Twisted Kingdom: A Dark New Adult Romance (Royal Elite Book 3)

“Are you on Viagra?” Elsa pants as she lays her head on my arm.

She just finished putting her clothes back on — all of them — so I don’t ravage her anymore.

It’s cute that she thinks mere clothes will keep me away from her.

Nothing will.

“Viagra, huh?” I grin down at her.

“I mean, your sex drive is endless even under extreme circumstances. I’m so sore.” She blushes, and unable to stop myself, I pull on her cheek.

It’s impossible to stop craving her.

Maybe one day when we’re older, and I have fucked her all the ways possible, I’ll be able to get enough of her.

But even that is a slim chance.

“What do you like the most about me?” she asks with a red hue covering her cheeks.

“The most?”

“You know, what do you find most sexy about me?”

I chuckle. “Are you trying to seduce me again, sweetheart?”

“Just answer me.” She plays with the hem of my pullover.

I try to think about the things that turned me on the most about her. The smell of coconut in her hair when she’s freshly showered. The fluttering of her eyes when her head rolled back in an orgasm. The shape of her mouth when she called my name. The softness of her touch when she clung to me.

There were too many things I find sexy and utterly irresistible about her. From the twitch in her nose to the slight bite of her lip and straight to the twinkle in her eyes.

So when it comes down to a specific answer, it’s easy. “Everything,” I say.

“Everything?” she asks, voice laced with confusion.

“Your passion, your darkness, your fire, and even your damn stubbornness. I find all of them sexy and there isn’t a thing I would change about you. So yes, everything.”

Her lips part and her eyes soften with deep affection before she turns her gaze away as if hiding her reaction.

“You’re touched, aren’t you?” I poke her arm.

“Shut up.” Her cheeks turn crimson.

I smile. “Pay me back, sweetheart.”

“Pay you back?”

“Yeah. Tell me what you like most about me.”

“No.”

It’s my turn look at her twice. “No?”

She lifts her chin in defiance, eyes glinting. “It’s a secret.”

“You don’t get to keep secrets from me.”

“Yes, I do.” She lay her head on my arm. “I can’t have you lose interest in me.”

“Believe me, that will never happen.”

“Still no. You need a challenge, remember? I’ll be that challenge and more.”

I smile to myself. This is why Elsa is one a kind. This is why she’ll always be mine.

No one understands me as much as she does.

Her breathing calms down and she yawns. “I’d kill for something to eat right now.”

And then her eyes flutter closed. Her slender body snuggles onto my side and her chest rises and falls in a steady rhythm.

I probably exhausted her. It was my goal since the beginning.

The only way to stop Elsa from thinking about the dark reality is to distract her. That’s why I claimed her virgin arse, came one more time in her pussy, and then I ate her out to relax her even more.

She whined, saying she has to go back to yoga if I continue fucking her all the time in different positions.

I stroke the blonde strands off her forehead and place a kiss onto the top of her head.

Her stomach growls so loud. She winces, groaning softly.

I said Agnus would return, but it’s been nearly two days.

My initial reasoning is that he won’t do something that will throw him completely out of Ethan’s grace. Leaving us here for two days is extreme even if he wanted to teach Elsa a lesson and force her to not talk about her mother’s death.

I’m still sure he wouldn’t risk Ethan’s wrath, though.

Did he somehow miscalculate something?

While I kept Elsa distracted with sex, we’re both losing our energy. We can only survive on water for so long before it becomes a problem. We’re lucky this place isn’t freezing like the outside, but I can feel the cold seeping through my bones from the ground.

“Do you regret it?” she murmurs, her tiny hands gripping my arm.

I like how she’s holding on to me with all her might. Her entire body clings to mine like it’s the most natural place to be.

“Regret what?” I ask.

“Getting to know me. Pursuing me. All of it.” A stuttering breath chokes out of her. “If you stayed away from me, you wouldn’t be here.”

“I regret nothing, sweetheart, least of all knowing you.”

“You said you regretted two things from the past and I’m the third.”

“Hmm. Do you store everything I tell you?”

“Yeah,” she says wryly. “I guess I do.”

I consider not telling her, but it’s useless to build a wall between me and Elsa. Besides, it’s better to keep her distracted.

“When I was a child, I always wanted to tell Alicia to leave Jonathan. I didn’t because I saw how much she loved him, and I regret not speaking up. My second regret is not fighting to stay with you when you pushed me out of this room. My third regret is believing you were dead and not searching for you.”

She remains silent, but nods.

“How about you?” I ask slowly. “Any regrets?”

For a second, I believe she went back to sleep, but then her quiet voice drifts around me. “I regret not telling Dad about the subtle way Ma abused me. She took me to swim in the lake Eli drowned in and kept me underwater until I thought I would die. She hit me when I didn’t listen to her. Back then, I didn’t say anything because I was scared Dad would be mad at her and they’d fight. It wasn’t the right thing to do. If Dad knew about the way she treated me, he would’ve sent her to the psych ward. She wouldn’t have hurt Knox, Teal, and you.”

“You were a child and loved your mother.”

“Do you think love gives you the right to compromise?”

“I don’t know. Do you?”

“Sometimes, yes.”

She grips me tighter as she talks about her childhood and the memories she repressed for so long. Most of them are happy memories about her older brother and her father and even her Uncle Reg and Uncle Agnus.

Talking is her way of distraction.

I force myself to focus on her words instead of how much I want to spread her legs and fuck her once more. The only reason I stop myself is because we need the energy we have left.

Survival is such a fucking bitch.

“I’m glad I met you back then,” she says after a while. “You were my light in the darkness.”

My chest expands with a mixture of strange feelings. I never thought there would be a day Elsa would call me her light, even in past tense.

I was always the shadow to her darkest desires and I thought I was fine with that. Turns out, I’m a selfish bastard who wants it all. Both her light and her darkness.

Her best and her worst.

Her everything.

“And now?” I ask.

“Now you’re just you.” She sighs.

“Meaning?”

“Meaning you drive me fucking crazy, but I love every second of it.”

I grin. “You love every second of it, huh?”

“Yes, dickhead.” She shoves me, but then digs her fingers into my pullover and draws me closer to rest her cheek on my arm. Her skin is warm.

“I meant it the other day, loving me is a one way road. You can’t go back.”

“Oh, I know…I won’t…” Her voice is quiet.

She falls back asleep. We remain like that for half an hour until she starts mumbling something in her dreams.

“Elsa?” I cradle her cheeks and pause at the burn in them.

I thought the flush and the heat were only because of how thoroughly I fucked her.

Is she having a fever?

“Elsa, open your eyes.”

“I love you, Aiden. I really, really do.” She tightens her small hands in my pullover one more time before they fall on her side.

Fuck! Fuck!

I take her hand in mine; they’re feverish, too.

“Have you been running in the rain again, Elsa?” I curse under my breath.

Why the hell does she have this weird habit of running in the rain when she has a fucking heart condition?

The hunger and exhaustion must be making things worse.

My muscles tense and my brain fills with a thousand scenarios.

First of all, I need to keep her body temperature down.

I carefully place her on the ground and put her jacket under her head. She pulls her legs to her chest and bends into a foetal position.

Yanking my pullover off, I soak it with water from the lavatory and wrap it around her head.

A moan rips from her colourless lips. The flush on her face has been reddening by the second.

Sweat beads on her forehead and down her temples.

I place a hand on her heart. The beat starts slow then turns hard within a second.

That’s not good.

This isn’t a simple fever. Her heart condition is acting up and I’ll bet my life she didn’t visit her heart physician after she left with her father.

When she collapsed that day after running in the rain, our family doctor said she should visit her specialist as soon as possible. Knowing Elsa, she probably didn’t want to worry her father as soon as she reunited with him.

“Fuck, Elsa. Fuck!”

We need out of here.

Fucking now.

If not treated properly, a simple fever can be lethal to someone with a heart condition.

I know because I’ve been studying the shit out of it since I learnt of her illness.

That’s why I’ve been even stricter than her aunt about her special food. I brought her water with the highest concentration of minerals because I read it’s good. I’ve been watching her while she runs, looking for tiny clues about her breathing.

However, I couldn’t stop her from running in the rain since she often does it behind everyone’s back.

I snatch my pullover, soak it with water again and then wrap it around her head.

My lips touch her forehead one last time before I stagger to my feet.

Adrenaline shoots through my veins and fills me with one purpose only. I’ll open that door even if I have to dislocate my shoulders in the process.

Elsa and I will get out of here.

We’re not losing our lives in this basement another time.