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Kronos frowns. “But I need a mate to bear my young. And I purchased her. You had no right to turn her into a flesh-eating beast.”
Emrys leans back in his chair.
“What is it going to take to buy you out, barbarian? We bear you no ill-will, but we would happily tear your throat out. There is no chance of this female ever being yours. You are too weak for her.”
“I am not weak,” Kronos says. “Did you not hear me when I said I am here to right wrongs? I am not afraid of corruption. I will cleanse her of it. I will renew her.”
Emrys’ chuckle is one of deep amusement. “You can try, but I can assure you that you will be disappointed.”
Kronos reaches down and picks me up, his hands beneath my arms. I dangle like a cat being held by a child, feeling extra long and extra inspected as he holds me up to his face so he can look me dead in the eyes, his nose right against mine.
“I also own you,” he informs me. “I purchased you just as the others did. They may have had their way with you, but I will make you just as much mine as they have made you theirs.”
I half expect Atlas to come bursting out of his skin at that announcement, but I think he and Emrys have a certain respect for this massive barbarian and his shining electric weapon.
“You won’t want me once you see what I’m like.”
“I’ve seen what you’re like,” he says. “I’ve seen the aftermath of multiple encounters with you. You leave a trail of destruction wherever you go.”
“A lot of that destruction isn’t mine. It belongs to these two, one way or another.”
“They are bad influences. I will be a good influence. You need someone who will take proper care of you. Someone who will give you a wholesome experience.”
I start giggling as the barbarian claims to give me a wholesome experience. My mirth is echoed by Emrys.
“Admit it, Kronos. You want to be balls deep inside her breeding hole.”
“I’d prefer if you didn’t speak to our mate that way,” Kronos says, his tone even, but his voice holding a note of intensity that Emrys should probably heed.
“Agreed,” Atlas says. “Our mate deserves respect, no matter what she does.”
Emrys makes a snorting sound but does not outright disagree with the others. As king, he is a much more relaxed creature than he was prior to his homecoming ceremony. He no longer has anything in particular to prove. In fact, his need for me is more or less at an end. I suppose one might consider it interesting that he is keeping me around.
They all seem to have come to terms with the necessity to share. I suppose we’ve all come to terms with the situation, one way or another. I know I still have to make an escape at some point. I can’t stay here. Not with Emrys, not with Atlas, not with Kronos, even with all his good intentions. I want to feel safe, but I know I’m not. The only true safety I’m going to have is the safety I’ll have on my own, far away from any creature who wants to use my womb for their personal production purposes.
“Don’t be afraid,” Kronos says. “I won’t allow any more twisted harm to come to you. You are going to be perfectly safe with me.”
It’s like he read my mind. Or maybe my fear is written all over my face. I was getting used to being a terrible little monster under Emrys’ care, and a perfect lady in Atlas’ eyes. I don’t know if I’m ready to be whatever it is Kronos needs me to be.
“Don’t take her too far, barbarian. She is not what she was, and she is not what you need her to be. She has taken seed from the spy, myself, and the scythkin. She has been brutally changed from her original form into a thing of our own making. You can twist her in your own way, but you will never be able to reclaim any innocence.”
“You have to stop talking,” Kronos says. “You are prompting me to the kind of violence I have been cleaning up after for weeks now. I want to look after this human. I want to give her my babies…”
“You are not giving her anything besides a burden in her womb,” Emrys says. “Be honest. You want what the rest of us want, and you want to take what the rest of us want to take. You just don’t want to think of yourself as a bad guy. You want to stay the hero while using her like a whore.”
“ENOUGH!” Kronos puts me down and rounds on Emrys. “I am nothing like you. You are cruel for the sake of being cruel. You corrupt everything you touch. You cannot help it because of what you are, and I do not want to judge you for it, but do not claim that we are the same.”
“There is nothing more pathetic than a villain who thinks he is a hero,” Emrys rejoins. His posture is still languid and unbothered, but there is a spark in his sanguine gaze that tells me he is enjoying winding Kronos up. Emrys enjoys bringing others down to his base, brutal level. Atlas is immune because he is rather separate from it all, an entirely different kind of creature immune to this kind of manipulation.
“I am going to take my mate to my bed, and I am going to show her what it means to be loved properly. Once I am done with her, you will no longer have any hold over her, valker,” Kronos declares.
“You are going to take the human you own to bed in order to mate with her in order to satisfy your own base desires, barbarian. We are the same.”
“Stop saying we are the same.”
“Stop arguing and carry her off.”
Kronos glares at Emrys, and for a brief moment I wonder if he will not carry me off at all, but rather put me down and try to prove he is the better creature.
