Auctioned to the Cruel King - Chapter 61: Chapter 61

Kayla’s POV
The taste of blood was still sharp in my mouth. Not my own, but the phantom taste of it.
“It’s just me, Cleo,” Lance said again, stepping out from the shadows like something conjured by wrath itself. “Calm down. I’m unarmed.”
Unarmed. He said it as if it mattered. As if his hands weren’t more lethal than any blade.
But I was relieved to see him, to know he’d come for me. And somehow, I’ll be back in the palace, unharmed with everything behind.
The knife pressed harder against my neck. I didn’t dare move.
“Fuck,” he spat, panic bleeding through his earlier composure. I’d never imagined he’d panic at seeing Lance. Maybe what he’d seen those years ago still rested with him. That monstrosity. To have dared call it back—
“What the fuck is this?”
“Calm down,” Lance said again. A predator trying not to startle prey. “Let her go.”
The steel bit into my skin. A warning. I held my breath.
“Come any closer,” Cleo hissed, “and I’ll split her open.”
“Hey. Alright,” Lance murmured. “I’m not moving. I’m here. I’ll stand right here. Just tell me how we can resolve this.”
Cleo’s laugh was cracked and wild. “Resolve what? There’s nothing to resolve! You think showing up here like some fucker makes everything better? You think you can come here, talk pretty, and walk out whole after killing my men?!”
His arm trembled slightly, but the knife didn’t falter.
“How many of your men are here, huh?” Cleo barked. “You think I won’t take a few of them down before I drop? I will, you bastard. I’ll carve my way through.”
Lance didn’t blink. His voice didn’t rise. “And I guarantee there’ll be nothing of you left if you don’t take that knife off her throat.”
“Test me,” Cleo growled. “Test me and see.”
I didn't want that. Not when the blade would draw blood as easily as I swallow.
“I find it fascinating,” Lance said, taking a step forward, and I nearly screamed no— “that you haven’t shifted yet. You’d think in a moment like this, your inner beast would claw its way out. Maybe give you a chance to live. Maybe even survive.”
Another step. Stepping over one of the bodies.
Fuck.
Cleo’s grip tightened. And in a blink, the blade slashed across my thigh, shallow but enough. The scream tore from my throat before I could stop it. Fire raced up my leg, and I felt warm blood seeping through my pants.
“Stay back!” Cleo roared. “I said stay the fuck back!”
“Okay, okay." Lance immediately stopped moving, his hands raised higher. "I'm staying back. Just… don't hurt her anymore.”
But something had changed in his eyes. They'd gone cold.
Cleo chuckled. “It’s funny, isn’t it? All of this—because you wouldn’t listen. I asked nicely. I asked for what I earned. What was owed to me. And you—you treated me like some disposable tool. A cog you use, then discard once the machine no longer needs it.”
Lance’s jaw ticked. “And what made you think you were entitled to anything? Because you helped hide a body? Because you forged a story and got paid? You were compensated more than generously.”
He tilted his head—barely a shift, but enough to make Cleo tense.
“You thought: ‘Oh, it’s the King. I can milk this.’ You saw an opportunity and tried to make yourself bigger than you were. Thought everyone would dance to your tune.”
Cleo bared his teeth. “Fuck you.”
Lance’s voice hardened. “Yeah. Fuck you too.”
He lifted two fingers in a subtle signal. I didn’t know what it meant—but Alaric did. I saw it in his posture.
“You made two mistakes tonight, Cleo,” Lance went on, voice dropping into something darker.
Cleo sneered.
“One: thinking we could still negotiate while you’re holding my Luna hostage.” His gaze narrowed. “Two: thinking I’d let you walk away from this.”
And then—darkness. Again.
The lights snapped off. Pitch-black, save for the flickering after-image of Lance’s face burned into my vision.
In the darkness, everything happened at once. I heard a sickening thud, followed by a wet, gurgling sound. Cleo's grip on me loosened, and I stumbled forward, my wounded leg nearly giving out.
When the lights flickered back on, the scene that greeted me was something out of a nightmare.
Lance stood behind where Cleo had been, his hand buried deep in the man's stomach. Blood poured from Cleo's mouth as he stared down in shock at the hand protruding from his abdomen.
“In your next life,” Lance whispered. “Don’t fuck with a king.”
He couldn’t scream. Not even when Lance yanked, tearing flesh and sinew from his gut like ribbons.
Blood soaked my feet.
When Lance let go, Cleo collapsed. A heap of ruin and failure and pain.
The silence was deafening.
Lance stared down at the body for a long beat, then looked up. “What a waste that was.”
And then his eyes met mine.
Everything in me rebelled—at the blood on him, at the way his breathing barely quickened, at the steel in his eyes. At how calm he was after ending a life. At how relieved I felt.
“Are you alright?” he asked.
I swallowed, forcing my voice to hold. “I’m fine.”
But I wasn’t. Not really.
He stepped closer. “Let me help you up—”
“I can do it myself.”
I pushed off the ground, ignoring the searing pain in my thigh. My balance faltered.
“You did good,” he said quietly.
“Don’t touch me.”
His hand paused in midair. Slowly, he lowered it. “I understand you’re angry. That it went down like this. But you saw it, Kayla—he gave us no choice.”
My hands shook, though I tried to still them. “There are… there are other ways it could’ve gone.”
But the moment the words left my mouth, I knew I was lying. To him. To myself. Because the truth was…I’d wanted Cleo dead. I’d wanted him to suffer. To pay for every threat, every insult, every moment his hand had trembled against my throat. I wanted vengeance, and now that I’d witnessed it—this brutal, bloody justice—I felt sick.
Sick not at Lance…but at myself.
Because I hadn’t looked away. I hadn’t screamed. I had watched.
And somewhere inside, a quiet, wicked part of me had whispered, good.
What terrified me most wasn’t what Lance had done—it was how easily I understood it. How a piece of me, buried beneath fear and fury, had wanted exactly this. How I was changing.
How I might become someone who didn’t flinch when her mate ripped someone’s guts out.
Lance watched me for a moment longer. “We’ll talk more about it when we get back home.”
Alaric stepped forward, grim-faced. “I’ll handle the cleanup.”
Lance nodded. “Burn the whole place. Leave no trace.”
I tried to take a step. My leg gave out. But Lance caught me. One arm behind my back, the other under my knees. I didn’t fight him this time.
I was too tired. And that cut hurt like hell.
He carried me from the room, his body a wall of warmth and strength and silent fury. I let my head rest against his shoulder.
Outside, the cool night air slapped me awake. Somewhere nearby, a wolf howled. Long and mournful. And I looked around the front of the inn to see some of Cleo’s men dead, blood smearing the earth. Even the guard at the door post.
Lance placed me gently into the back seat of the car. Not the one I’d ridden with Alaric.