“Maynard is dead.”
“Ah, ‘tis shame.” She didn’t sound contrite.
He watched her rise, lower her feet to the floor, and saunter over to him with a seductive walk. She wrapped her arms around his body, slid a hand downward to embrace between his thighs, she cooed in his ear. “He was never worthy of the level of responsibility you gave to him. Maynard couldn’t be trusted. A man who kills for money is unpredictable. Now, a person who murders for the joy of it ‘tis what is best.” She licked his earlobe, tracing a feathery line outlining the ear before she bit him roughly.
Carline chuckled beneath her breathe, pressed deeper into him, and rotated her hips in a leisurely adulation against his butt. “Now, my lord is what you need. As I told you from the beginning, only you can trust me to see to your welfare.”
Milo shoved her away. He looked Carline up and down. His eyebrow rose fractionally, he said, “You expect me to trust such a greedy bitch? If I don’t watch my back you will put a blade in it like you did Priest Manner and the girl Viola.”
“I did you a favor,” Carline murmured. “Priest Manner was a nuisance and getting to close to our secret. Eventually, he would have figured out I was using him as much as he tried to misuse me in hopes of getting his hands on Dandelion. He knew too much and had to be silenced.” She shrugged, continued her thread of conversation. “The variant girl happened to be in the wrong place at the unfortunate time. Did you expect me to let the idiots ruin all our plans?” Carline sounded bored with the entire topic. “What I did was necessary, and frankly, my lord, you should drop down on your knees and praise me for taking care of the nasty business you aren’t inclined to handle yourself. Instead you use unreliable flunkies.” She looked up at him. “I did what you could not stomach”
Milo’s nostrils flattened. “Don’t think to overstep your boundaries,” he snapped, settling a cool scowl on her.
“Forgive me, my lord. The news of Maynard’s failure distressed me,” she lied. “I forget myself.”
Milo narrowed his eyes marginally and studied her. Petite, mousy-blond, and waif-like features included large, doe-shaped eyes and a coy smile made her appear angelic. What Carline didn’t reveal was the icy blood inside her veins. She hid the ominous mannerism that made her chilly behind a façade of servitude and submissiveness, managing to fool all those around her. Every person that encountered Carline stupidly succumbed to her pretense of innocence and naiveté. They focused on the fragile shell exterior, not realizing things weren’t what they seemed, she was able to walk amongst the very people inclined to protect her from evils when she was sinister personified.
At times, she made the hackles on his back spike with the cold and aloof persona that reminded him of an innate object with no emotions or conscious. A device moving mechanically when required. She had her uses.
“What do you do now?”
“Saxby is returning to her father and will no doubt petition the King to dissolve our marriage.”
“Isn’t that what you want? If you are free of her we can wed, my lord.”
“You think we will ever be free of her as long as Juden is alive? Don’t be stupid. We both know what is at stake as long as the two remain breathing.”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
Milo waved his hand dismissively, and refused to elaborate. He shuffled across the room, sat on the bed, and retreated into bad-tempered silence. Juden would come. That singular belief was primarily on his mind, as he contemplated what to do next now that Maynard had royally botched things.
“You are concerned about Juden?”
Milo turned his attention to Carline, feeling eerily disjointed she was capable of reading his mind. Had he allowed her to get so familiar?
“‘Tis obvious,” she said, as if answering his silent reasoning.
Milo shifted uncomfortably, averting her gaze that seemed to absorb his inner reflections as if he spelled everything out in precise detail. Had he? The days and nights were he lapsed into delirium from the grainroot dulled his memory. At times, he wasn’t sure what was reality or a figment of his imagination.
Carline laughed softly, a sinister sound to his ears. She walked over to Milo and sat down beside him. She took his hand and enclosed it in her small palm. He noticed for her show of warmth, she felt frigid…even her lips were cool to the touch when she kissed the back of his hand. “I have proved my loyalty to you, my lord. What more do you need to trust me?” she hummed, placing light kisses against his sweaty flesh. Then she poured him a drink, forced it to his lips, and watched as he gulped the contents.
“My lord, there is nothing I wouldn’t do for you. You know this.” She spoke quietly, facing him with wide-eyed innocence and said “trust me,” and for a fleeting moment Milo fell beneath her spell.
Aided by the over consumption of grainroot she plied him with, even now, and coupled with whiskey was a strong potent that dulled his senses and made his tongue lag. Carline held the cup of elixir to his lips, and he drank thirstily, gulping the drink he lapsed into slurred dialogue where he revealed the secrets of his past. Things he kept hidden, coveted in his own mind, and secretly shrouded from the prying eyes and ears of those around him.
Many years he suffered in silence, absorbed in the hatred of his father who enacted the greatest perfidy, in his mind. It was horrible atrocities the elderly lord DeCapri enacted, the betrayal manifested inside him like a scourge ate at Milo through the years and festered driving him to insanity, hatred, and the desire to reveal his father for the bastard he was. Living under the pretense of loyalty, he told no one the sins of his father’s betrayal. How could he and keep his head held high? To his people he was the ruler, the one chosen to reign over Dandelion, the lord of all lords, and not the son who had disappointed his father from birth. He had no choice but to design his own destiny and killing his father had been easy. “He called me weak and feeble minded,” he said beneath his breath. “He did not trust his own flesh and blood, a true DeCapri, of pure bloodline, to take his place, build a greater empire, and lead a liege of warriors in battle successfully for the King. He believed I’d fail even before he gave me a chance.”
Carline held Milo to her bosom and rocked him. “What are you saying?”
“He loved Juden more than me!” Milo cursed, pushing Carline away. He wiped viciously at his face, blurred eyed, rambling, he jumped up from the bed and stalked to the center of the room in front of the hearth. He kneeled down, began tearing at the loose wood planks. Tossing the last of the pieces away, he rummaged through the contents in the hole until he found the diary. Fuming with rage, shaking, he waved the leather bound book in her face. “Here it is…all the deceit…and, and, evidence he coveted a variant,” he said with disgust. “By law, my father should have been beheaded for being a traitor. The edict dictates no human shall elevate a variant…ah, ah bloodsucker over his own and glorify him by escalating him to a reign of power greater than a human being of the Northern Territory. Yet, with his messages to the King is exactly what my father hoped to do. Thank Oslei, I had the sense to save the bastard from the gallows where they would cut off his head for all to witness.”
Juden moved like a breeze and entered the room.
“Was that truly for our father or to save you from the disgrace of having everyone know his intentions?”
Carline spun around, moved away from Milo, and came quickly to her feet. She ran to Juden, stopping short of throwing herself into his arms. She kept her head low, whispering feverishly, she said, “Thank Oslei you are here. Milord has gone mad. Please Juden, he is not right in the mind.” She clutched his lapels in desperation. “He is insane.” She wept.
Juden looked down at Carline, setting a hard countenanced stare on her briefly before he pried her fingers away, enclosed her hand in his, and moved her behind him into Faison’s care. “He is no more insane than you. Faison take care of your wife,” he said softly and turned his back.
Carline’s protest died away as Fa
ison dragged her down the hallway.
Juden said, “I delayed in coming here to go and confer with the King. He was aware of our father’s messages and was in accord with his decision.”
“Liar! You think the King would become a traitor to his own people!”
“After the Days of the Unrest, part of the treaty was to see variants and humans bonded to grow an invincible nation of people to fight against those who seek to overtake our lands and enslave us to their culture. My grandfather and the King knew the only way to survive was to come to an amicable agreement to benefit us both. We would remain separate entities, under different rules, and if need be we would band together against any nemesis foolish enough to challenge us if both territories were in agreement and the cause was valid. To seal the arrangement it was agreed that a variant and human would join and create an offspring who would one day rule over both territories. Perhaps the child Saxby carries will be the one.”
“A human and beast will never rule! What she breeds is an abomination!”
“If you believe such, why did you bring me here to get her with child to save Dandelion?”
“I brought you here because the Kelts failed, and I had to take matters in my own hands. You wouldn’t simple come at my request. I knew I had to give you a valid reason, and what better than pretending I needed you to preserve the DeCapri name. The plan was full proof, you have never been able to keep your hands off my women. Saxby is beautiful, and I knew you couldn’t resist her like you wouldn’t stay away from Isla. I used Saxby as bait and nothing more. Once you slated your lust and plowed the whore, I assumed she would end up like Isla. ‘Tis shame I underestimated you.”
“Saxby loved you until you turned her against you. She isn’t to blame for any of this between us.”
“Oh, spare me the sordid details of how my wife,” he slurred the word as if it was bitter on his tongue. “Was anything, a performing trollop in your bed. But, then you know better than I Saxby can’t keep her legs closed and is always willing to be fucked.” Milo looked at Juden with a wicked smile. “Remember, you witnessed such yourself. There was more before those men. Sometimes two, three at a time,” he said nastily.
Juden refused to allow Milo to get a rise out of him. “You killed Isla too, didn’t you?”
Milo clamped his hands cheerfully. “Ah, now that was my greatest deceit. I convinced everyone you were a savage beast. No more than the animal you are. It was easy to convince everyone you tore her throat open during a jealous rage when it was me who used a claw-handled blade on her whilst you slept in a dazed stupor. I drugged your wine.” He snickered.
“Why kill Isla to get back at me and then save me from my fate if you hated me so much?”
“Did she really deserve to live? She knew father’s secrets. I told her one night in the midst of weakness, and, aye, the love I felt for her made me confide in the whore. Isla was aware of how I felt about our father’s attempt to deprive me of my heritage. I trusted her. I loved her too much, and in return, she deceived me with you and gave you a son, a boy who would one day make a claim to Dandelion if I didn’t stop it. I couldn’t allow it. If I could help it, no variant blood would rule what is mine.”
“I don’t know if I should kill you and put you out of your misery or allow you to suffer in your own insanity for however long you live. The price of murder is death.” Juden’s tone was ruthless.
Milo stared squarely at Juden. He spoke low, barely above a whisper, as if surrounded in a haze and dazed, he said, “I planned everything out methodically after Saxby rendered me useless to produce an heir. She stole my manhood by being selfish and refusing to stop the damned horse. This,” he said, waving his hand over his body, “is nothing but a shell of a man and useless. Day after day, night after night, I laid in bed thinking after all my diligent work by killing father and coveting the secrets of his betrayal for all this time. My wife’s foolishness would resort in the one thing I detested the most. With me unable to produce a child, you would gain it all as father wanted. I couldn’t allow it, Juden. Therefore, I plotted to destroy you and your offspring.”
“Why kill Saxby? What about Carline.”
“Actually, I only intended for Saxby to suffer as she has made me—to grow old, lonely, and remain barren until the end of her life. But, Carline made me see reason. If I died, Saxby would be free to marry again. Somehow, it didn’t seem fair. So, she had to go as well,” he said callously. He paused, shifted his attention, staring into nothingness, as if he lost his train of thought.
He looked at Juden blankly, before he continued his conversation, saying, “Ah, Carline, my dear, sweet, greedy, ambitious niece. The bitch plotted against Saxby from the moment she arrived at my door. Megatha and her father are responsible for her lunacy. She endured things no child should experience, least not at the hands of her father and my sister allowed it to happen. Megatha never did anything about the abuse Carline was forced to suffer because she feared repercussions of being tossed out and penniless if she went against Carline’s father’s deviant behavior.” Milo laughed. “Only to find out she was a beggar anyway, once her husband killed himself. She sought to use her daughter to get a lucrative marriage. Where Lord Drackett came into play, but well, you know how the scenario ended. Anyway, as you are now aware, Carline is not as innocent as you all believed. She is a she-devil,” Milo snickered. “It was her ideal to get with child by Priest Manner or Lord Drackett?” He lifted a shoulder indifferently. “I don’t know which. It didn’t really matter since I could not do the tasks. After everyone who could make claims to Dandelion died, I was going to petition the King to wed Carline and pronounce her bastard as my own.”
“You’re pathetic and a disgrace to the DeCapri name,” Juden said, with derision. “Father did know best.”
Milo’s paralysis lessened, he bolted, and lunged through the air at Juden with his arms out ready to wrap his fingers around his throat. He howled in anguish, failing like a mad man, striking out at Juden who easily blocked his attack. He struck Milo hard with the back of his hand, sending him falling backwards. “I could easily kill you. You deserve no less, ‘tis distasteful to me to condemn a lesser man who can’t fully defend himself. I will allow the law to take care of you, Milo. Oh, by the way, I would die before I lived at Dandelion. I’m a sovereign over a great nation of people and is where I chose to be. You caused all this mayhem for nothing. I never would have lived here, not even if the King promised me all the riches in the world.” He turned to walk away and paused. He looked at Milo. “After I consider everything I should thank you. Saxby is worth more than the wealth of any nation.”
“Blast you, you bastard! Beast!” Milo breathed, raging, struggling to come to his feet. He withdrew a blade from his pocket and went after Juden again, making jabbing motions and vicious swipes with the knife. “I will send your black soul to hell,” he sneered, swinging his arm in a wide arc.
In one fluid motion Juden grabbed Milo’s hand, reversed the hold positioning the knife between them and pointed at Milo’s chest. He looked at his brother seeing the voided stare, and Milo, lips curled in an weird smile, before he slammed his chest into the blade.
Juden uncurled Milo’s fingers from his arm, let him slip to the floor, and exited the room.
Chapter 53
Juden wasn’t easily intimidated, if at all, and certainly not accustomed to being lashed verbally and thoroughly by anyone. Lord Darling did a good job of giving him a simmering tongue whipping that left him mortified and speechless. By the time the man finished, he could only sit there respectfully and stare at the elder, and nod in agreement with everything the man said. And he had a lot to say. What held his attention the most was learning Saxby hadn’t stopped crying since she arrived home.
He was chastised like a small boy, and it was humiliating, but Juden suffered through it because he’d been reared to respect his elders.
When Lord Darling paused for a breath, Juden took the opportunity to interject, which was ef
fectively blocked, because the man set into another round of tirades. He rubbed his temple, settled back in his chair, and listened.
Saxby’s father finally stopped pacing, but, more importantly, talking. He eyed Juden, saying, “Well, what do you have to say for yourself?”
“You wish me to speak now?”
“Don’t be flippant, of course, I will hear your excuses as to why my daughter has been sobbing for the entirety of her return home. And, frankly, between you and me, I prefer the calm and quiet solitude of my home before my daughter arrived. I’m an old man, and this nonsense is unsettling to my nerves.”
Though he was white-haired and slim, he didn’t appear to be the type who anyone could rattle. Juden thought him much too cantankerous and full of fire. He certainly didn’t seem fazed, or even cared he addressed a sovereign with an abrupt harshness leaving his ears ringing.
“You hurt my Saxby.”
Juden nodded. “I did.”
“Why?”
“I can only say out of stupidity, sir.”
“Humph, at least you are honest. She said you were a decent man, but, up until now, I questioned whether she was just foolishly in love the way she sang your praises. Which she did endlessly, daily, all in between crying and sulking, my daughter had nothing to say except good things about you.” He eyed Juden. “Why is beyond me, because you obviously broke her heart.”
“It wasn’t intentional, sir, and I’m here to rectify the blunder.”
“See that you do.”
He must have passed muster, and no horns or tail displayed, because Saxby’s father eased his temper and relaxed. “May I speak to her now?”
“No.”
Barbour, Carolina - Watch Me, Desire Me (Siren Publishing Allure) Page 31
