was done to my family already? The press feel the need to come back and add insult to injury near the third anniversary of the accident? I will not allow it.”
“So, you’ll let a dying man rot away in your palace then. Haven’t you ever heard that two wrongs don’t make a right?”
“You mistake me,” he said, his tone suddenly fierce. “I am not trying to make anything right. What has been done to me can never be made right. I want a pound of flesh.”
She heard his footsteps, and, she realized, he had turned away from her. That he was beginning to walk away. “No!”
“I am finished with you,” he said. “My servant will show you out.”
“Take me.” The words left her trembling lips before she had a chance to think them through. “Instead of my father. Let me take his place.”
“Why would you want to do that?” She heard his footsteps drawing nearer to her again. She blinked hard, cursing her inability to see through the thick darkness.
“Want is a strong word. But, I’m not currently in need of medical treatment. If I stay here in your palace for however long the sentence might be... I’ll be fine.” There was the matter of her scholarship, of the fact that she was supposed to be getting her master’s in literature. But, for her father’s life, she would easily sacrifice a piece of paper.
“And what good will that do?”
“Just tell everybody that I’m the one who took the pictures. That I am the one who caused all this trouble. Use me as your example.” He said nothing. It was so still and silent in the room that she thought he might have left. “Please.”
“If we do this, I am not simply letting you off with such a bland public story. No.”
“I thought you wanted to make an example of him.”
“I did,” he said, his tone hard. “However... I think there are more creative uses for you.”
A shiver ran through her. Fear. “I don’t think you want me for...for that.”
“You mistake me. If I wanted a whore, I could have one summoned easily enough. You...you’re beautiful. Uncommonly so. And I find myself in an interesting position.”
“What?”
“Your father didn’t decide to get my photograph on a whim. In the last three years, an interim ruler has been governing in my stead. But that...that period has ended. His term has ended. And I have a choice to make. Whether or not I abdicate for good, or take control of what is mine.”
The air rushed from her lungs, a strange metallic taste on her tongue. “And...and you’ve decided?”
“I will not hide away forever,” he said. “I will reclaim my throne. And in that I will make my example. I and my country will not remain broken. And I will not be kept under siege by the press.”
“Well I... I don’t know anything about ruling a country. I can’t help you with that.”
“Silly girl. I don’t need your brain. I need what I myself no longer possess. I need your beauty.”
She could scarcely understand the words he was saying.
“So, you have a deal,” he said.
He’d given her no time to react to his previous statement. The swift proclamation stunned her. She nearly stumbled, nearly fell down to her knees.
“I... I do?” She still wasn’t sure what she’d agreed to. Helping him somehow with this reclamation of his kingdom. But she had no clue what that actually meant.
“Of course. I will have Fos go and tell your father that he’s free to go.”
“I...” She didn’t know what to say. She certainly didn’t feel anything like triumph. Instead, she was terrified, a bitter cold spreading through her midsection. She was a prisoner now. She had agreed to take her father’s place in this madman’s castle. “Can I...can I see him before he goes?”
“No,” he said, “that would only cause unnecessary tears. And I find myself low on patience this evening.”
“I don’t...what do you want me to do?”
“You have heard it said, I imagine, that behind every successful man is a woman? You will be that woman. Something to help soften my...image.”
He turned away again, his footsteps indicating that he was walking away, and panic gripped her. “Wait!”
He stopped. “A servant will come and show you to your room.”
She imagined by “room” he meant “dungeon.” Another shiver wound through her, fear spiking her blood, making her feel like she had been drugged. “At least let me see you.” She refused to think of him as a monster looming around in the darkness. That would only give him more power. He was just a man. As she had been ranting earlier, he was probably a man with a weak chin.
A man who was afraid to show himself because he was cowardly. Because he was the kind of tyrant who wouldn’t allow anyone to say anything about him that wasn’t expressly approved by him. She had nothing to fear from this man. And when she saw his face, she would know that for sure.
“If you insist.” Footsteps moved toward her, and his shape became clearer as he drew closer. Then one foot moved into the pool of light at the center of the room. Followed by the rest of him.
She had been right in her assessment of him as large. He was almost monstrous in stature, broad and impossibly tall. But if his height weren’t enough to make her shiver in fear, his face would have accomplished it.
She had been wrong. He did not have a weak chin. Neither did he have a rounded jaw. No, there was something utterly perfect about his bone structure, which made the damage done to his features seem like a blasphemy shouted in a church.
His skin was golden brown, and it was ruined. Deep grooves taken from his face, a deep slash cutting through one eye. Deep enough that she wondered if he had vision on the side. He might have smiled, but it was difficult to say. The scar tissue at his mouth, so heavy on the one side, kept his lips from tipping up fully.
In that moment, she was certain that she had not been taken captive by a man. No, she had been taken captive by a beast.
PRINCE ADAM KATSAROS was no longer a handsome man. The accident that had stolen his wife from him had also stolen his face. But, he found it of little concern. He was not a good man anymore, either. And that made it seem slightly more poetic, his outsides matching what remained within.
Though, taking a woman captive was a bit much, even for him. Still, he was not inclined to change his mind now. When she had put the offer on the table, he had accepted it gladly. Mostly because he knew that he could use her. That he would be able to use her much more sufficiently than her father.
If what she said was true, if the old man was in fact dying, he had no
