Once Betrayed, Twice Shy

Hunger strike

FARAH

For the next five days, I don’t see Caspian at all. I don’t see anyone, really, beyond the quiet maid who slips in three times a day to leave trays of food on the small table near the window before disappearing again without a single word exchanged between us. I should eat. I know I should eat. And yet every single time I catch sight of that tray, some stubborn, wounded part of me refuses, as though starving myself is somehow punishing him instead of punishing my own body.

Every morning, I salivate over the breakfast tray the second its scent reaches me, and every single time, I force myself to look away. Every afternoon, I hide in the bathroom until I’m fairly certain the maid has come and gone, unable to trust myself around whatever she’s left behind. And every evening, I sit on the edge of my bed and simply stare at the dinner tray until my vision starts to blur slightly at the edges, until I’m faint enough that lying down feels like the only reasonable choice left to me.

It’s a ridiculous form of protest. I know that. I’m not even entirely certain who I’m protesting, or why, except that something about everything that’s happened—the kiss, what came after, Lucien’s devastating half-revelation, the diary’s quiet, terrible portrait of exactly what kind of monster Caspian used to be—has left me needing to control something, anything, even if that something is simply my own stubborn, empty stomach.

It takes five full days before there’s finally a knock at my door.

I’m stiffly climbing out of bed by the time it opens, grateful, at least, that I’ve kept up the bare minimum of bathing and changing out of my nightgown during this entire strange standoff. Caspian steps into the room, and his eyes rake over me immediately, sweeping from my face down the length of my body before cutting sharply toward the lunch tray still sitting untouched near the window, exactly where it’s been calling my name for the better part of an hour now.

He’s wearing a navy shirt tucked beneath a light blue waistcoat, the combination doing something entirely unfair to my stomach, and I hate how thoroughly it muddles the question of exactly what kind of hunger I’m actually dealing with right now.

When he finally glares at me, slipping both hands into his trouser pockets, I lean back against the bedpost and match his expression evenly.

“Do you plan to wither away in here?” he asks.

“Well, there’s nothing else to do.”

Something sparks behind his eyes, there and gone too fast to properly identify, before he looks away from me entirely and strolls deeper into the room, heading straight for the abandoned lunch tray.

“You need to eat,” he says. “You need to remain healthy as long as you’re under my charge.”

I narrow my eyes at him. “I have to say, that’s not the most compelling argument you could have made. Does my being weak defeat the purpose of you keeping me here at all?”

“Sounds like someone’s hungry,” he mutters, picking up a small tart and popping it between his lips without ceremony.

I watch his mouth move, his jaw working, his tongue swiping briefly across his lower lip to catch the sugar there, and I have to force my gaze away before it lingers somewhere entirely inappropriate given the circumstances.

“So, what’s the plan, Serapha?” he asks, plucking up a honeyed pastry next—my favorite, the sticky buns with sugar crystals clinging to the surface—and takes a slow, deliberate bite, watching me the entire time. “Are you waiting for someone to slip up around here so you can attempt another escape?”

My eyes lift from the pastry to meet his. I don’t bother trying to look innocent.

He saunters toward me with that same calculated disinterest he always wears so effortlessly, and my gaze moves helplessly between his chewing jaw and the remaining half of pastry still in his hand.

“Are you waiting for someone to forget to lock the door?” he asks slowly, coming to a stop directly in front of me, close enough that I have to tilt my head back just to keep meeting his eyes.

“Well, if you’re offering,” I say.

His lips twitch, the faintest ghost of amusement. He brings the bun up between us, and I brace myself to watch him finish it off entirely, bracing myself to bite back whatever pained sound my body might betray me with over the sheer injustice of it. But instead, he extends it toward my mouth.

And my lips part before I can stop them.

My eyes flutter shut as he pushes the bun gently past them, his thumb catching briefly against my bottom lip as he pulls his hand away, and the sugar bursts across my tongue in a way that makes my stomach clench tight and loose all at once. When my eyes finally open again, the reality of what I just did lands fully.

I let him feed me. During my own hunger strike.

He watches me with open triumph, sucking the sticky remnants of honey from his thumb with deliberate, unhurried ease before stepping back, and I swallow thickly, humiliated by how easily he’s just dismantled five days of stubborn resolve.

“Do you need me to hand-feed you at every meal,” he asks, “or do you think you can manage from here?”

My cheeks burn, and I straighten my spine, refusing to let the embarrassment show any more than it already has. “If you want me healthy and happy,” I say, “then I need more to do, Caspian. More to read.” I draw in a breath and push forward before I lose my nerve entirely. “I’d like access to more of the pack.”

He laughs, and he’s so devastatingly handsome doing it that it genuinely pains me.

“The pack,” he repeats.

I stare at him, waiting for him to concede, already knowing he won’t make this easy.

“Tell me specifically what you’re eager to do,” he says, “and I’ll take you there myself.”

“No.”

He scoffs. “No? You don’t want me knowing what you’re up to?”

“No. I first plan on finding out ‘How to Maim and Torture the Lycan King,’ and I’d hate to tip you off to my methods.”

He steps closer still. “You—a prisoner—wish to have unlimited access to my kingdom,” he says, and I swallow hard but hold his gaze regardless. “And what exactly do I get out of this particular bargain, Serapha? You do plan to barter something, yes?”

My skin goes cold, and my pulse picks up its pace despite myself. There’s nothing in his expression that suggests he’s actually threatening me, but my hesitation seems to make him reconsider his own words regardless, the playful edge draining out of his face entirely.

“What do you want?” I ask quietly.

He blinks, and then he sneers at me with a short laugh, stepping back and turning toward the windows instead. “My, my. Bargaining with your body so soon into our arrangement. And all it took was a honey bun.”

“I wasn’t offering my body,” I say quickly, lifting my chin. “I just meant—what do you want? Access to my memories?”

His eyes flicker over me, and he presses his lips together, gaze dropping briefly before returning to mine.

“Don’t show your hand when you’re bartering with information, Serapha,” he says wryly. “And be careful. What’s in your mind can be taken from you.”