“How?”

“I don’t know. You’re one of the most intelligent men on this earth. You can figure it out.”

“I don’t even know where to start on a new life.”

“Do you truly want one? Do you want to give up all this self-destructive foolishness and do something worthwhile? Do you want to be a new man?”

Kingsley paused and thought about the question. It seemed too good to be true. It sounded like a magic trick. Voila. New man. New life. But he wanted that magic even if it was an illusion. What he wouldn’t give to feel that way again, feel the way he felt when he and Søren had been lovers, when his mere existence gave Søren reason for hope. When Søren’s existence gave him hope.

“Oui.” Kingsley met Søren’s eyes. “I want it. What do I do?”

“You die and then you’re reborn. New life.”

Kingsley rolled his eyes.

“I die? That’s going to take some doing. I’ve been trying to die for ten years now. No luck.”

“With this I can help.”

“How? Are you going to kill me?”

“Yes.” Søren grasped Kingsley by the front of his shirt and dragged him to his feet.

“Life.” Søren looked straight and deep into Kingsley’s eyes.

“What?”

“Death.” Søren pushed him underwater.

Immediately Kingsley thrashed and jerked, trying to fight off Søren’s iron grip that held him under the surface of the water. He was drowning, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t get back up. He knew how drowning worked. He knew he would be dead in a minute. The water covered his head and face, and he couldn’t get traction, couldn’t get air. He looked death in the face and clawed at its eyes. He’d kill death before he’d let death kill him.

He fought back, fought hard.

He would not die tonight. He would live even if he had to kill Søren to survive.

Søren pulled him back up, and Kingsley spit out water, his throat and lungs burning.

“Resurrection.”

The water settled. Kingsley panted. The word resurrection echoed around the room, reverberating into the innermost chamber of his heart.

Søren took a step back.

“I did my part by coming back to you,” he said. “God did His part to keep you alive long enough for me to get here. Now you do your part and make yourself worthy of the second chance you’ve been given.”

“You tried to drown me.”

Søren smiled.

“It’s called baptism, Kingsley. Welcome to the Kingdom.”

Søren walked up the stairs, grabbed a towel and left him alone in the pool. Kingsley wordlessly watched him leave. He could still taste the vomit in his mouth. His clothes were soaked, he looked like hell. And yet, he felt clean.

Welcome to the Kingdom.

The Kingdom.

In that moment he stood sick and shaking and cold and wet, Kingsley knew exactly what he would do with his life. Once upon a time, he’d made Søren a promise. He’d made a promise and now he would keep it. He saw it before him, and it seemed so real he could touch it, feel it. He saw a building, old, Gothic, crumbling, like he was—awaiting rebirth. And people filed into it, people with secrets. They needed him, needed his protection, needed his knowledge. They needed to kneel. They needed a king. He heard their cries of ecstasy, saw their hunger and devotion. He would take them all and give them to one more worthy.

And he’d never seen anything more beautiful in his life.

A promise made long ago... A promise he would keep.

A king must have a kingdom after all.

12

May

“YOU’RE PLANNING TO build a what?” Søren asked.

“A BDSM club,” Kingsley said. He leaned forward at his desk and held up photographs he’d taken at a dozen different clubs. “I’ve been all over the world the past three weeks looking at what’s out there. I took these pictures in LA. It’s more a nightclub than a kink club, but it has a few dungeons. I went to this club in Germany—it’s as terrifying as it looks. This one was New Orleans. A brothel and a club, probably like your friend’s in Rome. And this is Chicago. Did you know the old Playboy clubs gave a key to every member? We’ll do something like—”

“Kingsley, stop.” Søren met his eyes across the desk.

“What?”

“Are you on drugs again?” Søren asked.

Kingsley tossed his photographs down.

“I’m sober, and I have been for two weeks.” He wasn’t merely sober, he was wildly sober, willfully sober and blissfully sober. His head was clear, his eyes bright and the bone-deep exhaustion he’d been living with for a year had evaporated. He was alive and happy about it for the first time in as long as he could remember. “I’m trying to tell you I know what to do with my life.”

“And that is...?”

“I’m going to build the biggest, most exclusive, most impressive S and M club in the world.”

Søren said nothing at first. But he did look up to the ceiling and addressed a few words to it.

“I suppose it wouldn’t have occurred to you to call him to join the Peace Corps, Lord,” Søren said, still gazing upward. “It had to be this?”

“Who the hell are you talking to?” Kingsley demanded.

“God. I was criticizing Him, so perhaps it’s for the best you interrupted. This is your grand calling in life? Your ultimate purpose? An S and M club?”