do you mean Fawn? Mygirlfriend?” Now that he had found a crack in the prince’s mask, Grant clawed into it greedily, sneering, “She’s exactly what I said. Awhore.Acock-sucking whore—-”
The prince hissed, “This is your last warning—-”
Victory tasted so damn sweet, and Grant lost his head with it. “Since she seems to fucking love cocks so much, I think I’m going to invite her out and have all the guys from the council have fun with her. They can take fucking turns—-”
Either Grant was too drunk or the prince was too fast, but the next thing he knew, he was choking, with the cold metallic barrel of the prince’s gun shoved halfway inside his mouth.
His terrified gaze collided with the prince’s, and Grant could feel his blood leeching off his face as he found himself staring into the eyes of a killer.
“Be very still, Bennett.” The prince’s tone was exquisitely soft, almost dangerously playful, if playing with a man’s fate was a game. “Move too much, and I might accidentally pull the trigger—-”
Grant whitened.
“—-like this.” The prince pulled the trigger, the gun fired, and the cylinder spun for the next shot.
Grant screamed.
A second later, the prince retrieved the gun from Grant’s mouth, and Grant fell to his knees, trembling hard, unable to believe what had just happened.
Over his head, the prince crooned, “You got lucky.”
Grant heard the prince cock his gun.
“Shall we play again?”
Fear razed his mind, and Grant started to throw up—-
The prince yanked his head back by the hair, and the barrel was back inside his mouth, forcing Grant to swallow his own vomit. “Do you know,” the prince crooned, “I’ve always been just a little jealous of you, for knowing Fawn before I did. I despised you for it, Bennett, and because of it, the mere sight of you repulsed me.” The prince’s grip tightened around his gun. “But I’ve never wished you dead until now.”
A frightened sob tumbled past Grant’s trembling lips.
“You don’t know,” the prince whispered. “You don’t fucking know how close I am to killing you right now.”
But he did,Grant thought sickly. He did know how close the prince was to taking his life.
“And I probably would have killed you,” the prince murmured, “if certain circumstances didn’t require me to keep you alive.”
It was all in those merciless eyes of his—-
“So here’s what’s going to happen instead. I need you to do several things for me—-”
And if Grant made the smallest mistake—-
“I will tell you what it is, and you will do them.”
He would be dead.
“Do you understand?”
Grant knew he should sayyes. And he did mean to, only fear got the better of him, and he choked—-
It was not the answer the prince wanted.
The gun fired the second time.
Air exploded inside his mouth, and a silent scream of horror tore out of him. His body jerked and shuddered, and it took several moments for his senses to return, for his brain to accept that he wasn’t dead—-