This isn't a test. This isn't one of Privis's cruel games. This is a choice. A real, terrifying, impossible choice.
I can stay. I can be dragged to Privis's bed and pray for a quick death when he's done with me. Or I can trust theother monster. The one who just gave me a choice.
My legs are shaking so hard I almost fall as I slide off the cot. I take one, tiny, shuffling step. My knees feel like water. I take another, moving out of the shadow, into the faint torchlight from the hall. I am standing right in front of him now. I have to tilt my head all the way back to see his face. He smells like the forest, like a storm, like pine and iron. He doesn't move.
The paring knife is still in my hand. It’s useless. It’s a child's toy against the world he's offering to fight.
I let it drop.
It clatters loudly on the stone floor, the sound echoing in the tense, impossible silence between us.
I lift my chin. My voice is a reedy, pathetic whisper, but it doesn't break. I look him right in those burning, amber eyes.
"I... I want to disappear."
His massive chest heaves in a single, shuddering breath. He looks at me for one more second, and the agonizing conflict in his eyes vanishes, replaced by a terrifying, cold certainty. It’s the same look he must have had in his eyes when he swung his axe at Lord Dareksword. It’s the look of a decision made. A new path chosen.
He gives a single, sharp nod.
"Done."
5
OTHIC
Her whisper, "I... I want to disappear," echoes in the cramped, cold room.
It’s the sound of a lock clicking into place. A trap snapping shut. But I am not the one caught. I am the one who has been set free.
My fate, which has been a gray, muddy, purposeless road for six months, is now a white-hot, razor-thin line. It leads from this moment to her survival. Everything else is ash.
The fated mate connection, the thing I have been crushing, poisoning withipiaand self-loathing,roarsin victory. It floods my veins with a strength that has nothing to do with muscle.Mine. To protect.
My mercenary's code, my shame, my hollow justifications—it all burns away. I failed my clan. I failed my brothers. I will not fail her.
"Done," I say, and the word is an oath.
The sound of shouting erupts from the main hall. Privis is getting impatient. His guards are coming.
I don't wait. I grab her arm. Her skin is so small, so warm, it almost burns me. "This way. Now. Not the main hall."
She gasps as my massive, calloused hand engulfs her small bicep, but she doesn't pull away. I don't give her time to think. I pull her from the room, out into the servant's passage. The air here is cold, smelling of stale food and fear.
I am a traitor. I have no coin, no home, no allies. I have only this small, fragile human and the army of a Dark Elf Lord at my back.
For the first time in six months, I feel like a warrior again.
We move fast, my heavy boots thudding on the stone floor, her lighter, quicker footsteps a desperate echo beside me. I'm heading for the barracks exit, the one that leads to the kitchens and then out into the Eelry night. It’s the fastest way out of this gods-damned fortress.
We round the junction that connects the servant's wing to the barracks, and I stop dead, shoving her behind my massive body with one arm.
Torchlight flares ahead, glinting off polished leather and drawn steel.
Krell. My mercenary captain. He's here, flanked by Tamlin and Ghor. My own squad. They aren't in their cups; they're in full armor, their faces grim. They were waiting for me.
Krell grins, a wet, ugly flash of filed teeth in the torchlight. "Well, well. Look at this, boys. The Tusk has a new pet." He jerks his chin at Aurora, who is trying to hide behind my back. "Or did you just get impatient, Tusk? Decided to take the Master's toy for yourself?"
"He's drunk," Tamlin snickers, hefting his mace. "Lost his mind."
