Page 42 of Monsters Wear Crowns (Crowned Monsters Duet #1)

“Don’t leave me,” he whispered, his voice barely a breath. “Please, Adela.”

And then his mouth crashed against mine.

It was brutal, demanding and unforgiving, and I met him with every ounce of fire in me.

The room spun as he pressed me down, his weight pinning me to the bed, his hands rough on my skin–not gentle, not careful.

This wasn’t tenderness at all. This was something else entirely.

Possession .

But that fear still coiled in my stomach like a viper, even as my body responded to him.

“Do you think you can just keep me like this?” I whispered against his lips, my voice shaking but defiant.

“That you can lock me away, and I’ll stay?

I didn’t build my empire by being weak. I built it by being ruthless.

And I’m not about to let you forget that. ”

Rafe’s eyes flashed, and the grip on my wrists tightened, not enough to hurt, but enough to warn. Enough to remind me of exactly who he was. “Power isn’t given. It’s taken. And once it’s mine, it’s never surrendered,” he said softly. “Including you.”

A shiver ran through me. “You don’t own me.”

His mouth curved in a slow, dangerous smile. “Don’t I?” He released my wrists only to drag his hand down my throat, his thumb brushing against the fluttering pulse there.

Moreau’s words echoed in my mind.

He’ll destroy you, just like your mother .

That cold whisper wound through the heat between us, and suddenly, it was too much. The weight of it. The danger. The terrifying pull of this man who never gave me enough–never gave me what I needed, only what he wanted.

“Stop,” I said, my voice shaking. “ Seriously .”

He froze instantly, his breathing ragged, his grip still firm. But his eyes–God, his eyes. That darkness in them burned so hot I could feel it on my skin. “Why?” His voice was low and rough.

“Because I don’t know what this is,” I said, my throat tightening. “I don’t know if I can trust you. Every time I go to confront you, you turn it into sex.”

That did it. The heat vanished in an instant, replaced by a frigid cold. Rafe pulled back, his face unusually gaunt. “You think I’d hurt you?”

“I don’t know what you’d do.”

For a long moment, he didn’t move. And then, slowly, he stood. The loss of his body against mine felt like a sudden, brutal cold snap. “You want the truth, Adela?” he asked quietly.

“Yes. Or I’ll go to Moreau for it.”

He looked at me, and the man standing there wasn’t the one who kissed me with desperation and fire. This man was a stranger. Distant and dangerous. A muscle ticked in his jaw like he had to physically hold himself back from laying his hands on me. “I don’t know if I can promise not to hurt you.”

The air left my lungs. “Rafe–”

“But I can promise I’ll never let anyone else touch you.”

It wasn’t the comfort I wanted. But maybe it was the only comfort he could offer. “You still haven’t told me the truth,” I whispered. “About my mother. Moreau keeps pressing.”

For a second, just a second, something like pain flickered across his face. But it was gone before I could hold onto it.

“Not tonight,” he said.

I wanted to scream. To hit him. But my voice was gone, my heart a hollow, pounding thing in my chest. And when he walked out, closing the door behind him, the silence he left behind was deafening.

“Stop running away!” My voice cracked through the room, sharp and furious. “Just answer me, Rafe!”

Suddenly, he was right in front of me, too close and fast. “You don’t want the truth, Adela. You really fucking don’t.”

“I don’t need your protection!”

“Yes, you do!” he roared, his face twisting with something wild and untamed. I saw the moment he lost his grip on his temper, the second the storm inside him snapped free. He shoved me, not hard enough to knock me over but hard enough to make my breath hitch.

And I saw red.

Before I could stop myself, my palm cracked across his face. The sound echoed through the room like a gunshot. For a heartbeat, there was silence. Then his hand was on my throat, his grip firm but not crushing, his eyes searing into mine.

“Careful, little doe ,” he warned, his voice a low snarl. “You don’t want to see what happens when I stop holding back.” He squeezed my throat, pressing his entire body against mine.

My pulse raced beneath his fingers, fear and desire warring inside me. But I didn’t look away. I wouldn’t. “Then stop holding back,” I whispered. “Tell me. Or I swear to God, Rafe, I will leave.”

His grip tightened just a fraction, and then he froze.

I saw it happen. The crack in his armor. The flash of panic behind his eyes. And just like that, the fight drained out of him.

“You’ll hate me,” he said hoarsely. “If I tell you, you’ll never look at me the same way again.”

“Maybe not,” I whispered. “But I need the truth.”

He stared at me for a long, agonizing moment. Then he released me, stepping back like I burned him. His hands raked through his hair, his chest rising and falling like he couldn’t quite catch his breath. “This…this is a mistake.”

“Please,” I said, my voice breaking. “If you care about me at all…just tell me.”

He turned away, pacing to the far side of the room. And when he finally spoke, his voice was low and rough, like it physically pained him to get the words out. “My father,” he said slowly. “He was having an affair with your mother.”

The floor tilted beneath me. “What?”

“When we were teenagers. Your father was…negligent,” he said bitterly. “Too busy building his empire to care about the woman he married. And my father...he saw an opportunity.”

“No,” I whispered. My head shook, but the word felt hollow. “No, that’s…that’s not true.”

But I already knew it was. It made an odd amount of sense.

“She threatened to tell your father when things got too complicated,” Rafe continued, his voice tight and raw. “But my father…he couldn’t risk that. He couldn’t risk yours turning his empire against him.”

The air went cold.

“So he killed her,” Rafe said softly. “And I…” He swallowed hard. “I couldn’t stop him.”

The room spun.

My knees buckled, and I sank onto the edge of the bed. My ears were ringing, my breath coming in short, sharp bursts. “I knew she was killed by one of my father’s enemies,” I whispered. “But this…”

“I didn’t want you to know,” Rafe said, his voice barely above a whisper. “Not because I wanted to protect my father. But because I knew...once you heard it...you’d never trust me again.”

I lifted my eyes to his, and the look on his face cracked my heart. He looked destroyed. Broken. Like the words had cost him everything. And maybe they had. But the only thing I could feel was the gaping hole his truth had torn through me.

“He beat the fuck out of me for years,” he huffed a wild laugh. “And now, I’m filled with the same violence that he unleashed on everyone he claimed to give a shit about. I’m hi m , now, Adela.”

I sat frozen on the edge of the bed, my mind struggling to catch up with the weight of what Rafe had just told me.

My mother. His father.

The betrayal cut deep–not just because of what happened, but because this meant Rafe had known. This whole time, he’d known. And still, he’d touched me. He’d claimed me.

I didn’t know whether to scream, cry, or run.

But I couldn’t seem to do any of those things.

“Adela…” His voice broke on my name, and I looked up at him.

He was standing by the window now, his body rigid and still, but his eyes…

his eyes gave him away. They were wild and desperate, filled with a fear I’d never seen from him before.

He looked like a man standing on the edge of a cliff, waiting to be pushed.

“If you…” He swallowed hard. “If you want to leave this time, I won’t stop you.”

But his body betrayed him. His hands were clenched into fists at his sides, his shoulders taut like he was preparing for battle. And the way his eyes flicked toward the door…

I didn’t believe him.

If I moved, he’d be on me. I knew it.

But I didn’t move.

I couldn’t.

My throat tightened painfully, and when I finally spoke, my voice was barely above a whisper. “I’m not leaving you.”

The words hung there. And Rafe…God, the way he looked at me then was like he didn’t believe it. Like he couldn’t.

“Adela–”

“I’m not leaving you,” I said again, firmer this time, needing him to hear it.

His breath shuddered out of him, and in two long strides, he was there. He dropped to his knees in front of me, his hands sliding up my thighs, his forehead pressing against my stomach like the fight had drained out of him.

“I don’t deserve you,” he whispered.

My fingers tangled in his hair, and when he lifted his head, his face was so open, so raw, it stole my breath. “I’m yours,” I said softly. “Even when I hate you…I’m still yours.”

The noise he made was low and rough as he stood, and then his mouth was on mine.

It was fierce, like he was trying to erase every inch of distance between us.

His hands framed my face, his thumbs brushing over my cheekbones, and then suddenly, I was lifted, my legs wrapping around his waist as he stood, never breaking the kiss.

He carried me back to the bed, his body pressing me down into the mattress, and there was nothing soft about the way he took me–only heat and need and whatever dark, broken thing we shared.

But even then, with his hands on my skin and his mouth branding mine, I couldn’t shake the feeling that this was a fight neither of us would win.

Not against Moreau.

Not against each other.

Not against the truth.

The room was heavy with silence, broken only by the staggered rhythm of our breathing.

The air was full of everything we couldn’t say out loud.

Rafe’s body was a solid, burning weight above mine, his skin slick with sweat, his chest rising and falling like he’d just outrun something impossible. And maybe he had.

But no matter how close he got, no matter how tightly he held me, it still wasn’t close enough.

It never was.