Page 58 of The Captive's Curse
Oh, gods, I’d never done well with visceral threats of violence, because I could picture it and almost feel it, and a weird spike of pain shot down into my hips and my knees went weak, making me sag in Hans’s vile hold.
Desperation gave me back my voice at last. “You don’t need to hurt me, or him,” I choked. “Bruno won’t be—”
“Your brother doesn’t give a fuck about you,” Hans retorted, probably truthfully, and I seethed in impotent fury and misery and dread. “He’s not even here. He’s out hunting, and he won’t see us go or notice that we’ve gone, either.” My heart sank to my toes. No one would interfere. “And if you keep arguing with me, maybe I’ll cut off this fucker’s cock instead, hmm?” His low laugh brought bile up into my throat. “Now keep that pretty mouth shut, nod and smile and do what you’re told, and maybe I’ll let you both live when this is over. With all of your parts intact, even.”
He released me at last, lowering the knife and turning me so that he could smile down into my face, my back now to Enzo and his captors. A red wash nearly blinded me, power gathering in my core and in my hands so powerfully that I wondered ifanyone else could sense it, a glow or a crackle in the air. But I pushed it down, down, gods, I had to force myself to obey.
Hans took me by the arm, grip only a fraction short of crushing, and moved toward the house.
I stumbled along by his side, because I had no choice. Behind me I heard raised voices, a scuffle, a muffled thud. I managed to glance over my shoulder, my chest so tight I could hardly breathe, and saw Enzo doubled over and one of the men with his fist raised—that sound had been a blow to the gut, probably.
Had he fought them because he’d seen Hans taking me away? Biting my lip hard enough to draw blood kept in a sob, barely. I stumbled along in Hans’s wake, every inch that he took me from Enzo feeling like a rope tied around my waist tugging and cutting in, yanking me back, agonizing.
My magic keened and howled, desperate to be unleashed.
But it’d have to wait. I could’ve lit Hans on fire, at the very least—in fact, he’d almost certainly go up in flames no matter what I tried to do to him. But his men had Enzo, and I couldn’t ignite them all. I simply didn’t have the power for it. I’d be drained long before I set Enzo free, and the gods only knew I’d never be able to heal any wounds of his.
No. I had to concentrate every scrap of my strength on staying alive, on humoring Hans so that he didn’t hurt Enzo, and on biding my time.
An opportunity would come. I simply had to be ready for it when it did.
I couldn’t believe otherwise, because I’d break—and Enzo needed me. If I let him down, his sacrifice for me wouldn’t be worth a damn, and I might as well let Hans cut my throat after all.
Enzo needed me.
I held to that thought as Hans dragged me away. Enzo needed me, and nothing else mattered.
Chapter Twenty-One
Hans didn’t even allow me the chance to go up to my rooms and change for the journey, hauling me directly to the stables. Agnethe whickered at me over the door of her stall, and I went to her, petting her nose, my heart rabbiting away as I tried to suck a full breath down into my constricted lungs.
“Lord Graf,” someone said behind me, and I glanced over my shoulder.
And then stared, riveted, as the guard who’d entered the stable held out a small, worn velvet bag to Hans.
The same bag, I could’ve sworn, that had been in Enzo’s dressing table hidden behind the back of the drawer.
The guard confirmed it by saying, “We searched the prisoner, Milord, and this is all he had on ’im besides a water flask.”
Hans nodded to dismiss the guard and tugged at the strings of the bag. By his nonchalance, he clearly expected it to contain a few silver coins, or the like. But I knew better, and my curiosity and worry nearly choked me. Enzo clearly treasured those rings more than anything else, enough to keep them not only safe, butsecret. What the hell had he been thinking bringing them with him today? Did he usually carry them around, and I’d simply happened to snoop through his things on a day when he’d left them behind for some reason? Or had he been carrying them on his person today for a specific purpose?
Either way, he’d never see them again now. They might be valuable to Enzo, but they were a step above trash for a wealthy lord like Hans. He’d hand them back to the guards to sell or give to a lover, and that would be that.
Hans tipped the contents of the pouch into his palm—and went absolutely, utterly still, as if some dire magic had frozen him into a statue. He stared down at the rings in his hand, transfixed.
And I stared at him in turn, eyebrows climbing up into my hairline.
They were plain rings, Enzo’s rings—neither of which quality would be of any interest to Hans. The two men had never met, and Hans had certainly never rummaged through Enzo’s bedroom. The silver band had no features at all: no engraving or intricate workmanship. And the other ring, the one that might or might not have been a signet, had been worn to unrecognizability, even on the off-chance that Hans might have encountered Enzo’s probably insignificant family emblem.
And yet Hans didn’t move, the sliver of his face I could see from my angle all pale and set, in contrast to his usual ruddy bluffness.
At last, he carefully put the rings back in the pouch and slipped it into the inside of his coat.
I whipped my head back, leaning my forehead against Agnethe’s neck as if I’d been resting there all along, my mind whirling. How could Hans possibly know more about Enzo and his mysteries than I did? And yet.
Somehow, seeing Enzo’s rings had put Hans into a lather that even capturing Enzo and threatening us both excessively had failed to do. When I told the grooms to saddle Agnethe, he appeared out of nowhere, face like a thundercloud, and told me to shut up, that he was the only one giving the orders, and that he wanted me where he could keep an eye on me.
I didn’t realize what he had in mind until he mounted his own massive gelding and yanked me up in front of him, settling me between his legs.
