Page 81 of Light in Your Eyes

"You deserve to die," he hisses. It’s not only his voice that is shaking with rage but his entire body. "You should fucking die."

He still has his tight grip on the knife planted in my flesh. I let out a shaky breath when my hand hovers over his to grab the knife. I feel like I’m about to break his fingers when I finally wrap mine around the handle.

I grit my teeth, my body shaking with pain. With all the energy mustered in my body, I slowly pull out the knife, fighting his power to put it back into my flesh. My roar rings in the air as I stare up at the ceiling. The knife clatters on the base of the ring after I pull it out.

People are rushing into the ring to separate us. I hear him roar in anger while they are dragging him away from me.

"Stay away from her," he hollers.

My heart almost stops because I know who he’s talking about.

"Stay the fuck away from her," he snaps at me. "She’s too good for you. You can’t even protect her, and you’ll never be able to, you fucking motherfucker."

He’s seething, and it’s chaos around us.

"I defeated you," he roars. "I won. I got her. That was your promise. Now give her to me, you fucking asshole."

His words remind me of the time I challenged my members near the fountain to get Layla—the night Layla arrived here for the first time.

I pant, pressing the wound on my arm as I hear my own heaving breathing.

"Kellan, are you okay?" unfamiliar voices keep asking me when they rush to me.

This is the first time that a member has attacked a king. I can imagine the shock on their faces.

"Please hold on," someone says. "We'll get you checked by the doctor as soon as possible."

I squeeze my eyes shut, but it’s not because of the pain.

Layla.

Why is she being dragged into this?

I can’t stop thinking about his words.

She’s too good for you.

You can’t even protect her.

"What the fuck did you think you just do?" a panicked, hysterical voice fills the air, coming from my opponent’s side. A guy is speaking to him. "Fuck. Did you even know what you just did? Why did you attack Kellan?"

"Because he deserved it—"

"Marco," the guy warns him to stop, his voice filled with fear. Fear of the punishment and consequences that would happen after attacking me, their king.

Marco. It’s not a familiar name to me. I don’t think that I've ever spoken to him, so I fucking don’t know why he could commit such an act.

My instinct tells me that he and Layla know each other. Judging from the way he spoke about her—there’s more to the story.

"Don’t worry about it, Kellan." Someone crouches down next to me, snapping me out of my thoughts. "We’ll make sure that he'll get the punishment he deserves."

There’s only one punishment for betrayal, and it will be even worse because it’s me—their king—that he just attacked.

Death. A painful death.

"No. Let him live." I grit my teeth.

I can imagine the surprise hitting the people surrounding me when I utter those words.