Capture the Crown (Gargoyle Queen #1) -Jennifer Estep Page 0,139

was lucky, he would let me play with them too. That’s when I first learned what true power really is—having your enemies helpless before you.” He cracked the whip against the floor to punctuate his gruesome point.

So Maximus had had a hand in warping Milo. I wondered what Maeven had thought about her brother teaching her son how to torture people. If she’d been horrified by the idea. If she’d tried to stop it. Or if she simply hadn’t cared.

“Maximus had an extensive collection of whips, but this one was always my favorite. It’s made from the skin of coral vipers. The whip’s magic is designed to make you feel like your skin is on fire, even more so than it would anyway from the sting of the actual wound. Just like coral-viper venom makes people feel like their blood is boiling inside their veins.”

He expertly twirled the whip around, and I couldn’t stop myself from shuddering.

“The wounds can be healed, but supposedly not even the most talented bone master can get rid of the scars that the whip leaves behind,” Milo continued in a light, conversational tone, as if he were talking about how sunny it was and not about the horrible torture he had just inflicted on me. “Leonidas would know. Uncle Maximus used this whip on him all the time. Sometimes, if I was very, very good, Uncle Maximus would let me use the whip on Leonidas too.”

I thought of how ashamed Leonidas had been for me to see the scars on his back. How he wore layer after layer of clothing like a suit of armor. How he didn’t like to be touched. How he was always so gentle and careful with me. My breath escaped in another ragged gasp, and more tears streamed down my face, but this time, they weren’t entirely for myself.

“Those truly were magnificent times.” Milo’s eyes gleamed, and a smile slithered across his lips, as if he was remembering all the terrible things he’d done to his own brother—and now to me too.

I was going to kill Milo Morricone.

I didn’t know how, I didn’t know when, but I would kill him. Even if it was the last thing I ever did, even if I died in his horrid workshop in the next five minutes, I was going to find a way to fucking take him with me. My silent vow didn’t ease the pain in my back, but it gave me something else to focus on besides my own misery.

“What’s the matter, Gemma?” Milo mocked. “Strix got your tongue? You were full of witty remarks earlier, but now you’re so strangely silent. I wonder why that is?”

He tapped a finger against his lips, as if contemplating his own question. “I suppose it’s because I’ve beaten all the wit right out of you. Why, you’re nothing but a broken doll now.”

If I’d had the breath for it, I would have laughed in his face. Yes, Milo had beaten me, whipped me, wounded me terribly—but he had not broken me. The Seven Spire massacre had broken me, but this pompous, arrogant, sadistic prince would not. I added that vow to the cold, murderous one already beating in my heart.

“If only your people could see you like this,” Milo sneered. “You’re a bloody, blubbering mess. They wouldn’t call you Glitzma now.”

He drew back his arm, as if to snap the whip against the front of my body, maybe even my face, but one of Maeven’s guards loudly, deliberately cleared his throat. Milo shot the man an angry glare, but he lowered the whip. No matter how much he wanted to hurt me, he didn’t want to risk his mother hurting him in return. He was even more of a fucking coward than I was.

Milo motioned at the three guards. “Do something useful. Put her on the table.”

I was hoping that Maeven’s men would ignore his command, but the guards stepped forward. Two of them held me upright while the third man unhooked my arms from the chains dangling from the ceiling, although he left the coldiron shackles clamped around my wrists.

I frowned. Why wasn’t the guard putting a coldiron collar around my neck like the one Wexel had used on Leonidas in Blauberg? Maybe the Mortans didn’t realize what kind of magic I had. Princess Gemma was thought to be a metalstone master, and I had never shown anyone at Myrkvior my true mind magier power, except for Leonidas and Reiko. A spark of