Page 68 of Royal Captive
“Ellis, what—”
“Don’t you ever think of yourself?” he asked wistfully, finally meeting my eyes as a small smile twisted one corner of his mouth upward. “When you aren’t trying to finagle your way into being queen, of course. You’re always thinking of the bigger picture, of how to help the most people. Sometimes I wish you were more selfish, you know?”
I balked, unsure if it was a criticism or a compliment.
Ah, perhaps it was both.
Reaching through the bars, I caught his cold hand before he could pull away from me again.
“Ellis, I’m sorry. But I can’t just be here and see the suffering, and the need, and not do something. It’s not who I am.”
His grip on my hand tightened painfully. “Who exactly is suffering? The poorest person here is still far richer than anyone back in our realm!”
I winced as he spoke aloud the same intrusive thoughts that had been bothering me ever since Calten had taken me out into the town surrounding the castle.
“They’re still slaves,” I argued, “relying on the king and the fae court for everything in life—food, clothing. Hell, they’re even told what jobs they will have later in life! It could all be taken away in the blink of an eye.”
Ellis shook his head. “Slave is a name only! If being a slave means medical care, food, shelter, clothing, and my every material need cared for, I would happily toil away at whatever task the fae deemed necessary! They even educate the humans for their jobs! How can—”
Ellis snapped his mouth closed, hands curling into his hair and pulling as he screwed his eyes shut. After a few calming breaths, he opened them again. “How can our realm even compete? Our realm, where people murder and beat each other over crusts of bread? Where children are dirty in the streets, with cracked and bleeding feet? Where the houses are flimsy excuses for shelter made of mud and whatever else they scrounge up?Thatis true slavery, is it not?”
My heart broke for Ellis, watching the despair rise in him.
“It’s not all like that,” I said softly, but insistently. “There is a large faction of the poor, but it’s not all like that. There are good people.” I squeezed his hand. “There are good kings. People have the freedom to make their own fortunes.”
“Or die in squalor,” he spit. Ellis snorted. “Viana will do her best to patch things together, but it’s a mess. It’s such a fucking mess.…”
I leaned forward, touching my forehead to his as best we could through the bars. “I am no more important than all thehuman slaves in this realm. They at least deserve the choice to be a fae slave or to take their chances elsewhere, right? That’s what it’s about: having a choice.”
Ellis’s mouth opened angrily, ready to argue my first point, then closed when he had nothing to say against my second one.
“You are important,” he ended with stubbornly, lips brushing the top of my head.
“No verros.” We both whipped around as a fae guard lounged by Ellis’s door, arms mockingly draped over the bars.
“What did he say?” I whispered frantically to Ellis, whose eyes narrowed in anger.
“Nothing important,” he spat, hooking his elbow around mine.
The fae laughed and rattled something else off, unlocking Ellis’s door as more guards came in and dragged him away.
Ellis growled something back in the fae language, the shock of the fae’s lilting words coming from his mouth titillating in a way I hadn’t expected.
Because Ellis now understood the fae language.
Because he’d fucked Fallon.
And I’d fucked Alihandro. It ruffled my feathers that I couldn’t understand the fae language. Either it had something to do with me being human, or … well …
The answer was glaringly obvious as it hit me with the full force of a wagon full of hay. Had anyone realized it yet, or just me?
Unless I was wrong, but I didn’t think so.
I couldn’t understand the fae language because I hadn’t fucked a fae.
Alihandro wasn’t a full-blooded descendant of Fennis.
Guards came for me as well, and together they shuffled Ellis and me down the long hallway and into an open yard. I got one quick look at the high, smooth white walls before a guard slapped a cuff around Ellis’s left wrist that matched what the other fae had. The guards exited through the same gate they’d shoved us through and locked it.
