Page 59 of The Tsarina's Favorite
The offer of food from her selection caused a primal betrayal from my stomach.I had lost a significant amount of weight and my muscles had wasted, both with disuse and malnourishment.I hated the physical weakness that so easily abandoned any high-minded principles I wanted to uphold.
She returned in her undergarments and stood over me.“Have you decided?”
Nothing mattered anymore, did it?In answer, I sat fully and put my wrists behind my back, waiting for her to bind them.
“Good boy,” she said as she dropped a kiss on the top of my head on her way to fastening the bands.
She had reduced me to the lowest of the low, transgressed every moral and physical propriety, and yet, somehow, her kindly touch defiled me still further than even her cruelty.I yearned for the day when she lost interest in me.
“I had brackets installed on my chairs so that I can keep you with me wherever I go.”She finished tying the cords together and then slid her hand down my back.“I’m going to let my ladies in now.Behave.”
She stood again and went to the bedroom door.Upon opening it, the ladies swarmed in with a forced vibrancy I shrank from.Several of the women spotted me, and their boisterousness died as they edged the room.The tsarina noticed but said nothing as she led the way into her dressing room.Princess Alaina was last to follow, casting a doubtful look in my direction.
They didn’t take long.The tsarina, dressed for a day of state affairs, led her ladies out of the dressing room and approached me.She unfastened the lead and tugged me to my feet.I followed, the ladies giving me a wide berth.The tsarina glared at her ladies who kept their distance, disdainful of their mousiness.
We made our way out of the tsarina’s apartments.At the main section of the palace, the tsarina lost patience with my slow gait from the jesses and handed me off to the first person beside her, which should have been Ekaterina, except that she fell back when the tsarina thrust out my leash.Princess Alaina was thus left staring at the lead.
“Take it!”the tsarina snapped, and the princess took it, more startled to be called upon than at her assignment.“Meet us at the council room.”
And the group, no longer confined to my limited speed, moved past us, the tsarina motivated to reach the council chamber and the rest of the ladies eager to be away from me and the princess burdened with my conveyance.
The princess stared at the end of the lead in her hands as the rest of the group, no longer confined to my shuffle, abandoned us.Her gaze traveled up the chain, to the collar, then up to my face.She had never been this close to me.At the pavilion, she always sat outside the radius of my tethers.The proximity now stunned her into silence.
“If the tsarina’s morning expression didn’t frighten me, yours certainly does.”I glanced about, ensuring our solitude.Nonetheless, I lowered my voice.“I see what you mean about being called on for cross thoughts.Yours currently must be of the utmost annoyance.”
“What?”She blinked at me several times.“Oh.I...I’ve never seen you standing before.I didn’t realize you were so tall.She must trust in your obedience to consign you to my direction.You could probably topple me without the least effort.”
“I will not cause difficulty for you, if such is your concern.I know how she preys on helpless things.”
“Are you suggesting I am helpless?”
“Are not all of us helpless when it comes to her?”
“Alas.”
“Just deliver me to the council room, and your odious task will be over.”
“Why?Is the council discussing policy on The Kind and Fair and Otherland creatures?”
“I am to spend the day at her side so that she may feel generous when she feeds me something from her hand.”
The princess scrunched her face in disgust.
“I cannot afford to be proud,” I said.“She’s the one who dictates if I eat at all.”
“Why does she need to do this to you?”
“If she can make an Otherland creature bend to her will, no one else has a chance of standing against her.”
She looked down at the lead in her hand.“This doesn’t feel right.”
“I can tease you to make up for it when next you visit the pavilion.”
Her brows scrunched together as she redirected her gaze up at me.“Do I not already receive enough teasing?”
“Not nearly enough,” I assured her.“You fail to appreciate the enormous restraint I exercise on a daily basis.I have so much to say and no one to say it to.”
A small smile touched her mouth.“I can only imagine.”
