Page 61 of The Captive's Curse
Up. The only thing up was…I tipped my head back. The castle had only one real tower, its others being mere turrets along the battlements that were only large enough to hold a staircase and an alcove for a brazier. It perched atop one corner of the oldest part of the castle, spearing up into the sky in a death-defying, crumbly sort of way that strongly suggested imminent collapse.
I staggered, closing my eyes, as a wave of dizzy vertigo nearly knocked me over. I tasted bile.
Ugh, gods. Was Hans putting Enzo up there? The very thought of it made me want to drop to the ground and crawl along it for the rest of my life, purely for the security of knowing I had nowhere I could fall to.
When I opened my eyes, Hans stood a foot from me.
I yelped in shock, staggered again, and ended up with my back to a wooden pillar that held up an overhanging roof against the side of the courtyard. Hans leaned in, putting a finger undermy chin, tilting it up so that I had to look into his face. My skin tried its best to slither away from that point of contact, but there was nowhere to go.
Hans smiled down at me, the broad expanse of white teeth and the creases in his ruddy cheeks at horrid, disturbing odds with the flat sheen of his pale blue eyes.
“This castle is mine now, and I’m going to hold it. If you’re hoping some of that criminal’s rabble will manage to mount an escape, don’t. We’re more than a match for them.” I glared at him silently, because I couldn’t actually disagree. “That being the case, you’re going to be good until I can get you home to your brother, hmm? No need to do anything but what you’re told.”
Oh, that unctuous, insincere, condescending tone. If I hadn’t already hated him more than I’d thought it would be possible to hate anyone, that would’ve pushed me over the edge.
I swallowed hard, forcing moisture into my arid throat. “And Enzo? And his men? You’ll be taking them to the assizes?”
They’d be convicted of robbery, of course, but that didn’t mean a death sentence. And if I wrote to Prince Nikola, who ought to reach home any day now, and begged him for his help, it might mean an entirely commuted sentence. Gods, I might be able to save all of their lives. If I played along, got myself home, saw Enzo and the others handed off to more trustworthy authorities than Hans…
Hans’s pause had lasted just a beat too long. “Of course,” he said, baring his teeth. “The assizes. Proper justice for everyone.”
All the blood in my body seemed to evaporate, fizzing away and leaving me a hollow, papery husk. Hans’s feral grin blurred before me.
He was lying. Every one of his words rang with falsehood. He couldn’t possibly have been less convincing if he’d tried. Was he even trying? Or did he…he did. He meant to kill me, too. Hemeant to kill us all. Finn’s surrender meant Hans had to be more subtle about it, not that he couldn’t do it at all.
But…why would he risk the queen’s anger?
“You bastard,” I said, but it came out a whisper through lips that had gone bloodless and numb. “You promised! I behaved myself, Enzo brought you here as he said he would, there’s no—”
Hans’s hand twisted, and instead of merely lifting my chin he gripped me under my jaw, fingers digging into my flesh like pinions.
“I promised nothing,” he hissed, and then he laughed, shaking his head. “You’re even stupider than that pretty face makes you look if it took you this long to realize—or you were lying to yourself to save your own skin. This castle is mine!” I blinked at him, unnerved, because his tone…he sounded half an inch from unhinged, his eyes flaring with wild emotion, his bland façade cracked and crumbling at last. “Mine by right of birth, and that fucking—fuck!”
He shoved me against the pillar, knocking my skull painfully, his hand sliding down to wrap around my throat.
My temples throbbed, and my stomach churned, but I clawed my fingers into the pillar and held myself up by force of will. He had to be insane. There was no other explanation.
“Yours by birth? This is the castle of the Mad Lord. The one in the story? His line died out.” I stopped for an instant, transfixed, because as those words passed my lips…fuck, I almost had it, I almost…
“He had a sister,” Hans snarled. “Vincenzo died without a legitimate heir, which means his property passed down through her line, by right! This castle is mine. And anyone who thinks they can prove otherwise needs to be—”
He stopped abruptly, biting back whatever he’d been about to say, so revealingly. But it didn’t matter. We both knewwhat he’d meant, and the wordremoved, or something even less euphemistic, hung in the air between us regardless of his silence.
“There’s going to be a guard with your fucking thief of a lover every moment,” he went on. “Any sign of an attempt to rescue him, and he’ll be dead at once. You do anything untoward? I’ll have to make sure you’re not a problem, either. Don’t make it easier for me to kill you than let you live, Cyril. Oh, and if you annoy me, I’ll have my men set to work on him with hot knives while I make up my mind what to do with him. Your choice.”
I opened my mouth, and Hans shook his head. “Think before you speak. I don’t want to hear anything from you but agreement. I lose nothing by hurting that son of a bitch.”
Because Enzo was never meant to go in front of one of the queen’s justices, where signs of torture would be questioned and investigated.Don’t make it easier for me to kill you. At least he’d stopped trying to lie to me quite so blatantly.
I squeezed my eyes shut, but that was worse: instead of Hans’s sadistically gleeful face, I could only see Enzo, chained and naked and sliced to ribbons, in agony because of me.
All of this was because of me. My fucking pathetic curse, my inability to use a potion that dawn mages everywhere consumed without the slightest trouble, my insistence on seducing Enzo when his better judgment clearly would’ve had him running in the opposite direction.
You’re not just a menace. You’re going to be the death of me.
Prophetic words, and if he hadn’t come to Montefime to fuck me, to relieve my curse, he’d be free and safe.
For me, for me, for me.
