Page 19 of The King’s Man (The Kingdom of the Krow #3)

~ DIADRE ~

I screamed, clawing at the dirt as that fucker dragged me backwards by one foot through the entire camp—every Nephilim present watched. Some of them nodding.

“Please!” I begged. “Help me! Please!”

But they smiled.

As the monster pushed back the tent flap to drag me inside, I knew. I knew what would happen, Jann broke through the crowd, rushing—and stopped dead right on the edge of the gathered Neph, staring down at me.

Relief and pure hope. “Thank God, Jann! Please—help me! He’s—”

But Jann turned to the man next to him and tipped a thumb towards me, asking a question I couldn’t hear over my own screams.

I was jerked backwards again and caught his foot. On the next tug I was pulled up and off the ground by the tension between my grip and the Neph’s grip on me. But Jann growled and kicked me loose.

I screamed his name over and over, grabbing anything I could to keep myself out of that tent, clawing the rocks, breaking nails, scrabbling until my fingers bled. But he only turned cold eyes on me and shook his head like I was annoying.

Then the tent flap fell in front of my face and they all disappeared and I sobbed, desperately trying to crawl away as that monster ripped off my leathers and growled the things he planned to do to me.

I tried to rise, to run, but I was shoved face-first into the dirt. Then, as I spluttered, he flipped me over onto my back and a thick, hard length nudged between my thighs.

“NO!”

Huge hands grasping for mine as I clawed and fought, spitting and screaming.

“NO, YOU FUCKER!”

“Diadre, wake up!”

My eyes flew open and my pulse banged in my skull.

Jann.

Jann leaning over me, eyes wide, and staring. Breathing hard. His shoulders rising and falling.

“It was a dream,” he breathed. “Just a dream.”

I blinked, my breath coming in sobs as Jann flopped down to the furs next to me, panting. “It was a dream. You’re safe,” he whispered, his voice tight and tormented. “Just breathe.”

Body quivering and eyes stinging, I lay there, staring at the ceiling of the tent, blinking and trying to get my body back under control.

It was a dream. Just a dream.

And that warm, hard length was his body, alongside mine. Because he had to be seen to claim me… and I was too scared to sleep alone.

“You’re safe, Diadre. I promise.” His calloused hand reached for mine and he twined our fingers, mine spread wide because his hands were so big. But I didn’t let go, because it helped. It helped to hold onto him.

“Do you want to tell me?” he asked a minute later, whispering into the dark now that I wasn’t panting anymore.

“You were there,” I said immediately. “He was dragging me away and you were there and you wouldn’t help me—” I broke off because the words were harder to say than I’d expected.

It was just a damn dream. But it felt so real!

Jann cursed and pushed up on his elbow, still laying alongside me, but looking down on me.

“Diadre… look at me.”

It was hard to meet his gaze. That golden gaze that seemed like it shouldn’t be trusted. And yet…

And yet he was the only one who’d protected me.

When I finally made myself look at him, those eyes blazed.

“I killed him. He’s gone.”

“But the r-rest of them—”

“This was a dream,” he said bluntly. “It’s never going to happen. I should never have let you storm off like that. I’m sorry I failed you. But I learned. I will tear the head off any man who so much as looks at you sideways. Do you believe me?”

Strangely, I found that I did. I nodded.

“Then you rest with that,” he said with a simple nod, before settling back down again, on his side this time. “You remember that. You could walk naked through this camp at the height of a frenzy and I will protect you. You have my word.”

The tears threatened, but I swallowed them back. I wished he’d hold my hand again, but didn’t know how to ask. So I nodded and breathed my gratitude. Then stared at the ceiling of the tent and blinked away the sting. Because there was no way I would go back to sleep this night.

No. Fucking. Way.

*****

~ JANN ~

I waited, watching her in the dark. She didn’t relax. Her breathing didn’t slow or even out. It stopped hitching, but her eyes weren’t even closed.

She lay on her back, hands on her stomach, staring at the ceiling of the tent. Her body was ramrod straight. She was fully clothed—even wearing her boots. She didn’t want a fur over her and even though she didn’t say it, I knew it was because she wanted the freedom to run, or fight.

Everything about her screamed fear and it was my fucking fault.

Even if the men left in camp now were the better ones, I knew. I should have thought…

It had come home to me that afternoon as I watched the panic pass, but her eyes go feral, that she felt like prey. Because she was. In this place, among my people, she was prey.

And I had put that target on her back. Claiming her. Displaying her. I’d told them all that she was strong.

And now she was being broken.

The blind rage that had filled me when I followed her shrieks to that tent and found that monster pinning her while he freed himself from his leathers, on the cusp of taking her—God, I’d almost slit his throat without a word.

But she needed to see him die. I knew she needed to see that. To know he was gone.

Yet, it still wasn’t enough.

She was haunted.

Hunted.

Refusing to talk about it.

Pretending she was fine.

But the body didn’t lie. She lay there, next to me, thrumming with tension.

“Diadre—”

“Go back to sleep, Jann. I’ll be fine.”

She didn’t realize, I hadn’t slept a wink. Not out of fear, but out of sheer self-loathing, and the terrifying prospect of what she might do if she had another shock.

I needed to be here. She was my mate.

I closed my eyes for a second, instinctively wanting to push that word away, but I couldn’t.

I couldn’t have a mate. Surely God would never be that cruel, to either of us?

Gah. It didn’t even bear thinking about. My skin itched and I curled my hands under my fur to stop myself reaching for her.

Yet, I couldn’t deny it—I felt her. I’d felt her at the Palace. I felt her anger when we returned. I felt her abject terror when that bastard put his hands on her.

I felt her because she was mine. But I couldn’t say it.

Not like this. Not while she was so afraid.

So, I was trapped. Caged. Unable to look away, and unable to reach out. Head spinning—all the ways this would be the end of me. All the ways this would be the end of her.

A clock had appeared over my head.

Tick tock. Tick tock. Tick tock.

I didn’t know how to do this, or where this would end, only that it would end.

And that no matter what, I would stand between her and the fires of hell until my last, gasping breath.

But what then? What the fuck was she going to do when this curse finally took me?

What a fucking mess.