Page 65 of Royal Captive
I shivered, then told myself to knock it off. I’d been far, far colder and in much worse circumstances than I was now.
Risking a glance over my shoulder, I flinched at the hot, accusatory glare Ellis pinned on me.
“Stop being stubborn and come here,” he grumbled at me, shuffling forward as best he could and opening his arms to me.
Incredibly relieved he didn’t hate me, I relaxed into his chest as his warmth soaked through his tunic into my back. It wasn’t much, but it was something.
“How is your neck? I’m sorry I couldn’t get to you sooner. King Fennis delayed the more I pushed, and—” Ellis cut himself off as his fingers skimmed the angry marks on my neck. A sharp shock went through the wound and he drew back, spitting with pain. The heat left my back.
“That bastard! There’s magick in there!”
The need to defend Alihandro rose in me, even though he’d turned out to be an ass in the end. My lips parted, but nothing came out.
Ellis sneered, shaking out his hand. “Go on. You’re about to defend your rapist, aren’t you? Oh, that’s right. It wasn’t rape. You were so very willing.”
He turned his back to me and hugged his knees to chest.
So much for not hating me.
“That’s rich. What did the king call you? His daughter’s littleplaything?” I snapped.
He didn’t answer.
The cage rattled over a large hole, bumping me into the iron bars and throwing me against him. What were a few more bruises to my body compared to the one in my heart?
“I don’t know what to do. It’s all a mess.” Ellis’s agonized voice came out raggedly, but his arms were unable to help snaking around my waist as he turned and reached for me.
The deep ache in my heart burst open into a fully-fledged wound.
“It is,” I whispered back, at a loss. I wanted to tell him I’d done it to survive, but that wasn’t even true, was it? Not like Ellis, and I couldn’t lie to him. Not after everything we’d been through together.
“I wanted it,” I admitted quietly.
Ellis’s shoulders tensed, then relaxed.
“I wanted it too in a weird, stupid way.”
I shook my head. “It’s not stupid. And Alihandro was kind to me. Do you know I can count on one hand the number of men who’ve been kind to me?” I asked him, my voice rising hysterically. “It isn’t an excuse. Hell, it’s not even a good reason. But it was all I had, and I wanted to, and just for a moment, it made me feel better—like the goddamn princess they all call me.”
Tears snaked down my cheeks and I hurriedly wiped them away, frustrated.
“Fallon was kind to me as well—in her own way,” Ellis offered.
I sighed. “Before Prince—before Shyllon took me away, they were going to hold me down and fuck me any way they could in a room full of people laughing at me. Gods, I couldn’t even count how many there were. They shoved a mock crown of sticks and rocks on my head. They—” The full weight of what had almost happened hit me fully for the first time. Glancing up, Ellis had turned back toward me, his eyes wide and face full of horror.
I glanced at my hands, shaking as I held them out in front of me. Curling them into fists, I looked back up at him.
“Shyllon gave me medical aid when I first got here. He took me away from the pleasure house. Alihandro helped him, and he was the one who took the crown off and smashed it. And even if they ended up being asshole fae like the rest … Yeah. They were kind to me. Call it an even trade, I guess. Sorry it upsets you.”
Because while I was sorry my actions hurt Ellis and his hurt me, I wasn’t sorry for fucking Alihandro, and he hadn’t apologized for fucking a fae princess. Not that I wanted him to. I didn’t have time for regrets or second guesses. I had to make decisions and just decide they were the right ones. A person would drive themselves mad otherwise, always second guessing their choices.
Ellis’s face lost its haunted expression, flattening out as he turned away from me. “The king has made a lot of promises. He’s quite proud of his little army of bastards. Did you know he has no queen? He thinks I’m descended from his line somewhere along the way. Did you know that?”
I shook my head, even though Ellis was facing away from me and couldn’t see it. The question was rhetorical.
“It makes sense. You’d all be descended from someone, obviously,” I muttered, not truly seeing why it was so significant.
Ellis fell silent after that, the only sounds around us were the clattering of the wooden wheels over the cobblestones in the road as we bumped along. I shivered, and Ellis sighed, moving over and offering his chest to me again.
