Page 49 of Her Cruel Redemption

‘Lidello,’ Vic interrupted, tone suddenly firm, expression serious. ‘You’re here to answer just one question. Is Soveraux capable of compelling someone to act against their will?’

Lidello’s focus was fixed squarely on me as he answered. ‘Oh yes,morethan capable. Such a fascinating ability,’ he said, sounding almost… gratified, those black eyes examining me in a way that made me want to fly across the table and grab him by the throat. ‘If only he’d understood my vision and hadn’t escaped. We had so much more to learn. But he developed such obsessive, violent tendencies. Even when I kept him consistently at the brink of his physical limits, he was difficult to contain.’

‘You broke him.’ The accusation had jumped out of me before I’d thought better of it, so full of venom. I couldn’t stop it. Because if I knew one thing about the creature sitting across from me sipping tea, it was that I hatedhim with every fibre of my being.

‘Broke him?’ Lidello raised a pale brow. ‘The king? The conqueror? A man powerful enough to bend entire nations to his will? He doesn’t soundbrokento me.’ Then he cocked his head, his lip curling. ‘But then there’syou. Accomplice to his crimes. The woman he has interrupted his silence to demand access to. How do you fit into Draven’s story?’

‘Rhaindra wasn’t an accomplice, she was acting against her own will,’ Gwinellyn interjected, but I hardly heard her. Heat was churning through me, and my vision seemed blinkered as it fixed on Lidello, because there was something so slimy and insinuating in the way he spoke of Draven, and beneath his sheen ofresearchI could see cruelty and sadism peering through. I’d known men who derived pleasure from hurting others. Picking them out was crucial to avoiding them at the Winking Nymph. I could hardly imagine what such a man would do if his proclivities were sanctioned by his king, if he was given resources and victims to subject to his inclinations all in the name ofresearch.

‘How long was he with you?’ I found myself asking. A question I shouldn’t have asked, because I could already feel the stirrings of magic in my body, like it was lured out by the promise of my rising anger, ready to strike at what had caused it.

‘Only a few years.’

A fewyears?

His face twisted, his mouth pulling into a grimace as his gaze shifted to the distance. ‘I knew he had mental abilities, but the compulsion—he hid that until the moment he used it to escape. Normally, we bind fall spawn to prevent magic use. A single volt of electricity—' He jabbed sharply at the air, making Gwinellyn flinch. ‘It severs their connection to magic while keeping it dormant in the blood. They can be made obedient, harmless. Docile.’ He paused, his expression darkening. ‘But binding limits the magic, makes it harder to study, so my subjects were never bound. We took precautions, but it was always a risk—’

Abruptly, I stood, jostling the table in my rush. ‘Excuse me,’ I said bluntly, hardly stopping to care about the way they were all looking up at me with raised brows. I left the room and walked quickly down the adjoining corridor until I rounded a corner and was out of sight of anyone deciding to peek their head out to see where I went. Then I leaned against the wall and folded forwards, pressing my palms against my eyes and taking slow, deliberate breaths. My skin was crawling, my stomach churning, and I was hot and uncomfortable and…angry.I could feel the crackle of sparks running through my hair, wisps of magic escaping me as a vivid heat began to build in my hands.Visions were spinning through my head, so fast and horrible and I couldn’t seem to stop them. And Lidello’s voice kept winding in a loop through my mind, just the same three words.Exceptional.So resilient.

‘It. Doesn’t. Matter,’ I said to myself through gritted teeth, trying to get ahold of myself. ‘I. Don’t. Care.’

‘Oh my, it seems I have upset you.’

Lidello’s voice shocked me back into composure. I snapped my hands away from my eyes, all but leaping off the wall as I turned on him so I could keep him where I could see him, every ounce of self discipline suddenly engaged in quelling the hiss of magic on my skin. Deep breaths. Focus out of my head. The faint breeze moving through the hallway from an open window somewhere, the firm ground beneath my feet.

‘It was too warm in there,’ I said. Blunt. Hard. Ready to tear him to pieces if he made one move I didn’t like. If he thought Draven’s magic had been exceptional, I couldn’t wait to see what he would think with lightning searing through his body.

Deep breaths.

He tapped a finger against his chin, gaze running all the way down my body and back up again, but in a way that didn’t feel lascivious. It felt like he was cataloguing me. ‘Such an unusual fixation,’ he muttered, taking a few steps to the right as though to see me better. I turned as he did. ‘Was your relationship all for show, or was there a… physicality… to it?’

‘Why would you want or need to know that?’ I hissed through bared teeth, certain the driver behind asking it waswant.

‘Call it curiosity. A continuation of my research.’

‘You said you were studying magic. Nothim.’

He offered me a thin smile. ‘Who is to say I cannot have studied both? There’s a certain intimacy that comes with seeing what happens to someone pushed to the extremes of their endurance. And I kept meticulous records. Logs and journals and sketches. I’m just on my way to attend to other matters, but if you’re ever interested in an exchange of information, I would be willing to make them available to you.’

Just the idea of what I might learn through such an exploration made my stomach churn again. I had to get away from him before I did something stupid that would tangle Gwinellyn’s pursuit of an alliance. ‘I don’t think so,’ I managed to say, barely refraining from taking the corridor at a run to get away from him. When I looked back to make sure he hadn’t followed me, I experienced a rush of relief to find I could no longer see him. And I reminded myself again that the disturbing man had done nothing to me. Nothing to warrant this extreme reaction. He had perhaps done terrible things to Draven, not me.It didn’t matterandI didn’t care.

It didn’t matter if Draven had spent years locked away in some dungeon somewhere being tortured by a sadist. It didn’t matter what had made him the monster he was. It didn’t change what he’d done. It didn’t excuse him for what he’d done to me. He had Leela captive. He’d chased me through the streets on the bank of the Cro. He wanted to kill me just as much as I wanted to kill him.Sympathywasn’t going to serve me when we came face-to-face again. It would only be a fault to exploit.

It took several more minutes of bullying myself out of my weakness and into a state of calm before I could force myself back into that room again.

‘Well, between Igor’s account and Princess Gwinellyn’s assurances regarding your character and circumstances, I’m confident we can move forward,’ Carrick said when I sat back down.

‘Sorry, what?’ I blinked my way back into the room when I realised they’d all gone quiet, clearly expecting some kind of response. Gwin offered me an encouraging smile.

‘The annulment of your marriage, my dear,’ Carrick said, and that phrase,my dear, said at that exact moment, sent a chill racing down my spine. ‘With the utmost haste. Then you can put this whole business behind you.’

‘I’m so… pleased to hear it,’ I said. That seemed to satisfy them all enough that conversation flowed over and around me, Vic talking logistics with Carrick and Gwinellyn shooting me tentative smiles, her eyes unsure. I tried to return the smiles but I felt like perhaps I just wound up grimacing. Fortunately, the meeting was soon over. Carrick exchanged some parting promises to meet again soon, Vic scampered off to report back to Esario, and Gwinellyn was standing before me, clasping my hands.

‘Are you relieved?’ she asked, and she looked so eager to hear my confirmation that I wanted to scream.It’s not that simple. But of course, itwasthat simple. I had been married to a monster and she was offering me the chance to move on and pretend it had never happened.

‘Of course,’ I said, and she seemed content enough with that to leave me to my thoughts, telling me she was going to see Elias and the others, but that she’d speak with King Esario when she returned to make sure he was satisfied. And I just thanked her because I wanted to leave. I wanted to be alone.

But as soon as I was, all I could see was Draven. On his knees. Between my legs. My hands in his hair. Whispering against the skin of my thigh.

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