Page 17 of The Prince's Captive

He stammered, “—then we—If the mission is to prevent the alliance between the clans, then we should follow the commander’s orders and focus on getting back quickly.”

One of the other soldiers snickered as Gavril kept glaring.

Winning the Desero demon’s trust was going to be impossible if the soldiers didn’t shut their filthy mouths. Presuming the girl he had was actually the demon. If Hypatia understood more than she was letting on—he hoped she didn’t. And even if she didn’t understand a word, he didn’t want to hear it and he didn’t even want them thinking it.

He saw the way some of the men had leered at her when he’d discovered two of his soldiers had disobeyed his orders and just left her lying on the ground in the mud. It was disgusting, and he wasn’t going to stand for it.

The next incident he caught, he would have to make an example of them and put a stop to it for good.

He said, “Precisely. You’ll finish your work faster and we’ll be back to Areator faster if you focus on it instead of running your mouth.”

“Yes, commander!”

Gavril didn’t spare them a second look as he continued on. He’d deal with them when he needed to, but his main focus needed to be on finishing the mission. That meant keeping Hypatia unharmed, winning her trust if possible so they could have peace instead of vengeance, making it back to Areator, getting married, and doing what was expected of him.

He glanced across the camp toward the command tent. The two soldiers he’d assigned to it were still outside, and there’d been not a single disturbance from it since he’d left her in there. Good. Maybe there were men in this unit that weren’t worthless dregs scraped off the floor of the Academy.

He needed to be certain he had the Desero demon. The way she acted fit. Her appearance fit. The scar fit. She couldn’t be anyone else.

But if she was…

If he’d failed to catch the Desero demon… could it even be fixed? If they’d somehow known about the ambush—which they couldn’t possibly have known about—then the Desero demon was likely long gone if she’d ever been anywhere near the ambush in the first place.

And, if against all logic, he didn’t have the Desero demon… who did he have?

And what was he going to do with her?

Another reason he had to keep his little nagging doubt quiet for now. Just in case he was right. Because if anyone else thought she wasn’t valuable—the soldiers’ mouths were filthy enough when they knew they would never get away with being able to act on any of it. He didn’t want to think what would happen if they thought they could. And Cyprian would want her dead.

And what if he was wrong and they did have the real Desero demon, but his little doubt led to either of those things happening and wrecking the fragile chance for peace they finally had after years of bloodshed?

No. He had to stay quiet and figure this out for himself.

As he fell into a fitful sleep in his tent, fingers tracing over the gold lilies, he couldn’t shake the terrible feeling he had.

Chapter7

MARCELLA

Marcella woke up next morning to Commander Gavril and the older commander coming into the tent. She sat up, struggling to see past her mess of curls that were ten times worse because of the lingering mud and sleeping on the ground.

The older commander ignored her as he moved about the tent, gathering up some of the papers and scrolls while Commander Gavril headed right for her, carrying something in his hands. She shook her head, sending her curls out of her eyes to see he had a waterskin and what appeared to be standard issue dry ration cakes. He knelt in front of her and held them out to her.

She didn’t take them.

“Long day ahead. Eat. Drink.”

She was tempted to just scratch her ears off so she didn’t have to hear him butchering her language with his horrid accent.

When she still didn’t take them, she heard the older commander say something with a derisive scoff.

Commander Gavril just looked past Marcella to glare at him, snapping something short before turning back to her. “—commander—doing.”

She still didn’t take them.

He sighed and then set the water skin down and broke a piece off one of the ration cakes and ate it. He then held it out to her. She reluctantly took it as he uncorked the water skin, took a sip and then held it out to her as well.

“No poison. No drug.”

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