Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 111353 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 557(@200wpm)___ 445(@250wpm)___ 371(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 111353 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 557(@200wpm)___ 445(@250wpm)___ 371(@300wpm)
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.