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I wish he'd killed me and been done with it.
11
CALDORYN
Rhea’s withdrawn as she walks down to the dungeon, clad in Vessorian’s coat, her pretty shoes and nothing else at all. What’s left of her gown’s carpeting my dispatch room.
The outfit, I like. Her resigned, fearful silence pleases me far less.
I should enjoy it. The broken flesh on my chest stings and itches as it knits itself back together, and though I’m accustomed to pain, it’s still one bitch I would rather have dispensed from flirting with tonight. For all that, most of the anger I might have felt at her attack dissipated when I watched her fall apart after hurting me.
I can’t trust her. I need to punish her, in order to make her understand such choices will always result in consequences, but the bulk of my fury is directed elsewhere. Toward the monster who indoctrinated this young, vulnerable woman’s mind and sent her here to her death.
“It’ll all be over soon,” I assure her.
She stills, her face ashen. Too late, I see my words could be interpreted in all manner of ways. She thinks so little of me, she believes me capable of fucking a woman’s brains out before sending her to the gallows. Gritting my teeth, I repeat to myself that it’s not her fault. She’s been lied to, manipulated.
As speaking did little to comfort her, I throw my arm around her waist, drawing her close. Though she trembles, she lets me.
I like her tucked under me.
We reach a seldom-used, utterly dark, dusty floor, deep under the belly of the castle.
Vess leads the way through the mostly vacant dungeon. I don’t keep prisoners here for long—they’re either executed or transferred out of sight if their incarceration is supposed to last longer. We pass rows and rows of dark, empty cells, until we reach four guards, each posted in front of a different stall.
It is cold in the dungeons, and I don’t miss the way Rhea shivers. Perhaps it might have to do with seeing her friends behind bars, uncertain of her own fate.
She rushes to the closest room, where a purple-haired woman—who seems, by looks and attitude, about two or three years older than Rhea herself—paces back and forth like a restless wolf.
The imprisoned woman runs to the front of the cell, hands seeking Rhea’s. “What did they do to you?” she whispers, horrified. She takes in everything, from Rhea’s nakedness under the cloak to her mussed-up hair, and filth-stained skin. Then she thrashes against the bars, glaring at us. “What did you do to her, you monster!” she screams, before yelling a colorful slew of obscenities.
She's protective and loyal then. I value both qualities, even in my enemies.
I grow tired of this rhetoric. I am the monster for taking what’s freely offered to me, and they’re saints for giving it before killing me? Or at least, trying to.
“I let her fuck me before trying to murder me, as you planned,” I reply smoothly. “Unfortunately for you, and happily for me, your intelligence is woefully inadequate, and mine is efficient, so I survived.” In an effort to be honest, I add, “And then, I fucked her again.”
“You pig!” the woman cries. “You—”
Whatever insult she has in store is cut off when a single figure approaches from the other entrance, his three-inch heels clicking against the smooth floor.
Shorter and slimmer than everyone in the circle except for Silver, my master of spies was always self-conscious about his height.When he came to warn me about Rhea hours ago, he wore plain traveling clothes, and flat ankle boots. I’d knew he’d get changed at the first opportunity. Now, with his blond curls styled and in a black silk cape with a red undercoat, my cousin looks far more like himself: flamboyant, beautiful, charming.
“Alrion,” Rhea whispers, finally understanding why her tricks would never have worked, even if she’d known about my heart, even if I were easy prey.
He reaches us and smiles sadly, holding his hands up. “I can explain—” he starts.
With surprising speed for someone so exhausted, and despondent moments ago, Rhea crosses the distance between them, closes her fist, and punches his pretty face.
I wince on his behalf, but don’t intervene. Alrion could have stopped her himself if he wanted to.
“Youtraitor,” she bellows, bracing to hit him again, but Vess restrains her, holding her arms once again, behind her back this time.
I don’t miss how it pushes her chest forward. In other circumstances, what fun we could have.
This woman makes me quite insatiable.
In no mood for further theatrics, I speak. "Quite the contrary. Alrion’s one of the most faithful subjects of the realm—he just serves mine, not yours.”
