Forbidden Princess (Retribution Games #2) - Ella Miles Page 0,4

If you would like to enter the game, sign your name in blood, and then bring your card to the stage. Place it in the bowl in my beautiful daughter’s hands.”

A bowl is placed in Rialta’s trembling hands.

Oh, my beautiful Princess, how I’m going to enjoy breaking you.

I turn to my table as men at surrounding tables start rushing to put their names in the bowl in Rialta’s hands. Stupid fools think they have a shot at winning this game. All that awaits them is shame, pain, and probably death.

I grab one of the cards in the middle of the table. I prick my thumb with my pocketknife and sign my name on the card.

A movement catches my attention out of the corner of my eye.

“What are you doing?” I demand.

“Entering,” Caius says coldly.

“You don’t get to enter. As your leader, I forbid it.”

“You can’t stop me.”

He stands up. I do as well, getting in his face.

“If you want to remain in the Retribution Kings, you will do as I say. Sit down.”

“No, Odette was my sister. I deserve retribution as much as you do. If we both enter, we have twice the spies in this game, twice the chances of winning. I have to do this for Odette.”

I breathe loudly.

I don’t like it, but I can see his grief hiding in the shadows. He’ll let it explode out of him if I don’t let him enter. He needs this as much as I do.

I step out of his way. I’ll let him enter, but it doesn’t mean I’ll let him win. Rialta is mine. Mine to win. Mine to torture. Mine to destroy.

Caius walks up on the stage, and I turn to the rest of the guys. “Don’t even think about entering.”

Then I follow him up on the stage.

Rialta doesn’t notice me at first. She’s too upset about Caius entering, recognizing that this a bloodshed game as much as it is a game for her heart.

But then she spots me.

Her breath catches. Her heart pumps louder. Her lustful gaze quickly turns to rage as her jaw tightens.

I stop right in front of her.

Her eyes widen in shock, and a deep frown mars her pretty lips.

“Did you find Odette?”

I don’t answer her. Instead, I hold my hand out over the bowl.

She blinks, not registering what I’m doing until I release my grip and my card drops into the bowl.

Her eyes look deep into mine, not understanding why in the hell I would enter. It takes her a moment, her eyes racing back and forth, trying to read my face.

Odette’s dead, her eyes shoot into me as she realizes.

I give the tiniest of nods. I’m not even sure she notices, but her reaction is real, authentic. She didn’t know that Odette was dead. Whatever role she played, she didn’t know that Odette was killed as a result.

What game are you playing, Princess?

I can see her mind whirling with thoughts, trying to figure out my endgame, but quickly her gaze shifts.

Hope—I see hope in her eyes.

She wants me to win. Wants me to play hero. Wants me to save her.

If she thought I was cold before, she has no idea who I am now. Odette made me a better man. Without her, there is nothing left of me but a cruel, cold heart. I’m a man set on revenge, revenge Rialta can help me with. If she’s waiting on me to play hero, she’s going to be waiting a long time.

I lean in and whisper, “I call these the Retribution Games. I’m about to kill everyone that had anything to do with her death. Sorry if a little blood splatters on your pretty tiara, Princess.”

She shivers as my words cover her.

Be afraid, Princess, be very afraid. You think I’m better than the rest of these pricks, but you’re wrong. There is nothing left but the devil’s soul inside me, and I plan on unleashing it upon the world.

1

Ri

Entering the game won’t heal Beckett. It won’t heal Caius. It won’t heal any of them. They think they can get revenge on me, my father, or anyone else who might have been involved in Odette’s death. Maybe they should, but it won’t stop their pain, their grief.

How do I know?

I feel like somehow I’ve already lived through something like it, like I already know their pain. It probably has to do with the fact that I’m standing on stage in a dress I didn’t pick out, and holding a bowl full of names of