Page 42 of Caroline the Cruel
He racked his memory, but he couldn’t remember such a room being present in this castle before.
Caroline paused, stealing him from his thoughts. She pointed to another, smaller door. “Go bathe. You’re foul.” Her nose wrinkled, and she turned away.
Still under her will, Breicher marched toward the door, stealing a glance backward at the queen as he let himself into the chamber. What was she up to?
He lowered himself in the steaming water the queen had pre-prepared for him, relishing the bite of the heat, almost too hot. Filth, from almost ninety days in the prisons of Roskide floated to the surface as he quickly scrubbed. All vanity aside, he was glad to be clean. If he had to confront her, he’d rather it be when he was feeling his best. Looking his best, and he’d take every advantage she gave him. He swished the water so the little islands of grime wouldn’t catch on his skin as he exited the tub.
A black towel was placed next to the sandalwood scented soaps on a teak bench.He snatched it, toweled off, then shaved away the dense hair concealing the hard line of his jaw. Quickly donning the loose silk pants and slinky velvet smoking jacket, which had been laid out for him, he assessed himself in the mirror. His reflection made his skin crawl. He despised the luxurious material given to him by his enemy. Sighing, Breicher conceded to the relaxed, sensual image before him, no doubt part of some scheme of the young queen.
Breicher cracked the door to the sitting room, and caught sight of Caroline draped across the couch, a book in one hand and a glass of wine in the other. In the time he’d taken to clean himself she’d also slipped into some nightwear.
A floor-length black satin robe was cinched around a gown in a matching material. Her long color-drained locks cascaded over her shoulders, and though the queen wore no extra color on her freshly washed skin, her beauty radiated on full display. She was stunning. His throat tightened as he took her in.
“I thought we could share a drink, catch up,prince.” Caroline didn’t look at him as she gestured to a glass of wine, which was sitting on the ebony table next to the chair nearest her.
He wanted to grab her, shake her, demand to know what she was going to do with him. Instead, he barely restrained his own shaking as he took a seat and picked up the goblet, noting her control absent. Freely, he brought the red liquid to his lips, half hoping it was a quick acting poison. It’s what he deserved. The wine burned as it bit down his throat. It was woody and full-bodied, the way he preferred it.
“What are we doing, Caroline?” he asked, keeping his voice as calm as possible.
Caroline huffed. “You no longer prefer my company?”
Her body shifted toward his, and she lifted her attention from the book, which she folded closed, to him. The onyx fabric of her robe slipped off her shoulder, exposing her delicate skin and his eyes trained on it like a target.Stop it, you animal.
“I tried to kill you, Caroline. I know how much you like your punishments. What do you want with me?” He forced the words out and his eyes up to meet hers, not masking the anger he felt toward her. Anger for her living and this horrible guilty churning he couldn’t escape from.
She leaned forward and took a long slow sip of her wine, then set it on the dark table in front of the couch. Her movement caused more of her garments to slip to the side, sliding off her legs, displaying her skin from her thighs to her bare feet.
Breicher locked his gaze on hers, refusing to let it stray. And not because he was a gentleman.
“I want many things, Breicher. Tell me, did you kill my guards who went missing or were they simply abducted?”
His blood turned to shards of glass in his veins. It was the first time she’d said his name and he simultaneously loved and hated the way it rolled off her tongue. Or he hated that he loved it so much, which scared him, but what really terrified him was what she would do with the knowledge of who stood before her. He needed to be very careful. “They’re safe. I had my brother arrange to take them away and in exchange for their silence, they’d keep their lives. How did you know?”
“I’ve had a long while to think about things. I put it together when I realized how long it had been since one went missing. You were next in line to disappear, but there you were, months and months, like the culprits had given up. Unfortunately, I saw that a bit too late. I want them returned to me.”
The expression on the queen’s face was commanding, severe and it gave him a thrill, though it made him cringe to admit it. “You mean to kill them?” he asked.
“What I choose to do with my people isn’t your concern.For now.”
The wordsfor nowclung to him, and he struggled to decipher their meaning. He tried to school his features into neutrality, but it was hopeless. He was perplexed and it was painted across his face.
“I’ve also thought a lot about how I want to punish you. About what I want from you,prince. And how I want to go about getting it.”
Caroline bent her leg and placed a bare foot on her other calf, sliding it back and forth gently like a lover’s caress. The movement caused his blood to heat even as his fingertips itched for the touch. Get ahold of yourself.
He ignored her seduction. Tried anyway. When she’d come back, bleached, it was strange at first. But the more that he stared at her, the more he became enchanted by the visual. He had to get out of this room quickly. “You’re more of a fool than I thought you were. If you think you’ll get anything from me, you’re mistaken.”
“I don’t think that’s true.” She gave him a once over, her eyes leaving a trail of warmth across his skin. “Maybe I’m a fool. But I don’t suppose that matters now, does it?” She shrugged. The rest of the robe which was clinging on slipped lower. “As you can see, you’ve failed and now you belong to me.” Her mouth pressed into a grim line that didn’t conceal the heady gleam in her silver eyes.
“What happened to you?” he dared to ask.
“You haven’t yet earned the right to know.” Caroline’s voice was nonchalant, with a cutting edge. As if she might have let him in if he hadn’t done what he’d done.
Breicher couldn’t help but scrutinize her every move. He took a long pull from his glass then let his eyes rove over her body, consuming what she was baring before him and she shivered beneath his gaze. He’d used their terrible chemistry against her before. He could do it again, though he didn’t know what force was powerful enough to destroy the thing that sat before him.
Beneath all her bluster, she was a woman who’d been hurt… by him. He needed to remember that. A heady combination of vulnerability and strength rippled off her. It was so similar to his own conflicted emotional state he couldn’t help but breathe it in.
Did she know the transparency of her own emotions? The anger, sure that made sense, but the desire? It was a palpable force in the room, surging in time with each flicker of the nearby fire. He’d tried to kill her—drove a dagger into the soft flesh of her stomach, yet that electricity that zipped between them seemed even stronger than before. The problem was he wasn’t entirely sure what her desire was for—his death or his body—either way he was confident thoughts of him had consumed her much like his own mind was held captive by her.
