Page 102 of Monsters Wear Crowns
“I don’t know what you’d do.”
For a long moment, he didn’t move. And then, slowly, he stood. The loss of his body against mine felt like a sudden, brutal cold snap. “You want the truth, Adela?” he asked quietly.
“Yes. Or I’ll go to Moreau for it.”
He looked at me, and the man standing there wasn’t the one who kissed me with desperation and fire. This man was a stranger. Distant and dangerous. A muscle ticked in his jaw like he had to physically hold himself back from laying his hands on me. “I don’t know if I can promise not to hurt you.”
The air left my lungs. “Rafe–”
“But Icanpromise I’ll never let anyone else touch you.”
It wasn’t the comfort I wanted. But maybe it was the only comfort he could offer. “You still haven’t told me the truth,” I whispered. “About my mother. Moreau keeps pressing.”
For a second, just a second, something like pain flickered across his face. But it was gone before I could hold onto it.
“Not tonight,” he said.
I wanted to scream. To hit him. But my voice was gone, my heart a hollow, pounding thing in my chest. And when he walkedout, closing the door behind him, the silence he left behind was deafening.
“Stop running away!” My voice cracked through the room, sharp and furious. “Just answer me, Rafe!”
Suddenly, he was right in front of me, too close and fast. “You don’t want the truth, Adela. You really fucking don’t.”
“I don’t need your protection!”
“Yes, you do!” he roared, his face twisting with something wild and untamed. I saw the moment he lost his grip on his temper, the second the storm inside him snapped free. He shoved me, not hard enough to knock me over but hard enough to make my breath hitch.
And I saw red.
Before I could stop myself, my palm cracked across his face. The sound echoed through the room like a gunshot. For a heartbeat, there was silence. Then his hand was on my throat, his grip firm but not crushing, his eyes searing into mine.
“Careful,little doe,” he warned, his voice a low snarl. “You don’t want to see what happens when I stop holding back.” He squeezed my throat, pressing his entire body against mine.
My pulse raced beneath his fingers, fear and desire warring inside me. But I didn’t look away. I wouldn’t. “Then stop holding back,” I whispered. “Tell me. Or I swear to God, Rafe, Iwillleave.”
His grip tightened just a fraction, and then he froze.
I saw it happen. The crack in his armor. The flash of panic behind his eyes. And just like that, the fight drained out of him.
“You’ll hate me,” he said hoarsely. “If I tell you, you’ll never look at me the same way again.”
“Maybe not,” I whispered. “But I need the truth.”
He stared at me for a long, agonizing moment. Then he released me, stepping back like I burned him. His hands raked through his hair, his chest rising and falling like he couldn’t quite catch his breath. “This…this is a mistake.”
“Please,” I said, my voice breaking. “If you care about me atall…just tell me.”
He turned away, pacing to the far side of the room. And when he finally spoke, his voice was low and rough, like it physically pained him to get the words out. “My father,” he said slowly. “He was having an affair with your mother.”
The floor tilted beneath me. “What?”
“When we were teenagers. Your father was…negligent,” he said bitterly. “Too busy building his empire to care about the woman he married. And my father...he saw an opportunity.”
“No,” I whispered. My head shook, but the word felt hollow. “No, that’s…that’s not true.”
But I already knew it was. It made an odd amount of sense.
“She threatened to tell your father when things got too complicated,” Rafe continued, his voice tight and raw. “Butmyfather…he couldn’t risk that. He couldn’t risk yours turning his empire against him.”
