Cover

ABOUT THIS BOOK

Betrayal. Destruction. Truth.

He says you can only rise up once you hit rock bottom.

Only be made whole once you’re fully broken.

I don’t know that there’s anything left to break.

Time is running out for me. Enemies are closing in at every turn.

But this time I won’t be alone.

One brother has vowed his protection. The other reaffirmed his hatred of me.

Yet they both want me.

But something dark is unraveling inside me.

An event too terrible clawing its way into my consciousness.

And even as things begin to change between us, it’s those memories that may undo us all.

Broken Queen is the second book of the Ruined Kingdom Duet and must be read in order.

One-click Ruined Kingdom in all stores now!

1

VITTORIA

They’re everywhere, and they’re touching me. Their hands and mouths and tongues are all over me. Their breath is hot at my back. It’s sickening. Fingers dig into my hips, keeping them lifted as my knees are forced apart, dragged through shards of broken glass that slice like knives.

I don’t scream. I can’t. I have no voice. And the music. It’s so loud. It pounds against my forehead, which they keep pressed to the floor as the bass vibrates through every cell of my body.

Warmth runs down the inside of my thigh. I’ve lost control of my bladder.

“Fuck. She’s pissing herself.”

Someone laughs. I taste vomit. I don’t remember throwing up, but I must have. I’m lying in it.

But something shifts in the air then. A door slams. A roar sounds like the battle cry of some wild beast. It’s louder than the music and the pounding of blood in my ears.

The fingers digging into my hips loosen just a little. The hand at the back of my head is gone. Attention diverted. A palpable rage rattles the room itself, and an instant later, their hands and their sweaty bodies and disgusting tongues are forced off me.

I should move, but I can’t. I’m too scared. Too fucking terrified. I turn my face, laying my cheek in wet, still-warm vomit. Everything hurts. Glass cuts into my knees, my chest. I should get up. Get away while they’re distracted. But I’m locked in place on my hands and knees, my face in vomit, my eyes squeezed shut. I don’t want to open them. I know I have to, but I can’t. I don’t want to see, and I can’t run.

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, princess.

But no, that’s not right. He was wrong. So wrong. I’m not stronger for it. I’m not strong at all.