Page 65 of Tarnished Crown
This time when a crack rang out, I was prepared--or I should have been, but the second lash was so much worse than the first.
I still didn’t scream. Not quite. But there was no part of me that believed I would hold out for twenty-eight more.
Crack.
My back arched in protest, and I squeezed my eyes shut against the sight of the blood-spattered snow around me.
At least Evander wasn’t here. The last thing I needed was for him to gloat over one more thing I had done wrong.Look at you, Lemmikki, the cliché spoiled princess already crumpling under a few lashes. How very expected.
Imagining his taunting made me square my shoulders and lift my chin. I tried to glare at Ava, but I couldn’t see her past the unwelcome tears blurring my vision. The next lash made me regret even that small rebellion.
By the sixth lash, I was screaming.
I stopped counting after that. Fury and agony crashed over me in wave after wave with each haunting crack of that stars-blasted whip. The chains were the only things holding me upright.
I lost all sense of time, of my surroundings, until a familiar, arrogant voice cut into it all.
“Playing with my pet, Stepmother?” Evander’s voice was colder than the icy ground beneath my feet.
The whip stopped in its relentless pursuit, though the pain remained. Rivulets of blood seeped from the wounds on my back, soaking through the fabric of my dress.
I told myself that the break from the lashes was the only reason I felt the slightest bit of relief. Not from Evander’s presence. Not when he was the entire reason I was here to begin with.
“I was merely seeing that your father’s orders were carried out,” Ava responded. “Your prisoner tried to escape.”
“Did she, now?” Black boots stepped into my field of vision, and I forced my gaze to travel upward until I was glaring into his eyes.
I hoped he could feel half the accusation I was throwing his way, hoped that for once in his arrogant bastard life, he wasn’t pretending there was nothing wrong with the way he had claimed my life with all the importance and forethought of claiming the last piece of bacon at breakfast.
“It seems I can’t leave you alone for five seconds, Lemmikki.” There was an undertone to his words, something my pain-addled brain couldn’t quite make sense of.
I couldn’t form a response. Only my ragged breaths sounded in the space between us.
He leaned down closer to me, speaking in a voice almost too low for me to hear. “If you can’t hide the defiance in your eyes, at least have the sense to close them.”
The tone was mocking, but there was more to his words.
A threat? Or a warning? He cut his eyes over to Ava, and I surmised the latter. He wanted me to act cowed? In front of this woman who wanted nothing more than to see it?
Absolutely the stars-damned-hell not.
Evander grimaced like he could read my thoughts, straightening to his full height.
“What were my father’s exact words?” he asked in a louder tone, directing the question at someone behind me.
Samu spoke up. “He said, give her the appropriate punishment.”
“And how many lashes has she had?”
“Twelve, My Lord.”
A muscle ticked in Evander’s jaw. “Twelve lashes for a tiny slip of a princess when twenty is standard for a grown man, and a soldier, at that. I would say that’s more than...appropriate.”
He turned to address the onlookers. “Besides, we wouldn’t want her to die before we have the chance to use her against our dear neighbors, would we?”
I caught Ava’s assessing gaze, the way it moved between Evander, me, and the crowd who was murmuring in agreement. In spite of myself, in spite of every obstinate piece of me, I forced my eyelids to shut before she could see the hatred stirring in them.
When no one responded, Evander spoke again. “Of course, we could always fetch my father, but I would hate to trouble him with something so trivial. Wouldn’t you, Stepmother?”