“Well, well,” he said, sucking on a toothpick and raising an eyebrow at Anika’s half-naked body. “What a happy little family you two make.”
She’d only just begun to wake up; she slept more heavily than I did, and after all, I’d worn her the fuck out last night. It took her a second to figure out what was happening, but when she did, she scooped up all the bedclothes to cover herself and looked at me, panicked and horrified.
I met her panic with a calm stare. I’ve got this.
“What the fuck do you want, father?” I asked, rotating the hilt of my dagger in my palm as I eyed him.
“You’ve been busy since I’ve been gone.” Jamming the toothpick in a gap beside his incisor, he pulled it out and examined the end, then sucked whatever was stuck on there off again. Fuck, I hated him. Then he went on, “Word is, you’ve gotten yourself into all sorts of trouble.” He shot a lecherous glance at Anika. “Tell me, son. How does she ride? I’ve always wanted to know.”
“You motherfucker,” I growled.
Anika groaned and turned away, like he’d slapped her, and I resisted the very real urge to drive my dagger directly between his beady little eyes. But I knew he was goading me. I strongly suspected that he wanted me out of the way, had always wanted me out of the way. I may be his heir, but that also made me a threat to his power. If he sent me away, he would feel secure for life, and he could always name me as his successor on his deathbed to make sure his legacy lived on. And how better to get rid of me than have me try to kill him? Cunning old fucker. Never underestimate a degenerate piece of shit.
“Shut the fuck up and get the fuck out of here,” I said, lunging at him, which made his guards lunge back. It was a purposeful fake-out; I needed to see what his men were made of. They were quick, but weighed down by armor. But by any measure, I was at a serious goddamned disadvantage—naked and armed with a single blade.
My father met my stare then, sucking some spit from between his teeth. For a long second, we stayed there staring. Seething.
For so long, I’d made a show of pretending I didn’t detest him. But now, I let all that pretense go. I let him see the hate and the distrust in my eyes.
The moment of reckoning had come. I was just about to tell the motherfucker exactly what I thought of him when he told his guards, “Take him. He’s to be tried for murder.”
Goddamn it. The guards swarmed me, two to each limb. I fought them with everything I had, but it wasn’t enough. As they dragged me down the hallway, I heard Anika screaming my name, before I heard her door slamming shut and my father barking orders at his men. “Don’t let that little whore leave her room.”
The guards chained me to a wall in one of the small holding cells. As my eyes adjusted to the light, I saw the place had a serious fucking millipede problem. This goddamned castle. It was like my father himself. Rotten to the core.
Before long, I heard the toothpick sucking again and my father appeared at the cell door. He looked ridiculous in all his silks and furs; all the years of kingly gluttony had made him not just fat but spongy. He’d changed so much from the days when my mother had lived that it made him that much easier to hate.
But he’d taught me some decent lessons, which were useful in dealing with him. For instance, he’d told me once that the last one to enter a meeting runs the room, but the first one to ask a question steers the conversation.
“So, who the fuck am I supposed to have murdered?” I asked before he had a chance to say anything to me first.
The opening was so small and the corridor so damp and dark, it almost looked as though he was the one behind bars. Only in my fucking dreams.
“A scullery worker’s body was found in the kitchen. A witness came forward. He said it was you. You and your little cocksleeve of a sister.”
Hearing him insult her drove me fucking insane. I thrashed against my chains, wanting just one solid swing at his face.
“Bullshit. There were no witnesses.”
My father lifted his eyebrow. “Gotcha,” he said, with a wink. “You’re almost smart enough to be dangerous but not quite.”
What an absolute asshole. He’d never played fair, never in his entire life. Everything he had, he’d gotten by scam and tricks and lies. He fucking knew that to insult Anika would make me irrational with rage.