Page 77 of Caroline the Cruel
“You’re not Felix, and we got to know each other. I thought you’d see I wasn’t a monster or cruel. Not really. And our chemistry is undeniable. I thought… I don’t know what I thought.” Caroline buried her face in her hands.
“Tell me,” Breicher whispered. His heart was thundering so loud in his chest that he could hardly hear her as he spoke.
“I thought we could love each other.” Caroline’s voice was barely audible, but he heard every syllable. The sensations inside his chest were resonating in a frequency he’d never felt before. It was almost painful and euphoric simultaneously, and he couldn’t quite connect a word with it. All he knew was he needed to wrap his arms around his wife and beg for her forgiveness. She wasn’t lying. The truth of it was scrawled across her divine features. He’d been wrong. So very wrong.
“What about the massacre at Avondale? All those dead—I counted thirty graves. You said there were only five or six. How was I supposed to reconcile with that?” He was grasping, trying to find some explanation for what he’d done. For why he’d hurt her.
“You should go ask your brother if you want to know the truth. I’m done with this conversation.” She took off her cloak, and calmly hung it in her wardrobe. He was unable to look away.
Jaden had cautioned him against taking his brother’sevidenceas the real story. But he’d believed him. Hollis always wanted what was best for him. It didn’t add up. And even if she had done terrible things, was he any better? As he stared at Caroline’s tear-stained face, his gut told him he’d messed up. Possibly even irreparably, and the ache in his chest demanded that he fix it.
Breicher didn’t think before the words tumbled from his lips. “Caroline, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to adequately express the regret I feel—how much I wish I could take my actions back. I’ve made a huge mistake.” He walked over to her, careful not to move so quickly, it would scare her away. She stood eerily still, taking him in. “I’ll pay any price. Take any punishment. Please, can we start again?” Breicher lifted his arms, which were gravitating toward her on their own accord.
She understood his intention and held up a hand halting him. “Don’t bother.”
Breicher, the King of Veetula and Everstal—the Joined Kingdoms, fell to his knees before his Queen. “I didn’t know.”
Caroline looked down at her husband, at the tears cascading down his perfectly chiseled features. Even in his agony, he was so beautiful, and she loved him. She had for a while, but had been unwilling to admit it to herself. Maybe since that first kiss before he drove the rosenwood dagger between her ribs. She probably always would. Nothing hurt like the dagger in her heart when she’d heard him giving it to that sex worker.
His brother had sent him girls, but she’d unwisely believed he’d rejected them because she’d seen him do it the first time. She shouldn’t have followed him last night after he’d left her room, but she was glad she did. They hadn’t been making the progress she’d thought they had. She was naïve enough to think he’d been taking it slow with her—no, who was she kidding? He was still at war with himself. But this, going to another woman for his needs, was unacceptable. It was like the final gust of wind that blew the shards of her black heart away. There was nothing left. He had to go. Queens made tough decisions, and Caroline was used to pain.
“Get. Out.” She gritted her teeth and pointed toward the door. Breicher didn’t budge. She nudged his chest with the toe of her shoe. “What is wrong with you? Can’t you see I don’t want you anymore? I’ll have the marriage annulled. It was never consummated anyway, thanks to you. Clearly you prefer the company of anyone but me.” He still didn’t move. Just sat there staring up at her with those achingly perfect sapphire eyes. She didn’t even hate him. That’s how pathetic she was. “Please don’t make me compel you, Breicher.”
Even she heard the weariness in her voice as she looked away. “Fine, I’ll leave,” she said. “But I expect you to gather your things and be gone by the morning.”
He’d won. Caroline had no more to give. She focused on the door. She just needed to make it there before she fell apart. After a blur of steps, she stepped under its arch.
Okay, she told herself. Now, down the hallway. She left Breicher on his knees as she made the next few steps away from him, on her way to Angus to have him work up the documents. No sense in delaying it. And Angus had seen her breakdown once before after a particularly brutal punishment from the Gods early on when she thought she might not be able to withstand them and needed to give up the power. She couldn’t have it and not use it. He hadn’t judged her then.
A shudder convulsed through her body.Stop, she chided herself. Queens do not fall apart over wayward men.Even if they are the one, a little voice whispered as she made it another few steps.
“I watched my father drive a sword through his own stomach.” Breicher’s heart was beating fast as he shared his truth with his wife in a last attempt to make her see him. See that he understood how wrong he’d been.
Her footsteps quieted in the hallway as she paused. Good, she was listening. “Your father used so much power that night the final conflict ended. He spread the armies and marched right through, meeting my father behind his own lines. Hollis was eighteen and father made him come along, wishing to instruct him on how to be a proper ruler. I practically thought my older brother was a God. I had just turned ten, and father wouldn’t let me come, but I was constantly under Hollis’s heels.”
“I learned if I were persistent enough, I could persuade anyone. So eventually, the king caved and let me ride a small pony alongside him and Hollis, believing me safe.”
“By the time your father’s power hit us, Thom had him under control. And he didn’t kill him cleanly, Caroline. He tortured him, degraded him in front of his men, making him roll in the dirt and bow before him. Imagine seeing your own father being made to lick his enemies’ boots. Eventually, when the amusement wore off, or his power was weakening, Thom compelled my father to rise and impale himself.”
“How did you get away?” Caroline asked from the hallway.
She was giving him a chance. This was good. “As soon as Hollis understood what was happening, he swept me off my pony and onto his horse. He rode so fast up that hill behind the armies, I’ll never forget it. Thom was so occupied torturing our father he didn’t notice. We hid behind a section of wagons and watched our father die by peeking around a corner.”
“Days later, we received his head from a messenger with a note that we’d be allowed to befreeif we’d submit to his reign. Your kingdom knew it as the Peace Treaty, but ours thought of it as an occupation. Veetula wasn’t truly free until King Dallimore died. But I’m sorry that meant you had to lose your father. It sounds like you loved him very much.”
He must have said the wrong thing because her heel strikes began anew, becoming more distant with each sound. “Caroline?” he called from his position on the floor, surrounded by her shattered things, of which he was one.
Chapter 16
Holliswasrecliningonhis cot, leafing through a pamphlet, when Caroline stormed into the prison. Arriving at cell fifteen, she wrapped her hand around the iron grate and, using her otherworldly stolen strength, gave it a vicious yank. The lock groaned, the snapping metal clacked across the space and the door burst open.
The former king had enough wherewithal to scoot back into the corner at her approach. Caroline hadn’t attempted to disguise her state, her puffy eyes, her tear-stained cheeks. Let him see. She didn’t care. Rearing back, she hurled a rolled-up piece of parchment at him.
Hollis plucked it from the air before it smacked him in the nose. “My execution order, I presume.”
A dead chuckle tumbled from Caroline’s mouth. “My annulment decree. Don’t look too pleased.”
Hollis’s face brightened considerably. “Where is my brother? Alive?”
