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A friend. That’s what she’s calling him—the enemy. My enemy. The blood of my father’s killer.
“I see.” Percival nods, the dull light from the ancient chandeliers doing very little to shadow the pity lining his face. He gives her shoulder a firm squeeze, inspecting her from head to toe.
Soon, her skin will be mottled with death. Young, supple flesh will decay around her delicate bones.
What a waste, I bite silently to myself while he continues prinning her.
Tugging the front of her coat closed, Percival tells her, “You get home safe now. Won’t you?”
I can sense her smile through the muted hum of her exhale, and a snarl growls deep in my chest.
How dare she fucking smile. I trusted her beguiling smiles and innocent laughter, and she betrayed me. After I gave her my confidence, and after everything, she would do to me what her friend and his antimonarchist organisation did to my father.
“Don’t look back,” Percival says as she stands in the doorway, the faded glint of golden hair making my hands ball in the pockets of my trousers.
The girl is beautiful. A delicate flower ready to be plucked by greed and gluttony. Swallowed up by those that want more than the fortune they already have. It’s blasphemous, but it’s the way of the world. We always want what we shouldn’t have, and those of us who can have it don’t think twice about discarding it when we’re done. And I am done with her.
The syringe in my right fist threatens to crack, the blade in the left heavy and eager to spill blood as she looks back, eyes searching the surrounding shadows before she pulls up the hood of her long coat and steps out into the rain.
“Don’t look back,” Percival reminds her as I take the last several steps down and she disappears into the hazy sheet.
He’s trying to raise her awareness. There isn’t a person on this earth that won’t look back when told not to. It’s human nature.
“There’s no way you can save her, Percival. She was dead the moment she walked through these doors with ill intentions.”
“Make it quick,” he tells me with a grimace.
I always do. Quick and painless, something my expert hands have perfected over the years—clean, precise cuts for those that deserve it. But her, my pretty little whore, I don’t know what she deserves. Not yet.
With a scoff at him, I walk into the downpour, pulling the hood of my sweater over my head before I grip the syringe and blade in my hands again.
I know these streets like the back of my hand. Even in the torrential rain, I can navigate them with ease.
It’s two o’clock in the morning. London is quiet under the cover of darkness and rain, and before the devil’s hour, the real monster stalks his prey. Quick, steady steps drowned out by the roar of the sky. The flash of light highlights her small figure as she tries to run through the deluge in her heels. Meanwhile, my stride eats up the distance between us, the syringe in my hand at the ready.
A few more steps and my presence looms.
The girl pauses.
The hood on her head is blown back by the gust of wind as she spins to look up at me. “Your Grace.”
I strike.
Looking into deep brown, panicked eyes, I whisper, “Darling.”
It starts with a single drop of blood. A prick that dulls the senses, leaving the prey defenceless, loosely hanging between life and death.
CHAPTER ONE
HENRY
Five months earlier
“People that drink tea should be shot.” I hate the smell, the scent, and most of all, the memories it stirs. My grandfather, the late Duke of Gloucester, used to have a pot on the go at all times. He was my favourite person, and then he died. It was a most unfortunate and anticlimactic death.
One morning, we all woke up, and he did not. As with every morning that I visited his room, there was a tray with his pot of English Breakfast tea, Butter Puffs, and smooth strawberry jam at the foot of his bed. That morning, it went cold. And on that day, the sweet scent of tea became one I hated.
“It’s you that should be fucking shot for being a coffee whore,” Simon laughs. We’ve grown up together, much like our mothers. He’s my mother’s favourite godson. She loves him like my grandfather loved tea. I suppose he’s lucky I don’t hate him. And I have a lot to hate him for, the same way he has so much to feel guilty about.
