Chapter Twelve
Two Weeks Later
Ronin
“It’s your favorite.” I cut and speared a piece of strawberry French toast. I pressed it—syrupy and sweet—against her lips. “Come on, you have to eat.”
Charlotte gave no indication that she’d heard me. She lay sprawled out on the bed, gazing unseeingly at a spot on the wall. If you didn’t know any better, you’d mistake her for a corpse. But she wasn’t.
What she was, was a wreck.
Her normally long, lush waterfall was a nest of tangles and greasy knots.
The day after I took back what was mine, I changed the ripped dress she was wearing into a simple, silk slip dress...
and she’d been wearing that ever since. Her lips were cracked.
Her normally thin frame was downright skeletal.
Her face was red and dry from an onslaught of tears.
And her eyes were empty and hollow. And her smile... that smile... it was—
I tossed my head, shaking away useless thoughts. I did what I had to do. End of. Charlotte will see that eventually, even if she doesn’t see it soon. Until then—
I stroked her cheek, feeling another surge of that new strange and gripping emotion.
“Until then, I’ll fix you. I’ll remove all the worthless obstacles in your way, and the useless thoughts in your head.
You won’t need for anything or anyone else again, Charlotte.
All you’ll need is me.” I caught another tear streaming down her cheek. “Just as all I need is you.”
“Eat,” I ordered through the bond, and her mouth opened—accepting the slice of French toast with no more resistance. “Good girl.”
I fed her the rest of the food, and then held a cup of coffee—two spoons of honey—to her lips and ordered her to drink.
That done, I undid her shackles, and undressed her.
Charlotte may as well have been a sex doll for all the reaction I got out of her as I stripped off her dress and underclothes. She didn’t even twitch her limbs to help me. She just lay there as I did the work.
Lifting her up, I carried her into the bathroom and the waiting tub. I gently set her down in the warm, sudsy water, and she immediately sank down and started drowning.
“Shit!” Snapping off my clothes, I climbed in and hauled her above the surface. Carefully I propped her up against my chest... and wondered what the fuck I was supposed to do now.
Charlotte needed to be washed, but was I supposed to do it? I’d never done anything like this for anyone before, but when Connard demanded proof that Hunter was sick and didn’t meet the requirements for execution, I had to bring him into my room to see her.
The bastard took one look and said she’d definitely be dead in a week, so she didn’t have to worry about absences.
Dammit, what did my servants, nannies, and attendants do to keep me alive when I couldn’t look after myself?
I cast my mind back, fighting to sort through the jumble. The demon child’s mind is overwrought with bloodlust and destruction. All we think about all day is laying waste to everything and everyone in the vicinity. Doesn’t leave much brain space to worry about the daily routine.
Looking around, I lit on the shampoo, body wash, and bath oils. Slowly I picked up the shampoo and squirted half of it on Charlotte’s head.
“I forgot it’s different for mortals.” I scrubbed her scalp, vaguely recalling a memory of kicking and splashing the water out of my bathtub while three attendants struggled to scrub me down.
“We demons eat because we like it, not because we have to. But I guess you have to. I’ll have your favorites made and brought to you every day for every meal from now on. ”
Silence.
“Lucifer’s stopped calling,” I announced. I admit, I hoped that would get a reaction from her, but the back of the head I was staring at was still under my ministrations. “He was shouting loud enough that I know you heard him, but it seems he’s done demanding that you continue the hallow search.
“He knows he has no leverage over you now. He knows his threats don’t work.
Not even his threat of declaring war on House Sloth for the death of his kin.
” I snorted. “Every House is threatening to declare war on House Sloth these days. Even that shitbrain Iarla Ravenscar’s been making noise from the fae wing, saying if we try to use the weight of the new empire to force new trade agreements, the fae will stop trading with demons altogether.
“Lucifer’s got nothing on you now,” I announced. “That’s what I did for you.”
Charlotte’s left hand twitched, the first sign of life in almost two weeks.
I sat up a little straighter, fingers moving doubly fast over her scalp and through her tangled locks.
“Do you remember what you were telling me about there being different kinds of this love stuff? Love for your parents, your children, your siblings, and whoever else. All of that,” I said, “is bullshit.
“I’m not like other demons.” I grabbed the showerhead and turned it on, tipping her head back as I washed away the shampoo.
“Ninety-eight percent of demons are mortals cursed in their afterlife. Then there’s Beelzebub, Asmodeus, Mammon, Leviathan, Zariel, and my father who were born from the sins of men, and then there’s me—who was born from my father,” I explained.
“Lord Sloth is my true parent. Not some bastard who plucked me out of the demonage to be a pawn in his political games. And even though we’re father and son, I couldn’t give a shit about that dude. ”
Shampoo done, I reached for the conditioner.
“You said once that loving someone is putting them first? But why in the fuck would anyone do that? Father didn’t raise me himself.
He had to give me over to the nannies and servants because to chase after a child all day and night isn’t very sloth, is it?
The minute he stops being the embodiment of that sin is the minute he stops being the lord of that sin.
“He had to choose between raising me and being master of all he’d built, and he chose Ignavia because why wouldn’t he? What the fuck did I need him around for? What would he have done that my servants wouldn’t have done better and quicker?
“It’s the same for me,” I told her. “Now that I’ve come into my true face, it’s time for me to collect servants and pledges, and then lead the war to overthrow Father and take the throne.
If I was putting him, and his annoyance with tedious things like war, first, I’d be no better than those paper princesses, with even less of a future. ”
Charlie was silent while I worked the conditioner through her strands.
“There’s a reason selfishness isn’t a sin, Hunter.
It’s because it’s not one. We should all be looking out for ourselves first and foremost, because no one else is going to do it for us.
No one’s going to lust for our desires more than we will ourselves, and it’s in that lust that you find the things worth living for. ”
Turning her around, I looked deep in her eyes.
“Love was poisoning you. It was ruining your life and holding you back,” I said.
“Deep down, in the place you won’t admit exists, you were sick of being a parent to a kid you didn’t even fucking have.
You were sick of taking on all the responsibility of making sure her desires were filled while yours died in your dreams. You were sick,” I hissed, “of being chained to her with a bond more twisted than the sub bond could ever be.
“No,” I stated, my voice clear. “Love is dangerous. The only good thing it did was bring you to me, so that I could free you from its clutches.” Tipping her chin, I pressed a light kiss on her lips. “I know you don’t see that now, but you will... and I’ll wait.
“I’ll wait for you, Charlotte. For as long as it takes.”
CHARLOTTE
I waited for the door to click shut behind Ronin, and then bolted to the bathroom. Diving for the toilet, I shoved up the lid and hurled in the toilet, puking up every rancid crumb of that strawberry French toast.
My shackles clanged as I dropped back on the floor, sobbing my raw throat ragged.
“A favor.”
Dora loomed over me, her red eyes wide, innocent, and trusting as I plunged the knife into her chest.
“I did you a favor.” Ronin grinned as her body hit the floor, bleeding a river of black that spread and crisscrossed through the black. “Love was poisoning you. It was an anchor dragging you to the depths of hell.”
He snapped his fingers, and Dora crumbled to dust.
“You’re welcome.”
“Ahhh!” I screamed, pounding my head and the awful visions that assaulted me every minute of every day. But it was no use.
No matter how loud I screamed, how hard I sobbed, or how much I scrubbed, my hands remained stained with black blood.
RONIN RETURNED AFTER morning classes let out, carrying a tray of my lunch. My stomach heaved at the sight of it and him.
Ever since he buried Santino and made me ki— and took Dora from me, he’d become even crueler to me... by being kind.
It was a complete one-eighty from the lazy, horny jerk I was dealing with before. He waited on me hand and foot, he delivered all my favorite meals, and he dried all my tears.
The Ronin I wanted him to be before had finally arrived, and all it took was completely pulverizing me to dust.
For days after what happened in the library, I screamed hate and obscenities at him until my throat bled. I told him I wanted him dead. I said I’d never be his because his psychosis and obsession had ruined everything before we could even start.
And through it all, his mask of self-assurance didn’t crack once. No part of him believed he’d done wrong, and he didn’t bother to hide it.
He had his broken, obedient pet now—complete with leash and collar—and that was all that mattered.
“Hey,” he greeted. “I had them make you spicy tofu salad, but don’t worry, I made sure they went light on the—” Ronin finally looked up and saw me. For the first fucking time in two weeks, the mask cracked.
Brows blowing high, the tray slipped out of his hand.
My hair was gone.