Page 11 of The Traitor's Curse
Maybe one of them could have done Benedict justice. Probably not. But any one of them would’ve given a less-used body part of their own to have the opportunity.
Or maybe they already had. He might have already fucked each and every one of them and posed for their paintings in between bouts.
At last he turned around, face set in hard, neutral lines.
“You’re hoping your would-be assassin will show his hand if you make it look as if you don’t suspect anything, and the wine simply spilled?” he asked, as if he hadn’t had his little outburst and then gone silent. “That’s your brilliant plan? At the very least, whoever wants you dead and a culprit in the kitchen knows about this, and likely a middleman or messenger between them, too. You can’t even investigate what happened without acknowledging that it did. You’re going to cover this up, and then blithely carry on being bait for the next attempt?”
I chose to ignore his insults to my intelligence—and his perfectly logical conclusion that everyone in the kitchen needed to be turned out of the palace gates if I wanted to live. Later. Dammit. My head ached.
“I’m thinking about our foreign guests. They already suspect—” I swallowed hard.That I’m weak. That I’m unfit to rule, and that they’ll be able to extort any concessions they want from Calatria by threatening our borders or hinting that they’ll ally with whoever kills me first.No, impossible to voice any of that aloud. Besides, Benedict would fill in the blanks perfectly well on his own. “Any sign of chaos here in Calatria could be disastrous for our diplomatic and military interests.”
There. That sounded far less whiny. The calculations of a duke, not the panic of a man with no supporters and too many enemies.
“I thought if we made it look as if he’d tripped and dropped the tray, perhaps hit his head on the way down, it might be plausible,” I went on. “He needs to be moved to the other side of the room. The mess cleaned up. Some blood smeared on the corner of a table, or the mantel.”
“And his head caved in to match,” Benedict said, grimacing. Right. I’d conveniently forgotten that. Ugh. “I suppose you intended for me to take on that enviable task.”
Sarcasm had to be one of Benedict’s least appealing traits, and it had stiff competition.
“You serve at the pleasure of your duke, and you’ve broken a hundred heads in your time. Surely it’s easier when the head in question isn’t trying to get away.”
Benedict’s eyes narrowed, and I held my ground without shrinking back into the chair through keeping a death grip on my knees, my knuckles aching.
“You seem to have forgotten something, Your Grace,” he said, very low. Oh, no. “I also serve at my own pleasure. I pretend otherwise in the presence of the court or the council, but I left Calatria without your by-your-leave. I returned when it suited me. And I know damn well you didn’t want me to take up my position again, but you didn’t have any choice, so you put thebest face on it you could. If you knew—”
He broke off, breathing hard, and I held my own breath, desperate for him to finish that sentence. If I knew? If I knew what? But he shook his head, and his face set into implacable lines.
“It’s obvious how little you want to be here asking for my help, partly because you haven’t fucking asked. You wouldn’t be here at all if you weren’t desperate. If someone tried to kill you tonight, they’ll try again, or someone else will. And you obviously can’t trust any of the palace staff. You need more help than one broken skull and the careful placement of a body, and you’re damn well going to get it.” Benedict bared his teeth and pinned me with his gaze, and this time I knew I could see the power of his magic flickering in the depths of his eyes. “And pay for it.”
Payfor it? Anddamn well going to get it, as if Benedict was the one who meant to insist on helping me whether I liked it or not? I’d come here to command him, not be commanded! My immediate thought was that I’d rather die, even though this had been my idea in the first place.
Of course, I still could, simply by walking back to my rooms and waiting for someone to bring me more wine.
Time to go on the offensive, although Benedict had “offensive” cornered, in my admittedly biased opinion.
“You already receive a generous salary and perquisites for your service as Lord General,” I pointed out. “I do pay you for your help. You are paid precisely to protect me from assassins and uphold Calatria’s honor. All of this falls into—”
“And I do protect you, although clearly not well enough so far,” Benedict growled, and the rest of my words withered on my tongue. Forget poisoning me or stabbing me, he looked like he mighteatme. Had he just admitted fault? Why the hell did he care? My whole body went hot and tight and odd, bellysimmering with nerves. I couldn’t’ve moved a muscle if my life depended on it. “I risk my life for y—Calatria all the time without complaining about it, and I kill for Calatria, too. But if I’m going to drop everything else, watch you like a hawk, cancel my assignation—and shut up, Lucian, I need it to live, in case you’d forgotten—”
I snapped my mouth shut again as if he had it on a string. Damn it. I hadn’t forgotten, but it wasn’t as if he’d drop dead from one missed fuck!
“—or crack the skulls of dead valets and carry bodies around in the middle of the night like a fucking undertaker, I’m not doing it for a fucking salary! Absolutely not. That’s going to require…a lot more perquisites, as you put it. Provided by you personally.”
Perquisites. What? Me, personally?
Benedict wavered in my vision as I blinked, wobbled, and blinked again.
“You mean, hire whores for you,” I stammered. “Or—procure bedmates for you from among the courtiers or the servants? Are you out of your mind?”
“No,” he said grimly. “I’m completely sane. And if someone’s trying to kill you, you need constant protection. Better than what you already have. Your bodyguards can’t detect the presence of poison in a cup, for one thing. So I won’t leave your side except for my other essential duties, and only when I have you under guard by someone I trust. Which means no whores, nobedmates. You’re the perquisite, Lucian. You’re going to bend over, spread your legs, and so on, in any way and at any time of my choosing. You’ll take my cock and my spend and my magic’s curse as often as I tell you to.” He flashed me a feral grin, eyes wild, completely contradicting his assertion of sanity. “You’ll enjoy it, too. How long has it been since anyone turned you inside out the way you probably don’t deserve?”
“You,” I gasped. His cock. Spread my legs. That squirming in my gut had turned to full-on clenching, and my heart stumbled, stuttered, and picked up again at a pace that had my throat vibrating. His cock, between my spread legs, turning me inside out… “I won’t. I won’t do it. You’ll do your duty without this sordid blackmail, or by all the gods, I’ll—”
Benedict lunged so abruptly that I broke off in something horribly adjacent to a squeak, huddling back in my chair after all as he leaned down, bracing his hands on the arms of it. His face hovered mere inches from mine, close enough that I couldn’t see anything but those silvery eyes or feel anything but the warm brush of his breath.
He’d been drinking sweet red wine too, only without the spices or the poison.
No escape. Nowhere to go.
