Page 63 of The Madman and his broken Princess
Her brows puckered, and pity filled her eyes. “I’m crying for you. For what you’ve become. You act like him and don’t even realize it.”
I pushed her against the banister. “I’m not like him!”
“Not to me, and not in every regard, but in the way you treat him, you are.”
I glowered at her, overcome with rage. How could she compare me to him? Didn’t she see how much I cared for her, how I treated her like a princess despite her betrayal? “Go back to bed.” My wrath swirled in my body, clouding my thoughts. I didn’t want to lose control, but I was close.
“Nestore—”
“Go to bed!” I roared.
Amelia took a step up, then she whirled around and hurried upstairs. I stalked down to the foyer and then out into the gardens. I drew in a few deep breaths and gripped the stone balustrade of the balcony. I’d spent the night watching the sky as I had done so many nights before. Sometimes, it took only a few hours for the rage to subside. Sometimes all night.
I had a feeling the latter would be the case this time.
My face was sticky with last night’s tears when I woke shortly after sunrise. Nestore wasn’t there. I put on a bathrobe and slippers before I left the bedroom in search of him. I prayed that he hadn’t spent the night in the basement torturing my father. I could only imagine what that would do to him.
I found him in the gardens, asleep on one of the many stone benches along the pathway. He lay on his back, his legs dangling over the armrest, his hands folded on his chest. He looked as if he had fallen asleep while stargazing, and that thought made me smile.
My steps crunched on the pathway. Nestore startled awake, his body tensing as he reached for the knife at his calf holder. When his eyes registered me, he lay back and released a deep breath. “What are you doing out here?”
“I was worried about you when you weren’t in bed with me,” I said, taking a few steps closer.
He slanted me a wary look. “Do you really want me to spend the night in bed with you? I’m a monster, remember?” He sat up.
My brows puckered. “Of course. Did I ever push you away?”
“You didn’t,” he said, his voice almost curious. He shoved to his feet and bridged the distance between us. He was barefoot again. I wasn’t sure how he could stand the pebbles against his feet. My thin slippers barely offered protection, and it definitely bothered me. On the other hand, Nestore had scar tissue there, too.
He stretched his arms over his head, and I allowed myself to admire his muscles, then flushed when his gaze settled on me. He extended a hand. “Let’s take a walk. I want to show you something.”
Worry tightened my belly. The last time he’d said something similar, we’d ended up watching the brutal fights in the pit. I really didn’t want to witness any bloodshed before breakfast.
Despite my apprehension, I put my hand in his. He closed his fingers around mine and tugged me along. We went down the winding path, past the rose maze, which made me shiver, and past the rotunda with the Roman fighting pit until we reached the very edge of the premises. My eyes widened when enclosures came into view. The first one closest to us held two lions, a female and a male, who lounged on a massive boulder that overlooked their spacious enclosure. The fence was at least twelve feet high and curved inward, with additional barbed wire as a deterrent. When they were my father’s pets, they lived in small cages so Father could easily reach them. One time, he had made me pet their fur while they were being drugged. My initial awe had turned to pity when I’d looked into their unfocused eyes.
The tiger in the enclosure to the left of the lions was frolicking in a lake and licking a massive ice cube with pieces of meat in it. In the last enclosure, the cheetahs paced along the fence, a groove in the ground from daily habit. Their enclosure offered them enough space to run, but they seemed to stick mainly to a small circular walkabout within the scope of their former enclosure.
“When I first had the bigger enclosure built for them, they hardly set foot into the rest of their area. They stuck to the small route they were used to, prisoners of years of captivity in a small cage, but now they venture out often.”
Nestore brought his fingers to his mouth and let out a shrill whistle. Both cheetahs stopped in their tracks, and even the lions and tiger perked up.
“Come on. Let’s give them the chance to hunt.”
“Hunt?” I echoed, worried about what the wildcats would hunt.
Nestore led me toward a platform at the end of the cheetah enclosure. A small house harbored a freezer and a fridge, plus a massive wooden board with a butcher’s knife. Nestore walked over to the fridge and took out a rabbit, fur and all. I grimaced at the sight of the cute animal hanging lifelessly in Nestore’s grip.
Nestore’s eyebrows climbed his forehead. “The cheetahs need to eat, and we had beef stew yesterday.”
“I know I’m being a hypocrite, I just prefer not to see the whole animal.”
“It eases the conscience but not the guilt.”
He had a point. Only because I was served a cute piglet as a cutlet didn’t mean it hadn’t once looked like a real animal.
“Come on.” He took another rabbit, then motioned at two steel ropes with hooks attached to them. He fastened the rabbits to the hooks. One wall of the house had a large window overlooking the enclosure. The two cheetahs sat on astone platform right in front of it, obviously familiar with the procedure and eager for their prey.
Nestore picked up a small remote I hadn’t noticed before and pressed a button that made a flap near the ceiling slide open. Then he pressed another button, and the rabbits shot out, dangling by the hooks. It almost looked as if they were actually racing. The rope dipped lower shortly after it entered the enclosure, so the cheetahs had a chance to chase it. Both animals hunted the mechanically moving rabbit corpses with a speed that made me gasp. Eventually, they caught up with their prey, and each cheetah captured a rabbit. They split up to opposite ends of the enclosure to eat their food in peace.
