Page 76 of Caroline the Cruel
“Get out!” she screamed.
“Caroline, wait, please. I can explain.” Seeing the queen so rattled was doing something to Breicher. It’s like all his protective instincts were flaring all the sudden, alerting him to a predator she needed saving from. Except he was that predator.
“How?” she demanded, picking up an ornately carved vase from the middle table with both hands and hurled it at Breicher’s head.
He narrowly dodged before a candle stick was flying toward him.
“How could you?” she wailed. “I would have given you everything, Breicher.” Caroline paraded around the room, destroying everything she touched.
The sitting room was littered with broken tables, busted pictures from the walls, shattered glass and ceramic objects, and overturned furniture. When there wasn’t anything else to ruin, she stopped, dropping her hands to her sides.
“I would have given you everything.” Her voice was a low, broken sound. She looked up at him. “Why?”
He blinked, holding out his hands in supplication. “I just couldn’t with you tonight. Not after what I found out about your sister.”
“But you still wanted to, with whoever the woman was inside that room.” Caroline thrust a finger in the direction beyond the door, toward the woman she’d heard him with.
“I didn’t want her. I wanted you.”
“I offered myself to you.” Caroline rolled her eyes at him and paced into her bedroom.
Breicher followed her. “Being with you feels like a betrayal. Especially after I found out that innocent girl is alive and still being kept in your dungeons after ten years.” There, he’d said it, the looming thing that had been bothering him. Another reason in the long line of reasons they shouldn’t be together.
Caroline threw her head back and gave a deep belly laugh. Tears were still streaming down her face, and he couldn’t make sense of the reaction.
She snapped her cold gaze to him. “Did you ever think to ask for any details about where she was being held and why? Or did you assume the worst about me like you always do?”
She marched over to the little window and stuck her hand out. “Look,” she demanded.
Breicher followed and stuck his head out the window to follow where Caroline’s finger pointed.
“The east tower. I don’t understand.” His face relaxed as he finally gathered where this was going.
“Princess Emmaline spent a total of three days in the dungeon before I came to my senses and gave her the entire east fucking tower. She has been sequestered there since that night and for good reason. First, she tried to kill me for all intents and purposes the night of the assassinations, and second, if everyone knew she was alive, it would call into question my reign. I got the power, but she was still the heir. While I was doing whatever I had to do to rebuild this kingdomyourfamily had destroyed,” she jabbed him in the chest with a pointed nail, “I couldn’t afford any disloyalty among the people. Something you might understand if you ever did any actual ruling.”
“Caroline, I didn’t know.” He stared down at her, eyes pleading.
Gods, the pain in her chest felt like her entire body might be cleaved in two by it. The Gods wouldn’t have had anything on this husband of hers.
And there was so much he didn’t know. So much she’d never shared with anyone. She didn’t know why, but she sensed the words bubbling up from the deep crevice inside her where she kept them locked away. Sealed behind the obsidian wall where she hid the memories of her father, the stories of her mother, and the few other happy times she’d had as a girl.
“Do you know what they did to me, your family? He was one of your sapphire eyed cousins, wasn’t he? Servius, the sicko with the same muddy hazel eyes you had when you betrayed me.” Breicher flinched, but she continued, “Do you know why I’m the monster you think I am?” She looked up at him with steel in her gaze and told him everything.
Breicher’s instinct screamed,Hold her, as tears streaked down his wife’s smooth cheeks while she relived the night she lost her father, her sister betrayed her, and his men had tortured her. And they’d not abused Caroline the Cruel, the woman she was now, but a fourteen-year-old girl. Then she told the story of the time she met the Gods and received her first punishment.
His chest pinched as she finished her tale, and he took a step toward her. She waved him off, not turning to look at him. He’d never seen her look so…defeated. But she was right to push him away. He’d just been with another woman, and his skin crawled with his own self-disgust.
“Not even Angus knows all the details of that story,” she sniffed, then wiped her eyes on the back of her hands. “Honestly, I’m not even sure why I told you. This marriage is over. You should leave.”
“Caroline,” he pleaded, voice guttural as she turned from the window she’d been staring out as she spoke. An oily sensation rooted itself in his stomach as he understood his betrayal and how much loving him had cost her. Because she mustlove him. That was the only explanation for her reaction. He thought of Felix. She’d been livid about what he’d done, but not gutted like she was now.
“Your family murdered the only person on this earth who’s ever loved me—truly and unconditionally loved me.” She paused, the glimmer of a smile traced across her perfect lips. “I take that back. I guess I have Angus. But he knew me then, before my heart had shriveled away into nothing. I should have known I didn’t have a chance for love the second I realized even the Gods enjoyed my suffering.”
Breicher didn’t understand one thing. “You could have had me killed when you returned. Why didn’t you?”
“I knew marrying me would be the greater pain for you. Because when we’d kissed, I sensed you felt what I did. Or I thought so, anyway. I felt the battle you’d rage inside your mind. The wanting and despising at once was a fitting punishment. And I wanted the ally, and the marriage made sense politically. I thought I could have it all. Obviously, I was wrong.” Caroline pressed her lips into a firm line, her shoulders sagging.
She was confessing everything he’d thought was true. “And eventually, you were going to deliver the final blow. Let me fall for you and then take it all away. Like Felix.” Breicher almost wanted to look away as he waited for her to confirm what he already knew.
