Page 18 of The Captive's Curse
“Finn,” said a low, furious voice. Enzo’s voice.
My eyes popped open and my head cranked around toward him as if he’d had me on a string.
Enzo stood beside his chair, arms crossed over his chest so that his biceps strained the fabric of his sleeves, black brows drawn together ferociously. And black eyes flashing even more ferociously. He’d directed his glower at Finn, not at me, but I still felt the urge to crawl under the table and hide. My belly twisted into a knot.
“Evening, Enzo,” Finn said, but with the faintest hesitation, as if he wasn’t quite sure what he’d done to earn his leader’s anger but knew he ought to be wary.
Enzo’s jaw had clenched so tight he might be damaging his teeth. “Go see to the sentries,” he gritted out.
I snuck a sidelong glance at Finn. By the way his mouth hung open, realization, if not comprehension, had begun to dawn. I had to admit I didn’t really understand either—beyond knowing that Enzo was in a dangerous mood.
Could he be jealous? Surely not. The interest he’d shown in my naked ass last night had been mild, and possibly attributable to simple shock that I’d stuck it out at him sobrazenly. It wouldn’t be the first time that I’d rendered someone speechless simply by being myself.
But…what if hewasjealous? The hot, crawling sensation in my abdomen doubled in intensity all at once, and I had to bite my lip to keep in a moan.
“I already made sure the sentries were in their places before sup—”
“Bloody well go do it again!”
A sticky, ringing silence descended. Even the table behind me had gone mum, not a whisper to be heard.
“Yes, sir,” Finn said briskly. He got up at once, but then he stopped despite Enzo’s frown, turned to me, and said, “Lord Cyril, thank you for your company at dinner.”
Gods. He really was a decent sort, wasn’t he? But I only managed a nod and a weak smile as he strode away.
What the hell would I do now? For all I knew, I’d gotten the timing wrong and I’d be hit with my curse before morning. After all, I’d hardly been keeping track as closely as I would have if I’d known this situation would arise. One didn’t plan to be kidnapped, generally speaking.
“Lord Cyril, come with me,” Enzo said, tone clipped. With his attention transferred to me, his eyes blazing cold fire, I found myself entirely unable to disobey.
Even though I’d only eaten a few bites and my stomach protested its neglect, I abandoned my potatoes and rose on slightly shaking legs, going around my remaining dinner companion—who’d kept his head down and his mouth occupied with his stewed beef like a clever fellow. It felt like it took hours to go those few feet with Enzo standing there tensely and glowering at me.
Without another word, he turned and went up the steps to the dais and toward the door in the back of the hall, the way heand Leander and the others had all gone from breakfast earlier that day. He seemed to have no doubt at all that I’d follow him.
And I did, my chest getting tighter with every step until I began to fear I’d run out of breath and pass out on the floor.
Enzo led me through the doorway and into yet another of this labyrinthine place’s many corridors, this one wider and cleaner than some of the others I’d seen but equally nondescript. He took a torch from a bracket on the wall, opened a plain wooden door a few yards down, and ushered me in, shutting the door a bit harder than necessary behind us.
Chapter Seven
The latch clicked too loudly, and I jumped and then hated myself for my weakness.
A faint scrape of wood on metal and the steadying of the light told me Enzo had put the torch on the wall. The room didn’t have much to hold one’s attention: it appeared to be the same kind of dusty storage chamber as many of the others in this part of the castle. But I kept staring at a broken chair, three stacked crates, and a bundle of broom handles as if they held all the secrets of the universe.
Because the moment I turned around, I’d have to acknowledge Enzo’s presence. Not that I couldn’t already feel him, his gaze burning a hole in the back of my neck, the aura of power he threw off raising goosebumps on my arms and legs.
“I don’t allow my men to fraternize with my prisoners,” he said abruptly, and I jumpedagain, gods fucking damn it, closing my eyes for a moment to try to get my heartbeat under control. “Finn might have forgotten that rule. It doesn’t come up often. I’ll make sure he remembers and won’t come near you again. But if he made you think, even for an instant, that you were required to entertain his advances because you’re my captive, I’ll hang him from the wall by his toes.”
It took me a moment to make sense of that.
When I did, my belly curdled with something horribly, shamefully like disappointment. Enzo clearly wasn’t jealous in the slightest.
Except that he obviously thought he’d been protecting me. And that gave me an even more unwelcome flutter in the vicinity of my breastbone. No one else in the world, including my own elder brother, troubled to do so.
I turned at last and immediately met his serious dark eyes, fixed on me with an intensity that had my cheeks going hot. Hopefully the reddish illumination from the torch, and the cosmetics on my skin, would keep that flush from being too obvious.
Well, if Enzo wasn’t angry with me—and of course he wasn’t, because he didn’t think I’d been the one to make advances and also didn’t care much if I had, and I’dwantedhim not to notice or care, damn it—then I had to make sure he wasn’t angry with Finn, either. I didn’t want the man to be punished simply for being seduced by my beauty and charm. After all, that could happen to anyone.
Besides, at this point I really had no choice but to explain the situation to Enzo so that he could loosen his rules. He was too damn observant, as this evening had proven. Trying to sneak around and find someone to fuck me behind his back clearly wouldn’t work.
