Monster x Reader: Loyal to the King, Never to the Kingdom

The Kings Spymaster

"Can I trust you?" there was a time when you would have looked him in the eye and said, unequivocally, that he could trust you with anything.

"Yes." 

You still said it, but you had long since been forbidden from meeting his gaze.

He was your king, but before that he had been an ally, a friend, the man that you fought beside on the battlefield and knelt willingly at his feet as his subject.

"Look at me." His voice was like a whip against your skin, hotter than even the real ones he had struck you with.

You lifted your head, the marble floor cold against your knees as you remained at his mercy, wearing nothing but the overlarge night shirt that you had been sleeping uneasily in when you were summoned.

You met his eyes. The gaze of the king (you had been forbidden from speaking his name long ago) was an uncanny, poisonous green.

When had his gaze changed? The way those eyes looked at you no longer held anything but conflicting temperature. A cold that burned hot, a heat like ice.

He had become a true king, one made of steel. His people were strong, his rule merciless, his justice swift.

He was not a man of evil, not a man of kindness, simply one of necessity. He was the man that the kingdom needed.

He could perhaps even be called fair.

To all except you.

The scars on your back could attest to that, lines over the muscle that cracked and split for weeks after he dealt them.

Still, even though you could no longer look him in the eyes without his bidding, even though you were no longer permitted to say his name, even though you found yourself bleeding and left alone on the cold floor whenever he desired it, you still said 'yes' and meant it with every shred of your boundless conviction.

So you held his gaze, unwavering as you ever were when it came to matters of loyalty.

"Unbelievable."

Your hand wanted to shake where it lay on the cold black stone of the throne room floor; you stilled it, gulping around your tongue as he stood and approached your body where it knelt in front of his throne.

You kept your eyes on him, unable to look away even as your heart picked up and blood pounded in your ears.

He came to a stop right in front of you, close enough that you could smell the oil he used to keep his leathers supple. You could smell the sage-smoke from his nightly prayer, and under it all there was the smell of sweat from his training; he was a king that was still as warlike as he had been when covered in the blood of his enemies.

And you? You were his shadow, someone to fulfil his whims and stand behind him to catch the daggers aimed at his back.

You would do anything for him, and despite every drop of blood he had drawn and every scar that healed on your body, that hadn't changed.

"Unbelievable." He repeated the words. "Despite all that I have done to you, all that I have hurt you-" He crouched, his hand coming to rest on your cheek in a caress more gentle than any you could remember. "You still mean that."

Your body was numb, mind floating high overhead in the domed ceilings as you waited for the pain you were sure was to come.

His thumb brushed against the fullness of your bottom lip.

You did not dare to move, you hardly even breathed. Unless you were asked a direct question, you would not speak.

You were frightened of him, in awe of him, you were his invisible shield in the darkness, doing all of the dirty things he could not have anyone else attend to because no one had your skill or the grit to know what necessity was.