Extraits

“Try your best to destroy me, Arthur. Try your best to break me apart. But I’ll still be here when you’re exhausted, my claws sunk deeply into your flesh as you drag us both to hell.”

“I won’t let you go,” he warned, and shivers ran down my spine at the malevolent honesty of the threat. “You want to rule at my side? Then I’ll never let you leave me. If you walk by my side, you can never ever fucking leave.” I was making a binding contract with the devil. An Adley’s word is his bond … that’s what Arthur had said in the pit. He was waiting for the verbal agreement to be signed. Waiting for me to finally hand over my soul.

“I am your queen. And you are my king. Your dark kingdom is now ours.” I removed my bloodied hand from his chest and drew a cross over my heart with my finger. “Forever.”

And that was when he broke. My world shook as Arthur smashed his mouth to mine.

“Try your best to destroy me, Arthur. Try your best to break me apart. But I’ll still be here when you’re exhausted, my claws sunk deeply into your flesh as you drag us both to hell.”

“I won’t let you go,” he warned, and shivers ran down my spine at the malevolent honesty of the threat. “You want to rule at my side? Then I’ll never let you leave me. If you walk by my side, you can never ever fucking leave.” I was making a binding contract with the devil. An Adley’s word is his bond … that’s what Arthur had said in the pit. He was waiting for the verbal agreement to be signed. Waiting for me to finally hand over my soul.

“I am your queen. And you are my king. Your dark kingdom is now ours.” I removed my bloodied hand from his chest and drew a cross over my heart with my finger. “Forever.”

And that was when he broke. My world shook as Arthur smashed his mouth to mine.

“I want the dark lord in the obsidian chariot, black horses carrying us away into hell. Not the white knight. I’ve already had him, let myself be rescued by him. And he proved worthless.” Cheska stood, swiped a packet of cigs off the fireplace and sparked one up. “I want the king of my dark-hearted nightmares.” Cheska looked down, and in her hand were the ivory queen and ebony king. Cheska took another drag of the cig, then stabbed the lit, ashy end into the heart of the ivory queen, a black mark staining the white.

“This queen is not playing dress-up,” she hissed. “She’s waiting for the king to stop talking in riddles and fucking expose who he truly is.” She smiled, and the cocky sight boiled my piss. Her nails sank into the skin of my jaw, and my cock filled with blood. “She’s waiting for the monster she has been warned against to come out to play, not the handsome façade he hides behind.” Cheska brought my face closer to hers, grazing her lips against mine and speaking against my mouth. “She’s waiting, has been waiting, for the king to show his true colours. Then he’d realise she’s not waiting for the valiant knight on his white horse to carry her away to her happily-ever-after. Rather she’s waiting for the fucking dragon to appear, to burn any suitor who gets in his way, and claim the queen once and for all. She wants the dragon, Your Majesty,” she said mockingly. “She wants the fire. She wants the thorns and the razor-sharp branches. She wants the eternal fucking darkness. She wants to sit beside the king on his treasured throne of bones.”

“Heavy is the head that wears the crown, Arthur.”

I stopped and turned to one of my old man’s closest friends. He was sat back in his seat, pipe in his mouth. He was staring right at me.

“Luckily, I have a fucking strong neck.”

An angel seeking out the devil for help.

I’d fucking stolen her from the light and made her mine in the darkness.

Everyone in London and beyond knew of Arthur now. In the thirteen months since he had taken the helm of the Adley firm, he had caused what could only be described as havoc in the criminal underworld. Murderer. The Bethnal Green Brute. The Devil himself. Or, as he was more widely known, the Dark Lord of London Town—some catchy headline with which one of the trashy tabloids had branded him. It had stuck.

The boy I loved had sold his soul to evil. And even as I walked to my window and watched his driver usher him away, I felt as thought my heart was in that car with him. He may not have wanted it. May have hated the very thought of it. But it was his regardless. Even if I never saw him again, it was his. I believed it had been since birth, and forever would be.

He smiled at me, and it almost stopped my heart. “My soul isn’t mine anymore,” he said, leaning down and kissing across my breasts. “It’s Satan’s. And, tomorrow, I will become the devil on earth.”

“Arthur—”

“You were the good thing, princess,” he said, cutting me off. “You were the one good thing I had been given.” But now that’s gone, I finished for him, knowing that was his meaning. I brought his mouth up to mine and kissed him. I kissed him softly and lovingly, exactly like I had wanted to for years. And if this was truly it, I had nothing to lose. Arthur kissed me back, and I replayed his words in my head—I will become the devil on earth.