Page 17 of Taint My Soul

I turn on the light in the living room and toss my phone onto the couch. I walk around the kitchen island and switch on the stove to boil water for some tea. While waiting on the stool, my thoughts zoom in and out of everything that has happened tonight, and a new feeling of dread lodges freshly in my chest, stealing breath from my lungs. My jaw tightens even as my mind tries to circle back to Saint.

I don’t let it.

I don’t want to relive that moment ever again.

SAINT

This is the part I have always hated.

The part where desire taints my soul.

The part I’ve always kept in chains. But tonight, this young stranger has somehow sunk his claws into me and ripped those chains apart.

I’m sitting in the aftermath of the moment.

The heavy discomfort.

The memory of our eyes meeting in that one moment.

This never happens because I don’t let it.

It has never felt like this before. The only time it did was when I had my first kiss, but even something so blissful cost me my sanity.

As I drive back to my penthouse, I’m left in the aching stillness.

Pleasure still creeps on my skin even though it’s ended, even though I have decided it’s wrong.

I don’t let these thoughts make a home in my skin.

I shut them down.

I don’t know who that man is, and I don’t intend to. He solely exists for my pleasure, and he’s free to leave anytime if he doesn’t like our arrangement.

I should not feel this hollowness because of his absence.

I’m not allowed to be anything other than the life set up for me.

I’m not allowed to love because the world I come from is dangerous.

It’s loyalty to my family.

I will not compromise blood and values just because my heart wants what it shouldn’t.

When people like me love, our enemies exploit that love to their advantage. And if I’m compromised, how do I become the successor to my father’s kingship?

CHAPTER SIX

MASON

Two years ago, I was on the run from a past I thought would never catch up to me. From memories that had festered in my mind even when I had severed the root of my problems.

A part of me believed I was free.

I was wrong.

I might never know freedom.

Especially since the powerful men around me see me just as an object they can dress up and throw into the middle of a war for power and control.