Rough, Sara Fields [the top 100 crime novels of all time txt] 📗

groaned with the piercing ache that sprang to life inside my belly. I keeled over and a fierce streak of panic rattled through me before I forced myself to look back up at him.

There was a certain amount of unhinged derangement in his eyes as he towered over me, as if he just wanted to cause me pain until I gave him what he was looking for. That wasn’t all I saw either. It soon became very clear that he was enjoying this. If anything, he was probably getting off on it and a jolt of terror made my blood run cold.

Without the others here, he might just kill me.

He reached between my legs. He cursed when he didn’t find what he was looking for. He growled even more fiercely than before and I cried out with my suffering, but unlike with Magnar, my slick didn’t pour down my legs. There was no arousal pumping through my body. Only pain and fear.

Nothing else.

This hurt so much.

The Acolyte didn’t know that I was willing to die in order to keep what I knew secret. So many lives depended on my silence, Magnar’s included.

Magnar.

My bond pulsed hard and I could feel him on the other side. My breath caught in my throat at the intensity of his emotions. There was terror and anger and panic all in that single pulse and it caught me off guard.

Our connection vibrated several times between us, and I grasped onto it with a desperate hope. I could feel that Magnar was closing in on me and I held onto that with everything in me. I called out to him, hoping that he could feel my need and that he would come when I called for him. I needed him to find me.

It was only a matter of time now. I could feel it.

My heart started to pound. His emotion poured over me like a warm rain and then I heard him.

The door slammed open and Magnar seethed just inside of it. If he had been focused on me, I would have been afraid, but his gaze was leveled on the insane Cultist at my side.

I watched him take a deep breath before he opened his mouth and began to speak.

“You took my omega without my permission,” he snarled. The Acolyte moved to my side and once again the hard edge of a blade pressed against my skin. I was his hostage now and he wanted Magnar to know it.

“We believed she was hiding something, and you were too soft to see it,” the Acolyte answered, a certain amount of vitriol apparent in his tone. “I’m still not convinced she isn’t.”

“Acolyte, you and I both know that I carry more power than you within the Cult. I don’t need to be hooded and masked for you to know that,” Magnar warned and the Cultist stiffened beside me. The knife pinched my skin a little bit deeper and I had to keep still with every last bit of strength left inside me.

“I took matters into my own hands because you’ve grown soft with her. With her, you’re weak. You’ve grown too attached. Someone else needed to intervene,” the Acolyte spat.

“I see. So, you thought ignoring your superior and your king was a wiser choice than just coming to me with your concerns?” Magnar pushed.

“The Prophet and the Recruiter share my sentiments,” the Acolyte scoffed.

“And what lies did you make up to get them to believe you?” Magnar spat.

I got the distinct feeling that these two had a long history of vying against each other. The harsh contempt on Magnar’s face said it all.

“I’ve always had a bad feeling about you, Acolyte. Always worrying about your own power when you should be focusing on furthering the Cult’s,” Magnar glared.

“I will never understand why they chose an outsider like you to take the crown. Only someone Kingsworth-born should have the right to be king,” the Cultist snarled.

“If you were king, the city would have been sacked by the Brotherhood already,” Magnar said stiffly.

“Fuck you,” the Acolyte snapped.

“All those years ago, I should have just left you to rot. The Serpent thought you were a liability, and I should have listened, but I thought you would prove more useful to the Cult alive. I know now that I was very wrong,” Magnar replied.

The Cultist snarled with fury. The knife’s edge faltered against my skin.

Who the fuck was the Serpent?

The energy in the room was thick. As an alpha, Magnar was physiologically programmed to protect me from another. I was in danger and that would invoke very deep primal instincts within him. Dangerous instincts that would put the both of us in peril.

“I didn’t fucking need you. I would have saved myself,” the Acolyte muttered viciously.

“The fates would have taken you if I hadn’t helped you that day. You would have died in the castle’s underbelly, all alone and entirely forsaken, you fool,” Magnar answered just as savagely.

The Acolyte seethed before he pulled the blade away from me and stepped toward Magnar. He paced back and forth, never taking his eyes off my alpha in the process.

Things were escalating. Fast. And I was still held prisoner in chains. I had to get out.

I turned and used my right hand to push against the hard metal cuff. It was tight enough that I still couldn’t pull my left hand out. Even when I curled up my fingers as small as they could go, my knuckles wouldn’t slip through. I pulled hard anyway and had to stop when it hurt too much. Any more pressure and I feared that I might break a number of bones in my hand.

Magnar and the Acolyte had begun to circle one another. Almost as if the Cultist could sense that I was trying to escape, he growled so loudly that I couldn’t bite back my scream of agony. I lost my balance as my belly cramped so fiercely that I wasn’t sure whether or not a knife had