Chapter 104
Caleb wants to go back to the capital now? As in, right now?
“That’s the worst idea I’ve ever heard in my life,” I tell him.
“What do you know?” he growls, fury crumpling his features. “That traitor is sitting on my throne like he belongs there, emboldened by the lie that I am dead. I will return to the capital I don’t care who stands in my way. Then I will rip that bastard’s head off in front of his entire army of betrayers.”
He is shaking in his rage, his eyes flashing red.
We don’t even have a car here, but I suspect even that won’t hold him back. At this rate, he seems as if he would run the whole way to the capital if he has to.
“You are still healing,” I tell him.
“I’m healed enough.”
“It’s suicide,” I try instead. “You won’t make it past the guards and their guns, and then you really will be dead.”
He flashes his teeth at me, his canines growing. “Do not underestimate me.”
“I’m not. I’m being realistic. Tristan is there, scoping things out. We are going to wait for him to come back, remember? If you go in right now, you go in blind, without support and without a plan. We have to wait for Tristan to return.”
Caleb’s growl deepens, but since he doesn’t have a retort for that I know I’m winning.
“What George has done cannot be tolerated,” Caleb says. His canines slowly pull back, returning to his usual human teeth.
“You will have your revenge,” I say, knowing better than to try to talk him out of that. “But you have to be patient.” From the way his growling persists, I imagine that patience has never been one of his strongest virtues.
“I’ll have his head on a pike,” Caleb insists.
“You will,” I agree, placating him.
After a moment, he huffs a lon
“Would a massage held” SK.
He glares “Fine.”
exhale through his nose, and his eyes lose their reddish hue.
at the ground, looking away from me. I wait for him to answer me. After a few long moments of silence, he does,
I motion toward the house and we start inside. As we walk, Caleb notices the small wolf figure in my hand. “What’s that?”
“Oh, a little gift the salesman left for me. I think he felt bad for the way things went down.”
Caleb holds out his hand. “Let me see.”
I pass over the figure just as we enter the living r
room.
Caleb brings it closer and thoroughly inspects it. He even scents it.
“What are you looking for?” I ask
“A listening device,” he says casually, like that’s a totally normal thing to say.
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A hint of fear rushes through me. Could Mr. Harvey have been a bad guy after all? I would hate if that turned out to be true. The man had been so kind to me, treating me like an equal, not as a slave. I haven’t been treated that well since before my disgrace.
“Oh.”
Caleb looks at me sideways, then passes the figure back to me. “‘s innocent”
Relief presses away the fear. “Good.” I say, accepting it.
“It’s a silly thing. Why cherish it as you do?”
“It’s a nice keepsake.”
“To commemorate my downfall?” Caleb asks, narrowing his eyes.
“No. Not everything about this trip was so bad,” I say. In the kitchen, I leave the little wolf on the corner of the counter where I can see it.
Caleb shifts his s gaze from me to the figure and back again. “No I suppose
not.”
I motion toward one of the kitchen chairs. Once he sits down, I move around behind him and place my hands on his shoulders. Immediately, he starts to calm under my touch.
At nightfall, Caleb lights a few lanterns in the house while I light the oven and prepare one of the fish that Caleb caught. While that is cooking in the oven, I begin chopping up some vegetables to cook on the skillet on the stovetop.
Caleb returns then and peers over my shoulder. “What are you doing?”
“Getting ready to make some grilled veggies,” I tell him. When he lingers, I glance back at him. “Do you…. want to help?” It feels strange, asking a King for help chopping the vegetables even after I had yelled at him to contribute more. I’m still expecting him to say no, so it surprises me immensely when he nods, saying, “I know my way around a knife.” Without a word, I pass over the knife. He moves quickly and expertly, slicing through the vegetables like an actual chef.
“How did you
learn to do that?” I ask him, in awe.
“You don’t want to know,” he says, a hint of darkness in his voice
Oh. That means torture. I’m sure of it.
In that case, he’s right. I don’t want to know.
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I prepare the pan on the stove while he continues with the vegetables, Working side by side like this feels oddly domestic. Not something I would have ever expected to share with the king.
I don’t hate it. In fact, I’m alarmed how much I do enjoy it, working in tandem with a man I care about, as if class wasn’t something that fundamentally separated us in almost every other regard.
It makes me curious about things that probably don’t matter…
Yet they still feel vitally important here, in the quiet of the kitchen, with only the crack sizzle of the wood in the stove to pull me from my thoughts.
“If you weren’t a king,” I ask, “What would you want to be?”
He chuckles lightly at my question. “I don’t know… maybe a fisherman.”
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Chapter 104
“You’re joking but i think you’re good at it.”
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“I am good at it,” Caleb replies, “But would it be enough to satisfy me in the long term? I don’t know. It’s more likely I would be a soldier, working my way up through the ranks.”
“Your ambition would drive you?” I ask.
“I like having power,” Caleb says.
It’s honest, at least.
In polite conversation, the next thing we would talk about should be my answer to the question, but Caleb just continues chopping and doesn’t say anything.
He probably isn’t used to having to contribute meaningfully to conversations, so I answer anyway, as if he had asked me.
“I don’t know what I would be, if life had treated me a different hand,” I say.
Caleb laughs harder, like I told a joke.
Did I miss something?
Glancing back at him, I ask, “What’s so funny?”
“You are joking,” Caleb says, “So I’m laughing.”
Iturn away from the stove to face him. “How am I joking?”
Glancing at my face, he stops chopping to face me as well. “Because you can’t be serious. It’s too absurd.”
“In what way?” I ask.
“Why would you want anything other for yourself than to be a member of my harem?” His confusion seems genuine. He’s dead serious about this.
I take a deep breath, trying to push down on my rising anger. A king’s viewpoint is skewed. He thinks he treats me so kindly. And maybe he does, considering, but I’d still rather be free.
“I’d rather be here,” I tell him. “Like this.”
Caleb glances around. His confusion does not wane. “There’s no electricity.”
“Maybe not. But here, I can make my own choices. I could spend all day watching the grasses blow in the wind if I wanted.”
“So you want to be lazy.”
“I want to be free,” I say, with more bite than I meant. “The capital is a gilded cage for me. I can’t even sneeze without asking your permission. Here, I can live however I want.”
I expect Caleb to fly off the handle in anger, but instead, he almost seems… thoughtful.
“Oh.” He returns to his work, chopping the vegetables. There’s more than I need now, but I don’t stop him.
I puzzle over his muted reaction for a long time.
