I entered his tent, my posture ramrod-straight, the flawless disguise of an informant.
But beneath the subservient stance, my eyes did little to mask the tempest of rage and suffocating disgust in my chest.
I stepped forward, coming to a halt across from his tactical table.
There he sat: Hugh Rose.
The mighty Goliath of the Redcoats, the butcher of Central India, and the tyrant who had hounded my Queen.
He stared at me wide-eyed, torn between sheer terror and the desperate anticipation of a breakthrough.
His war table was a chaotic mess of dispatches, while his red officer’s coat and British sabre hung carelessly over the back of his chair.
“All of you, out of my camp—now!
Don’t come in until I ask for you!”
His command was frantic, tinged with a slight tremor.
His eyes remained locked on mine, fueled by the breathless thrill of obtaining intelligence on the calamity that had battered Brigadier Stuart.
His fingers dug into the mahogany tabletop with enough force to make the heavy wood groan.
“Now, spit it out!
Everything you saw!
What did Stuart see?
Tell me!”
A look of absolute revulsion twisted my lips, though my eyes remained unnervingly wide.
Slowly, the corners of my mouth curled into a manic, predatory smirk.
“Your funeral!
I giggled, lunging across the desk in a fraction of a second.
“You bastard!
Gua—”
Rose spat, attempting to summon his guards, but the call died in his throat before it could ever reach his ADC or the outer pickets.
I pounced on him, my left palm slamming over his mouth to muffle his screams while my legs clamped around his torso to trap him in an inescapable deadlock.
We crashed out of sight behind his massive desk; I had subjugated him completely.
The ADC, catching the muffled tail end of the shouted command, burst into the tent.
His eyes swept the room frantically, searching for his General.
“Sir Rose?”
Then, his gaze snagged on the swaying fabric of the rear exit curtains.
“Ah, again?
It seems he’s gone out for some fresh air with Sir Stuart’s aide…”
While the officer muttered to himself, I drew a needle tipped with a paralyzing neurotoxin from my coat and plunged it straight into Rose’s exposed neck.
“Now be a good boy and stay put,” I whispered with a devilish chuckle.
Within seconds, numbness crept through Rose’s veins as his limbs surrendered to the venom.
Though his lungs continued to draw breath, his mind remained sharp, and his eyes burned with horror, his body was utterly immobile.
The proud “Golden Boy” of the British Empire had been reduced to a living corpse.
As he lay helpless on the floorboards, I caught the flickering remnants of his aristocratic arrogance gleaming behind a hollow, deathly stare.
I slithered closer, leaning down to his ear to whisper through a soft chuckle:
“Oh my! This chapter was taken from g.com without permission.
Don’t look at me like that…
I’m getting scared, you know.”
Fortunately, beneath my stolen British uniform, my specialized suit concealed an array of ropes and gags.
With cruel precision, I set to work restraining the fallen beast, binding his limbs together and gagging his mouth tight.
Rose remained agonizingly conscious of every movement, yet his frantic internal struggle failed to move a single muscle against the neurotoxin in his system.
And as the ultimate stroke of fortune, the heavy ironbound chest in Rose’s quarters featured a hidden false bottom.
“Well, well…
isn’t this remarkably convenient?” I murmured, surveying his failing body.
As I moved to hoist him into the dark hollow of the chest, a low, hollow laugh slipped from my throat.
“Comfortable, my boy?
Don’t worry, Your Highness…
I’ll make sure to poke a few air holes.
Wouldn’t want my trophy suffocating before the Queen gets her show.”
What flashed in Rose’s eyes was no longer the composure of a battle-hardened general, but a storm of soul-shattering terror, animalistic panic, and helpless humiliation.
He could only watch, utterly powerless, as he was hoisted like cargo into the abyss of the trunk.
For daring to touch Jhansi, and for inflicting such brutal psychological torment upon Rani Lakshmi, this was the price the General had to pay.
For playing with Ifrit’s obsession…..
there would be no mercy.