Page 64 of The Beast Who Broke Me
Caligula is still where the cameras have been showing him all day. Curled on his side on the bed, one arm tucked under his head, the collar around his neck.
I have a flash of him as he was at the Obelisk. Gold dust on his skin. Chin high, eyes bright, tongue sharp. A prince selling himself to monsters.
Now he looks…small.
His eyes are still closed.
“Caligula.”
His eyes open. That’s the only way I know he hears me as I cross to the bed.
It’s the stillness that bothers me. He’s just lying there like someone turned off a switch. But I wanted this. I planned it. I should be satisfied with the outcome.
“Get up.” No response. “Don’t make me carry you.”
Still nothing. I reach down and close my hand around his upper arm, pulling him upright. He lets me, passive as a doll.
I take out the key for the collar. My fingers are clumsy, but I get it open, take it from around his neck. There’s a red mark where it sat. His hair is a mess, and he looks washed out in this light.
“Stand up.”
He gets to his feet clumsily. Sways. I take his arm to steady him, and he doesn’t pull away. Doesn’t lean in, either. He just stands there and lets me hold him up.
I steer him to the elevator. He walks where I push him, stops when I stop him, steps in when the doors open. He stands in the corner staring at nothing, and the elevator light is harsh on the bruises I left on him the other night.
I look again at that red line around his neck from the collar. And then I look away.
“You’re going to eat something,” I tell him. “Rosa’s cooking.” Nothing. “And you’re going to shower. You look like shit.”
His mouth moves. For a second I think the real Caligula Clemenza is about to surface, some acid observation about my own personal grooming standards, maybe, or something about the hospitality.
But his lips close again.
I decide to put him in my bedroom because it’s closest to the elevator. I lead him to the bed and he almost collapses into it after I pull the covers back, curling onto his side, facing away from me.
Same position. Same silence.
For one wild moment I want to grab him and shake him until the real Caligula Clemenza comes snapping back into place. The ice prince. That vicious little viper with a strategist’s mind and a tongue like a whip.
Instead, I go into the bathroom, get a glass of water and set it on the nightstand, and look down at him again.
I don’t know what I’m waiting for.
I walk away and stop at the door. “Take a fucking shower.”
Still nothing.
I pull the door mostly closed behind me and then I go down to the guest room and sit on the edge of the bed until I hear footsteps on the stairs.
It’s Rosa, bringing up a meal for him. I meet her in the corridor and grab the tray. “I’ll take it in.”
I don’t want her to see him like that. She’ll only think worse of me. She hands it over with a cold stare and tells me dinner is ready downstairs. But when I take the tray into the bedroom, he’s not there. Motherfucker. Did he run again?
Then I hear the sound of the shower in the bathroom.
I knew it. He’s fuckingfine.
By the time I go back up to bed, my bedroom door has been shut completely. I debate going in there and telling that snake that he better enjoy one night in comfort, because that’s all he’s getting, but instead, I just lock the door from the outside and get some shut-eye myself in the guest room.
