Page 113 of The Prince's Captive

Although whether that was because Marcella was right and this rock was not something to be comprehended by a Runai—Inimicus as she called him—or because his head was pounding and every breath aggravated the split lip he had hidden under an illusion, he wasn’t sure.

It was only going to get worse if he let Marcella throw him about, so he opened the door to the workroom and found the closest guard, barking an order that instead of having Marcella brought to the sparring grounds like she usually was in half an hour that she be brought to him.

Then he ducked back into the room and held his bleeding lip. Hopefully it would stop by the time Marcella arrived.

Illusions only went so far.

Aimilia had called him out on it.

He had many secrets he had not told Marcella. He could not tell her. The little good opinion he had scraped together in her eyes would shatter if he did.

He found a rag and put pressure on his lip and to anyone else it would look like he was holding it against a perfectly fine lip, but when he pulled it away it would be red. He glared at the glowing citrine crystal on the table as he did so.

When the bleeding had stopped, he threw the rag into the waste bin and let out a long sigh.

Then he heard in the distance the rattling of chains and a scream, and Gavril was throwing open the door to see Marcella on the other end of the hallway being dragged by her guards. Her heels were dug into the ground, and she thrashed her arms like a wild animal.

“Marcella!” He rushed forward and shouted at the guards in his language, “Let her go! Let her go. I will take her!”

The guards eagerly threw her forward, and at the sound of his voice, her hair stopped flying and her eyes landed on him right as he caught her. She stammered, “G—Gav—Gav?”

She stilled as his hands rested on her shoulder blades, cradling her as her hands came to rest on his forearms. He nodded, watching her breathe deeply and look around. He hushed her gently, slowly shifting his fingers over her back. He murmured in her tongue, “It is me. It’s just me. You are safe.”

“I thought—” Marcella looked over her shoulder at the guards who pretended to find the marble walls more fascinating than them. She took a long shuddering breath. “We spar—they take me left. They’ve always taken me left except for—that day they turned right. Today, they turned right.”

Oh.

His head was still pounding, and he blamed that for why he hadn’t been thinking straight. He should have thought of that. He should have gone for her himself.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” he murmured. He pulled her closer, ushering her toward his workroom. He shut the door behind him, securing them privacy away from the guards—whom Gavril knew reported everything to Nikias.

Nikias… Gavril had been doing an excellent job of avoiding him. He’d caught glimpses of him in the hallways and he didn’t look well, but he never did as this time of year approached. Everyone usually gave Nikias a wide berth leading up to the anniversary. But now Nikias was using Aimilia to get to Gavril. Their unholy alliance was only getting darker by the day with Aimilia in such a fury she’d tried to force him to expose his injuries not just in front of Marcella but in front of several guards.

Then everyone would know. But he cared most about Marcella never knowing.

Marcella shook her head, wrapping her arms around her stomach as she turned back to face him. “It is no matter. I just do not know your palace well.”

“It is hard to know from inside a cell,” Gavril said, trying to think past his headache to take her in. Her hands were still shaking even as she tried to hide it. Her shoulders were hunched in, but she was putting on a brave face. He reached forward, brushing his palm over her shoulder, causing her to look up at him. “I did not mean to scare you. I was not thinking straight.”

She stepped back out of his grip. “Like I said, it is no matter.”

She clearly didn’t want to discuss anything remotely related to the tables.

She kept speaking as she turned to the rest of the room, but her voice died the second her eyes landed on the rock. “Now, if we are not sparring, what did you want—”

Gavril stepped up behind her as she slowly walked toward the rock. He said, “I am too tired from getting nowhere with this rock to fight, but I still wanted to see you.”

She finally ripped her eyes away from the glowing rock to back at him. Her brow furrowed. “If I help you with the rock, I stay off the tables?”

Every time she said that, it shattered him.

And then the horrid image of her trapped on that table came rushing back and he could not blame her. He could only blame himself for failing to save her from that horror the first time and continue trying to prove to her he would never let it happen again.

He stepped closer, shaking his head as he came around to her side. He placed one hand on the table and the other on her shoulder so she had nowhere else to look but him as he said, “No, no. You don’t have to give me anything. Your safety is secured.”

The split lip that threatened to break open again would only be proof to her he was everything she thought he was. A liar.

The split lip he’d gotten because the men Nikias had sent to the supply cache had returned, claiming it didn’t exist. Because his parents thought Marcella had lied to him.

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