When she was done, King Lucien withdrew the cup and tried to get up, but she
clung to him, her dazed eyes staring at his. “So cold.”
“You’re cold?” he asked with a furrowed brow, knowing that the room was not
cold at all.
“Your… eyes… they’re so cold,” she whispered.
King Lucien said nothing, knowing that the woman wasn’t herself. They heavily
sedated heron pills and potions, and those had side effects.
He just stared at her.
It was the first time he allowed himself to gaze at her up close. The first time he
allowed himself to really look at her.
To see Danika, not Cone’s daughter.
She was beautiful. The knowledge went to his stony heart and whispered to it.
Beautiful and so pure looking.
Like a woman who never experienced the rough side of their world. Like a
princess.
She had bow-shaped lips, a sharp pointed nose that took in jagged breaths, and
deep blue eyes that stared up at him in a daze. Her beauty rivaled none.
For the first time, his raging demons saw her as Danika, not Cone’s daughter. He
saw her as Princess Danika, instead of Slave Danika.
It was a bad idea looking upon her like that. But it was midnight. She was not
herself.
And he was not himself either.
“Why… do… you… have such cold…eyes?” she whispered, blinking sleepily.
He didn’t say anything for so long, just letting his eyes take in her features. And
then, “They have seen more than any human should ever see.”
She took a shallow breath, her eyes dilated. “Can they… ever be… warm again?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“They’ve been cold for so long.” He looked away. “They’ve forgotten what it was
like to be warm.”
“That’s… very… sad.” She raised a trembling hand and ran it down the scar, her
hand tracing it.
“Where does… it end? The scar?” she asked, seeing the way the line went past his
neck and disappeared into his robe.
“It goes far,” he said simply.
“They… must… have… hurt.”
“They did.”
“Do they… still… hurt?”
“Sometimes.”
She took a ragged breath. “When… she… tortured me… she… said she… wanted
to roast… my p-privates. Said… after all, my f-father did it… to the king. Is it true?”
she whispered drowsily.
He froze. Why would Vetta tell her that? She knew how sensitive that subject was
for him.
The pain of that very day came back to him. The most excruciating feeling of them
all; he was sure he’d almost died. Cone had looked upon him, laughing in excitement.
Roasting her privates?
He could feel so much aversion for her; he could hate her; he could her in other
ways. But he could never do that to her. He didn’t know why, but the thought was not
one he had ever had.
He allowed his eyes to caress her face. She would die under such torture. No two
ways about it.
“Is… it… true?” she whispered again.
Lucien didn’t want her to know any of his weaknesses. But he also knew that she
wouldn’t remember this tomorrow.
“Yes.”
“Must have… hurt… like hell.”
“It hurt worse than hell.”
“I’m so… sorry.”
“I don’t need your pity.”
“My back… hurts!” she cried out, her head pounding.
“Your back will heal. Faster even.” He looked away from her. “You’re lucky for
that.”
“Yours… they didn’t… heal s-so fast?”
“No. Never had that luxury.”
“I can still remember… that day,” she whispered, her face sad. “Your torture s-
session.”
He tried to close his mind to it, but one thing about all the memories and pain he
had been through was that none of them could be forgotten as if they had never
happened.
He remembered that day vividly. “It’s the first day I saw you. Cone’s daughter.
Even held in chains, I wanted to tear you apart and make you bleed.”
“First time… I saw you too. Prince Lucien, the enslaved prince I’d heard about all
my life but had… never seen. I saw the… rage in your eyes… when I looked into
them… when you stared at… me.”
She’d overseen his torture session that day. While the guards whipped him, she
stood in the corner like a princess.
She stared as they tied him up and forced him to eat like a dog. On his knees.
She’d been watching when they cut his shoulder with a knife. And while he bled.
That day was the first time they tortured him and he didn’t feel the pain of it. He
channeled all the pain into hate as he stared at the princess of Mombana. He’d hated
her so much and he fed that hatred for four solid, excruciating years.
That was the day he vowed that he’d have the princess as his slave one day.
“Oh… colder” She sounded sad and sleepy. Her voice dragged him out of the bitter
memory.
“Are you cold?” he asked in a hard voice.
“Your eyes… they got colder.” She swallowed. “Filled with so much hate.”
He couldn’t bear to stare at her face any longer, because no matter what, he must
still see her as Cone’s daughter. “I hate you, Danika.”
Her lips twitched, and she blinked ever so slowly. “I know… my king.”
He looked away.
She placed a hand on his chest. “There are scars here, too. Internal scars. Here…
they seem bigger there… in your heart.”
“They are.”
“Can they… ever heal?”
“No.”
“That’s sad.”
He laid her back on the bed and pulled away, then stood up. “Go back to sleep,” he
said curtly. “You’ll be fine on the morrow.”
Through her dazed eyes, she watched him leave.
She watched him walk like a panther as he went to the table and dropped the cup of
water. A huge, wounded panther.
She watched him climb onto the bed and lay down on it. She felt a burn to her
chest suddenly.
Why did her heart hurt to watch him?
As she drifted back to sleep, she wondered how bruised he was there, too.