Page 82 of The King’s Man (The Kingdom of the Krow #3)

I stood for a moment, my skirts gripped in my hands, biting my lip. The Cleric would soon pray and then they would leave. I had to talk to Ruin first, but—

To my great relief the General clapped Ruin on the shoulder and turned to walk away.

No dragon followed him. Of course, he would be among those remaining behind.

But a part of me had hoped I might catch sight of his Fury.

The herd Primarch, black as midnight and even more legendary than his rider, Kgosi was a sight I would relay to my grandchildren.

But no matter. Nerves and fear and love and joy coiled in my belly, as Ruin turned from the General, back to his dragon, slapping the beautiful creature’s leg so that it snorted, then turned towards me—but disappeared behind the body of another passing dragon, a redscale.

I froze so as not to annoy it, as the sound of several men cheering rose behind its thick legs.

I caught glimpses as the creature passed, saw the sun on Ruin’s hair and a flash of his smile, but then the dragon’s leg obscured my view again.

That glimpse of his grin lifted my heart and I opened my mouth to call to him, to tell him I was here, but then the dragon shifted his bulk and Ruin…

Ruin gathered a girl into his arms.

No, a woman.

A beautiful, tall, blond woman in a fine dress, her hair perfectly curled, each golden spring bouncing with even the slightest movement. Her porcelain cheeks pinked as she was drawn into the arms of the beautiful Furyknight who’d leaned her back and kissed her the way he used to kiss me.

Like a lover.

Then he lifted her back to her feet and my heart shriveled in my chest.

A chorus of shouts and whistles rose from the other men, several of them calling taunts, and teasing Ruin about not knowing his way.

But he did.

He did.

He knew his way very well.

I knew that he knew his way.

I almost screamed as much, until the woman took his chin in her elegant, perfectly gloved hand and tipped it down, forcing him to meet her eyes. But then he gave her that smile as she murmured something I couldn’t hear, and then…

Then it was clear to me that she already knew that, too.

I couldn’t move. My feet encased in stone, forcing me to stand there, mute, as he stared down at her, his hands on her waist possessively in a gesture I’d always adored…

“Ruin?” The word cracked in my throat.

Ruin turned, curious eyes bright, his smile wide—until his gaze landed on me and he froze. The woman turned her head to follow his gaze… to me. Clearly confused, she frowned prettily.

How did a woman frown prettily? Yet she did.

“Ruin?” she asked, her voice low and refined. “Who is the peasant? Is she your servant?”

Ruin’s face paled, then his eyes widened.

“Bren?”

The woman blinked and her frown was no longer pretty. “Who—”

She cut off as Ruin snapped his attention back to her, gripped her tightly and leaned in, murmuring something to her I couldn’t catch.

I tried to take a step, tried to call to him, but then he left the woman.

My heart lightened as he raced towards me, closing the space between us so quickly with those long legs.

Almost weeping with relief, I opened my arms and tipped up my head, preparing for a kiss—but Ruin barely broke stride when he reached me. He clasped my hand and jerked me back in the direction from which I’d come.

“Bren, what are you doing here?” he hissed, his face a tense mask, eyes darting left and right as I stumbled in his wake, gritting my teeth against the pain and trying to keep up with him.

“Ruin, I came to say goodbye. You said you might be gone for—”

“Quiet. Not here.”

Swallowing nausea, pushing away the images now burned into my memory of him with that woman in his arms, I trotted, taking two steps to his one, my body clenching with pain at every footfall.

I tried to keep my expression clear, kept looking up at him, tried to find the words to ask questions I didn’t want answered.

But Ruin didn’t look at me as he dragged me towards the side of the bowl and we began to climb.

Though he looked over his shoulder every few steps, his brows drawing down harder each time.

But he kept my hand in his, helping me up the steep side of the bowl even when looking back, scanning the people and dragons below.

When we reached the top I thought he would slow, but he pressed on until we were deep into the shadows under the trees. Then he turned on me, and released my hand as if it burned him.

“Bren, what are you doing here?”

I suddenly wished I hadn’t come. I stammered and gulped, trying to find the words that would smooth the creases from his brow.

“Y-you said this was… goodbye. I thought… I w-wanted to—Ruin, I needed to see you!” Even I heard how pathetic I sounded, my voice trailing up at the end in a plaintive, childlike plea.

“How did you get here? Did your mother drive you?” Ruin’s tone was dark. He looked over my shoulder, then muttered something under his breath and grabbed my hand again, pulling me further into the trees.

“No, I… I walked—”

He pulled up sharply and turned on me, his eyes narrowed and lip curling back in a sneer. “You walked? That must have taken all day—”

“All n-night,” I admitted, my teeth beginning to chatter. Why was I so cold? “But… Ruin… aren’t you… didn’t you—”

He started stomping away again, but then caught himself once more and whirled on me, his face twisted and his beautiful eyes afire. “I can’t believe you came! After… after everything! Do you have no self-respect?”

I felt the blood drain from my cheeks. My tongue suddenly too thick for my mouth. “Why… why would I n-need… that?”

Ruin cursed again and stepped right up to my toes, glaring down at me, gesturing towards me as he spoke. “Don’t you think if I wanted to see you I would have invited you?”

The bricks around my tender heart, the walls I’d fought to erect, to protect, to sustain me, crumbled. The events of a month past, the shock and shame in my father’s eyes, the sound of my mother weeping, and Ruin… The hole he’d left in my soul when he turned his back on me and never returned.

The veil that had shrouded my eyes for the past month suddenly tore, fell away, and I could see.

I could see Ruin’s revolted stare. The contempt in those beautiful eyes. And the way his chest rose and fell in very real rage.

Rage against me.

I took a step back, brought my hands up to my chest.

How had I not understood that he’d discarded me? Why had I convinced myself that my parents were wrong?

Why hadn’t I seen the truth?

I looked around, willing my salvation to appear between the trees. But there was nothing. No one. Except Ruin… the man I’d thought loved me. Of whom I’d been so proud. So certain he was the hero, charging into my life to save me.

But… no.

As we stared at each other in silence. As my heart slowly tore in two, my mind screamed and conjured the tingling pleasure of his touch. The salty musk of his taste. The sweet, soul-filling sigh of his kiss.

Then he raked a hand through his hair and swore and the moment’s respite shattered.

I flinched.

What the hell was I doing here? How had I ever believed he would wish me anything but gone?

Though the shadows had haunted my mind ever since that dreadful day, I’d never wished myself dead until that moment. Not until I looked into Ruin’s eyes and saw the loathing there. The pinch of disgust wrinkling his nose.

I’d never asked for God’s hand against me. Never pleaded for the earth to open and swallow me up. But I did then.

As I stood in the half-light of the forest shadows, the nearby launch hollow echoing with the groans and snorts of the dragonfuries, and the hum of male voices, and I saw the man I had loved for three years despise me, I sincerely wished for death.

For no more reason than to escape the shrill, screaming pain that coursed through me when I saw revulsion on his handsome face.

Ruin shook his head, but he turned to look over his shoulder again, back towards the hollow. Towards her .

He cursed, then clawed his fingers through his thick, tousled hair again before meeting my now tear-blurred eyes.

“You need to leave.”

I tried to nod, but nothing wanted to move.

“You need to get the fuck out of here and never come back, Bren. Do you hear me?”

“Y-you said…” I swallowed the painful lump in my throat. It went down slowly. “You s-said you wanted to m-marry me—”

“Are you fucking with me? You can’t honestly believe—”

“Y-you said—”

“And you opened your legs, just like I asked. Now, open your eyes, Bren. There’s nothing here for you. No one. And no one ever will be.”

“But you said you loved me—”

“You’re a fucking lowborn farm girl and I’m a Furyknight.”

“I know, but—”

His face was red and the veins on his forehead popping as he grabbed my shoulders and shook me. “Go home and hang yourself in the barn for all I care, just don’t ever come back here!”

“You bastard!” The words hissed through my clenched teeth without my permission, but it broke the spell I’d been under. I suddenly wanted nothing more than to get away from him.

“Better than being a ruined little whore.” Then his eyes widened and he laughed. My jaw went slack and something inside me shriveled when he chuckled. “You’ve been fucking ruined . Or, no… wait…” He hacked another laugh. “You were ruined by fucking Ruin.”

He howled as my heart tore. Heedless of anything but the churning pain he’d caused, I lashed out, slapping his face so hard the crack echoed through the trees.

He grunted and froze. He wasn’t laughing anymore. He glared at me, his face turning red again.

“You… little… bitch!”

Fast as a whip-crack his hands shot straight for my throat. I screamed and shrank, tried to turn, stumbled one step and fell on my ass in the dirt. My stomach sparkled with pain and my teeth clacked on my tongue. With a small cry, I looked up at him, pleading. I only needed—

“Go!” Ruin roared. His beautiful, full lips peeled back from his teeth and his hands balled to fists at his sides as he towered over me.

My eyes widened as I looked at those fists, shaking, his forearms popping with veins, the lines I’d so admired before, harbingers of his strength—and my pleasure—now heralds of my death.

Ruin could snap me in two and leave me here and no one would be the wiser. I was too weak to stop him.

“I said, GO!”

I panicked, scrambling off the forest floor and pushing myself into a stumbling run as his voice echoed in the trees behind me.

If he took hold of me here in the dark, with the noise of the crowd and the dragons below…

Just as his contempt crushed my heart under his heel, he could crush my body if he chose.

Those hands, so much larger than mine—big enough to hold my head like a fruit. Those arms and thighs, strengthened and trained by hours on dragonback, that had lifted and carried me against that broad chest—hot steel under warm skin…

It was all a weapon.

I ran faster.

“Get the hell out of here and don’t come back!” he snarled, his feet pounding on the dirt behind me. “Nobody wants you here. Get the fuck out!”

I tripped on a tree root, arms pinwheeling, sobbing as my body screamed in pain, but I caught my weight on my fingertips and ran on.

“Keep running!” he snarled from behind me, his footsteps finally slowing. “Don’t ever show your face near me again. Do you hear me, Bren?” He was falling further and further behind, his voice echoing in the trees around me, haunting me.

“I don’t want you, Bren. I don’t want you. I don’t love you. And I never did!”