The Devil's Concubine by Jaide Fox Read Free Book Online

returned with it, helping her to her feet.
    THE DEVIL’S CONCUBINE
    Jaide Fox
    23

    Pain shot through her knees and ankles the moment she rose, for she’d been
    kneeling on the hard stone for what had seemed like hours and hours. Gritting her teeth, she locked her knees and stood docilely while Talin pulled her gown over her head,
    adjusted it and haphazardly laced the back.

    She was still trying to decide if she could actually walk without hobbling around
    like a crippled elder when he scooped her into his arms and turned toward the corridor.
    She stiffened. She wasn’t certain she quite dared display her anger over her treatment at his hands now that she’d seen his temper, but she saw no reason to delude him into
    thinking she was anywhere near forgiving him for what he’d done to her--and ordered
    that son of a pig swiller to do.

    She supposed, if she were to be reasonable about the matter--which she wasn’t
    particularly inclined to be--she would have to admit that he did not appear to have had any notion of what the man would do. On the other hand, if he had cared to check before now she would not have been tortured for hours upon hours with her knees grinding into the hard stone and her arms withering from blood loss.

    “I can walk on my own,” she muttered through gritted teeth as he reached the
    main level of the castle and stalked down the corridor that led to the great hall.

    The words were hardly out of her mouth when he dropped her feet to the floor.
    Resisting the urge to glare at him, she focused on trying to keep step with him as he grasped her by one arm and strode to the middle of the hall.

    “Solly!” he bellowed, his voice still eloquent of fury even if his rigid countenance
    and heightened color hadn’t been enough to assure anyone that saw him that he was in a towering rage.

    Aliya clapped her hands over her ears, but jerked them down again when he sent
    her a searing glance.

    “Sire!” Solly, ashen faced, knelt hurriedly, having virtually run across the hall at
    the bellowed summons that had made the crystal in the overhead chandelier tinkle
    merrily.

    Talin gestured in the general direction of the dungeon. “Seize that fool, Reyhan,
    take him into the courtyard, and remove the remainder of his hide with a whip.”

    Guilt coiled tightly in Aliya’s belly as the guard flicked a quick glance at her,
    nodded, and rose, summoning several guards and heading purposefully toward the
    dungeon and the unconscious man who lay there--unless he’d come around and had the
    presence of mind to flee while he could.

    She didn’t know why she felt guilty! It was not her fault the man was a fool, or his master so ill tempered!

    She forgot the discomfiture of guilt, however, when Talin turned and headed
    toward the tower stair they’d descended before. In vain, she tried to put on brakes. She’d had more than enough time to relive those moments in the tower many times and she
    could only conclude that the fear had, temporarily at least, turned her mind. She knew very well that, as a princess, she should embrace death before dishonor, and if she could think of some way to do so short of taking a leap off the tower balcony she might be able to gather the courage to do so, but she rather thought she would prefer that he kill her now than to take her up there again. Everything inside of her clenched at the thought of being surrounded again by sky and space. Even the stone walls had seemed shaky and
    THE DEVIL’S CONCUBINE
    Jaide Fox
    24
    insubstantial when virtually all that met her gaze in any direction she looked was clouds and air.

    She could not endure it, she thought a little wildly. She would die of pure fright.

    Talin halted when he finally became aware that her feet, instead of moving, were
    skidding along the stones. Turning, he frowned at her curiously.

    Aliya threw caution and dignity to the wind. “Kill me now! Just kill me! Do not
    torture me. I can not bear it. Truly, I can