Page 16 of The Catacomb King
Elke sighed and shut the door the rest of the way, but I would have bet anything that she was waiting outside, prepared to barge back in at the first sign of trouble for her precious Prince.
But in the meantime, it was just me and him.
I swung my spear at his chest.
“Ooh, I’m terrified,” scoffed the Prince. “Why’d you ruin the rug? And — Monarch alive, woman, did you smash up my chair? Do you breakeverythingyou touch?”
“How about you let me out before I break something else?”
“I’ll breakyouif you’re not careful. Put that down before someone gets hurt. You scared the shit out of my maidservant.”
The bug-lady. “She’s not your girlfriend?”
He choked. “Elke? Monarch’s balls, no.”
It was so odd to hear my own language issuing from this person’s mouth. (Godling. I had to remind myself that he wasn’t a person, he was a godling.) It had been even odder to hear it coming from Elke. Both of them had a strange, guttural accent, but they unmistakably spoke my tongue. I found myself running my tongue over my teeth, trying to shape the sounds the way he did.Ell-kuh.
“Elke had it coming,” I retorted. “Shescaredme.” I kept my grip on the spear.
“Yes, well.” The Prince toed the mush on the rug. To my astonishment, he admitted begrudgingly, “I can see how you might have felt that way. I’ll have her knock next time.”
“How about not kidnapping me next time!”
“You knowyoucamehere,” he snapped. “You were onourland.”
“I had no choice,” I said bitterly. “It’s the only place there’s any water.”
A brief silence. “You mean the dew,” he said. I didn’t bother to answer. I didn’t owe him anything.
He worked his jaw for a moment and then said, “That was a good idea, you know.”
“What was?”
“Collecting the dew for water. It’s right there, on top of our heads, and yet none of us ever would have thought to try that. You did, though. You’re smart.”
Heat collected in my chest. “Have you been watching me?”
He didn’t answer. He was watching my face.
I imagined his piercing blue eyes, hidden in some unobserved shadow. Watching me for hours, days, months. Me, prowling over his territory. Me, never knowing. Me, thinking I was safe. That day when I’d sensed a presence behind me — had I been right? And if so, why hadn’t he taken me then?
The heat in my chest expanded. “Fuck off,” I snapped. “Collecting water that way doesn’t net you more than half a cup.” Half a cup that was currently in my basket, instead of where it needed to be, which was back in my hut in Limer with my mother.
I took a deep breath, trying to calm down. “Look. You don’t want me, okay? I’m not pretty like the other girls you steal. I’m nothing special, and I’m definitely not a healer. I just clean houses and take care of my mom. Just let me go.”
The Prince looked at me flatly. “What do you think being pretty has to do with it?”
Thanks a lot, I almost bit out. “The girls you steal are always pretty. You do unspeakable things to them” — and for a split second my attention was dragged to the fact that I was trapped in a bedroom with this monstrous prince — “and then you crack them in half and suck out their bone marrow.”
“Ibegyourpardon? Who told you that?”
He sounded so genuinely shocked and appalled that I faltered for a second — and then I was angry. Was he trying to trick me? “You don’t have to be told. You just know. Everyone knows. You also eat their teeth.”
“Eattheirteeth?” The Prince strode toward me, his nostrils flared. I tripped backward, raising my spear, my anger melting away as the fear rose inside me again. My throat closed. “Are you out of your mind?” he demanded.
“No!You’reout of your mind! Take me home!”
“We’re not eating your teeth, you little weirdo. You really want to know what we’re doing with you? Come on, then.”
