Cruel King: A Dark New Adult Romance (Royal Elite)

The push isn’t painful, the fall is.

I sit in Levi’s car — the same car I vandalised. That should mean the sky will fall on the ground any second now.

I’m still stunned from the kiss in the car park. I unknowingly find myself licking my lips as if I’m chasing the taste.

The surreal feeling.

The complete abandonment.

It’s like an experience out of my own skin, and I still can’t wrap my head around it.

As if that isn’t enough, Levi kidnapped me to his car saying that he’ll drive me home. He wasn’t hearing my half-attempts at reminding him that Dan is my ride. Then, the rain started pouring and he pushed me inside the Jaguar.

Of course, someone like Levi drives a fast car. Everything about him is. Nothing goes slow when he’s around including my heartbeat, my thoughts, and my memories.

And I’m licking my lips again. Dammit.

I need a night’s sleep to think through whatever mess I’m in the middle of.

It doesn’t matter whether I back off or not. Levi is the type who slams in head first just like he did with Jerry.

The power from earlier still stifles the air like a potent aftertaste.

Even now while driving, he has this constant, volatile energy that’s barely tucked under the surface. He’s like gasoline, waiting for a spark to erupt so he can leave ashes in his wake.

I’m not sure whether I’m the spark or the ashes. Or both.

“How did you learn to whistle that way?” he asks as we stop at a red light.

He has his shirt’s sleeves rolled to his elbows and I can’t help gawking at his strong arms with veins and tendons rippling over his skin.

I shake my head from the distraction. “Mum used to stop taxis that way and I picked up the habit.”

“Did she teach you any other cool tricks like that?” He flashes me a charming grin.

For the love of Vikings, can he stop doing that?

No wonder he has all the girls dropping their knickers — or to their knees — for him.

I like to think I’m above being charmed, but thinking back to how I melted in his arms, my case doesn’t look so good.

I stare through the window. “Mum taught me everything I know. My first sketch. My first bike ride. But most of all, she taught me not to kill my fire and to be myself.”

“She never thought you’d end up in this plastic world, did she?”

My head cocks his way. “How do you know I ended up in this world?”

He winks. “I can find out anything I want, princess.”

Ugh. The arrogant prick.

“You don’t like the life you were thrown in, huh?”

“What’s there to like?” My gaze gets lost in the lights and buildings being soaked by the rain. “Everyone here are copies of copies. It’s like they strive to be each other instead of their own selves. If anyone tries to rise above the norm, their heads will be chopped off.”

Silence greets me, and I slightly tilt my head in Levi’s direction. I gulp at the intense look in his eyes as he watches me. It’s like a reappearance of the black Levi who beat Jerry to a pulp.

Only now, violence doesn’t seem to be his driving force.

It’s something much more unsettling and invasive that I feel it straight to my bones.

Goosebumps erupt along my skin, and I’m sucking the air out of my lungs instead of breathing.

There’s wickedness in the way Levi watches me. A promise. A damnation. And if I’m not lying to myself, there’s also a connection. Since that day I stopped and saw him in that party, there’s been an invisible line enchanting me towards him.

I tried to push, I tried to pull, but the damn thing won’t break. He’s trapping me with his cruelty whether I like it or not.

“Uh, did your mum teach you any cool tricks?” Way to go, Astrid. You sound like an idiot.

I just had to fill the silence with something or I would’ve been sucked into his orbit.

My question seems to have done the trick since he focuses back on the road. “My mother threw me at the step of my father’s house in the middle of the night when I was two days old then she ran away like a thief and never looked back.”

“Oh, umm…” I’m flabbergasted, not only by the load of information in one sentence, but also by the apathetic tone he said the words.

Just when I’m debating how to respond to such a bomb, he continues, “the only thing I learnt from that woman is that you can become rich if you’re knocked up by the right man.” He winks. “Not that I can use her tactics.”

His complete disregard of something so important is crazy. No. It’s terrifying. It only proves how much a deviant Levi King actually is.

But again, if his mother who should be bound by nature to love him abandoned him, why should he have any compassion for the rest of the world?

“What about your father?” My voice is small as if a higher range would make him run away.

“What about him?”

Did he abandon you, too? Are you completely incurable?

Before I can voice the questions, the car swivels to the right and I brace myself, almost hitting the roof of the car.

It’s then I notice we’re headed in a completely opposite direction from home. The road’s lights disappear and the way becomes narrower and darker like in a real-life horror film.

“Where are we going?” I murmur, trying not to sound as spooked as I feel.

He says nothing.

My back muscles snap upright as my eyes bulge, bouncing between him and the pitch-black road.

“This isn’t funny, Levi.”

“It isn’t supposed to be.”

My breathing stutters as distorted images from that night with Mum claw at my walls like hungry predators.

“Don’t… Don’t…”

“You’re a good little princess, aren’t you, Astrid?” His tone switches to a chilling, apathetic range.

I grip the door handle with shaking fingers as the road keeps darkening and no cars come into view.

“Levi, stop.”

“You should learn by now that I don’t do what I’m told.”

My heart pounds against my ribcage so hard, it nearly falls to my feet.

He keeps going and going and going.

I can’t believe I fell for his trick. He distracted me with the story about his mother just to have me drop my guard so he can destroy me in the worst way possible just like he always wanted.

My frantic gaze flickers between the black surrounding us, the pounding of the rain, and how he pushes the accelerator until we’re almost flying off the road.

I want to fight him. I want to be crazy and force the wheel out of his hand, but I’m frozen.

The night of my mum’s accident plays in the back of my head like an old, grainy film.

My eyes blur with unshed tears, recalling the exact moment the car flipped and I had to watch her lifeless form lying in a pool of blood.

The car comes to a screeching halt and I jump up, a sob tearing from my throat.

“Not a bad ride, huh, princess?”

My head snaps his way at the same time as my hand. I slap Levi so hard, my palm stings, and then I’m running in the darkness.

Rain soaks me immediately. My hair sticks to my cheeks, and water forms rivulets down my face and neck. My shoes sink in the mud, holding me down.

Strong hands surround my waist from behind and pull me off the ground until I’m suspended mid-air.

I thrash against his hold, fighting my tears. I’m thankful that the rain won’t make them too visible. “Leave me the hell alone! I told you I’m done playing your stupid games!”

His lips find my ear and he nibbles on the flesh before speaking in a low, shiver-inducing tone. “And I told you, I’m not, princess.”

The bubble of anger, rage, and betrayal roll into one and claw to spill free, but what’s the point if I can’t even fight him?

What’s the point if he keeps wrecking my peace like a vengeful hurricane?

“Why?” I scream at the top of my lungs, still clawing and kicking at him. “I was living just fine in my invisibility bubble, why did you have to make me visible?”

“I made you visible, huh?”

“You did! You screwed up everything.”

“You were never supposed to be invisible, princess,” he whispers the words in that rough voice of his.

My skin heats. Even the rain can’t erase the burn.

“Why did you bring me here? Are you planning to erase me?” I blurt. “I swear I’ll turn into one of those vengeful ghosts and haunt you for eternity.”

He chuckles, sending shivers along the shell of my ear. “You’ll haunt me, huh?”

“Duh. For eternity, mate. You can count on it.”

“I can count on it,” he repeats with amusement.

“If you hear doors squeaking and sounds in the hallways, that’d be me. If you see smoke in the mirror, that’d be me, too. Oh, and if you trip and fall in the game? Yup, totally me.”

He laughs, the sound echoing around us like a hymn. “That’s kind of like clinging, you know.”

“I’m game as long as it makes your life miserable.”

“Who says it will?” he murmurs the words straight against my earlobe. His breaths tickle the skin, but his lips never do.

The freaking tease.

I clear my throat. “So where are we? The cemetery? I’m warning you, my stepmother calls me a cat with nine lives. She does it behind my back of course because she has her snobbish image to keep and all that jazz. Don’t tell her I know. So anyway, it might take a bit of effort to finish me off.”

“Are you always a drama queen when nervous?”

“Nope. Only when I’m kidnapped to the middle of nowhere. You know, by a devil minion and all that.”

Still holding me, he spins us around so I’m facing a cottage-like house on the unkempt ground. The car’s lights highlight the antique, cosy architecture with the rain pounding down on it.

“Okay. I’ve got to admit it’s a nice hideout for a serial killer.”

“This is our Meet Up,” he says with amusement. “Usually, the team would be here if it weren’t game night.”

“Right. No serial killer activities, I guess.” I peek at him. “Why did you bring me here?”

“You asked about my father and I brought you to the best place to feel it.”

“Feel what?”

He drops me to my feet, and I slowly turn around.

In the middle of nowhere, under the pouring rain, Levi opens his arms wide and tilts his head back. Water soaks his gorgeous face, the hard tendons of his collarbone, and his Viking hair.

His white shirt becomes complete see-through, sticking to his muscles like a second skin.

And he’s smiling.

It’s not one of his cruel fake smiles. This one is genuine like he’s… happy?

The view grips me by the gut. My heart pumps so loud, it’s a miracle he’s not hearing it.

This posture. This same posture.

I’ve seen it somewhere.

But where?

“The rain,” Levi whispers, still closing his eyes. “My father taught me to feel the rain.”