Wicked Charming Cruel Read online

  Wicked Charming Cruel

  Twisted Kingdom Book 2

  Emmy Chandler

  Contents

  About this book…

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Pronunciation guide

  Also by Emmy Chandler

  About Emmy

  About this book…

  Wicked Charming Cruel is book two in the Twisted Kingdom trilogy, a dark sci-fi reverse harem fairytale. I know that’s a mouthful, but as you’ll see as you read, it’s accurate.

  Note: Dark romance is a subgenre characterized by elements like dubious consent, power exchange, spanking, and other such “darker” content that makes for a grittier read. Wicked Charming Cruel contains all of those things.

  Also please note: The Twisted Kingdom books contain a single story that arcs across three full-length novels. It’s a dark and winding road—a very messy journey—but I promise there will be an HEA at the end.

  1

  Jude

  Jude leaned against the bedroom door, fighting to project a cool composure despite the infuriating bit of intelligence he’d just been given. Because a king must always be in control, even of his own temper.

  Maari Delayne sat on the edge of the huge four-post bed, nude, blinking up at him with those big golden-brown eyes, dark hair hanging over her shoulders to partially hide her beautiful breasts. Anger and lust warred within him as he watched her, an internal skirmish he’d endured almost constantly since the moment he’d first claimed the princess on behalf of himself and his two brothers, in compensation for the assassination of their father—the late king of Stead Camden—by her brother.

  “Is it true, princess? Did you inherit a genetic gift from your mother?” Jude’s icy blue gaze narrowed on her. “Can you stop yourself from conceiving?”

  The revelation had hit him like a slap to the face. Her secret was an insult and a personal betrayal, and the fact that she’d managed to keep it for three months called into question his control over his own household.

  The princess’s eyes widened, and as she processed his anger, she began to tremble, those glorious breasts quivering, nipples hard from the deliberate chill in the room. But instead of answering, she clutched at her own knees and clenched her jaw.

  Jude frowned. Legs together. Mouth closed. That wouldn’t do at all.

  “What?” the king’s youngest brother, Malac, demanded on his way out of Maari’s private restroom, wiping his freshly washed hands on a small towel. “Princess, have you been intentionally wasting our seed?” Fresh anger sparked like lightning in his bright green eyes, echoing in his voice like thunder. In that moment, he seemed entirely incapable of the restraint Jude expected of his Defense Commander.

  But then, Malac wasn’t there in his professional capacity, and his relationship with their concubine didn’t carry the same political ramifications for him as it did for Jude. For his brother, Jude knew, this was very, very personal.

  Maari’s apprehensive gaze flicked from Jude to Malac, without giving Orlann so much as a glance; she clearly knew the king’s middle brother didn’t care about children, despite the planetary council’s order that the Camden brothers breed the Delayne princess to merge two rival bloodlines. To sow peace, after a devastating five-year war that had ended with the execution of Maari’s brother, the former king of Stead Delayne, at Jude’s hands.

  The captive princess found Jude’s gaze again. She lifted her chin and sat straighter. If he didn’t already know that the change in position had driven a multi-pronged toy deeper into both her pussy and her ass, Jude might have mistaken her brief flinch for fear of him.

  Which would certainly have been well warranted.

  “Princess?” Malac demanded, his tone descending into a deep rumble as he began to stew in his own anger and betrayal. “What the hell is he talking about?”

  “Answer him.” Still seated at the table in front of the only window in the room, Orlann pressed a button on the small remote clutched loosely in his fist.

  The toy buried inside the princess—and arcing forward to cradle her clit—began to buzz fiercely, and a guttural moan escaped through lips she could no longer keep pressed together.

  “Please,” she moaned, finally turning her attention to Orlann, her hands fisted in the comforter beneath her. “Please don’t. Not again.”

  Jude’s cock began to swell in his pants at the memory of the spectacle she’d just performed for the three of them in the private dining room—her punishment for trying to flee the palace. For trying to default upon her obligation to the princes: to serve as their concubine and bear their bastard children.

  An hour ago, she’d been required to endure stimulation from Orlann’s toy for the duration of an entire meal, without orgasming. Of course, she’d failed, and she’d failed spectacularly. Beautifully. For which she would now have to pay.

  But first…

  Jude stalked toward her, displaying his anger in every thunderous impact of his boots upon the stone floor. In every menacing ripple of muscle. He stopped a foot away, so that she had to look up to meet his gaze. “If you don’t answer me, I will tie you to that bed and leave you there all night, with that toy set to sense when you’re close to release and stop stimulating you just before you reach orgasm. Over and over again.”

  Maari squirmed on the bed. Orlann clicked the remote again, and her groan deepened into a raw moan of reluctant need. “Fine. Just make it stop.”

  Jude nodded at Orlann, who turned the toy off. Maari’s exhalation sounded as much like disappointment as like relief. “Speak, princess.”

  “Yes!” The admission burst from her as if she’d been holding it back for a long time. “Surely you know the legend, considering your own gifts. They say the native gods bestowed a gift upon each of the First Families when Syrus was first terraformed and settled. Did you think the Camdens were the only ones?”

  “Of course not.” He knew the legend as well as she did, not that he believed in any gods. “But the Delaynes have no gift. If they ever had one, it was lost generations ago.”

  “That’s what I thought too,” Maari admitted. “As it turns out, we were both wrong.”

  “And this gift…?” Orlann’s tone indicated interest—of an academic sort, undoubtedly—yet his expression was stony. Closed off. Which was not unusual for the councilor—the only true politician, among the brothers.

  Maari exhaled, and when she looked up, fire shown in her gaze. “I can choose not to ovulate, and I’m not sorry for making that choice! You’ve taken everything from me—” Her angry focus skipped from Jude to each of his brothers, then back. “—but you can’t take that.”

  Malac stormed across the room toward her, and Maari shrieked as she scuttled backward over the mattress, trying to put as much space as possible between herself and the capricious Camden bastard. Clearly shocked at the anger emanating from him, when he’d always been the gentlest of the three of them with her.

  Mostly.

  Jude spun around to step into Malac’s path, facing him. “Back down.” He found that his own anger was easier to control, now that he was forced to deal with his brother’s. “We’re going to let her explain before we decide whether or not this is an offense worthy of punishment.”

  “Explain what? Th
is isn’t an offense, it’s a fucking betrayal. She’s been lying to us for three months!”

  “I have not!” Maari snapped, and Jude turned to find her eyes wide and scared, but her head still held high. “I told you from the beginning that I wasn’t going to have your babies.”

  “That’s true,” Orlann piped up from the table, still half-reclined in his chair, despite the escalation of tension. “She told us. And we didn’t listen.”

  Because her claim had seemed ridiculous—no more credible than her threats to kill Jude. Why would he have listened, when he knew damn well from reading her medical files that she was fertile?

  “And anyway, that’s no worse than you three biting me!” Maari shouted as she climbed off the far side of the bed, glaring at them in naked perfection, the tip of Orlann’s toy arcing forward to where Jude could see just the tip of it cradling her clit, in the V between soft thighs she kept pressed firmly together. “You use your gift for your benefit; why shouldn’t I use mine for my own benefit?”

  “Bullshit! That was for you,” Malac roared. “To relax you and help you enjoy us.”

  “You mean to make me enjoy it. And that’s the only reason I liked a damn thing any of you did to me.”

  “You know that’s not true.” Malac stormed around Jude, backing Maari into the corner on the other side of the bed, and Jude noted a maelstrom of lust and frustration churning behind his brother’s pale green eyes. His need not just to possess her, but to wring pleasure from her—to prove himself to her in ways he didn’t even seem consciously aware of—was on full display.

  Jude exhaled, weighing his options. Watching as his youngest brother battled both the sting of their concubine’s betrayal and his own resulting rage.

  “I’ll show you just how much you like what I have to offer. Bite or no bite.” Malac grabbed the princess, and she shrieked as he threw her onto the mattress.

  “Wait!” She stared up at him with tears in her eyes. “Please don’t be angry with me!”

  With a growl, Malac shoved her naked thighs wide and she gasped as he ripped the toy from her body without warning. Without gently working the plug from her tender ass.

  She tried to crawl backward across the bed, away from him, clearly terrified, but Malac hauled her back by one leg while he freed his cock from his pants with the other.

  “No!” she shouted, and Jude rounded the bed to grab Malac by the neck, hauling him off the princess before he could further traumatize her.

  “Out,” he ordered.

  Malac turned on him, snarling, lost in the turbulence of his conflicting emotions, but Jude stood his ground as Orlann finally came away from the table to stand at his older brother’s back.

  “Malac,” Jude said in the voice that held his entire kingdom in thrall. A voice that commanded his commanders—including his little brother. “Your king is speaking. Go cool off. Then meet me in the dining room.”

  Jude watched as slowly, Malac’s fury drained from him. As the tension in his frame began to melt away. As his breathing became less about him dominating the supply of air in the room and more about actually fulfilling his body’s needs. He blinked. Then his eyes widened with the realization of what he’d just done—what Jude had just stopped him from doing—and he turned back to Maari.

  “I’m sorry.” He reached for her, and she trembled as she scooted across the bed, away from him. Flinching back from his touch. Wariness swam in her eyes, along with unshed tears. “I swear I wasn’t going to hurt you. I just wanted to show you—”

  “Malac,” Jude said again. “Go.”

  He nodded, still looking at Maari. Taking in her closed off posture, with her knees tucked up to her chest. Her hair shielding most of her body from all three of them. Her chin bouncing as her teeth chattered. “I’m going to make this up to you, I promise.” Then he turned and tucked himself back into his pants as he headed into the hallway.

  “You too,” Jude said to Orlann, and his middle brother collected his toy, putting it in the box he’d brought it in, then followed Malac into the hall.

  When the door closed behind them, Jude sat on the edge of the bed, resisting the urge to pull Maari close. To obliterate the space between them and indulge his need to touch her. “You’re going to want to be more careful with Malac.”

  “He’s never been like that before.” But Jude could tell from the sudden lack of focus in her eyes—as if she were lost in a memory—that she’d known the potential was there. That she’d been leery of this change in him in the past.

  “I’ve seen him play peek-a-boo with my daughters. And I’ve seen him literally rip a man’s head from his shoulders. There’s a reason I named him my Defense Commander. He’s a warrior, Maari. Believe me when I say you’d rather have him as an ally than an enemy.”

  “So, I’m just supposed to give him anything he wants?”

  Jude leveled a hard, direct look at her. “You’re supposed to give all of us anything we want. That’s why you’re here.” Yet, as he’d just learned, there was one thing he and his brothers couldn’t take from her. One thing they couldn’t coax from her with all the bites, orgasms, and obscene praise in the world. “How does it work?”

  Maari gave him an unsteady shrug. “How does your biting work?”

  Jude shrugged. “I bite women, and they want me.” But they both knew the truth was a lot more complicated than that. “Your turn.”

  Maari returned his shrug. “I don’t want to have your children, so I don’t ovulate.”

  Jude counted to five, biting back his anger. Maari would regret keeping this from him; he would see to that. But if he scared her, she would shut down, and he wouldn’t get any answers. “But that’s not the whole story, is it? Geneva said—”

  “Your wife told you?” Maari’s eyes widened in surprise, then a curtain seemed to close over them, shutting him out. But not before he’d seen a flash of…regret?

  “Yes. How did she know?”

  “She said she’d heard rumors at school, and if that’s true, she knew about it long before I did. But she didn’t know it was more than a rumor until I told her, the day she came into my room.” Maari flinched with the memory, and Jude had to fight back his own encroaching rage. Geneva had gone too far that day. She’d disobeyed his explicit order to stay away from his concubine, and— “I shouldn’t have told her. But I had to make sure she knew that she had nothing to worry about from me. In that respect, anyway.”

  Because Geneva had threatened to kill any child Maari gave birth to, in its crib.

  “Tell me the rest of it,” Jude insisted, still fighting the urge to reach for her.

  Maari exhaled slowly. “The ability was passed down from my mother. All I really know is that as long as I’m not in love, I can choose not to conceive.”

  “In love.” Jude let the words bounce around in his head, trying to understand the connection. “And is that something to do with hormones released by the brain, triggered by emotions? Dopamine or serotonin?” There were others, but he couldn’t think of their names, in that moment. But the doctor would know. Maybe he could mix up a cocktail of “love” hormones and inject Maari with them to make her ovulate.

  “I’ve told you everything I know,” Maari insisted. “My mother died when I was too young to understand, so I got this information second hand. I wasn’t even sure it would work. But I’m not pregnant yet, so…” She shrugged with her arms still wrapped around her knees.

  “It’s definitely worked,” Jude growled. “The doctor says you haven’t ovulated once in the three months you’ve been here.”

  Maari finally lifted her head, and the shine in her eyes was unmistakable. It wasn’t joy, exactly. It was relief. And maybe a little bit of quiet triumph. Jude sniffed the air in her direction, trying to verify what he saw, and was disappointed to realize he couldn’t tell much from her scent, now that his bite was wearing off.

  Then her expression melted into a frown. “How do you know I haven’t ovulated? I’ve only seen the
doctor once since I’ve been here.” Her gaze narrowed on him, when he didn’t answer. “You can tell things like that through your monitoring of me?” She looked up, trying for the millionth time to find the cameras she assumed to be hidden in the ceiling.

  Jude stood without responding and headed across the room.

  “So, does that mean we’re done for the night?” Maari called after him as he opened the door and stepped into the hall.

  He lifted one brow at her. “No, princess. We are just getting started.” He closed the door and double checked the lock, then he turned to head for the dining room and nearly collided with his middle brother.

  “You waited, on purpose.” And though Orlann’s words had the feel of accusation, his tone sounded merely…observational.

  Jude scowled and stalked past him, leaving Orlann to catch up. “You’re the one loitering out here in the hall, when I told you to go with Malac.”

  “I mean in there.” Orlann tossed his head toward Maari’s room as he rounded the corner after Jude. “You waited, letting Malac scare the shit out of her—letting him rip this right out of her body—” Orlann held up the box containing his toy. “—so you could jump in and play the white knight. Taking a page out of his book, I assume?”

  Jude walked faster, irritated that, as usual, Orlann noticed everything. “It worked for Malac before. If he’s going to be an asshole now, why shouldn’t I take advantage?”

  “To what end?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Orlann rolled his eyes. “What advantage are you trying to claim with her?”

  Jude’s focus narrowed on his brother as he came to a stop outside the dining room. He growled softly. Then he pushed the door open and went inside.