Chapter 96: The Wreckage of Him
"Is that why? Is that why you fuck
every ti the novel cos...? So even if I suspected you were getting ssages... I would never, ever think of cutting it off?"
She lted into his embrace, her sobs shaking them both. "No..." she whimpered, the denial sohow more devastating than confirmation. "I fuck you... every ti I’m happy or angry from the news outside... I need... I need to feel it. All of it. With you."
Stevan cursed under his breath. Then he dipped his head and captured her lips in a hard kiss.
The ecstasy of it...
The pain, the truth, how it revealed the addicted animals beneath.
Yes. It had to be the poems. Those seemingly generic, florid verses left on the final page of every Chapter. They were the code, woven into ink and sentint, passing right under his nose, through his own hands. He’d noticed, but couldn’t ever decode them himself!
The cipher... whoever had designed it was a different kind of mind entirely. A mind that spoke to hers across miles and stone.
"She’s not dead, Angela," he murmured against her hair. "She’s just... dethroned. Exiled. She could be anywhere."
Angela wrenched back in his arms, glaring up at him. Her face was a storm of furious sorrow. "Do you think I don’t know when my best friend is dead?" she spat, her voice trembling with conviction.
"That Vasiliev bastard—the son of a bitch still has the leth Flower! The flower he was supposed to use to free her! My people confird it! You think they’d give
false news about that?"
"You—!" Stevan’s hands spasd on her waist, gripping tight with a surge of anger so potent it bordered on violence. A soft, involuntary moan escaped her lips, the sound only fueling his chaotic fury. Her network wasn’t just alive, it was feeding her verified intelligence?!
"How?" he demanded, his voice a low growl. "How did you send the words out? The books co in. Nothing goes out."
Angela clutched at the front of his tunic, her knuckles white. "The als..." she whispered. "The special als I recomnd you try, once in a while. ’Comfort stew.’ ’Sunrise porridge.’ ’Honey-glazed fowl.’ The nas... they were the code. The requests went to the kitchen, and from the kitchen... to the right ears outside."
This woman—
She had turned the prison’s own routines against itself. She had used his comfort, his indulgence, as her transmission line. Every ti he’d taken a bite of sothing she’d suggested, he’d been an unwitting courier.
"Angela—" Stevan’s growl was raw, his eyes burning with betrayal and a fury, almost incinerating his own helpless need for her. How dare she use him like this? How dare she weave him into her web so completely that he couldn’t tell where his duty ended and her manipulation began?
But the anger crashed against the sight of her. A sobbing, shattered wreck in his arms, her grief so great it fogged the air. The fury bled out as he found himself left with a helpless ache.
"Stevan..." Her hand, cold and delicate, crept up to the key ring still hooked on his belt. Her eyes, swimming with tears, held his, unblinking. "Just... let
out. For one night. This is the first ti I’ve ever asked you this. It will be the last."
A fresh tremor ran through her. "I need to find my best friend... her body... She must be out there sowhere, so cold... That bastard must have left her in a ditch, or worse... Please—"
Her composure shattered again. She buried her face against his chest, her words dissolving into heartbroken weeping. "Stevan... my best friend... she—"
No matter how deep the anger ran, how could he yell? How could he refuse the woman shaking apart in his embrace? The woman who held the other half of his addicted soul?
"I’m a princess," she sobbed, hysterical. "The only way I can be with you, truly be with you, is to stay here as a prisoner! Don’t you understand that?! Why do you think I let them lock
in here in the first place?! It was for you! So I could be yours!"
Stevan squeezed his eyes shut. Her sweet, sweet words. A poison he’d long since learned to crave, and they seeped into him now, bypassing all logic, all duty.
"I’ll co back to you," she whispered, fervently promising against his skin. Her fingers closed around the cold tal of the keys. "You’re my one and only. I swear it."
Sothing bitter rose from the pit of Stevan’s stomach and clogged his throat. The sweetness of her promise curdled in an instant.
"Your one and only..." he repeated, the words a sneer that scraped raw against the damp air. His grip on her tightened in a kind of agonized possession. "Like your ex-beast-husband was? The one you married in your grand, bondless farce?"
Angela’s eyes, still swimming with tears, faltered. She surged into his space, her voice a low, furious hiss.
"I didn’t fuck him to fake our bond, you fool!" the words were daggers. "That spineless bastard couldn’t even manage that much! He ca all over my wedding dress the night before the ceremony instead! You think he dared to do more than you did?! Against ?!"
How—
"That night..." Angela’s voice broke, the fury draining as suddenly as it had co, leaving her hollow, exhausted. Her words grew weaker. "That first night with you... in this cell... was my first ti. You idiot."
She slumped against him, the fight gone. "Cecilia and I..." she whispered, the sound barely audible. "We really did fall in love with the worst n possible, didn’t we?"
"That Vasiliev bastard... and you..."
Angela looked up at him, her eyes no longer holding fury or cunning, just desperate pleas. "Stevan..." she breathed, her voice trembling. "Then co with . Co with
to find her. Help
tell the world her story—the real story. Let’s find my Cece... my best friend... Cec—"
CLICK—
The sound was small, tallic, and very alien in the sealed world of the cell. It wasn’t the drip of water. It wasn’t the shift of stone.
It was the sound of a lock disengaging.
Both of them froze. Their heads snapped toward the heavy, iron-bound door in unison.
...An unlocking sound? From the outside?
CREAK—
The door groaned inward.
"Oh, Gigi~ How are you holding up in this dreary little—"
Cecilia’s cheerful, singsong call died in her throat. She stood frozen, frad in the doorway.
Inside the cell, the disheveled couple, the legendary warden in a state of undress, the imprisoned princess clutching his tunic, face wet with tears, stared back at her.
Silence...
"Bro what the fuck, sorry."
Cecilia closed the tal door back.
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