Page 6 of Pawn of the Cruel Princess
“With your Majesty’s permission—I want this one.” Because Vienne wants him. Because no market thrall will bring the prestige that I’ll get from owning the Captain.
My father hesitates. “I had thought you incapable of such carnal proclivities, Ruelle.”
“I may not chase sexual pleasure as rabidly as everyone else in this kingdom, but that doesn’t mean I feel nothing of desire.”
My father makes a strange choking sound. “He is yours, then. Let’s talk no more of this. I will write the proof of claim now. Scribe!”
One of the royal scribes scurries forward from a shadowed recess and writes quickly on creamy parchment while my father dictates.
I have the sense that I’ve disappointed my father somehow. That he would have preferred to think of me only as a torturer’s apprentice—a cold, sour, savage thing, slinking through shadows, poisonous and alone. He does not like the idea of me having any softer desires.
Nor do I. This claim is not about my own pleasure. It’s about winning. Stealing something Vienne wants. Entering Summerglee with such force that it’s impossible for anyone to ignore me.
Moments later I have the claim document in hand, written in gold ink with my father’s flourishing signature at the bottom. The scribe hands a second document off to a servant—the order for my new thrall to be healed, scrubbed, shaved, and tattooed. I suppose they will put him in a chamber after that. I’ll need to figure out his training tomorrow.
My sister has trained several thralls, beginning with Ethwyn, her first. Ethwyn is a tall, slim young man with a sheet of light hair reaching to his buttocks. He’s usually naked except for a silky wrap around his hips. As Vienne’s oldest thrall, he also plays the role of servant, bringing her anything she needs, testing her food for poison by tasting it himself.
I’ve seen bits of Vienne’s training routines for the thralls, but there is much that happens behind closed doors. Not that my sister is particularly private. Once, at her order, Ethwyn crawled under the table to eat her out while the rest of us were eating luncheon. I nearly vomited into my fruit. She only glanced at me with a bored expression and said, “If you’re ever going to attend Wintertryst or Summerglee, you will have to get used to public sex.”
Still, she has to restrain herself here in the palace, so most of the pleasure training happens in her enormous suite. Which means I know very little about how it works. How does one teach another human being to behave in a certain way? Especially one with such a sarcastic mouth and so much rich golden muscle as the Captain?
After bowing deeply to my father, I walk the halls to my own chambers, staring at the claim document in my hand.
I own someone now. I, who will barely allow the servants to touch or care for me at all. I, the Second Princess who delights in being alone whenever I’m not learning how to make prisoners speak their innermost truth. I, Ruelle Linden of House Larax. I own a whole human being.
What have I done?
4
Voices at the door of the torture chamber. I was half-dozing, but I rouse, freshly conscious of the pain from the cuts the bitch princess gave me.
A hum of healing magic. Warmth crawling through each of my wounds, sealing them, eliminating the pain. But the blindfold isn’t removed.
Footsteps fading, leaving the room while others approach. Then a clink of small metallic objects, and a grating voice—ancient, female. “You will speak the vow, thrall.”
“I will what?”
Pain driving into the skin of my right bicep. I flinch and yell out.
“Hold still, or this tattoo will look very strange,” says the old woman. “My hands are shaky enough without you moving around. Repeat these words: I vow never to attempt to escape my mistress the Princess.”
Ah, so she’s crafting the magical tattoo that will prevent me from escaping or harming the Royals.
I gnaw my lip, trying to think of a way out.
“Speak, thrall,” says the old woman. “Or I will twist your balls until you do.”
“I vow never to attempt to escape my mistress the Princess,” I growl.
“And I vow never to cause severe injury or mortal harm to any member of the royal family.” The tattoo mage keeps working over my right bicep, stabbing me with her needles.
“And I vow never to cause severe injury or mortal harm to any member of the royal family,” I repeat.
“If I attempt to break these vows, I will experience horrific pain throughout my body. If I persist in breaking these vows, I will die,” she drones.
I repeat the words.
“And you are aware that a magical tattoo may only be removed by the mage who placed it?”
