The Carnival's Daughter: A Dark Dystopian Romance (Kingdom Duet Book 1)

by Esme Devlin

  I drop my head into his lap without thinking. He shot me? What’s happening?

  No.

  He didn’t shoot me.

  There’s laughter behind me.

  “Fucking idiot,” Andrei mutters, before resuming his snickering. “You might have warned me.”

  Glancing around, Andrei is still standing dutifully with his back turned away from us.

  In front of him…

  I can’t bring myself to look for more than a heartbeat.

  Heat spreads over my body as my mind races in confusion. He shot the man? Baron shot the man?

  But I obeyed every one of his orders?

  Everything hits me all at once.

  Frustration.

  Defeat.

  Suspicion.

  Resentment.

  It’s like a poisonous cocktail, mixed expertly by him.

  The Devil himself.

  I look up only to see him staring down at me. I wish I could see his face. I wish I could know what he’s thinking. I bet he is delighted with himself.

  That heady mix of emotions settles into my bloodstream and now the only thing I see is red.

  No one should have this much power over someone.

  Over everyone.

  The man may be the Devil, but he thinks he is God.

  “You cheated.” I spit the words at him like venom. “You cheated!”

  “Oh stop it, silly girl. Do you really think I’d coerce you into violating yourself against your will? What kind of sick fuck do you take me for?”

  “You cheated!” I bang my fists down on his thighs in rage.

  “Indeed I think I did not. What I failed to do is make you fully aware of the rules, though I maintain a morsel of rational thought from your side would have been enough to figure them out.”

  I shake my head at him in disbelief.

  My mind is too thick with red mist to process what he’s saying straight away. I say his words back to me, wishing he would speak in simple sentences. Wishing that for once, he would just tell it to me straight.

  Just fucking tell me what I’m supposed to do.

  He did tell me the rules. He’s trying to trick me. “No,” I argue. “You told me if I did what you said, he’d live. You’re a liar.”

  “I told you we would see if you’d obey or defy. I told you if you won, I’d spare his life, and if you lost, he’d lose it. You should have known any man who looked upon your naked flesh would not live to recite the memory. If you’d kept your clothes on, he would have lost his teeth, but I would have spared his life. Now do not think to mince my words, sweet girl, for I always know precisely what I’m saying — even if you do not.”

  “You’re mad,” I tell him. “Why the fuck would you do that?”

  He stands up quickly, pulling the zipper up on his jeans and taking a step around me before yanking me up with him.

  He holds me close to his chest, and I feel the rise and fall of it against my back. His hand twists in my hair, the other one pressed firmly into my stomach.

  “Two reasons. The first, is that no matter how much I claim I’d never molest or rape you, you would have never believed me. I tend to think actions speak far louder than words, don’t you? As for the second — this way.”

  We’re moving now.

  He moves his hand up my body, caressing my breast on the way until it rests on my shoulder to steer me. The one still wrapped in my hair ensures I can’t run from him. He unlocks the door and presses me up against it before letting me back a few inches.

  “Read,” he commands.

  There is a sign nailed to the door that I swear was not here when we entered. I couldn’t have missed something so obvious. “What is this?”

  “This, my dear, is your second lesson. The one that will hopefully make you think twice before giving into that lovely conscience of yours. I assure you, there are very few people alive today who deserve the effects of you keeping yours intact. Now read.”

  Robert Hamel.

  Notorious cannibal. Wanted for the murder of eight children. Found guilty and sentenced to death.

  Baron stares at me while my lips move silently, and then he spins me around and pushes me up against the wall. My skin is freezing all over — it’s cold down here — but it’s not just the external temperature. I feel cold inside, too.

  This is too much.

  He is too much.

  The whole fucking thing is just far too much.

  My lip trembles as I try to hold it in. Keep it locked away. Did I do the right thing? Baron seems to think I did. The man was as good as dead anyway.

  “Now do you see? That is the world out there, Sapphire. It is a brutal place, filled with death and suffering. You think you and your fellow sisters are so hard done by? I think you are indeed the lucky ones. You wanted answers to your questions? So you could form a plot to escape? I have just shown you the answer. You’d be raped or eaten or sold before sundown on your first day of freedom. That is the answer to every single question you will ever have for me. The —”

  “Stop!” My fists slam into his chest, and he takes a step back. I don’t stop, though. That felt far too good to stop. I do it again. “Stop.”

  He has stopped his raving now, but I can’t help myself. I can’t stop myself. It’s like I’ve been chained up my whole life and now I’m finally free.

  I push him away from me, lashing out and punching down with balled fists. “Stop.”

  Stop stop stop.

  That’s all I want now.

  For him to stop.

  I can deal with his games.

  His tricks.

  I can even deal with him winning — for really I didn’t have a chance to begin with and he told me as much. But what I can’t deal with is him trying to take away my hope.

  Once he takes my hope, he has everything.

  Baron laughs as I continue my assault on him. I’m not even hurting him. Nothing I do can hurt him. But I don’t care, it makes me feel better.

  I hit him until my arms are heavy and my lungs are burning with need. I’m panting, trying to see him through the tears that are welling in my eyes.

  My fists turn even weaker. He’s not even fighting back, just standing there and taking everything I’m giving him. Eventually I feel empty. I feel like there is nothing left inside me to give.

  It’s at that moment Baron takes a step towards me, pulling me close and locking me into his chest. “Oh my sweet girl. Stop this now.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  SAPPHIRE

  He picks me up as if I weigh nothing at all, and that is exactly how I feel.

  Drained and weightless.

  I don’t even fight him when he wraps my legs around his waist.

  Instead, I cling to him and tuck my head in the space between his shoulder and the edge of his mask. He smells even more like him here, and strangely there is something comforting about it.

  Above everything else there is a need inside me to be comforted, and even though he is the cause of everything, he is also the only person I have.

  So I breathe him in, and I let him comfort me.

  I remain quiet as he walks the long path back upstairs. I’m still naked, but that doesn’t bother me. I know now he won’t let anyone see me. He has proved that to be true with his actions. The man in the room paid the price for that lesson.

  And I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel about that.

  Should I be filled with grief? A man is dead, and it was down to my actions. But apparently he wasn’t a man who deserved to live, so does that make it okay?

  When the world goes to shit, who gets to decide what laws should be defended? Who chooses that rape and murder are fine, but only if you don’t eat your victims.

  Baron, apparently.

  It occurs to me that we are living under the rule of a man who twists right from wrong so easily that the two cease to exist. The law of a man with a shattered mind. The law of the Devil himself.

  And since he doesn
’t explain the rules, there are only his whims.

  I wonder how anyone survives him. But I also wonder how anyone survives outside of him, too.

  I guess when the world goes to hell, the only thing left to do is worship the devil. The problem is, I have no idea how to do that. I don’t know what he wants, and the thought of finding out terrifies me.

  We enter the room and he doesn’t bother with lighting the candles. Instead, he walks straight to the bed and sits down on the edge of it. I take my cue to crawl away, but his arms grip tighter around me.

  “Don’t fight me,” he whispers. “Have I not shown you now that I will never hurt you?”

  I stay silent for a long minute.

  My mind is reliving the events of the night, replaying them over and over again. It is hard to believe the man who sits cradling me, whispering in my ear while his fingers trace circles on my spine is the same man who is capable of all that.

  “What did you do to those children? He was about to tell me before Andrei stopped him.”

  Baron makes a sound that could be a sigh or a laugh and slides us back on the bed. He lies down, head on the pillow, and arranges me so I’m still lying over him. My legs are parted over his stomach, but there is little sexual about the way he is holding me. Every other time I’ve felt frozen… as if he was one step away from holding me down and having his way with me. But tonight it’s not like that. Tonight it is calm.

  Almost… easy.

  “He would never have told you, for he’d have thought his admittance would have signed his own death warrant. He didn’t understand the rules, either,” he says. “I buried his children. Well, what was left of them. The woman he kept fled here.”

  I sit up, momentarily forgetting that it’s too dark to see his features and tell if he’s lying. Then I remember I wouldn’t be able to see his features anyway. There is no way to tell if he is lying or not. But surely this is a place women flee from, not seek out as a refuge?

  “Why?”

  Baron shrugs slightly. “I don’t pretend to understand the intricacies of a woman’s mind. All I know is my guards caught her climbing the gate. She was a fucking mess.”

  Well, I suppose you would be after escaping such horrors. I would like to speak to her. Find out where she came from, what led her to her fate, and why she ran here of all places. If people run here, then that suggests there is nothing else to run towards. I don’t want to believe that. “And what became of her?”

  “This was all over a year ago,” he says, as if I’m bringing up ancient history. “Your little friend, the one you fought for so valiantly, has been evading me since. The woman is gone now. Out of her misery.”

  I shudder at the thought, but I choose not to pry any further. What good would that do, hearing the words come from his lips? She is dead. Perhaps by his hand. If I get him to admit that to me, then the only person in the world currently holding me together ceases to exist.

  It hits me just how alone I am now.

  Maybe this is what he wanted the whole time.

  But… there may be hope. Just because that woman didn’t survive, doesn’t mean there aren’t others who have seen the outside. And if I could only just speak to them… I’d get better answers than I ever could from Baron.

  He says there is nothing out there. Only death and suffering. I suppose he would say that, though, wouldn’t he?

  My mind is spinning with a new way forward.

  “I’d like to go to sleep now,” I tell him.

  His arms tighten around my back and he presses me close to him. “Then sleep.”

  The days following his game go by in much the same way.

  He is never here when I wake up. I ready myself and try to find the kitchen. On the third day, I finally make it there without getting frustrated.

  I wander the halls, peeking in rooms and running into locked doors and bricked up passageways. On the fourth day, I make it outside.

  On the fifth day, I make it outside in time to see the sun setting behind the trees. My skin is always completely covered, and I wonder what it would feel like to have those warm rays kiss my flesh.

  He always sends for me at some point in the evening.

  Sometimes we eat together in a grand dining room — well, I eat while he watches me.

  Sometimes he asks me to dance for him, and I agree, thankful that I’m not naked this time and there is space between us.

  Sometimes I just sit in the corner of his office reading a book while he does his work.

  I’m careful with my words, scared that one wrong sentence will set off another game of his. But he is always nice to me. Perhaps nice is a strong word. He’s still twisty and arrogant and mischievous and stern — sometimes all of those things at the same time.

  What he is, though, is just not so difficult.

  The difficulty comes when he entertains his guests.

  It could be during another one of his sick shows, or in the club which takes up the whole left wing of the highest floor.

  Sometimes I will sit on his knee and let him fawn over me because I know how he likes that.

  Sometimes, when I’m feeling particularly salty or even bored, I’ll argue over it and end up on the floor.

  Sometimes he lays traps for me down there — traps which inevitably end up in him losing his temper in front of everyone — and I’m sent to my room where Andrei ties me to the bed with Baron’s threats ringing loudly in my ears.

  He will beat me black and blue.

  He will fuck me sore.

  He will put me over his knee and slap me until I crack my own teeth in distress.

  But those threats never come to fruition.

  By the time he eventually comes to my room, he is either playful or he is already indifferent towards me.

  Sometimes he lies beside me on the bed and watches me pretending to sleep. Sometimes he unties my wrists and sits on the chair in the corner. Sometimes, he merely brushes my hair from my face before leaving the room.

  Sometimes.

  I like to think I’m learning how to survive here, but I’m never at peace. Though I have a routine, it feels just like I’m backstage. The smell of smoke from whatever performance Ruby is doing thick in the air. The crowd outside loud and boisterous, but the space back there empty and quiet. Calm — but it’s a superficial calm. It’s the calm before the chaos, where the weight in the pit of my stomach is at its heaviest.

  I know it can’t last forever.

  Every day when I wake up I look at the writing implements on the desk. He told me to write down my questions, but every time I go to do it nothing comes out. He said the answer to every question I’d ever ask lies in the answer he already gave me. There is nothing left outside but havoc and death.

  Which tells me I need to ask someone else.

  But there has never been the right moment to ask him that question.

  I need him in a playful but agreeable mood, and every time that happens, he minces my head so much that I forget about it.

  But not today.

  Today I will do it.

  I decided that before I fell asleep, and when I wake up it’s the first thing on my mind.

  The day — well, evening — goes by as usual. I find the kitchen, have something to eat, and then wander the gardens until one of his guards seeks me out.

  Baron is in his office. He doesn’t even look up when I enter the room, which isn’t a good sign.

  If he was in one of his moods tonight, he’d have made me sit on his knee to greet him. Probably toyed with me a little and got me all flustered before he allowed me to take my seat.

  Tonight is not one of those nights.

  I let out a dramatic sigh as I sit down on the chair that has quickly become mine.

  “Am I boring you?” He doesn’t even look up from his papers, pretending he is not interested. But I know differently. I’ve been watching him, trying to learn the way his mind works. That’s easier said than done when his mind is quite clearly broken, b
ut if there is one thing I do know — it’s that he likes to be the centre of attention.

  Everyone’s attention.

  Sighing and acting like his presence is of no consequence is a sure fire way to get under his skin. His disinterest in my boredom is just as much a mask as the one that hides his face.

  It’s a pretense.

  “No,” I say, although there is no conviction in my tone.

  He looks up now, just as I suspected he would, and leans back in his chair. I sense he is about to start some game, but tonight I am ready for him.

  “My sweet girl is bored tonight? Tired? Melancholy? Tell me, what can I do to ease your suffering?” The tone of his voice is amused, and I try to fight the uneasy feeling threatening to settle in.

  Baron never stays amused for long.

  “I’m not bored,” I tell him. “I’m lonely.”

  He chuckles and puts his hands together in an inverted V shape.

  “A problem so easily fixed. You know you can seek me out. Always. You are quite the distraction, but a welcome one. Come, sit with me.”

  I shake my head.

  Here it is.

  Straight for the jugular.

  “I don’t want you,” I tell him. “I want a friend.”

  He sits up in his chair and doesn’t speak for a long time. It’s probably only seconds, but the silence seems to stretch on forever.

  “And why would you need that?” he snaps. “Am I not enough for you?”

  My heart rate increases at the change in his tone. He’s snappy. I don’t know what I’d expected… but not this. I’d planned to lure him into a game, perhaps even one I could control… but we’re headed in a direction I don’t know how to come back from.

  What do I do?

  Push on and hope we change course, or try to soothe his fractured ego?

  “It’s not that, you are more than enough, of course” I say, my tone sickly sweet. “But there are things that should be discussed between women. And I only have you.”

  I can almost imagine him narrowing his eyes at me. “And what things would that be?”

  “Womanly things,” I say. “Matters of the heart… and body. Matters a man such as you would not understand.”