Page 35 of Wicked Prince of Carnage
“Pleasant dreams?” Winter asked, and her eyes cleared, focusing on his alluring face, the bow of his perfect upper lip. He was already dressed, several buttons of his shirt unfastened.
She cast her stare away from his sun-kissed chest. “Anything is better than reality at the moment.”
Sterling stretched her legs and scooted forward when Winter opened the cage’s door. He tossed her another small jar of salve as he’d been doing for over a week, allowing her to gather her strength to participate in his next spectacle.
“You’re looking…”—his blue eyes swept down her body—“healthy. The game will begin this evening.”
Of course it would… “How’s my brother?” Sterling asked, lifting her tunic and rubbing the warm salve over her nearly-healed wound. Since the last game, and after the atrocious celebratory meal, she’d been given plenty of ointment, new clothing each day, and occasionally helped with servant duties on the first floor of the manor. Generally dusting. She was even allowed to bathe regularly.
Winter watched her with a predatory gaze, making Sterling’s pulse race. Something felt different about the way he was looking at her this time. It wasn’t only because she was his prisoner, his pet in a cage—it was as though he was protective of her. However, that didn’t make sense, not when he just told her the game would still take place, meaning her death could be awaiting her that night. But she would make certain that wouldn’t happen, not until Cyan was free from this place.
“I asked how my brother is,” Sterling repeated, letting the fabric of her tunic fall back down.
Without a word, Winter drew a folded sheet of paper from his trousers and pressed it into her palm, his long digits dragging across her skin, sending shivers down her spine, but not from fright, as he pulled away.
Her eyes widened and she gasped. She knew the way her brother crafted paper and could tell it was his work. This particular one was of a dove, their mother’s favorite bird.
“He’s all right,” she whispered.
The first few days after the game, Winter had conversed with her in a sense, but afterward had grown quieter, generally carving. She would take the prince in, attempting to figure him out, and with the way he watched her from the corners of his eyes, he continued to do the same before slipping into bed. Alwaysbare.
As she set the dove beside her, Sterling caught a glimpse of another white form peeking out from Winter’s pocket. She nodded toward it. “What else do you have in your trousers?”
He lazily arched a brow. “My cock?”
“No, you fool.” Sterling straightened, cursing herself for letting that slip. “I mean, Your Highness.” She forced a smile.
Winter’s lips curled up at the edges. “I like it when the real you makes an appearance. Not the obedient woman you’re pretending to be.”
Ignoring him, she pointed toward his pocket. “You have another craft.”
He shoved the paper further into his pocket.
“If it’s something Cyan made, I’d like to see it.”
“He didn’t make it.”
Sterling craned her neck, studying him curiously. “Didyoumake one then?”
“Why would I ever do something so mundane?” His tone and stare held boredom as he opened the cage’s door wider. “Go bathe. You have a game to prepare for.”
Sterling crawled out from the cage and stepped down. She peered up at him, not going into the bathing chamber as he’d commanded. Instead, she shifted toward him, knowing that she could be punished in some way for disobeying.
The prince’s lips parted for a moment before he angled his head, his dangerous gaze daring her to continue.
With her stare enraptured by his, she dipped her hand into his pocket, a heat she wasn’t expecting pooling in her stomach, and fished out the paper. She examined what looked to be some sort of mutilated fish. The multiple creases, the folds, and refolds as if the crafter was becoming anxious that it wasn’t perfect. The atrocity most certainly didn’t belong to her brother.
“Why did you make this?” she asked, her brow furrowed. “What are you trying to do to my brother in that cell? Make him worship you? Make him forget me?” Her blood boiled in her veins, not knowing what tricks the prince had up his sleeve.
The Prince of Carnage’s smile grew beautifully wicked. “Why do you assume he’s still in the cellar? He’s in a private room on the third floor now. You and I have a bargain, remember? I don’t break those. You win tonight—he goes free in the morning.”
Sterling stumbled backward. Cyan was no longer in the cellar? He was a floor above her and the asshole hadn’t told her? “I don’t understand you.”
“Most don’t.” Winter turned his back on her and sauntered toward his desk to pick up a block of wood. “Go bathe.”
Sterling clenched her jaw and marched toward him while he sat relaxed in his chair to carve. She would do as he commanded for Cyan’s sake, but she could do it in the way she chose, in a way to rattle him. He so easily removed his clothing in front of her,and she wouldn’t cower in the bathing chamber like the lowly human he believed her to be.
She unfastened her trousers, then let them drop to the floor before kicking them aside with her bare foot. Winter didn’t spare her a glance as she peeled her tunic over her head, nor did his expression alter. However, his shoulders grew more rigid, his movements along the wood slowing, digging deeper.
