ndras and Eve hadn't felt love for each other. How could she possibly understand what love was when her entire existence was the absence of it? She supposed he always assumed it was something for her to throw in Marek's face to hurt him back. But she knew better than to try. You can't fight a war when you are the only solider surrounded by the enemy. You bide time until there is a moment to make a move.

No, she was incapable of loving him but perhaps she had cared for him in her own way. The truth of the matter was that he was a distraction, something for her to find solace in; to lose herself when she had nothing but pain and torment. How naïve she had been...

Eve gazed at the man who sat across the table from her. The man she had shared her bed with, allowed to touch her and have her body without question. His reminder of their tryst only earned him an arch of her brow and a lusty smirk. "And here I always thought the twenty minutes' prior, with us strolling around talking about what we wanted to do in said closet was the a aforementioned foreplay. I stand corrected." She said in a sarcastic tone as she took another long sip of her scotch.

His roving eyes and comment earned him another dark smile that curved her red lips. "I suppose I should apologize for your loss of sleep, but unfortunately, I find I'm not sorry. I do hope it's not too frequent that you lose sleep." Eve teased him. Oh, it would have pleased her that he might have thought about her after he left. That he could have lied awake at night and thought of their... time... together. Though, Eve wasn't naïve enough to think it actually true.

Still, this walk down memory lane forced her to remember things that she had spent the last century burying deep and when he started to make his excuses for leaving, she rose gracefully from her seat to move towards the alcove railing that was behind her chair. She rested her hands on the gilded rail as she looked across the bar at the patrons below, leaving her back to him as she listened to him. A frown carved itself on to her lips. Business. Blah blah blah. So causally he makes his excuses. But it was his last remark that had her freeze and grip the rail for a moment before she turned to face him.

Eve leaned her hip against the railing, hands resting outstretched. The expression on her face was haughty, and brutal as she looked upon him defiantly. Her expression clashed with the beauty of her face. She looked every bit the old Hollywood starlet in all their black and white glory as they stood up with righteous indignation against the leading man. But it was in her eyes, a darkness; callous and cruel. They rippled like liquid as they changed from the stunning blue to a brilliant red-flecked gold. A cruel, incredulous laugh escaped her lips. "No, Andras, that is where you are mistaken." Her tone was cold and there was nothing of good humor or sarcasm. "Marek's fate was bought the moment his dear Queen mother and dear King father turned me in to this." She said the words venomously as she gracefully gestured at herself. It was eerie that as she spoke, she never raised her voice.

"Marek sealed his own fate every time he abused me, berated me, tortured me and locked me away for days and weeks and months at a time in that hole of a dungeon for something as small as saying the wrong word. Marek earned his death every time he forced himself upon me and beat me for crying. That kingdom is fortunate I didn't raze the damn city to the ground in punishment for what they watched me endure. I was a child." She laughed again, still there was no humor in it. "I began plotting his demise from the moment they took me, from the moment he first laid hands on me. He was dead from that moment and he just didn't realize it yet." She took a breath as she closed her eyes for a moment.

Nothing, that is what she had been. They had stripped her of everything she had ever known, turned her in to an abomination then caged her. They abused her, beat her in to submission until they broke her and she obeyed them. But from nothing, she had played the game and she rose from the filth they kept her in. Scheming and plotting until she had clawed her way to the top, crown and all, with the power to take control. It had taken her years of subterfuge and abuse until all the puzzle pieces fell in to place and she sat on the throne above her husband while he begged for his life.

By the end, Eve had not felt anything when she told her Captain of her guard to take him away and place his head in her garden. There was nothing left to feel. Only that she would never be nothing again. When she opened her eyes a few seconds later, they had returned to their usual bright blue. "So, you see Andras, with or without you, Marek was already dead. If you stayed, you would have witnessed me give the order." Eve paused when the waiter interrupted to bring them their drinks. It gave them a moment to change the subject. The subject of the past and of Marek had grown tiresome and like Marek she had hoped the past would die.

When the waiter had disappeared she finally spoke again. "Shapeshifting Spymaster, hm?" Of course, he would try to exploit her ability. The only good thing to come out of her terrible ordeal. It didn't surprise her; he wasn't the first nor would he be last. "Oh and your titled whore? Lucky me, two positions in one. Double the work!"The dismissive, sarcastic tone was back in her voice. "Perhaps you should remind me why I should do all this for you... and what I get out of it besides a city?" She said coyly as she gave him a seductive smile that said it all.

"Talks like this"

THE QUEEN OF THORNS