Ruthless Empire (Royal Elite #6) by Rina Kent

I scream.

The sound is muffled when another hand wraps around me from behind and snaps my neck.



I startle awake to be greeted by the darkness in my room.

My harsh breathing echoes in the silence and my clothes stick to my back with sweat.

He’s coming for me.

He’ll catch me.

He will —

“Silver?”

The sound of Cole’s voice instantly calms me down. I don’t know how, but it does.

He hits the light switch to reveal he’s been sitting on my bed. Grabbing my hand, he slowly uncurls my stiff fingers from around my necklace. I’ve been holding it and my chest in a death grip as if that could’ve saved me from the nightmare I was seeing.

No. I didn’t only see that nightmare. I lived and felt it to my bones.

Papa and Mum left me.

Adam was coming for me, and then he or something else killed me.

No one was there for me.

A sob tears from my throat and it’s like I’ve been holding on for eternity to express whatever is lurking inside me.

“Come here, Butterfly.” Cole opens his arms.

I don’t hesitate as I dive into them, my hands wrapping around his waist and my face disappearing into the hard muscles of his chest.

Whenever I inhale, I take in his clean scent mixed with cinnamon, and it’s like my own therapy.

For long seconds, we stay there as he strokes my hair away from my forehead and rubs small circles on my back.

My breathing evens out, and just when I think I’m going back to sleep, his quiet voice surrounds me, “What happened?”

It’s like a spell has been broken. Whatever halo I’ve been trying to pretend exists shatters all around me.

He’s the reason why I had that nightmare. How the hell could I take refuge in him?

I start to push away, but Cole keeps me pinned in place by the hand on my back. Literally on my back. He has reached under my oversized T-shirt and has his palm on my bare skin.

Holy shit.

I’m suddenly fully aware that I’m completely naked under the T-shirt.

“D-did you change my clothes?” I stare up at him with horror.

“Mum did.” His lips tug in a smirk. “Not that it would be something new if I saw you naked. I can even picture you right now.”

I scowl at him, then fist my hand and hit him across the chest. He chuckles, the sound quiet and easy in the room.

“There you are.” He strokes my hair from my forehead. “I thought I lost you for a second there.”

“It was just a nightmare.” A very real one at that.

I feel like it’s the nightmare of my life. Since my parents’ divorce, I’ve had similar nightmares of them leaving. After Mum’s suicide attempt, I dreamt about blood for months.

However, this is the first time everything’s poured out at the same time.

“Nightmares are usually a manifestation of your subconscious.” Cole’s fingers are still lost in my hair, and I’d purr like a kitten if I didn’t want to stab him right now.

“Yeah, and my subconscious, just like my consciousness, hates you.”

That nightmare was a symptom of my guilt over what I let happen with Cole. The perverted pleasure I got from it. The heart-pounding sensation I keep on getting whenever he pushes my buttons or challenges me.

It’s all because of him and his damn existence that I’m spiralling out of control.

“I didn’t know you were fainting,” he says calmly.

“As if you would care?” This time I do pull away from him, inserting much-needed distance between us. “Your only goal is to get what you want. What if I faint or die or get hit by a freaking bus? It’ll all just be a part of your sick games.”

“That’s not true.”

“Not true? Give me a break, Cole. You’re only doing this to me to prove you can, to be the winner as usual, to see me shatter and lose.”

He interlaces our fingers and lays them across his stomach as he watches me with an unreadable expression. “Is that what you think?”

“That’s what it is.”

“It isn’t.”

“Are you telling me you would’ve done all this rubbish if you didn’t feel threatened by Aiden?” My voice loses strength by the end, and I curse myself for being this affected with that thought.

“Stop bringing him up when you and I are talking.” His tone lowers. “If it’s only us, then it’s going to be only about the two of us.”

“You want it about the two of us? Fine. Here’s a two-of-us talk… I want you to leave me the hell alone.”

“See, you have a problem, Silver.”

“A problem?”

“You’re a liar and you’re in denial. You can lie to yourself all you want, but you can’t lie to me. You don’t get to spy on me when I’m playing football or when I’m swimming and then pretend you don’t care about me. You don’t get to act territorial about me by chasing all the girls away, then decide you just did that for the family image. You don’t get to come all over my fingers, my tongue, and my dick, then pretend you don’t fucking want me.”

Oh, God.

I swallow the lump in my throat, staring at him as if he’s grown two heads.

“But those aren’t the only lies you tell yourself,” he continues in that infuriatingly calm tone. “You pretend you’re happy for your father when you secretly hate his new marriage because you always had a fairy tale dream about your parents getting back together. You love my mum, but you feel guilty towards your mum because of it. You sometimes wish you were never born as your parents’ kid, because maybe that would make you feel wholesome like other children with non-separated parents. You feel guilty for dropping your friendship with Kimberly, but you act like a bitch to her because it’s your only defence mechanism to keep her away. You don’t want her to see the ugly parts of you or how empty you actually feel inside. You’re flawed and you hate those flaws, so you use the attitude and the looks to make everyone believe you’re a perfect human they wish they could turn into.