Lucien stood there, just watching her. He could not form words. Vetta continued. “We might be out of slavery, but I was still the whore you treated me like! You make love to Danika all the time but you fuck me like a whore anyway. Because I am Vetta, the trash. The one that never deserved you because I am not privileged too! I am not royalty!” He flinched. “I was the whore slave, and so, you discarded me for her. The royalty. The pure one. The good one.” She let out that empty laughter again that sounded hollow. “You think she loves you, right? Is that why you’re discarding me!? Why you’re treating me this way!?”
“Vetta—”
“I’m not done!” She glared hard at him. “I know you think she loves you, and you’re already in love with her. She doesn’t love you! She is just using you so well. She is in slavery, what do you expect!? Or have you forgotten already?” She took a step closer to him. “In slavery, you do everything you can to be free. In slavery, you do everything you can to ease the pain, the torture, the suffering. It’s her strategy. You’re her strategy.” She laughed hollowly. “And oh, did it work so well! You threw me away for her, but she is just using you, Lucien!”
He said nothing. His eyes remained unreadable. In fact, he showed no reaction at all. That only angered Vetta the more. Made her more bitter. She walked closer to him until she stood in front of him. “As a slave master who has been a slave before, you forgot the most important thing. A slave will do anything at all to come out of slavery.” Her mouth to his ear, she lowered herself to a whisper. “Including...faking kindness. Faking to be good. And the most important? Pretending to love your master.”
His hands curled into fists. He squeezed them tightly.
She saw it. “You know what I say is the truth. No, you fear what I say will be the truth,” she amended with a coy smile. “That is why you’re so hesitant to uncollar her. What else is holding you? You and I know it’s no longer about her father or revenge. Uncollar her then and give her back her free will. Then we will see if she will still choose you. If she will still choose to be with you. Let’s see if she doesn’t run away and never come back!”
Vetta tsked and shook her disarrayed hair. “But you won’t, will you? Because then you would have to find out if she’s the fairytale you want you to believe she is, or she is the daughter of her father! You’re scared to find out. Because then you will be losing her.”
Then she returned to her usual spot and lowered herself to the floor again. Suddenly, Vetta was drained and tired. All those things said, she couldn’t meet his eyes anymore. She wiped the angry tears that had rolled down her cheeks.
Silence descended on them—one that stretched for so long, Vetta was forced to look up to make sure he was still there.
“You're right. I neglected you. If I didn't, I would have found out long ago that you are so bitter. How did you become so bitter?” He was looking at her with new eyes. This was not the woman he'd spent ten years with in the dungeons of Mombana. “What happened to you? How did you become this way?”
Vetta did not like the new look in his eyes. He was staring at her like she was a stranger. Was she? When did she change so much? With her anger all vented out on him, she had nothing else to shield herself with anymore. So she only shook her head. When did she change so much?
He looked tired. Drained. He turned and walked out of her dungeon.
Her mouth opened to call him back. To say something. Anything! But there was nothing else to say. She closed it.
He stopped at the door, his back to her. “Do you remember what I told you once upon a time?”
“Wh-what is that?” Her voice was throaty and hoarse from shouting so much.
“The day you whipped Danika badly, I said some words to you.”
That day flashed in her mind.
“I freed my people because I want my people to experience being free again. Cone made me a monster, but it is my duty to protect my people. Let me carry all the burden alone, Vetta. It is my responsibility. My duty as a king. As my father's son.”
“There shouldn't be two monsters together, or the vicinity will be in danger. Two monsters cannot stay in the same place.”
He'd turned and stared at her. There was sadness in his eyes, but there was conviction too. “We have been through so much together, Vetta, but the day I look upon you and see a monster is the day I let you go. Completely.”
The memory caused a shiver down her spine. Dread and desperation missed becoming one.
“Lucien, please—”
Hands at his back, he threw her an unreadable look over his shoulder. “I will be back, Vetta. And when I do, I will pass your judgement. Until then, you will be here.”
“No, wait! You know how much I hate enclosed spaces! You know how much dungeons terrify me! This place will drive me mad, Lucien! Please—”
He walked out of the door without a backward glance.