“I’d like to agree with that,” Cassian said and a heavy pause fell.
“Spit it out,” I said, raising my eyes to his. “What happened then?”
“I, err... the princess spent time with each of us alone so I spoke with her for a while.” He balled his hands into fists and I could tell he’d rather keep the details of their conversation to himself but I needed to hear it.
“If she mentions something about last night and I have no idea what she’s talking about then how do you expect me to explain that?” I asked flatly.
Cassian sighed, knowing I was right. “We talked about how unhappy she is with the pageant. She has no desire to go through with this sham, no desire for a husband to take her right to rule from her.”
I barked a laugh. “That’s hilarious, why go through with it then?”
“She has no choice. Something I’m sure we can thank Gothel for. And perhaps after last night she will no longer have to continue with it,” he added hopefully.
I frowned as I thought about that. If the pageant ended then that would be the end of my plans to become Emperor. Although, after that kiss last night I knew I had the princess’s attention so maybe it wouldn’t have to be the end after all. I could just continue in my attempts to court her and she may very well choose me for a husband anyway.
“Well I imagine I’m the best choice for her given the circumstances,” I said. “And we have to continue as if the pageant has no reason to be called off so let’s presume for now that it’s still going ahead. What did you say in response to her heartfelt admission?”
“That’s between me and her.” Cassian frowned down at his plate and I released a sigh of irritation.
“There’s no point keeping secrets, mate. She thinks your words came from my mouth anyway so you’ve gotta tell me.”
He nodded in bitter acceptance before continuing. “I said that if I was her husband I would set her free. Give her the right to rule the kingdom and allow her to make all of the decisions in the way it’s ruled.”
I frowned as I turned over that snippet of information.
“That’s... damn brilliant, Cassian,” I said eventually, barking a laugh.
“What?” he asked with a frown.
“Well I’d make a terrible Emperor; I’m selfish and vain and arrogant. I only want to be Emperor so that I can live in a palace, getting fat off of all the best food the kingdom has to offer while enjoying the company of a hundred people who can’t wait to lick my ass and tell me how fantastic I am. If she wants the responsibility of ruling the kingdom then she can have it!”
“I presumed you’d be pissed off about it,” Cassian said, his eyes narrowing.
“Pissed off? You’ve made my day, mate.” I got to my feet and he looked up at me in surprise as I drew closer, patting him on the head like he was a good dog. “Is there anything else I should know?” I moved away from him to get myself a drink and the silence stretched.
I poured the cold water down my throat and leaned back on the table as I turned to look at him.
Cassian cleared his throat. “Well, I may have gotten a little... physical with her,” he said and I could tell he felt like he shouldn’t have done it. “We very nearly kissed. But then Gothel interrupted us and sent me on my way.”
I grinned at him knowingly. “So you left Rapunzel wanting more?”
“Well I don’t know if I’d presume that much. And if I did then it was obviously a mistake because it led her to you,” he said irritably, obviously not wanting me to remind him of how that had turned out.
“That it did, mate,” I said. “Maybe you should try acting like me more often. You should have seen the look she gave me when she showed up here afterwards, asking me to finish what you’d started.”
Cassian scowled at me and I could tell he didn’t like the suggestion I was making. “And of course you took complete advantage of that didn't you, thief?”
“Do you want me to tell you all the details?” I asked, smirking as his eyes flashed with rage. I didn’t wait for a reply before going on anyway. “She turned up here and she wanted to come in. And believe me, you missed out on something pretty damn good with that kiss, mate. Considering she’d never done it before, I was surprised at how hot and heavy she got. If I hadn’t put a stop to it then I reckon I could have been waking up to her this morning.”
Cassian released a growl like an angry lion and launched himself at me from his position on the couch.
He moved so quickly that I barely had time to react before he slammed me back onto the huge table and started throwing punches at my face. My mother-effing face!
I tried to buck him off of me as his fists slammed into me again and again but it was like being attacked by a demon.
“Get off!” I yelled, giving up on trying to shove him back and throwing my fist into his side instead.
Cassian punched my face again and wrapped his hands around my throat.
“You lowborn, piece of shit,” he snarled. “You aren’t good enough to wipe the dirt from her shoes let alone marry her!”
Darkness started to curtain my vision as I fought to get him off of me and I couldn’t even call out to Kyra for help. I twisted and thrashed in his grip, knocking the decanter of water from the table followed by several plates, the sound of them breaking on the tiles filling the air.
I spotted a bread knife to my left and grunted with effort as I flung myself towards it, managing to snatch it into my grasp.
Before I could do more than close my fingers around it, the door flew open and four armed palace guards burst into the room.
Cassian halted in his attempts to choke me and my heart leapt as they raised their scimitars threateningly.
“Unhand the Count this instant!” one of them bellowed as he moved towards Cassian.
Cassian quickly removed his hands from my throat and dropped off of the table as he was surrounded. I released my grip on the bread knife and pushed myself upright, wiping blood from the corner of my mouth with a feeling of disgust. He’d almost knocked my damn tooth out.
“What would you like us to do with him, sire? His execution can be scheduled for dawn if you want to wait for a hanging or we can dispatch him more quickly if you’d sooner have this dealt with now?” the guard asked, raising his scimitar towards Cassian’s neck.
I raised an eyebrow in surprise as I realised what was going on. They thought they’d just saved my life and as a nobleman I had the right to decide Cassian’s fate without so much as a trial or even a question about what had transpired between us.
Cassian’s eyes widened with fear and I realised he wasn’t sure what I might say. I let him hang in that moment for a few more seconds before releasing an amused laugh.
“No need for any of that. We were just sparring,” I said dismissively and the tension in Cassian’s shoulders relaxed.
“Sparring? But, sire, he had his hands around your neck, he was trying to kill you. He-”
“Don’t be ridiculous. If he killed me then he’d be out of a job. But when we spar I require him to use every tactic available to him. Fighting with honour is all well and good but if it ever comes down to a fight for your life then honour has very little to do with it.”
The guards were staring at me like they couldn’t quite believe their ears and I pushed myself off of the table, moving towards them in that stick up my ass way that Cassian had taught me.
“I said, unhand my man,” I growled, dropping my voice dangerously as they failed to do what I’d asked.
The guards quickly obeyed, dipping their heads respectfully as Cassian stumbled out of their grip.
“Sorry, sire. We didn’t mean to interrupt your morning. Good day to you.” The guards quickly headed out of the room and the silence left in their absence was thick with tension.
“Looks like you owe me your life once again,” I said icily, as soon I was sure the guards were far enough away from the door not to overhear us.
“I hope you’re not expectin
g a thank you,” Cassian replied flatly. His anger with me seemed to have tempered into something less dangerous than the jealous rage he’d flown into but I could see that he was still mightily pissed with me all the same.
“Never from you, you entitled prick,” I replied. “Why should you ever thank me for any of the things I’ve done for you? I’m just lowborn scum, right? And you’ve just had a taste of what I’ve been subject to my whole life. Those guards would have killed you with no more than a nod from me, just because some made up title makes them believe I’m somehow better than you.”
“There’s more to being noble than titles,” he disagreed tersely.
“No there isn’t,” I growled. “That’s the difference between being highborn and lowborn. Power. As a Count, my life is worth more than yours because of what? I have more money to my name. Which is true enough now that I have a genie helping me. So by your standards I have every right to be Emperor purely because I hold the most wealth. Which is also why I’m a thief. The more you have the less anyone else can take from you. And now I’ve had a taste of what it’s like to be one of the elite, you can bet your ass I won’t be giving it up any time soon.”
Cassian ground his teeth, seeming to be at a loss for what to say in response to that. He didn’t want to admit I was right because that would rock the very foundations of his highborn moral compass but he couldn’t easily deny it either. He might not be noble himself but as highborn he was still much further up the hierarchy than me.
“Piss off to the gardens for a bit. The reek of vomit is still on you and I’m sick of looking at your face,” I said irritably, wiping the blood from the corner of my mouth with a scowl.
Cassian looked like he wanted to read me off a list of pompous bullshit but instead he just turned on his heel and left the room.
The door closed with a hard snap and I released a breath of frustration as I turned to survey the mess we’d caused in our fight.
My gaze strayed to Kyra’s door and I wondered why she hadn’t come out at the sound of our altercation. I knew I’d crossed a line with the way I’d snapped at her but I’d always vented my frustrations on the thieves when I’d been in a bad mood. I was used to dealing with men and women who would shrug off such insults or challenge me to a brawl over them. She was an entirely different kind of creature and I knew I’d gone too far.
My bad mood hadn’t cleared enough for me to swallow my pride yet so I turned from her door instead, heading out of the room in search of the bathhouse.
Yeah, I’m an asshole. But that shouldn’t come as much of a surprise.
Pounding on Aladdin's face had felt good. Really damn good. But now we were at a stalemate again. He'd had my death handed to him on a silver platter and he'd saved my neck. That either meant he still needed me or he actually gave a shit about me. After his selfish outburst I was inclined to think it was the former.
Aladdin didn't give a damn about anyone. He wanted money, women and a comfy palace to house it all. I couldn't believe I'd been stupid enough to actually think we were friends. I was usually pretty good at judging people, but I'd missed the mark on him.
I stalked the gardens outside, beating a path I knew like the back of my hand. No one paid any attention to a guard. It was how we were trained. Shadows which only came to life when we were needed. We silently watched, protected and remained constantly vigilant. But that didn't mean our ears weren't open and our minds weren't working. At least not for me anyway.
I tossed over our disagreement in my head and one thing kept tugging at me. What Aladdin had said about being lowborn. How anyone born on the streets was valued less than a nobleman, their life worth little to nothing. It was a bitter truth and one I had to face head on if I was ever going to call myself moral again. The mere words alone, lowborn and highborn, established that worth and it sickened me that I’d lived in our society this long without realising it.
Shit, why was I so hard on him?
Because he kissed the Princess.
“Three, four, five, six,” a familiar voice stabbed into me and I shook off the anxiety I felt as I approached the Royal Guard's training grounds. The repetitive thump of a regiments' boots hitting the ground made the earth vibrate.
I slipped through an arch in the east wall and paused at the edge of the huge sand square where Captain Marik was putting a squad through a vigorous work-out. Trainees. Teenagers, most of them. Many with beanpole arms, but that wouldn't last long. Not with Marik as their Captain.
He commanded them down to the ground and they started doing press-ups. I shrank back against the wall, unsure why I was remaining to watch this but unable to drag my eyes away. One of the smallest boys failed first, his knees crashing into the sand and his back arching as he caught his breath.
“Name,” Marik growled, his shadow falling over the boy as he came to a halt in front of him.
I shuddered, the ghosts of my past bringing up memories like this, kneeling in Marik's shadow.
My throat thickened as he brushed his hand over the riding crop he carried on his hip.
Oh I remember the sting of that.
“Laris,” the boy panted.
Sir, I corrected him in my head automatically. The other boys were still battling the heat and religiously bending their arms, up, down, up, down. None of them wanted to be next on Marik's list and I didn't blame them.
“Laris what?” Marik snarled.
“Sir!” Laris gasped in horror.
“Hands,” Marik snapped and Laris lifted his hands palm-up.
My brow creased as I spotted the fresh marks which already lined them. A day old at most. Kid must have been the newest recruit. Marik always like to try and break the newbies.
Marik took the crop from his hip and my heart raced. My muscles bunched as I moved forward, possessed with the urge to stop this.
I'd been that kid. And I couldn't stand idly by and watch, even if it was one time in a thousand that I could intervene.
“Morning,” I said loudly, stepping onto the sand.
I was overly aware of placing all of my faith in Kyra's magic to disguise my face from my former captain.
Marik's eyes moved away from the kneeling boy, falling on my feet first and taking in every inch on the way up to my face. He tilted his head then cracked a polite smile. An actual smile, teeth and all. I wasn't sure I'd ever seen one on his face before. “You're Nazari's man,” he stated.
“That I am.” I looked to Laris on the floor who, to his credit, still had his palms outstretched for the strikes he was awaiting. “We don't hit our recruits in Carubai,” I bluffed. Who knew if they did? Probably. “Doesn't teach much about respect does it?” My heart hammered as I stood eye to eye with the man who'd ridiculed me this way. It made my inner self want to curl up like the worthless dog he’d made me into. But I was untouchable now. He couldn't do shit to a guard who wasn't his to command.
“That so?” He ran his tongue across his upper lip to catch the sweat gathering in his thin moustache. “I'd wholly disagree.”
I shrugged. “Well they brought in the rule after I was trained. My captain beat the hell out of me and I respect mud more than him.” I smiled broadly and his eyes narrowed.
“Well that's not how we do things around here.” He raised the crop and Laris flinched – which I knew from experience would earn him more lashings. Throw me a bone here, kid. “I'll show you,” Marik continued, stepping toward the boy again.
I ground my teeth as he raised the crop and slashed it through the air. My arm jerked out of its own accord and I snatched the whole thing from his grip. Marik gazed at me in alarm and all the boys in the yard stopped working as they stared at me.
Marik's eyes locked with mine. A vein popped in his temple and my heart fell into a wild rhythm. I’d defied a Captain of the Royal Guard - my captain. And it felt so damn good. But I was going to get myself into a lot of shit here if I didn't recover fast.
Tension spilled through the space parting us and Marik took
an aggressive step toward me.
How far am I going to take this?
It would feel seriously good to knock this prick on his ass...
“Captain?” a female voice called.
I turned one-eighty, coming face to face with Princess Rapunzel.
A lump jarred in my throat as I stood there like a statue with nothing to do but cast shade as she stepped closer. I remembered myself in an instant and bowed low before returning to my rigid position. Why won't my damn feet move?
The Princess was flanked by Zira and Jacinda and four guards trailed behind them, taking up positions against the wall. Rapunzel's golden hair was bound in a braid down her back and a blue ribbon was wound between it. Her dress was palest green and brought out the rich colour of her skin.
By Osaria, stop staring Cassian.
“Your highness,” Marik breathed, dipping his head in a half-assed bow that made my hand tighten around the riding crop. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”
“I've come to see the new recruits,” she said, straightening her back. Her eyes darted to the riding crop in my hand and her perfectly shaped eyebrows stitched together. She took in my attire then her gaze lifted to my face. A face which she had no idea was entirely false. I was practically haunting her with the amount of bodies I was showing up in lately.
For once, I actually wished she could see me. The real me. I didn't know where the urge came from. Perhaps it was because the few times I'd ever had the Princess's attention it had been here in these training grounds. Her formal visits had always set my blood pumping. I'd had the most gruelling training days of my life when she'd come to watch because I'd wanted to impress her.
Marik snatched the crop from my grip while my attention was divided and I threw him a scowl. He clenched his jaw, using the crop to point at a row of seats under a large wooden awning on the other side of the training grounds. “Be sure to make yourself more comfortable, your highness. There's no need to bake out here with the recruits.”
I glanced over her shoulder toward the archway that led back to the gardens, my instincts telling me to get the hell out of here.
Forbidden Fairytales- The Complete Series Page 30
