Page 31 of The Captive's Curse
All the contentment born of my satisfied, traitor magic had drained away. I felt hollow and echoey on the inside, weak and shaky. Getting out of this room would be a nightmare. Maybe there was another door I could go through so I didn’thave to face Leander like this. Enzo would be bad enough, and he already thought I was worthless, so I didn’t have any of his respect to lose. Leander had seemed to like me.
Before, anyway. He’d liked me before.
Enzo had gone all rigid behind me, his arm like a band of iron across my cloak-wrapped body.
“We’re not finished,” he said, very low. More loudly, he added, “Leander, an hour.”
“We are so finished!” I called out. “Completely. We could not possibly be more finished.”
“Cyril, this is my subordinate standing in my study—”
“I’m your brother, Enzo! Calling me your subord—”
“That’s Lord Cyril to you, you cretin!”
“—which means it’s up to, wait, cretin? And why does he get to call you—you know what, I’ll find you that cucumber and you can shove it—”
“I don’t want to hear another word!” Leander shouted, drowning us both out. “Enzo, forget about the fucking cucumber, especially if that’s literal, ugh. You don’t have an hour to do anything, let alone involving vegetables, which is probably for the best. I’ve come to find you because one of the scouts reported in. There’s a heavily armed troop of Calatrian soldiers in the woods less than ten miles from here.”
On that unbeatable closing remark, Leander stomped out and slammed the door behind him, leaving me staring blankly at the inside of Enzo’s cloak with my mouth hanging open.
Enzo was out of me and off the chaise within two seconds, quickly enough that I hardly had time to be horrified by the way I must look with my trousers around my knees and my extremely well-fucked ass hanging out of the rumpled cloak covering the rest of me.
Instead, I was able to focus on being horrified for another set of reasons entirely.
I flipped onto my back, only whimpering a little at the way that blasted scratchy old embroidery scraped over my bruised skin. At least Enzo’s come would be leaking out to join mine on the now probably ruined chaise. That would get me some revenge on both the chaise and its owner.
But that wasn’t my most pressing concern.
“What did he mean, Calatrian soldiers?” I demanded, watching Enzo as he grimly worked on forcing his still-hard cock into the front of his pants. “An army? Montefime could be under attack! You’re supposed to be watching the pass! To rob people, granted, but how could they have gotten by—”
“We are watching the pass, and they didn’t get by, hence why we know they’re there and Leander’s reporting it to me immediately,” Enzo retorted. “And it’s not an army, it’s a troop. Not that a troop isn’t enough of a problem, depending on what they’re up to.” He turned away to pick up his sword, which he’d left leaning against a chair.
Apparently he meant to deal with the problem right at that moment, given the way he’d begun buckling the sword belt on with an air of purpose.
Except that…
“You’re not going out to find them right now, are you? Dressed like that? You don’t even have a coat on! Aren’t you supposed to wear armor, or something?”
Enzo turned, in the act of settling his belt on his hips in a way that highlighted his muscular thighs and the massive bulge in the front of his pants. My mouth went dry. Drier. I needed water and a cup of tea and a vat of wine.
“Worried about me?” he asked. “I’m touched.” Enzo’s tone was even more arid than my tongue.
“I’m not worried about you,” I snapped. “I’m worried that you’re too incompetent to deal with this, and that you’ll tryanyway out of some hubristic determination to pretend you’re a real lord.”
His hands stilled, the tendons in the backs of them standing out. The silence stretched, thick and practically crackling with tension.
I resisted the urge to throw his cloak over my head again, and instead lifted my chin and glared at him. His black eyes burned into mine.
“A real lord,” he said at last. “You insist on my calling you by your title when you don’t have any lands, any vassals, or any authority at all. While I’m—” He stopped abruptly and shook his head. “Don’t get into trouble while I’m gone. If you seduce any of my men or try to escape, I’ll treat you like the prisoner you are.”
He turned again and strode for the door, simply walking away from me. As if I didn’t matter at all, huddled here on this miserable piece of furniture in this big, cold room, in this big, cold fortress.
“Where are you going?” I—wailed, really, and it sounded so pitifully thin echoing off the high ceiling. He needed to stop and think! As little attention as I paid to the greater workings of the world, even I hadn’t been able to avoid talk of the tensions brewing of late between the Duchy of Calatria and its neighbors—which included Rabbion, despite the imposing mountain range that formed our border. “What if they’re a, a, a vanguard? For an invasion! You’ll have to tell someone who can do something about it, and notify the queen!”
“Whoever I tell, it won’t be you,” Enzo said, and opened the door, stepped through it, and—slammed it behind him.
I jumped, my heart skittering, and then sat panting into the ringing silence left in Enzo’s wake. The heavy door and thick walls completely blocked out any conversation he and Leander might be having in the hall.
