This is written to Clare K. R. Miller ‘s request for More Daxton & Esha.  The Daxton/Esha story to date can be found at this tag and it begins with A Rescue, of Sorts.

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Daxton was captive again, struggling not to take it in ill grace. This time, it seemed unlikely that Esha could rescue him.

It was a captivity far more posh and sometimes far less comfortable than his time in the Red Queen’s dungeons. Nobody, as far as he knew, was dying because of him, which was very pleasant. He had his own bed to sleep in, baths as often as he wanted them — and then some — and very nice food, occasionally in excess of what he could either want or need.

It was beginning to seem, however, that he’d had more freedom when chained in the dungeon. For one, the Red Queen had often left him alone — sometimes for days on end. For another, although there had been a script to follow with the Queen, it had been an easy one, and involved very little actual lying. It had helped, too, that he hated the Red Queen.

Daxton didn’t hate his parents, and he certainly didn’t hate their staff or any of the other people complicit in this captivity. There were courtiers, hangers-on, and installations, people who might as well be furniture for all they could budge, that he felt less than entirely fond of. But even the worst of those, bumps on the log of his parents’ court, Daxton did not hate. In his life, he’d only truly hated the Red Queen and sometimes, on bad days, her guards. Continue reading →