“I am,” he said. “Get dressed.”
“You didn’t even give me a real chance to try to be what you want. I had one unsure moment. I’m new to this.”
“You did nothing wrong. Quite the contrary. But I shouldn’t have brought you here. I want more than this for you. I’ve always believed you capable of great things. You won’t do them chained naked to a bed, which is how I’d like to keep you.”
“Evston, surely there could be a compromise?”
He shook his head. “You can’t begin to imagine the life I’ve led. I once mounted a pet on a statue so that its stone phallus was in her ass. Then I fucked her in front of a dozen men. But not until my brother had had her first. She didn’t choose that. She submitted to it. Pets are property, and I enjoy owning them.”
He glanced over. For a moment, she only stared at him, so startled she couldn’t speak.
Finally, she reached for her clothes and began dressing.
Good, he thought, though his gut wrenched. He wished he hadn’t needed to tell her that, but he wasn’t sure one or both of them might not coax the other into trying something like this again. It was important to slam the door on this experiment, so they could move on.
When he finally got into a town he used a long-range com to call Rocurt. He gave him the coordinates and said, “I have Brandese. Come and get her.”
She didn’t speak to him during the time they waited. He felt the weight of her disappointment like hundreds of bags of sand on his chest.
When his brother arrived, Rocurt’s face was storm clouds and outer-reaches blackness.
“Have you lost your mind? If anyone anywhere saw you alone with her...”
“She’s untouched.”
“Come on! Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to? You didn’t bring her to the realm’s edge to chat with her,” Rocurt roared. “You cut her hair to disguise her? As if that would be enough with her face? You can’t simply send her back after using her. He will have you killed.”
“When they examine her, they’ll find her untouched. She’ll deny anything happened. She ran away because she was upset. I found her and talked her into going home. Loyal to the crown. As always.”
Rocurt stalked around the rough-terrain transport cart and looked her over. “He has dragged you to the outer reaches and gotten you so dirty and dusty I hardly recognize you.” He shook his head.
“I darkened my hair as a disguise, Commander.”
“I see that, but still,” he said, rubbing off a bit of dust from her wrist.
“Rocurt, dirt washes off,” Evston said impatiently.
“Lucky for you, or I’d bust your nose for that alone.” He turned back to Brandese. “Forget everything he’s told you.”
“That would be difficult. Some of it was quite vivid.”
“Tell me what you wish for. If you say you want to marry him, you will.”
“You don’t have the authority,” Evston said.
“Quiet,” he barked. “The leader of the cannibal invaders thought I lacked authority to come over the mountain for him. Right up until I showed up to cut off his head.”
Evston scowled. “You will give her nightmares.”
Rocurt lowered his voice as if speaking to a small child, or to his kitten of a wife. “If you want him, he’ll marry you.”
“You told me you know him as well as you know yourself.”
“Yes.”
“Do you think he’ll outgrow wanting to own pets?”
Rocurt opened his mouth, then closed it. He had clearly not expected that question from the princess. Evston nearly laughed at his brother’s moment of speechlessness.
