“I—” She wasn’t wrong, the brilliant little bitch. My advantage washere,with the Grandmother at my back. But if I couldn’t step on that poisoned earth and retain my advantage, neither could the captain—who wasabsent, as if to prove my point.
“Out there,” she continued, eyes still glassy, “you’re just as vulnerable as the rest of us. Worse, as you donna have a plan worth speakin’ of.”
Glaring, I said, “I’m waiting for an opportune moment to strike. You think you can tip things in my favor with nothing but a mimic of their weaponry?”
She gave me a funny look. “Who, me? I’m just a poor, defenseless refugee”—she batted her big green eyes—“on the run from someverybad men.Help me!” she simpered, tears pooling on her waterline. “Please, help me!”
I snorted at her flimsy acting. “You’re also Belle’s lead scientist. Can’t imagine it’ll go over well if I get you captured or killed.”
She slapped my shoulder, then stood. Something of a manic gleam sparkled in eyes that were a dark, forest green. Her pupils too big. “If your wee bauble is as valuable as you think, we’ve no other choice but to try. An’ I can see there’s no changin’ your mind, so you’ve got my help, lass. Lucky for you,” she said, “this is no mere mimic of their weaponry.Idesigned it to ‘ave a little more… oopmh, if you will.” She patted her hip. “I’ll get you that opportune moment, on one condition. If there’s killin’ t’be done, you’ll letmedo it. Don’t need a ki-mad Empath on the loose, and Belle assures me that if you taste death… well…”
“And in return?”
“Enough ki to last until the sun burns out.”
Chapter 8
Before I could speak another word or refute this reckless and ridiculous plan, Alicia winked, pushed through the trees, and stumbled into the glaring afternoon sun. Tripping and gasping, she headed directly for the coach. “Help!”
Acting the damsel, without a single thought in her head except the one’s I’d planted in my haste and temper.
Grimacing, for I’d left myself no option but to pull as much ki as I could from the Grandmother, I readied the darkness to fly, not in vengeance, this time, but defense.
Laughing, a burly man hopped down from the coach. “Well, well! What’s this now? A pretty Eloran bird?”
A man I knew. Jasper’s partner. The fool I’d allowed to live so that he might spread the tale of the wood’s menace. Which meant Jasper himself was likely the pilot, and so long as my senses could be trusted, my Elite was nowhere close enough to intervene. Fingers hooked into claws, I bared my teeth in a sinister smile, filling myself with ki. Almost there…
“Please, y’have to help me!”
He laughed, reaching for her. “’Course, lucky little bird. That wood is full of monsters who’d love to take a bite from a pretty thing like you.”
Long repressed fury quaked through my frame—for all the refugees I hadn’t saved, for the brutality I hadn’t the power to squash, and the tragedy yet to come. It rattled my very bones. He had the nerve to speak of monsters, as if he didn’t see one in the mirror?
But I would do him one better. I’d show him what a monsterreallywas.
Fingers trailing through the saplings at the forest’s edge, I stepped from the gloom, letting an Empath’s great, dark wings consume my soul. Setting hooked claws to the brand on my knuckle, I strummed the link binding me to my parasite.
Taunting.
Come out to play, Captain Rawlings…
The slaver caught Alicia’s wrist, yanking her to his chest. “Let’s get you into somethin’ a little more… comfortable.”
“Wha—Get your hands off me!”
“Oh, I think I’ll let my hands do a little more than wander, little bird.”
Alicia hollered at the top of her lungs. No longer acting, as if the spell of my influence was wearing thin and onlyjustrealized the position she was in, Alicia tried to drive her knee into the seat of his groin. Trying to reach for the weapon hidden beneath her jacket that packed more oomph than the average Elite weapon.
A slap echoed through the clearing. “You’ll do well to remember your place, slut. Running only makes it worse. But fighting?” He grinned when she moved to strike him again, pinning both of her wrists with one hand. “Gets me hard. Go on. Be difficult.” He reached for his belt. “I’m happy to remind you where you belong.”
“N-No. Please, no.”
For the tremor in her voice, Alicia didn’t so much as glance over her shoulder. Didn’t betray me, even as she quaked in the fool’s hands. No, instead she worked toturnhim in spite of the risk to her virtue, setting his back to the forest. Giving me my moment, as promised.
Perfection.
One hand on his buckle, the slaver abandoned her wrists in favor of wrapping his meaty fist in a length of honey-brown hair. Forcing her to her knees. “Open.”
