Conlan didn't know which option should concern him more. »

Their friendship had weathered the strain of the demands of politics and power. Conlan trusted Alaric with his life. Didn't he?

It was enough to split a man's skull open.

Clenching the sheets in his fists, he fought for composure. For some semblance of royal countenance to overlay the ragged insanity threatening to eat through his mind.

Through his gut.

To his soul.

His heart was long since gone. Shattered at the end of a whip, while forced to hear silken words whispering of the atrocities they'd heaped upon his lady mother.

Anubisa and her apostates of Algolagnia. They'd murdered his mother an inch at a time, and they'd enjoyed it. Worse, they'd gotten off on it. A deep shudder wracked through him, remembering how Anubisa had pleasured herself to orgasm in front of him while she told him stories of torturing his parents.

Again and again and again.

Anubisa was going to die.

They were all going to die.

"Conlan?" Alaric's voice almost physically wrenched him out of his memories of death and blood. Alaric. He'd said hours later…

"Hours? And here I am," Conlan said, remembering. "She let me go. She knew, Alaric. She knew."

His final day. His final hour.

"Oh, princeling, you have brought me such pleasure," she murmured in his ear. Then she slid down his naked body and delicately licked at the sweat, the blood, and the other, thicker fluids that pooled to drip down his thighs. "But I think you must needs return to your people. You have a delightful surprise waiting for you. And, in your current state, you're no longer any fun."

Standing up, she'd waved one of her attendants over. "Twelve of my personal guard. Twelve, you understand? Don't befooled by this temporary weakness. The brat prince of Atlantis lias… hidden strengths." She'd run a finger down his cock, laughing as he'd tried to flinch away from her.