Page 11 of Pawn of the Cruel Princess

My bodyguards follow her out in the hallway. They know better than to touch me or offer me help. I’m as likely to stab them as thank them for their compassion.

“I will summon a Healer, Princess,” Penn says. “Would you like your maid as well?”

My mouth is full of blood. I manage to shake my head.

The door of my room closes.

After a beating, I am usually alone. I cry a little, rage a little. I wait for the Healer, and when she is done repairing me, I go down to the dungeons and torture someone. There’s always a purpose to my torture—the extraction of information we haven’t been able to elicit yet, or punishment for crimes I know the victim has committed—rape, murder, treachery. I don’t like torturing people who have no secrets to yield and no serious crimes to punish. It's not as satisfying.

That is what I would usually do after a brawl with my sister. But I am not alone now. And I can’t cry in front of the Captain.

I try to push myself upright, but my wrist throbs so horribly I collapse again. My blood has spattered the carpet. Damn.

The Captain approaches, sinking to one knee beside me. I turn my face away from him.

Now he sees me for what I am. A craven, crawling thing, desperate for power. It will be even harder to make him obey me now that he knows my weakness.

“I should have stopped her,” he says quietly. “Forgive me.”

The pity in his voice makes me gag. “Shut up,” I moan, spitting blood. “If you’d raised a hand to her, you’d have been executed, if your tattoo didn’t stop you first. You are not here to protect me. You’re here to give me power. To help me make alliances, and friends.” The wordfriendsis bitter copper on my tongue.

“You want allies who can protect you once she ascends to the throne.”

I blink at him, or I try to. One of my eyelids is swollen nearly shut. It’s unnerving how clearly he sees my strategy. Perhaps it’s his military training.

“So I’m to win you allies with my mouth and my dick,” he says dryly. “You’ll let them fuck me, and that will cement a lasting friendship?”

“That is generally how things are done here.” I make another effort to sit up, and he leans in, his broad hand sliding across my back, helping me. His scent is a decadent cloud around me, a complex, woodsy aroma with a hint of blackberries, vanilla, and freshly clipped grass. I like the fragrance the servants chose. It suits him. It’s a refuge for my senses in the cloud of pain.

“Do you intend to enjoy me yourself?” he asks, low.

“Of course not!” In my haste, more blood drips down my chin. He dabs it with the cloth he used on himself earlier.

“Of course not,” he echoes, lightly sarcastic. “Because why would you ever enjoy your own pleasure thrall?”

“I don’t do pleasure. I don’t want it or need it.”

“You’re frigid, then, as they say.”

I grimace, and the expression hurts my face. “That is an offensive word, used by sex-obsessed people to denigrate those who don’t worship at the altar of sensual excess. Don’t use the word again. Ever.”

He nods. “As you command.”

A moment later, one of our Royal Healers enters my room. She’s a tall, gaunt, austere woman, not an ounce of compassion in her body. I often get the sense that she despises her gift and wishes it were anything else. She doesn’t seem to enjoy helping people with her magic. But she does her duty well, mending my flesh and my bruised insides, calming the swollen places and sealing the scratches until I am flawless and pain-free again. Before she leaves, I ask her to mend the Captain’s breast where I cut him, and she does.

The moment she leaves, a sound rolls through my bedroom—a kind of gurgling roar. It’s coming from my pleasure thrall. From his stomach, to be exact.

He winces. “Apologies, Your Highness.”

“You’re hungry.”

“Haven’t eaten all day.”

“Well then.” I reach for the cord that summons my maid. “I can’t have that gods-awful sound keeping me awake tonight, can I?”

6

Something shifts inside me when I see the Princess pinned on her back, smiling through her own blood, pained and triumphant, while her sister rains punches onto her face and chest.