Davik shook his head blankly. “He would do this to one of his captains. One of his soldiers?”
Grumbling concurrence rumbled among her men.
Dye shrugged. “She let you escape.”
Davik’s eyes narrowed into hard slits. “Where is he?”
“I believe he is currently lodged in the room next to hers.”
“The dungeons.”
Dye inclined his head. A look of sarcasm accompanied the act.
“How the mighty have fallen,” Davik whispered, still stunned. “How long has this been going on?”
“She’s been in the cell since your ‘escape’. Beaten every day since you arrived at the gates.”
This was why her elite corps had joined him. To stop Kartin. And the beatings. This was why Dye insisted he attack immediately. She didn’t look like she could have taken another day of him outside the gates.
“Shall I return her to her room?” Dye offered with a cold smirk.
Too late, Davik realized he held the girl like a bolt of priceless silk. Like a rag, he tossed her into a chair and turned to face her men. They stared beyond him, at the girl, her long body draped over the Northern throne.
“Why did you let this continue—for three nights?”
“Kartin was suspicious. I couldn’t get away.” Dye watched the Prince’s jaw grind.
“Dismiss your men,” he bit out between clenched teeth.
The Northern unit drew up into two lines and saluted in the Prince’s direction, their eyes focused behind him. He watched the men troop out behind the redhead, then turned to one of his men. “Put the girl in my room,” he said curtly. “Have one of my women check her injuries.” He descended the dais. “Ursa,” he said. “Is Ursa still with us?”
“Yes, Prince Davik.”
“Have Ursa look at her.”
* * * * *
He sat at the desk in his room, sulking moodily while Ursa pulled the shreds of clothing from the girl’s body. As she did so, a dirty wad of parchment fell to the floor. Ursa unfolded it and scanned its contents.
“What is it?”
The old woman gave him a hard look and brought him the wadded sheets. “Filth,” she said. “It’s a wonder she didn’t use it to wipe her ass.” With ultimate distaste, she dropped it on the desk.
It was his ballad, The Harlot. Dirty and damp with sweat, stained brown in several places. Blood, he realized. Her blood. He watched Ursa bathe the girl and wrap her broken skin.
“Clothes?” Ursa questioned cynically.
He crossed the room to his saddlebags and pulled out a pair of scarlet shorts.
“Scarlet,” she muttered disagreeably. “How apropos. Scarlet for the harlot.”
“Tuck this into her shorts.” He handed the wadded parchment back to Ursa.
She took a step backward. “No My Lord.” With her arms determinedly at her sides, she stepped around the Prince and went through the door. He watched her back with frustration and cursed all women grown too old to fear men, or anything else.
He sat watching her, a long while, after Ursa left. Wishing she were healthy. He wanted his moment of revenge, wanted it now. And it was denied him. He wanted to kill Kartin. He stalked to the door and opened it. “Return her to her cell,” he ordered his man. “The Northern Captain will show you. Clean it first,” he said with irritation. “And Menlas? Chain her.”
He walked back across the room, slapping the wadded parchment against his palm, clearly reluctant to approach the still form on his bed. Finally, taking his courage firmly in hand, he sidled up to her as a man would approach a deadly tetra and, without touching her, tucked the wad into the waistband of her shorts. Stooping to the floor, he retrieved a thin strip of leather. Her hair thong. He looked at the thong in his hand—looked at her hair—then pushed the thong over his hand and onto his wrist. Stood staring down at her for several moments, then dropped onto the bed. Her body twitched. Hesitantly, he brushed a knuckle over her broken lips. Her eyelids flickered beneath a tiny frown. “Hurt,” she whispered from swollen lips. “Don’t touch.”
* * * * *
The Pretender Kartin was found dead the next morning, bludgeoned to death in his cell. Dye delivered this news to Davik in his rooms.
The Prince did not look up from his desk. “And I don’t expect we shall ever discover who was responsible,” he said succinctly.
Dye’s eyes glinted and his lips curled shrewdly. “You are mistaken, My Prince. I am quite willing to bear the responsibility, assuming no one else will step forward.”
“Suit yourself, then.”
“You’re welcome,” murmured the redhead. “After all, what are captains for?” He sauntered from the room, confident the claim would do nothing to hurt his reputation—and fool no one.
Unwittingly, the Southern Prince had just won the allegiance of every Northern soldier in the city.
Chapter Twenty
Davik strode along the dim, drafty corridor. At the end of the hall, he could see Dye waiting outside his door. His captains had advised him against his growing connection with the Northern Captain. It was reckless to put his life at the man’s disposal, his captains argued, but Davik was in a reckless mood. Two Northern soldiers saluted him smartly as they passed. He stopped in stunned disbelief, then turned and watched the men stride off. When he reached Dye, he flicked narrowed eyes at the Northman, let his guards open the door, then paced to his desk. Turning to face the redhead again, he speared the man with a look of hot accusation. Unconsciously, he rolled the leather thong between his fingers.
Dye shrugged. “She’s a bit of a hero in these parts,” he offered. “Do you remember the night you lost twenty horses?”
Davik’s fingers tightened on the thong. “That was her?” He’d never understood how the theft had been accomplished. But he’d be damned if he’d ask now. His jaw clamped shut.
“Westerman blood,” Dye taunted. “She can see in the dark.”
Davik was silent.
“About as well as you can see on a bright, sunny day,” he continued with enjoyment. “We weren’t starving yet. But there hadn’t been any meat for a long time.”
Davik’s jaw dropped. “She ate my horses? She ate my horses!” he exclaimed, his horror real and evident. “I knew I had cause to hate that woman,” he muttered. He shook his head and stared at his desktop. “She ate my horses.”
Dye laughed. “It’s funny,” he philosophized, “how readily popularity can be won through some small generous heroism.” He stopped to enjoy Davik’s expression, then ground on. “…while others die a noble death, for the same cause, unrecognized and unappreciated.”
But Davik would not be baited.
“In one daring raid, she gave the people of Veronix more than Kartin ever had. She put meat on everyone’s table for one night, and flipped off your Flatland Army at the same time. Ask any kid in the city about the big horse barbeque, and watch his eyes light up.” Dye shook his head. “Kartin should never have touched her,” he ruminated. “And now that he’s dead, the man who killed him shares her popularity.”
“I thought you were supposed to have killed him,” Davik grumbled.
“And so I’ve told everyone. Only, I’m known among my men to be a great liar.” Dye sighed with satisfaction. “Beaten to death. Fitting. I think the people liked that, particularly. I know my men did.”
Dye’s musings were interrupted when the guards announced Ursa’s arrival and Davik turned his attention to the old woman as she crossed the room. Ursa tended to the girl every day in her cell, per the Prince’s command. He’d allowed a week to pass before ordering the woman to report.
“She is mending My Lord. But not mended.”
“Tell me when her menses begins,” he said without looking at the woman.
“My Lord?”
“You heard me, Ursa. I want to know when it starts and when it has finished.”
She couldn’t keep the disgust from her face. “Yes, My Lord.”
Davik watched the woman out the door, his mouth a determined slash in his face. He had to know if she carried a child. It would be his—or his brother’s. He shot a look at Dye, but the redhead lounged in a chair with apparent disinterest.
“She should be publicly executed.” His mother swept into the room, dragging a chill draft with her.
Davik’s expression remained grim. His mother’s recent arrival was an unwanted, unpleasant surprise. “That would turn every man in the city against me, Mother.”
“That would teach the North Country to fear and respect you.” She dropped a sheet of parchment onto his desk.
How could she think that respect accompanied fear? He rolled the leather thong down over his hand then back up to his wrist. “No, Mother. That would teach the North Country to fear and despise me.” The tall, shrill woman snorted. “As far as the people here are concerned, she was just a soldier doing her job.”
“She made a fool of you and murdered your brother, thumbed her nose at Khal. I want to see her dead, Davik.”
The Northern Captain cleared his throat. “When I bought the alliance of the city’s soldiers,” he said with savor, “I promised them the girl would live.”
Davik’s mother turned her narrowed eyes on the North Country man. “Then arrange her escape, and have her murdered,” she told her son.
Davik blew out a snort of annoyance. “What’s this?” he said, to change the subject. He scanned the document on the desk and shook his head wearily. “I’m not much in the mood for wedding, Mother.”
The woman waved a hand dismissively. “It’s not a contract. It’s just a document stating your willingness to wed one of The Old Queen’s granddaughters, should one of them be interested.”
Davik’s eyes rested on the redhead in the chair before his desk. He suspected Dye was able to communicate with the girl. “I was under the impression that Tien’s granddaughters were free to choose their own husbands.”
His mother nodded. “By all accounts, Queen Tien doesn’t believe in political weddings and doesn’t meddle in her grandchildren’s love lives, anymore than she interfered in her own children’s. Like I said, it’s just an offer. You met some of the girls when you visited Tien’s court. A number of them showed a great interest in you.”
Davik shook his head. “A number of them showed a great interest in Warrik.”
“Only because he was The Heir.”
Something tightened in the pit of his stomach. This woman who demanded the girl’s death hadn’t wasted a single tear on his brother. Her son! “If they showed an interest in my brother,” he gritted, “it was because of Warrik’s sense of humor, his giant heart, his incredible strength and kindness. Not to mention he was the best looking man on the continent.”
He looked at Dye again. Did the girl still think she loved him? “Most of them are redheads aren’t they?”
“The Princesses? I believe so,” the Queen answered hastily. “No—I remember at least two blonds. Tien has quite a few grandchildren.”
He picked up his seal and dipped it in the ink.
Dye cleared his throat again, with smirking drama.
His mother interrupted. “Davik, I can’t see why you keep this man—.”
“He’s my liaison with the Northern forces, Mother.” Impatiently, he turned his attention to Dye.
“When I convinced Kartin’s army to surrender without a fight, I told them you’d wed a North Country Princess.” Dye smirked at the Prince.
Davik’s jaw dropped, but his mother laughed scornfully. “I wasn’t aware of any Khallic Princesses living in the north!” She turned from Dye to her son. “You can’t wed a Northern Princess when they don’t have one! I insist on a wedding alliance with Greater Thrall, Davik. What this man has promised is not your concern.”
Dye gave the Prince an uncompromising stare. “When you wed, your wife will be a Princess.”
“Is he—is he saying what I think he’s saying? That it matters not who you wed because she’ll become a Princess upon the wedding! If you think! For one instant! My son will wed common blood and make some farm girl a Princess!”
Davik regarded the two combatants distantly, his attention elsewhere. Finally, convinced that word would reach the girl in the dungeons below the palace, he picked up his seal and stamped the document, rolled it, and put it in Dye’s hand. “Have a rider transport this to Gluthra.”
The Queen rose from her chair and smirked nastily at the North Country man. “The girl dies,” she reminded her son.
“I’ll deal with her in my own way, Mother.”
“You may deal with her as you wish, Davik. After that, make sure she dies. I have three other sons,” she reminded him.
“You can’t threaten a man with something he doesn’t want, Mother.”
“Then step aside Davik.”
He shook his head. He couldn’t do that.
Chapter Twenty-One
He got the same response from Ursa two weeks later. “She is mending, My Lord. But not mended.”
He regarded the old woman with frustration. The girl drew everyone in! “When do you think she might be mended, Ursa?” he asked with mock patience.
The old woman shrugged. “Perhaps if My Lord would remove the girl’s shackles…”
“That won’t happen,” he said without a moment’s consideration. It irked him that he had to ask Ursa again, about the girl’s menses, but he was relieved to know she had started two days previously.
He gave her two more weeks then went to see her. Drank a jar first, though. Well, maybe a little more than a jar. He was not so drunk he couldn’t raise his cock, but drunk enough not to care what he did with it or where he put it, and anesthetized such that he knew his erection would last a long time before any feeling reached it. A long time.
He stepped into her cell carrying a chair in one hand. She slept on the bench across the room, her hands hugging her bare upper body. It was cold in the cell, he realized from beneath his protective coating of alcohol. He stopped a moment to watch her; a warm curving line interrupted by a violent splash of scarlet. Unconsciously, he ran a hand through his hair, pushing it behind his ear.
When he tripped on his way across the room, she opened her eyes and found him. He watched her eyes fill with hope. It made him angry. He would have preferred her anger or hate, or fear even.
She pushed herself up to sit on the bench. She looked thin and her arms shook from the simple effort of raising herself. Someone—Ursa, he guessed—had managed to jog her nose back into place, or at least almost. Her dark eyes were enormous in her narrowed face; a faint smudge of purple remained beneath one eye. “My Lord Prince,” she started then stopped, registering the contempt on his face. “You honor me,” she said quietly.
A foot of iron chain separated the manacles at her wrists.
He pulled the leather thong from his wrist and threw it at her. “Tie your hair back.”
As she reached behind her neck to confine her hair, the chains lay against her throat, a slave’s necklace. Her breasts lifted and his rebel dick responded with a nagging, whining twinge. His eyes closed in a moment of fury. “I have come,” he announced with arrogance, “to do what I should have done when I first saw you. I should have raped you.”
Her eyebrows lifted and she nodded sadly. “It won’t be rape. I’ll sub—”
His fist in her chains dragged her to her feet. “It will be rape,” he snarled into her face.
She gasped and her eyes widened, her expression one of pain and sorrow—all without fear. “You’re not that kind of man,” she warned him.
“I assure you, I can be.” He shoved her onto the bench. She hit it hard in a rattle of heavy chains. “I admit there will be obstacles. Not strangely, I don’t find myself aroused by the whore who lied with both sets of lips.” Stooping quickly he grasped her ankles and put her feet on the bench, wrenched them apart, then forced her knees to follow. With a hand at the top her shorts, he tore the silk downward and bared her sex to showc
ase in a puddle of blood red silk. He pulled the chair between them and turned it, straddling it backwards and resting his arms on the chair back.
“Open your cunt,” he said coldly.
Her eyes widened on him.
“Pull your slot open with your fingers,” he said harshly. “I want to look up your cunt. Find out where you hide your heart,” he grated.
Her feet slipped to the ground; her legs closed. “No,” she said.
He was on his feet as he slung the chair across the room and yanked her chains outward, jerking her off the bench. She hit her knees hard as she fell before him. With one hand, he untied his breeks and pulled himself out. Grasping his cock, he pumped himself methodically then, with one hand at the back of her skull and the other around his shaft, he forced his cock into her mouth. Both hands clamped her head in an iron grip as he pumped into her mouth. He watched the top of her head and felt her gag then choke as his hips continued their savage grinding—continued ruthlessly—knowing she struggled for every breath.
The alcohol proved to be only moderately successful as a numbing agent and he found himself peaking sooner than he’d expected. Crushing her face into his lower body, he came into her mouth. She choked and gagged and swallowed convulsively but didn’t attempt to pull away.
Releasing her head with a thrust of contempt, he tucked his cock inside his breeks and calmly retied the laces inches from her face. Reaching for her chains, he dragged her to her feet and brought his face close to hers.
“That wasn’t rape?”
She wiped her swollen mouth on the back of her chained hands and did not raise her eyes to him.
“It felt like rape to me. What did it feel like to you? Did it feel like love? Anything like love?”
She stared at the ground and shook her head.
He gave her chains a short jerk then thrust them into her chest. She gasped as she slid back to her knees.
“I’m sorry,” she said in a voice small and lost in disbelief.
“Apologize to Warrik when you see him next. At Hadi’s Gate. He has a big heart, or did before you put an arrow though it. He may forgive you. I never will.”
Kingdom of Khal: Redeeming Davik Page 10
