Hair damp with sweat, blue robes snapping about his ankles, my father claimed my elbow, but I shook him off, glaring at Belle. “How? How can I leave her behind? How canyou?”
“Because she sacrificed herself for us, Mila.” Belle smiled, tears spilling over her lashes. “The Goddess will protect her, but we cannot fight this army as we are. I was there. I watched the Elites break the line like we weren’t standing there trying to hold it. They have… their weapons are… I don’t know. The power…” she shivered. “We can’t fight them. Not now. We don’t have the resources. But what we’re doing in the labs is too important to fall into the wrong hands. Into Caledonian hands. They’ll corrupt any good we were trying to do here. Those people,” she continued, pointing to the dark tunnel swallowing the ragged line of filthy refugees, “are the vehicle of our vengeance. Right now, those men and women of science are what’s important. We must get them to safety, where they can be protected, andthenwe will plan our counterstrike.”
Smoothing damp palms on my skirt, I nodded, clutching the High Priestess’ Glaith. She was right. If a true Trila-Glís could fall so easily, what hope did I have, weakened and with no training to speak of?
“We’ll sort it out later, girls. Quickly now,” my father said, shepherding Belle into the dark. When it was just the two of us, he held his hand out to me, beckoning.
I filled my lungs with a deep, steadying breath and reached for him. “Daddy—”
Captain Rawlings skidded to a halt at the end of the hall, weapon spitting green flames at the floor,mypendant clutched in his free, gloveless hand. Inky eyes darting from me, to my father, and back.
My father shouted, hands outstretched. “Come to me, girl!”
Captain Rawlings swung his weapon toward my father. “Don’t take another step, Senator.”
An uncharacteristic sneer spread across my father’s face and he pressed forward, daring the man to shoot.
The captain grimaced and shifted his aim to my face. “I said, don’t.”
“You’d shoot an unarmed girl, Elite?”
“Are you willing to bet that I won’t?”
Blood screamed in my ears.
“I thought not,” the captain continued, taking another step into the caves. “Now, kindly stand back, Senator. That’s it. All the way into that dark little hole.”
“Daddy—”
The captain’s ki whipped at me through virgin Glaith. Whispering… urging… “Come to me.”
“Don’t you dare,” my father hissed, fists clenched at his sides.
The captain raised his palms, letting his weapon dangle by the trigger from his middle finger. And he took another step, this one to the side. “I’ll be good to you,” he purred and swept his thumb over my pendant, caressing, making me feel it on my lower lip. His ki surged into my mind, hammering at me with a soothing promise, abusing the link he’d left behind with a kiss. “You’ll never want for anything.”
“You’re not a slave!” my father shouted, voice cracking. “You’re a senator’s daughter!Mydaughter! Come on, baby girl. Come here. To me.”
Hands trembling, I tried to turn, tried to focus on my father above all else… Tryingnotto feel the promise tugging at me… teasing my senses…
The captain smiled. “It won’t be a bad life. I know you can feel whatever this is—” he gestured at the twenty or so paces separating us, shortening the gap with another step.
“Don’t let him do this to you, baby. Please!”
The captain tilted his head to the side, glancing back toward the direction he’d come, ignoring my father. “The others are coming, little Priestess. Trust me when I say you don’t want one of them to realize what you are—”
“Youdon’t know what she is!”
With a throaty laugh, the captain’s dark eyes flicked over my shoulder. “Of course I do.” He took another step, letting my pendant—mymother’spendant—catch the dim light and my father’s eye. “We’re the same, she and I.”
But he was steady. “Hardly, my daughter is a thousand times your superior.”
“I know it doesn’t make sense right now, Priestess,” the captain continued, slipping a little closer, “but I’m trying to help you. You don’t want one of the others as your master.”
“Her master? Ha! She would never—”
The captain flung everything he had at me, swamping my mind with want… desperate need. “Come to me, little Priestess…”
I blinked, taking a step forward. Scratching at the back of my mind, my father’s voice continued to needle me. But… I could no longer hear individual words. Could hear nothing but the purr vibrating through the air between us, super heating my skin and thoughts.
