I bare my teeth at him. “Says the asshole who comes with three males to attack a lone female.”
The male I dropped first has recovered enough to rejoin the fight, and they coordinate now, two of them grabbing my arms while a third wraps himself around my legs. I thrash against the holds, but they're Draveki, stronger than any human male I've ever fought.
“Let me go!” It comes out as a sob this time, fury and fear braided together into a sound I don't recognize.
The fourth male steps in front of me, and his silver eyes hold nothing but cold efficiency as he draws back his fist.
“I'd rather face you than Lord Vorath's wrath.”
The blow connects with my temple. Light explodes across my vision, and pain spiderwebs through my skull as my legs give out beneath me. The hands holding my arms are the only thing keeping me upright, and even those seem to fade, growingdistant, belonging to a world I'm rapidly leaving behind. Then there's nothing.
? ? ?
Consciousness returns in fragments, and I piece together my surroundings before I open my eyes. The room is small, maybe eight feet by ten, with walls carved from the canyon rock and a single reinforced door that glints in emergency lighting. No windows. The temperature and the particular whine of the air recycling system place me somewhere in the compound's lower levels, running on backup power rather than the main grid.
I'm propped against a wall, unbound and unrestrained. My mouth tastes of metal and synthetic sweetness, the chemical residue of whatever they used to keep me sedated. When I try to swallow, my throat protests with the raw ache of all that screaming.
Bruises bloom across my arms in the shape of fingers, and my temple throbs where that asshole struck me. My knees sting from being hauled across rough floors, and when I probe the swelling at my hairline, my fingers come away tacky with dried blood. The injuries are superficial. Nothing that will slow me down when the time comes.
I'm still wearing the sleep clothes I wore to his bed, thank the Gods, but the thin fabric does nothing against the cold radiating up from beneath me. Drazex's scent clings to the material, faded but present, and I press the collar to my nose and breathe him in because it's the only comfort available in this cell. His bites pulse with their own heat, throat and hips and the inside of my thighs where his mouth lingered longest. Every bruise he left has become a talisman. Visible proof of what I am to him, what we are to each other.
This is Lord Vorath's doing. The males who dragged me from that bed moved the way men move when orders come from someone who terrifies them, and when I fought back, when Ibloodied them, their fear never shifted toward me. They were terrified of failing, of returning to their master without the prize he'd demanded. Whatever consequences I could inflict with my fists and nails paled against whatever punishment awaited them if they disappointed the head of House Draven.
Which means Drazex didn't order this. The relief of that lasts only a breath before darker possibilities crowd in. If his father took me while Drazex was elsewhere, what happened when he returned to find me gone? Is he searching for me right now, tearing through the compound, demanding answers from guards who won't meet his eyes? Or has Vorath moved against his own son as well, locked him away somewhere, neutralized the threat of his heir's attachment by removing both pieces from the board?
The thought of Drazex caged somewhere in this compound, unable to reach me, not aware of where they've taken me, carves out a space deep inside me.
The texture of my scar grounds me. I've survived worse than this room. I won't break now.
Time loses meaning in the unchanging dimness. Minutes or hours pass while I sit against the wall, and the chill works its way deeper with each one. I draw my legs up and wrap my arms around my knees, curling into the smallest shape my body can make, but the cold radiates through the floor and the walls and the recycled air until my teeth chatter and my muscles ache from shivering. My sleep clothes offer no warmth, and I press my face against my knees and breathe the fading traces of his scent because it's all I have.
Sleep takes me in fragments, consciousness dissolving and reforming without warning. The drug still lingers in my blood, dragging me under when I fight to stay alert, and the dreams that find me there are worse than the waking chill. Drazex runs through corridors I don't recognize, silver eyes wild, callingmy name in a voice gone hoarse from shouting. He searches room after room and finds them empty. He tears through the compound while I rot in a cell he'll never locate, and the distance between us stretches until I can't hear him anymore, until his voice fades to nothing and I'm alone in the dark.
I jerk awake, gasping, my pulse hammering. The cell hasn't changed. The emergency lighting still pulses its dull red rhythm. I'm still here, still alone, still waiting.
I doze again. Wake again. The cycle repeats until the drug loosens its grip and I can hold onto consciousness for more than a few minutes at a time. My body aches from the chill and the hard floor and the bruises layered over bruises, and hunger gnaws at my stomach with increasing insistence. They haven't brought food. Haven't brought water. Haven't checked on me at all since they threw me in here.
The door opens without warning, and I snap upright, muscles screaming in protest, my whole body snapping to attention.
Vezra steps through the doorway, and for three heartbeats I can't process what I'm seeing. Vezra, who explained my parameters on the first night. Vezra, who manages the private wing. Vezra, who has had access to my quarters since the moment I arrived.
The shock freezes me in place, my mind rejecting the obvious conclusion as the evidence arranges itself before me. Then the shock burns away, and rage replaces it, hot enough to burn through the chill still gripping my bones.
She's the one. She's been the one all along. Murdering enforcers, poisoning Torvin, arranging Krel's ambush. I ate meals she could have touched, slept in rooms she could have entered, trusted that the compound's security would protect me from threats already inside the walls.
Vezra moves with the confidence of someone who has already won, her posture carrying an ease that makes me want to tearher throat out with my teeth. The scar on her neck catches the emergency lighting, that pale ridge of tissue the maintenance worker described, the mark that named her as the traitor who murders enforcers from within.
She stops three feet from where I sit and studies me with the detachment of someone examining a specimen. “You're awake. Good. We have matters to discuss before you're moved.”
I remain where I am with my back against the wall and let her tower over me, because height means nothing when you've already decided to win.
“Where's Drazex?”
“He's… occupied.” Her mouth curves. “His father required his attention. By now he'll have discovered your absence and he'll be tearing through the compound looking for someone to punish.”
“He'll find you.”
“Not quickly enough to matter, and Lord Vorath protects me.” She crouches and brings her face closer to mine, and the scar on her throat stretches with the movement. “You complicated things, Maeve Vance. The heir was supposed to remain focused on his duties. Controllable. Instead he started thinking for himself because of you.”
