Page 59 of The Royal Curse

Andreas looked up sharply, agony in his dark eyes, those coppery flecks glinting, his hands gone still and tense.

“That’s what I’m killing him twice for,” he said, very low. “The first time for everything else. The second time for that. Slowly for every mark on your perfect skin.” He passed his thumbs over the abraded welts on my wrists, and I winced even at that gentle contact. Amidst all my other miseries I hadn’t even noticed how raw and sore they’d gotten.

Andreas let out a harsh sound and bent down, touching his lips to the wounds. “My darling,” he whispered, barely audible. My chest squeezed, breath rushing out of me as those words lanced through me and settled inside me, a desperate yearning layered on top of the way my body ached to have him take away its pain. “Niko, you don’t know how much I—”

And of course, that was the moment Salvius chose to stride into the alcove, my potion bottle in his hand.

“Your Highness, here’s your—oh. Gods. Um, sir, I have the—Your Highness, we’re all more relieved to find you than you can imagine,” he finished in a rush, and he sounded touchingly sincere, although his face had gone the color of a ripe beet. “Sorry to interrupt.”

Andreas lifted his head. I blinked at him, heart pounding, with no idea what to expect. If he tried to pretend this was nothing but a guard’s concern for his prince, my heart might break in half.

But his hands didn’t even twitch, his grip on mine steady and strong.

“Leave the potion, please,” he said mildly. “And tell the men to secure the prisoners for the journey and make ready to go. We’re not staying here one more minute longer than we need to. Move my saddlebags to someone else’s mount to take some weight off. His Highness is riding with me.”

Andreas was speaking to Salvius, but the light in his eyes, and the smile that curled one corner of that generous mouth, were just for me.

The soft, helpless, gut-punched sound I let out probably would’ve horrified me if I’d had the strength for it. But the last of the rage and terror had drained out of me at last, leaving me hollow and weak, lightheaded and near to fainting, with the sharp aches and pains of bruises and scrapes starting to make themselves known again all over me. I’d hardly slept or eaten in days, I’d been dragged up a mountain tied over the back of a horse, beaten and kicked, brutalized and almost raped. The pain from my magic wasn’t quite as bad this time as it had been in the past, as unpredictable in this as it had been in every way lately, but hot sparks shot through my feet and down my spine, the fever growing.

But with all of that, Andreas didn’t care if the men knew he wanted me, that I belonged to him—and that was enough to compensate for all of it. Andreas had called me his darling, and he was alive. My vision went sparkly-gray, and the world started to tilt sideways, a nauseating slide into the abyss. Or perhaps that was me. It didn’t matter. Nothing else mattered.

Well, mostly. I wanted to know if they’d found out what happened to Carlo, and how they’d survived the ambush, and if Fluffy was all right…but the words wouldn’t come, and I thought I might throw up, or die…

Andreas’s arms closed around me, a wall of strength and safety, and I fell, fell, fell into him, his worried voice a distant hum.

Something was at my lips, and I heard Andreas’s coaxing tone and opened my mouth obediently. My potion, and as it trickled down my throat, herbal and bitter, the sharp spikes of magical pain in my body subsided to a low murmur, leaving me with the throb of bruises and the burning in my wrists.

Everything went sideways again and I tried to open my eyes. I managed a fleeting awareness. The stubble on Andreas’s jaw in front of my face, and beyond that the cave, horses, men moving around, bustle and snow and stamping feet and deep voices.

I tried to cooperate as he and someone else got me up on a horse in front of him with my legs hanging off to the side, but I thought I might have kicked Salvius in the nose.

And then we were moving, the horse’s rolling gait nauseating me all over again, and someone was carrying me away, Andreas…I moaned and struggled.

“No, sweetheart, I have you,” Andreas said, and clutched me tight against his chest.

Andreas. His voice, his arms holding me close, his cloak tucked around me to keep out the frigid, searching fingers of the wind and the chill spray of sleety snow, and the rest of the world with them.

I turned my face into his shoulder and inhaled deeply, his spicy heat and the scents of steel and leather. He probably wouldn’t have smelled particularly good to most people, since he obviously hadn’t much more time to bathe than I had. But I could’ve breathed him in forever.

The first part of the journey passed in disconnected snatches of consciousness: a glimpse of gray sky, cold water at my lips, which I guzzled greedily, and then more motion. My bruises ached and throbbed. We stopped again for a few minutes, long enough for Andreas to coax me into sleepily eating a few bits of bread and cheese and swallowing another drink of water. And always, through riding and stopping, Andreas held me fast, anchored and safe.

I still couldn’t muster the strength to speak, much less formulate coherent questions, and exhaustion pulled me under again. The last thing I heard was Andreas’s voice, words I couldn’t quite parse. But he said my name. I grasped the front of his tunic in one hand. His hand wrapped around it, fingers sliding between mine.

I woke from a deep sleep to find myself on a horse, wrapped in a heavy cloak, unable to move, and I couldn’t—Andreas—

“I’m here,” he said. “I have you, Your Highness.” I felt as much as heard his voice under my ear, and I subsided, panting, the sheen of sweat on my face and neck instantly chilled in the icy cold of the pre-dawn.

A faint peachy-gray glow filtered through the—trees, yes, those were branches above me. Ugh. My vision moved more slowly than my head.

“Where are we?” I said, wincing at the stickiness of my lips and tongue. The cloak wouldn’t—but Andreas pulled on it, and at last I could sit up a little and look around me.

Trees. Leaf detritus. Slushy snow and mud. Hardly enticing. I shivered and curled closer to Andreas, even though I knew by the way the men were dismounting and rummaging their saddlebags that we’d be stopping for a bit, which meant getting down myself.

“Time for a rest, Your Highness,” Andreas said. His voice sounded thick, a little slurred. Off. I was suddenly wide awake, my heart galloping. “I have you, don’t worry.”

I sat up all the way, bracing myself on his shoulders and hitching one knee up onto the saddle so I could look him in the face. He was breathing hard, eyes glittering, a deep brick-red flush coating his cheekbones, his lips chapped and flaking. And although we’d been riding for the gods only knew how long in the cold and damp, when I reached up and put my hand against his cheek, it was burning hot and bone dry, like paper before a fireplace.

“Andreas. Andreas, look at me!”

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