The Carnival's Daughter: A Dark Dystopian Romance (Kingdom Duet Book 1)

by Esme Devlin

This one latches on to my breast and digs his fingers in brutally.

  The lights go off.

  That only makes it worse.

  I can’t see anything. I can’t focus on listening to where they are.

  But I still thrash and kick and struggle. I’m so sick of always being the weakest person in the room. The smallest, the stupidest, the least powerful.

  It’s exhausting.

  He pushes me and I land face down on the bed.

  I’m flipped around moments later. More hands join in.

  I can’t even make sense of what is happening anymore.

  There are just hands everywhere.

  Grabbing at me.

  Slapping me.

  Pulling me this way and that.

  If they would just stop for a second, just a second, perhaps I could find that castle in my head. But they are like starved animals. They don’t stop.

  And then suddenly, light.

  I look around, trying to count limbs or heads or anything… trying to see if it was one of them who turned the light on.

  But the man above me blocks my view.

  That’s when I hear it.

  The sound of a gun firing.

  Rapid.

  One.

  Two.

  Three.

  The man above grabs me, scrambling to switch our positions. To put me between him and wherever the shots are coming from.

  He’s not quick enough.

  Two men drag him away.

  I scramble up on the bed, trying to work out what’s happening.

  That’s when I notice it reflecting in the light of the lamp.

  Metal.

  The metal face.

  The one that haunts my nightmares and fills my every waking thought.

  He has the man on his knees between him and Andrei, a gun pointed at his head. The man is gasping for air, his eyes wide with fear.

  “Miss me, sweet girl?” Baron says with a laugh.

  How can he be laughing?

  I want to scream.

  There is blood everywhere, from the two bodies leaking all over my bed. The bed is black, but that doesn’t matter. I can see the shine. I can smell it in the air. It cloys at the back of my throat.

  Baron stares at me for a long moment. My chest heaves both from the struggle and from the weight of his gaze. I know what’s going to happen next.

  “Think about this,” Andrei says, his tone a clear warning.

  “I’d rather prefer not to,” Baron replies with a chuckle.

  I turn my head away just after Baron pulls the man’s head up to look at him. Then another shot, the sound of it cracking around the small room. I flinch as I hear the sound of the body dropping to the floor.

  I’m trying to process what’s happening, but it’s like my mind won’t work properly. Everything feels under pressure, as if I’m cooking. As if I’m burning.

  I’m glad they are dead. I’m grateful to be saved. I’m pleased he came back.

  But he’s laughing.

  Again.

  As if none of this affects him.

  Even Andrei urged him to think about it.

  I want to cry. Shake. Maybe even throw up.

  That’s what a good person would do, and I like to think I’m a good person.

  But Celeste’s words ring in my ears. You can be good, or you can be great. You can’t be both.

  I angle my body towards Baron and find him staring at me.

  I try to be great.

  I try to be what Baron would think is great.

  “Where exactly do you suppose I will sleep tonight?”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  SAPPHIRE

  He looks me up and down and throws his head back in a laugh.

  It worked.

  “Oh, sweet girl, I could kiss you right now. You make me wish I had indeed taken your eyes,” he replies playfully. “Come.”

  He tucks the gun behind his back and holds out his hand.

  Oh, hell. That fear of him has never gone away. In fact, seeing him tonight has only made it worse.

  But I have missed him. Painfully so.

  I walk on my knees across the bed, feeling limbs and wetness and death all over me. The second I reach for his hand, he grabs it and pulls me the rest of the way towards him.

  Arms wrap around my body, strong and hard and clad in leather. He pulls me in tight and I breathe in his familiar smell, the one that fills me with both dread and comfort at the same time. It’s laced with blood, and I don’t know if that’s coming from him or me. I don’t really care at this moment.

  He takes a half step away from me and pulls my head up to meet his. Then he lowers his own until his hard forehead rests on my flesh one.

  “Did you miss me?” His voice is a low murmur, as deep as a caress.

  “Yes. No. Maybe. Probably,” I answer.

  I can almost imagine him smiling through the mask as he sways me in his arms. “I think I have somewhere for you to sleep tonight.”

  The suggestion in his tone makes me even more breathless. He takes a step back and swoops me up with an arm behind my knees and another around my back.

  He tells Andrei to fetch some men and get the room cleaned up.

  Andrei lets out a sigh and shakes his head, a few joyless laughs escaping his mouth.

  Baron doesn’t look like he cares in the slightest.

  We leave the room and head up a set of stairs to the top level.

  For a minute, I’m worried he’s taking me to the place where the shows happen, or the club.

  I’m in no fit state to be on display tonight, to have to check my words and my emotions and play his games. Too much has happened for that, and all I want to do is lie down in a dark room and sleep. Sleep is the only way I can escape all the thoughts and emotions and the constant need to attempt to process everything.

  Why he left.

  Why he came back.

  What Celeste told me.

  All the things that have happened in my bedroom.

  I can’t do it.

  But it looks like that is not his intention. We continue on. Past the huge room with the ring in the middle. Past the club. Down a long corridor with red lightbulbs and more of those alter candles.

  I hear noises coming from behind some of the doors. Animalistic and guttural. Both women and men. I know what the sounds are — I’ve heard them for as long as I can remember.

  At the end of the corridor there is a locked door which leads to another set of stairs. At the top of those stairs he sets me down. It’s warm in here, despite the large size of the room, thanks to a huge lit fire on the far wall. It casts shadows everywhere and crackles rhythmically.

  Baron stands behind me with his hands on my shoulders while I take in the surroundings.

  “This is your room?”

  It could only be his room.

  It’s the space of a man who doesn’t quite know who he is or what he wants to be, and somehow that fits him perfectly.

  The bed is massive and imposing, a grander and scarier looking version of mine. Where my bedposts are plain and my drapes are feminine, his looks more like a cage than a bed. Where there would normally be two bedposts connecting the footboard with the roof, this bed has four, with carved wooden spikes hanging down at intervals between them. The thing is the blackest wood I’ve ever seen, and the heavy fabric at the sides lets no light in or out. The carvings make it look like the images I’ve seen of old churches, which strikes me as strange because Baron seems the opposite of religious.

  But then, he does so love to be worshipped.

  The bed is somehow predictable, but it’s the other things that confuse me.

  The artwork on the walls is macabre. A naked woman with a triangle for a head and black horns extending to a full moon. A man with a honed body, but missing his hands and with sockets for eyeballs. A woman chained to a chair while skeletons surround her, a look of panic in her eyes.

  Everything from the bed to the art to the imposing a
nd strangely shaped furniture is horrifying… but all together it’s strangely beautiful.

  Just like the man behind me.

  “This is where I sleep,” he says. “Where I eat. Drink. The only place in the world where I can be truly alone, and therefor myself. Where I don’t have to be the monster in a mask. No one is allowed in here.”

  He sounds sad when he tells me, as if he wishes it could be different. But also sincere and vulnerable. Like he’s letting me have a glimpse inside a physical secret. I swallow and turn around to face him. “Then why bring me here?”

  “Because, sweet girl, we are covered in blood, and my shower is the only one in the whole house connected to a somewhat reliable generator.” He says it so matter of fact I wonder if I was imagining the vulnerability a minute ago.

  Somehow, though, I don’t believe him. I think there is perhaps a small part of him that wants to let someone in, he just won’t admit it.

  He’s already walking away from me, motioning for me to follow him.

  I walk a few steps behind, taking a longer route to avoid a black and silver area rug which is so detailed and intricate it has to be from the old world. Baron doesn’t bother, he just walks straight across it. I have to rush to keep up.

  In the far corner of the room there is a door. Baron walks straight in, but I hold back.

  It’s dark in there.

  I hear the familiar sound of his lighter flicking and take half a step in as the room begins to illuminate.

  The candles flicker against dark slate walls and reflect on a large glass panel. He reaches his hand behind the glass to turn a dial, and a moment later water cascades from the ceiling.

  He turns back to me, his head bent low, one hand pulling me further into the room while the other closes the door behind me. He switches our position… and then locks the door.

  “Wha—”

  “Strip,” he says.

  I spin around, eyeing him up warily while I decide what do to. He has seen me naked so many times, I suppose it really doesn’t matter anymore. But there is no man beside us now waiting to have his teeth removed.

  “I can’t shower alone?”

  He lets out a half-laugh and tilts his head to the side. “We might as well be chained together at the wrists now, for you will never leave my sight again.”

  “You’re joking with me.”

  “Do I sound like I’m joking?” He asks, taking a step towards me.

  No. Not particularly. But in order to protect my own sanity, I’m going to believe that he is.

  He closes the distance between us before I have time to react. His fingers grip the dress just below my thighs and he pulls the fabric up.

  A few seconds later, I find myself yet again standing before him in nothing but my stockings and the belt which holds them up.

  He takes my shoulders in his hands and guides me across the room.

  I’d expected to be thrown in the shower, but it seems that isn’t his intention.

  Not yet, at least.

  There is a mirror on the far wall, and it’s below the mirror at waist height that the candles sit around the large sink. He stands behind me, his hands keeping my head in place to stare at our reflection, just as he did that very first morning.

  Even with the painted face, I can see the blood there. The more I stare at myself, the more I have the urge to wash it off me. To scrub everything clean. I hate looking at myself like this. I don’t even recognise my own reflection.

  “I want to go in the shower now.”

  Baron pulls the tie from my hair and brushes the long dark tendrils through his fingers, before pulling it all back behind my shoulders.

  “You’re so perfect,” he murmurs, barely audible above the sounds coming from the shower. “So beautiful. So… alive. My perfect little monster.”

  I have to look away.

  His voice when he does this… he sounds so mesmerised.

  It’s uncomfortable, but not in an unpleasant way. The discomfort comes because I realise now that I don’t hate it. Even though I should.

  “We will shower together,” he says.

  His hands run down my bare arms, causing me to shiver. He stops at my wrists, his hands circling around them easily. Then he lifts them up, as if I’m a puppet on strings, and places them on the mirror in front of us above my head.

  It takes me a second longer than it should have to realise what’s happening.

  The candles are directly below me now, and I can feel the heat from them across my bare chest.

  I try to pull away from the wall, but his hands have mine locked in place.

  “You’re going to burn me,” I tell him, trying to keep my voice calm and failing miserably.

  Baron chuckles in response. “You like that, though, don’t you? Playing with fire. In fact, I recall it was you who introduced me to this little game.”

  I shake my head. “That was different and you know it.”

  “Hmm, perhaps. Last time you gambled that I would save you. This time I’m gambling on you saving yourself.”

  I force my body back against his and it’s like slamming into a wall. My arms are still stuck and there isn’t enough space to build any momentum. Instead I try to stamp on his feet, kick him, turn my head to see if I can bite him. This is what he clearly wants, after all. He wants me to fight him.

  It just makes me even hotter.

  Even more breathless.

  And to add insult to injury, nothing I do has any negative effect on him. In fact, he’s laughing. My efforts are comical to him, a source of hilarity.

  I’m burning up now, both from the candles beneath me and the frustration and anger inside me.

  “Stop it,” I tell him, forcefully this time. “I’ve had enough now!”

  “Then save yourself,” he says, forcing his body against me, as if to hammer home the point.

  My head hangs, sighing through my nose in defeat. The candles are hot against my face and my chest feels like it’s on fire. They flicker slightly from my heavy breaths.

  I’m an idiot.

  He wants me to blow the candles out.

  I blow down on them, my effort pathetic at first because I’m too ashamed to make it obvious that I’m trying. But the candles only flicker.

  Baron, now realising what I’m doing, chuckles in delight.

  I hate him. I really fucking hate this man and his incessant need for amusement.

  I want this over with.

  Filling my lungs, I let the air out in a huge breath. This time they really flicker, and one of them goes out.

  “Fuck!” It seems like the only appropriate word for it.

  The minute he lets me go, I’m going to kill him.

  Yes.

  Another huge breath, and the room grows visibly darker.

  The only thing driving me on now is his laughter and the thought of getting to join him in laughing when I’m hurting him.

  A final blow and the room falls into complete darkness.

  My head slumps even further while I try to catch my breath. I feel the cold press of metal against the back of my neck. His face. I’d give my left hand just to slap him — really slap him — with my right one.

  “See. You just needed to engage that little brain of yours.”

  I spin around and to my surprise, he lets me. “Little brain?” I push against his chest in the darkness. “My little brain is tired. Tired! You play with me and it hurts.”

  “It hurts? I’ve never hurt you.”

  “You abandoned me,” I tell him, pushing him again. It’s all I can do, and it makes me feel so much better than shouting.

  “And that hurt you?”

  He sounds like he’s genuinely asking.

  As if he hasn’t even comprehended that him just leaving without a word, after everything we did, wouldn’t hurt me.

  “No,” I tell him. Maybe it’s a lie, I don’t even know, but I won’t give him the satisfaction of thinking otherwise. “But it’s rude. And it’s a gam
e. And I’m so tired of your games.”

  He’s quiet for a moment, the only sound in the room coming from the water hitting against the tiles and my own breathing.

  Then I hear the thud of metal as something heavy hits the floor.

  There are only two things that could be. One is the gun he tucked into his belt, and the other is the mask that never leaves his face.

  “But you won,” he says, taking a step in so we’re standing chest to chest.

  I can tell from the clarity of his voice that it wasn’t the gun he dropped to the floor.

  It was his mask.

  “You won. And no one ever wins with me.”

  His fingers trace up my arms and he cups my cheeks.

  I have the overwhelming urge to touch him. To feel his face again. To try to work out what he looks like.

  He bends down and this time it’s not the cold press of metal I feel against my forehead. I shiver as he presses his lips against me. Gentle. So fucking gentle.

  Before I can process what’s happening, he’s pulling the leather jacket open and sliding it from his shoulders. He’s wet, and I know what it is, but I’m trying my best not to think about it.

  The jacket falls to the floor, followed by his soaked shirt. The sound of metal on metal as he unbuckles his belt. He leans down, I imagine to take his shoes off, but he doesn't come back up. I feel his fingers on my thighs as he unclips my stockings and slides them down my legs.

  The whole time I'm lost for words. I wasn't lying when I hated him. I do. I hate the power he has over me. I hate the way he has become everything. But hating it doesn't change it. Hating it doesn't stop the power he has over me, my body, and my mind.

  Baron takes my hand and leads me towards the shower. The room is pitch dark, I can't even see his outline. I've never been scared of the dark before. The lights would go out when I was younger, and sometimes I would have forgotten to light the candle on my dresser. But still, I was never scared. I was untouchable. I was special. Bad things didn't happen to me.

  Now, I know that's not true.

  Baron maintains he has never hurt me... I'm not so sure about that anymore. There are ways to hurt someone without resorting to physical torture. With Baron, it's not the threat of what he has done. It's the threat of what he could do that scares me.