Chapter 14
ELAINA
“You embarrassed my son—your husband—in front of the entire Court,” the Queen snaps, glaring at me. “And all to save a lowly maid who’s lower than dirt!”
“I asked if I could speak privately to you,” I point out. “I didn’t want to say it in front of the Court, but I couldn’t watch an innocent girl lose her hand when I could stop it!”
“Yes, you could and you should,” the Queen snarls. “How dare you expose the Royal family to ridicule?”
I’m about to try and defend myself, when her face changes. The rage smoothes abruptly away and she cocks her head at me.
“Enough about my youngest son, for now,” she says to me. “How are you getting on with my eldest son? You’ve been sleeping in his rooms—has he been bedding you regularly?”
I feel as though all the blood in my body has drained away. What do I do? Do I lie right to her face to buy a little more time? Eventually she’s going to find out.
“I…um…Prince Xaren and I are getting on very well,” I say at last.
“I didn’t ask how you were ‘getting on,’” she snaps. “I asked if he’s bedded you yet!”
“I…he…yes,” I say at last, though the lie tastes bitter on my tongue. “Yes, of course.”
“I see.” She arches an eyebrow. “Well, that’s very good news. Then I should have a grandchild soon. An heir with a Drake indwelling him.”
“I’m sure…sure you will,” I say. My voice is not quite steady—I wish I could lie more convincingly.
Before I can say anything else, there’s a knock at the door and the Court Physician pokes his head in, his long beard wagging.
“You called for me, Your Majesty?” he asks, squinting at her.
“Yes. I’d like you to check and see if the Princess is still intact,” she says as he comes into the parlor.
“What?” I exclaim. “But I just told you—”
“You told me that my oldest son has been bedding you regularly. I’m sure you won’t mind if I check to have that verified,” she snaps.
The Court Physician widens his eyes in surprise at her request.
“The Princess still intact? But how, Your Majesty? She’s been married for over a week now!”
“Nevertheless—I want her checked. Now,” the Queen demands.
I am forced to lay on a chaise lounge while the Court Physician kneels between my knees and raises my skirts. Tears of humiliation blind me as he pokes around with his long, thin icicle fingers and shakes his head, muttering to himself.
At long last he finishes and I am allowed to pull down my skirts and rise.
The Court Physician gets stiffly to his feet and wipes his hands on a handkerchief.
“It is as Your Majesty feared,” he says gravely. “The Princess is still intact. It appears that no man has lain with her. Therefore, she cannot be pregnant.”
The Queen’s poison green eyes gleam.
“I thought that might be the case.” She glares at me. “Well, well—so you lied to me, Elaina. You lied to the Queen—do you know what the penalty is for dishonesty to your Monarch?”
“No,” I say, feeling my gut clench. I want to say more—to point out that it’s not my fault neither of her sons wants to bed me—but the woman is always at fault in these situations. There is no excuse good enough to get me out of whatever she’s planning to do to me.
“Executioner, it seems we may have a use for you after all,” she says, motioning to the man in black.
I feel myself go numb as he steps forward.
“No!” I gasp. “You can’t mean to cut off my hand just for one untruth!”
“Not your hand, but perhaps a finger,” the Queen says musingly. “That should teach you a lesson about lying—and about embarrassing your Royal husband in front of the Court.”
“You can’t do this!” I take a step back and stumble, nearly falling back on the chaise lounge again. “You can’t cut off my finger—people will talk!”
“Let them!” she snaps and I can see that she’s enjoying this. There’s a mean little smile playing around the corners of her mouth. “It will cause everyone in the Citadel to think twice before crossing me.”
I have my hands balled into fists, I’m not going to let them do this to me! But the guards are already moving. They take me by the arms and drag me towards the Executioner and his block.
One of them takes me by the wrist and forces my hand down on the block. The Executioner leans down to talk to me. He smells like blood and iron.
“Splay your fingers if you want me to take only one,” he says.
“Yes—you’d better do as he says,” the Queen purrs, smiling cruelly. “I’d say the pinky finger would be your best bet—you’ll hardly miss it, I dare say.”
“No…” I whisper, feeling sick. “No, please.”
A cold sweat has broken out all over my body. I can’t believe she’s really going to do this! I can’t believe—
“Stop!”
The voice at the doorway makes all our heads turn. It’s Xaren, standing there with a grim look on his face.
“What are you doing here?” the Queen demands. She doesn’t look at all happy to see her oldest son.
“I could ask the same question but I can see well enough what you’re up to,” he growls. Striding over, he grabs the Executioner by the throat and raises him high in the air. “How dare you threaten my wife?”
His voice has dropped to a low, inhuman growl and I can see his left eye flaming through the curtain of his hair.
The Executioner sputters and kicks. He’s not a small man—Xaren must be incredibly strong. Or else maybe his Drake is lending him strength.
“Xaren! Stop that at once!” the Queen commands. “How dare you come into my private parlor and interrupt a punishment!”
“Because Elaina is my wife!” he snarls. “I refuse to let you maim her just for your own sick enjoyment!”
“I’m not doing any of this for my own enjoyment!” The Queen sounds huffy and offended, though I believe the cruel smile I saw on her face when I was being forced to the block gives a lie to her words. “I must punish the Princess for lying to me.”
“I don’t care what she said, I won’t let you maim her!” he growls. He drops the Executioner to the ground at last and the man lays there, panting, his face red and sweaty as he tries to get his breath back.
“Oh, very well.” The Queen makes a disgusted face. “I won’t have her finger cut off, but she must be punished. Guard—go get a whip,” she says to the guard closest to her. “And be sure it’s a heavy one—the Princess will receive twenty lashes to teach her a lesson.”
A whipping is better than a maiming…but only just. My mouth is still dry as cotton and I can’t seem to say anything. I just shake my head and back away.
“What lie did she tell that you think is worth twenty lashes?” Xaren demands. He walks over and pushes me behind his back, putting himself between me and his mother.
“Why, she told me that you’d bedded her and that I could expect a grandson soon,” the Queen says coldly. “But when I had the Court Physician inspect her, he found her to be still intact. So it seems you haven’t done your duty and bedded her after all.”
Xaren glares down at her.
“That’s because I’m not a rapist! I won’t take her against her will just because you say so!” he snarls. “You know why I feel as I do.”
The Queen’s face grows pale and she actually flinches. I do believe what Xaren said has struck a nerve, though I’m not sure why. But the next minute, she’s angry again—her nostrils flaring with rage.
“How dare you speak so to me? I am your mother.”
“A mother protects her child,” Xaren says coldly. “You never protected me. You never paid the ransom.”
I’m lost as to the meaning of this, but it seems to be making the Queen angrier and more upset by the minute.
The guard has come back in by now and he’s uncoiling a thick leather whip with sharp bits of metal tied to the long lashes at its tip.
She nods at him stiffly and he nods back, loosening his arm and making the whip swish menacingly through the air.
“The Princess shall be whipped for lying and then both of you will go!” she says to Xaren. “I’ve had quite enough of your rude and hurtful remarks.”
“Don’t you mean you’ve had enough of the truth?” Xaren asks coolly. “And you’re not whipping, Elaina—I forbid it.”
“You are in no position to forbid anything!” the Queen snarls. “I am the Monarch here—not you. If I give the word, the guards will throw you in the dungeons. Don’t think I won’t do it!”
“I have no doubt you would.” Xaren shoots her a level glance. “Very well—if you want to whip someone, whip me. I’m more at fault for Elaina still being a virgin than she is.”
As he speaks, he begins stripping off his jacket and shirt. He isn’t wearing a waistcoat or cravat so in no time at all, he’s down to his bare skin. His broad shoulders flex and I bite back a gasp. Is he really going to do this for me?
The Queen’s mouth narrows to a scarlet ribbon and her face is pale with anger.
“Very well,” she says tightly. “But I won’t go easy on you just because you’re my son. You’ll get the full force of the whip, as though you were any common thief or liar.”
“I would expect nothing less,” Xaren says grimly. He turns to face the guard. “Where do you want me?”
The guard gestures to the far wall and Xaren walks over and places his hands on the pale blue brocade wallpaper. He turns his head again.
“Well? What are you waiting for?”
The guard looks at the Queen, as though for confirmation. I have the feeling that though she enjoys doling out cruel and unusual punishments to others in the Citadel, the Royal family is usually exempt.
Not this time, though.
“Go on—twenty lashes,” she says to the guard. “As hard as you can make them—don’t you dare hold back.”
The guard nods and pulls back his arm. The leather whip whistles through the air and cracks as it hits Xaren’s broad back. The sharp metal hooks at the end of the lashes catch and dig into his flesh, ripping bloody gouges in his skin. Blood begins to flow at once.
I stuff a fist into my mouth to keep from screaming. I have never seen a beating so brutal and it makes me sick. But I make myself watch. He’s taking my punishment—taking my pain. I can’t allow myself to look away.
The whip draws back with a hiss and the guard’s arm falls again.
Again the whistling crack and the drag of metal through flesh.
More blood. It must be incredibly painful, but Xaren doesn’t cry out—doesn’t say a word.
His big body tenses with each blow and I see his fingertips digging into the wall, but he gives no other indication that he’s being tortured.
By the end, my tears are flowing freely. I want to shout at the guard—to catch his arm and make him stop! Xaren’s back is a mass of bloody stripes and blood is dripping on the gold carpet and flecking the pale blue wallpaper.
The Queen doesn’t seem nearly as upset as I am.
She watches impassively as her son is whipped at her behest. Even when a few drops of his blood fly from the end of the whip and land on her cheek, she simply wipes them away with an embroidered lace handkerchief and keeps watching.
What kind of mother can watch her own son hurt like this and feel nothing?
She’s a monster.
At last, the twentieth stroke falls. The whipping is done. The guard takes out a rag and cleans the whip as he coils it up. No one says a word—no one has anything to say. At least, I don’t. I feel numb but also horrified at the same time. I never dreamed such things would happen here!
I’ve never wanted to go home so badly in my life! But I know that isn’t an option—the Queen will never let me go. Not until I give her a Drake grandson—and probably not even then. Don’t they always say a woman must bear “an heir and a spare” in order to ensure the survival of the Royal lineage?
My thoughts fade away when Xaren turns from the wall. His dark face is pale and his mouth is a grim line.
“If that’s all, Mother, I will take my leave,” he says. His deep voice is quiet but harsh and there is hatred in his eyes—both of them, not just the glowing golden Drake eye.
“You are dismissed,” she says coldly, just as though she hadn’t just ordered her own son whipped bloody.
“But I want you to remember something, Xaren…” She points at me.
“We bought Elaina and brought her here for one reason only—to give us a Royal Drake heir. If she cannot even fulfill that one function, she’s no use to us at all!
” She gives me a cold, appraising stare and then turns back to him.
“If you don’t bed her and get her pregnant in the next month, I’ll get rid of her. ”
Her words make me cold to my bones. She’s giving both of us an ultimatum and I have no doubt she’d happily have me killed.
Xaren glares back at her.
“You wouldn’t—she’s the only one with the right bloodlines.”
“No, she has the optimal bloodlines,” the Queen snaps.
“But other women can bear a Drake heir—I did myself! We only paid for her in order to be certain the heirs she produced had the largest, strongest Drakes. But if she can’t fulfill her duty, I’ll find someone who can.
” She turns to me. “Do you hear me, girl? You’d best be pregnant with my grandson soon! ”
My mouth is too numb to form an answer. I’m barely able to nod my head in acknowledgment. What else can I do?
Then I follow Xaren out of the Queen’s parlor, my stomach clenched tighter than a fist as I wonder how I’m going to get through this.