Page 23 of Pounded in the Patch
I spin around to find him standing at the top of the steps, having followed me up here with that same predatory grace. The devil mask is still in place, but I can see his eyes through the openings, and they're burning with an intensity that makes my knees weak.
"I don't understand," I say, backing away from the crown like it might bite me. "What is this?"
"This," he says, walking toward me with slow, deliberate steps, "is where everything changes."
His vague answer only confuses me more.
"Wherewhatchanges?" I raise an eyebrow at him, feeling too comfortable in this space with him. “I’m nobody to you. We don’t even know each other.”
"You're wrong," he says simply, reaching the pedestal and picking up the crown. "You're so much more than you've let yourself believe."
No. No, this is crazy. This is all crazy.
But I can't look away from the crown in his hands, can't stop imagining what it would feel like to wear something so beautiful, so powerful.
"You're a queen, night monster," he murmurs, stepping closer. "My queen. And it's time you understood that."
His queen.
I’m screaming internally. What does that even mean?
Before I can protest, before I can think clearly enough to move away, he's behind me, lifting the crown toward my head.
"No," I whisper, but it comes out too softly.
"Yes," he disagrees, and settles the crown on my head.
The weight of it is immediate and profound, like it's changing my entire center of gravity. The metal is cold against my scalp, and I can feel power radiating from it—or maybe that's just my imagination.
Fuck.
It feelsright. Like it belongs on my head.
"It’s perfect," he breathes, his hands settling on my shoulders as he turns me to face the bed. "Absolutely fucking perfect."
I imagine what I look like to him right now—a woman in a torn vampire costume wearing a crown of obsidian and gold, standing in a gothic temple surrounded by black silk and candlelight.
I look like a dark queen.
I look like someone who belongs in a place as wicked and sinister as this pumpkin patch.
I look like someone who could rule beside a monster as beautiful and possessive ashim.
"Now," he says, his voice taking on that commanding edge that makes my back arch instinctively, "let me worship my queen properly."
His hands are on me before I can process what he means, gentle but insistent as he guides me toward the bed.
I should fight him and demand answers. And I know I should ask him who the fuck he is and why he's done all this…
But I don't. I let him lead me to the silk-covered mattress, help me climb onto it, arrange me among the black rose petals like I'm the finishing touch in his art piece.
Like I'm something worth worshipping.
The crown shifts slightly as I move, but it doesn't fall. It stays balanced on my head, like it was made specifically for me.
Was it?
Did he have this crown made for me specifically?
