Page 113 of Pawn of the Cruel Princess

I’m not her.

I won’t be her.

She’s dead, and what if Arawn turns her spirit away? What if she lingers here, haunts this place—haunts me? Follows me wherever I go? What if her rage is possessing me right now?

I sink to my hands and knees on the rumpled rugs. My breath drags through my lungs, heavier and heavier. I’m gasping, sobbing, fingers tensed into claws, my body rigid.

A hand falls on my shoulder and I whirl, screaming, slashing with my nails.

It’s Ducayne bending over me, but he withdraws, straightens. Touches the bloody scratch I left on his cheek.

I tremble at his feet.

There is no one to force his obedience now. Nothing but his tattoo keeps him with me. That, and a foolish profession of love that he can’t mean—a flimsy emotion that will dissipate quickly, like a sandcastle washed away by the tide of my selfish anger.

“Don’t touch me,” I whisper.

He looks at me, quiet and serious. “This time, Princess, I cannot obey you.”

It is as I thought. My control over him is entirely gone. We are not friends—we are merely partners in this mess, trying to find a way out of it.

Ducayne leans down and catches my wrists. He pins them in one big hand, then unhooks one of the gold chains at his waist and winds its length around and between my wrists, over and over, until they are bound tight. Then he clamps the hook to secure my shackles.

I writhe and kick at him while he’s doing it, but he’s stronger now, while I’m shaking from the aftereffects of Ward’s orgasmic drug and the toxin counteragent and whatever else I imbibed today. I’m starving, thirsty, and so sad I cannot weep.

Ducayne unlaces my corset and tosses it aside. Then he throws me over his shoulder in a way that no man has ever dared to carry me before.

“You foul, evil brute!” I scream. “Put me down, bastard! Asshole!”

He ignores me, humming softly as he carries me along the corridors to my suite and into the bathing room. He dumps me on the floor. While he’s adjusting the spigot over the big copper tub, I manage to get to my feet and run.

He catches me before I reach the door.

“Let me go.” I wrench in his grasp, eyeing the dresser where one of my knives lies temptingly unsheathed.

But he sees it too, and he snatches it, tucking its blade against the neckline of my dress. With a skillful jerk, he cuts through the material, laying open the bodice, exposing my breasts.

“What are you doing?” I breathe.

“What you need me to do.”

Ducayne cuts the rest of my clothes off, and I don’t dare fight him, because he has both a weapon and brute strength. Then he pulls the remaining pins out of my hair and removes my earrings.

I stand before him, entirely bare, with my wrists bound and my hair loose.

The water is still gurgling into the tub in the next room. Ducayne looks in, says, “We have time,” and pushes me toward the bed.

I inhale, planning to protest, but he bends me over, forcing my breasts against the blankets. His large hand descends on the back of my neck.

“No soft words,” he says, leaning over me, speaking into my ear.

A thrill chases through my lower belly, and the space between my legs warms.

A rustle of material as he removes his pants. “You’re wet, Highness.”

I squirm, pressing my thighs tighter together, hissing my anger through my teeth.

But he says, “From now on, you and I will not be embarrassed about what gives us pleasure. If I want you to choke me, command me, and cut me, that is my choice. If you want me to dominate you, crush you to the wall, and call you a bitch, that is your choice. And if you want me to nestle you in soft pillows and lick you gently until you come, that is your choice. No one else gets to tell us how we take comfort or pleasure.”