Scarred (Never After #2)(22)

His lips turn down. “No, I just—”

“You will refer to me properly. Your Highness. Master.” I pause. “Or my lord, if you feel so inclined.”

His body stills, no doubt sensing the malice that has dropped into my tone. “M-my lord?” he questions.

“You don’t think it’s fitting?” I cock my head, blowing out a plume of smoke as I walk toward him. “I know it’s usually reserved for lower-class nobility, however in this case, its sentiment lends to more of a ‘savior’ type of title.”

I step in close now, forcing him back, his hand flying to his hip. He draws his weapon, but his movements are clunky and sharp, and before he can even point the gun, I wrap my fingers around his wrist, twisting his hand in directions not meant for bone. He screams, the pistol clanking as it drops to the concrete floor, and I keep applying pressure until the resistance snaps away and his fingers grow limp, his hand flopping like a useless slab of meat.

“As I was saying, I’ve realized most people pray to find their savior right before they die,” I continue, lowering my voice to a murmur. “I’m willing to be that for you.”

The lighting is dull in the dungeons, but the small lamps resting outside of the cell filter through the iron-barred window of the door, the dull glow glistening off the tears tracking down his face.

“P-please, Your H-h-highness,” he stutters.

“Ah-ah-ah,” I tsk.

Placing pressure on his wrist again, he groans in obvious pain. “Bow before me, Antony, commander of the king’s army.”

He drops like a sack of potatoes, his shoulders rising and falling with his whimpers.

I take him in as he cowers at my feet, bringing the hash to my mouth and inhaling again, enjoying the way it makes my head buzz. My foot kicks his weapon farther away, and I walk around his trembling frame. “Rather weak for a commander, aren’t you?” I question. “You know, if you tell me what you saw in the hallway, I’ll set you free.”

“Nothing,” he forces out between gritted teeth. “I saw nothing.”

I chuckle, pausing at his back. “I don’t believe you. Somebody always sees something.”

“I swear it, I-I…”

“There’s an abandoned cabin deep within our forests, and when I was a boy, I used to sneak away to it often. Did you know that?”

The guard’s breathing becomes choppier, but he grows silent.

I grip the back of his sandy blond head, ripping it upward until his face is exposed to the ceiling, the smoke from my cigarette curling between my fingers and wrapping around his skull. “Answer me.”

His jaw clenches. “No...”

“Of course you didn’t,” I snap. “No one does. No one cared enough about little Prince Tristan to give a damn what I did with my time.”

I toss him to the ground, so he’s forced to catch his body with his broken wrist. He collapses, groaning as he brings the limp fingers to his chest.

“Our tunnels lead right to it, isn’t that something?”

Cocking my head, I wait for his reply, but other than his whimpers, he stays silent. Irritation coils around my muscles, squeezing them tight. My voice lowers. “I thought we had already gone over how I expect an answer to my questions, Antony.”

“Yes! It’s something.” His voice cracks, and the obvious fear weaving through the tone makes me smile.

“The point is, I spent hours there. Usually taking my sketchbook and drawing until my fingers went numb. It was the only place I could go where the people who hurt me wouldn’t follow.”

I crouch, my hands sliding around his shoulders, pulling him upright into a sitting position. “And everyone let me disappear, even though they all saw what went on. Perhaps they never cared.” I shrug. “Or maybe they thought alone time would help my ‘fragile mental state.’”

My gut churns and I bring the joint to my lips, allowing the smoke to seep from the edges of my mouth as I speak. “But some people are beyond saving. Are you beyond saving, Antony?”

He shakes his head.

“That’s what they all say.” My fingers rest on the dip between his collarbone, directly below his neck. “If I were to press right here, it would drop you down and cut off your breath, but only for a moment. Do you know what it feels like to choke repeatedly for hours?”

“No,” he whimpers.

“I can show you if you’d like.” I pause. “Or you can tell me the truth, and hope that I’ll be your savior.”

His eyes narrow, and even through his pain, defiance swirls through his irises. “You’re no savior. Just a disfigured freak.”

Anger slams into me, and my hand whips out before I can control it, the sound of my rings smacking bone loud in the concrete room. He flies to the side, grunting as blood pours from his mouth. He spits and a tooth flies onto the floor. I ignore his whimpers, lifting up my foot and slamming it down on the side of his face, my abdomen tensing from the rise and fall of my leg as I stomp his cheek, feeling the bone fracture beneath my heel.

Red liquid pools around my feet and I back up a space, closing my eyes, and panting through the torrential downpour of fire that’s raining on my insides from his words.

“Everyone always underestimates me.” I sigh, stepping forward again, this time to press my foot on his wrist above the snapped bone. “But you’re wrong, Antony. Because right now? I’m your god.”