Page 1 of Pawn of the Cruel Princess
1
The prisoner’s warm skin quivers under my palm.
I let my fingertips travel along his stomach, below his navel, until I reach the hollow of his hip.
When I’m torturing someone, I have a special sense—an instinct about where to cut them to cause the most exquisite agony.
Those spots of perfect pain are different for everyone. The tender skin between the toes. The back of the hand. The line of the breastbone. The heated flesh of the throat, or the soft hollow just behind the lobe of the ear.
Of course I could go for the obvious choices, the brutal ones—the removal of eyes, the breaking of bones, the severing of the genitals. But there’s a particular haunted keening sound that people make when they’ve permanently lost a body part they need for sight, procreation, or pleasure, and frankly I don’t like hearing it. It makes me sweat, kicks my pulse up.
It makes me feel something far too close to pity.
So I leave those dramatic choices to my father’s master inquisitor. I prefer to use implements like the tiny silver knife in my hand.
My father says I’m gifted in the art of pain. A fair assessment. I’m honored he’s given me the privilege of torturing this prisoner—a captain of Yurstin, our neighboring nation to the west and our greatest enemy. We’re at war with them—an everlasting standoff—the kind where we skirmish and retreat and no one ever wins. Lately the tensions have been higher and the battles bloodier.
Our two kingdoms share this small continent—barely a continent—and we’re forever shoving each other like sea lions on a slippery rock. Sometimes I wish we lived on one of the larger land masses. The biggest continent in our world contains wealthy nations like Ivris, Cheimhold, Brintzia, Terelaus, Bolcan, and the Confederation of Efhwen. Whenever I express my interest in that continent, my father grimaces and says, “More borders, more enemies.”
Enemies like the man lying before me.
Slowly I let my gaze travel the topography of my victim’s sculpted body—a warrior’s body, hard muscles swelling under smooth skin. I’ve set my marks on him already. He’s got a crimson line under his collarbone and one over his left bicep. The pink, puckered scar on his left pectoral—that wasn’t my doing. Where did he get it?
His neck is collared, but his tendons strain against the iron band. Every bit of him is taut and hard, awaiting the next influx of pain.
He’s blindfolded. I prefer not to see their eyes when I hurt them.
“Just do it,” he says. “Stop pussy-footing around.”
“Pussy-footing around,” I reply softly. “Is that what you were doing when you walked your entire company into a trap and got yourself captured? Where are your soldiers now, oh brave Captain? In a mass grave in the Grewold Pass, or so I’m told. Tumbled together in a pit, no funerals and no honors.”
His jaw hardens under dark two-day scruff. “Just shut up and cut me, bitch.”
“That’s ‘Princess Bitch’ to you.” I arch and poise my fingers so I have the perfect amount of control over the tiny silver blade. Then I begin to slice, following the slant of his hip muscle. I’ve always been partial to those V-shaped grooves on a well-cut man.
Blood beads along the line I’m creating as I conduct the careful separation of his skin. Only the top layers. Nothing too deep yet. Tormenting the nerves without spilling too much blood—that’s my specialty.
The longer the slit in his skin gets, the faster he breathes. He fears where I’m headed—to the part of him that’s currently concealed by a dark bit of cloth. Not that he deserves the privacy.
“Where is your king planning to attack us next?” I guide the tip of the knife with surgical precision, closer and closer to his groin.
“You think I’ll turn traitor to my country? To my king?”
“Everyone does, sooner or later.” I lift the knife and set it in the opposite hip groove. “You know where I’m going with this, Captain. Tell me what I want to know, or…” I let the last word float, while my knife slides toward his crotch again.
He has a matching set of angled cuts now, pointing to his penis. He doesn’t need to know that I won’t castrate him. He only needs to fear that I might.
He's beginning to sweat, and the sheen of moisture gives his skin a seductive glow. He is handsome, this one. Probably the best-looking victim I’ve had.
“Tell me everything you know,” I croon, teasing the dark swirls of hair on his lower belly. “Tell me, and you might get to live. And maybe I’ll let you keep this.” I tap the crumpled black cloth between his legs.
“I’ve heard of you, you know,” he says. “The cruel Second Princess of Thannira. Are you as ugly as the stories say?”
My knife hand twitches. “They say I’m ugly?”
“Ugly, violent, and frigid. What else could you be, at twenty-one, with no lovers or pleasure thralls? I suppose I should thank you for the blindfold so your hideous face doesn’t sear my eyes. Now your sister, the First Princess—she’s a rare beauty, I’m told. I’d like a look at her before I die. I don’t suppose you could call her down here?”
“Fuck you,” I whisper, and I shove my knife into his thigh.
