The captain ignored me, stepping back, inky gaze sweeping the length of my body.
“Is that blood?” Marco asked, frowning at the captain’s hands, then looking to me.
The captain scowled, rubbing forefinger and thumb together as he inspected me. “Can’t tell if it’s hers or mine, at this point.”
“Both, I’d imagine,” Alicia whispered, twisting her hands. “The slaver… Jasper… she fought him.”
Clearing his throat, the captain drew a wicked, curved blade, caught my eye, and said, “Right. Well. It’s probably best if you don’t move.”
I summoned the fiercest glare I could muster. As if I had much choice in the matter, dangling helpless before him. Scarcely able to draw breath, let alone protest the destruction of my hand-crafted clothing, I was stripped bare. My armor against the elements, abrasions, and unwanted attention were cut away, discarded in a careless heap in the corner of a tiled shower stall. He didn’t stop until I was all but nude before him, hanging in nothing but the strips of cloth wound about my breasts and between my legs.
“Oh, lass,” Alicia gasped.
I craned my head around, inspecting the massive purple bruise spreading across my midsection. At the center, the outline of a fist was plainly visible, and below it, the bleeding edges of torn flesh.
“Fuck.” The captain tossed his blade into the sink, pushing a crimson hand through his thick, dark hair. Circling me.“Fuck!”
“Wildcat must have caused a lot of trouble for the slavers to dothis.”
“That’s alashfrom awhip, Marco,” the captain retorted, gently prodding my wounds. “I’m going to kill that bastard very,very, slowly.”
“Oh, Jasper’s long gone, sir.” Marco moved beyond my line of sight. “I’d bet he started running the instant the door closed behind us, the slippery little eel.”
“I need the room,” the captain said, voice clipped and tight. “Take Alicia to my closet and pick out something appropriate for both of them.”
“Do I get to pick the underthings?” Marco asked, waggling his eyebrows.
Alicia ignored him. “The lass needs a Priestess, sir. I don’t like the look o’her color.”
“Don’t you worry about that, pretty girl. Captain Rawlings has the wildcat all covered.”
“But—”
Marco hustled her out, closing the door with a gentle snap as they went. Leaving me alone. Withhim.
For a moment, the captain watched the door, eyes glassy, hand on his—my—pendant. Following their retreat with his senses. Flaunting what he’d taken before he returned to me, nostrils pinched white. Lips a thin line.
“I felt this happen,” he murmured at length, matching four fingers against Kas’ claws, following their path from my ribs to upper thigh. “Thought it was over then. That you’d die from whatever caused this. But you persevered. Thrived, even. Tell me, Miss Tannovic. Why did you keep the scars?”
“Don’t—” I swallowed the pain of my familial name on his lips. “Don’t c-call me that.”
“Would you prefer… ‘Mila’?”
I sneered, too tired to bother denying my given name.
“So,” he said, hand lingering on my marked hip, eyes unreadable. “Here you are.”
Pulling at my wrists, I held his eye. “Release me.”
He smirked, stroking the ridges of my scars with his thumb. “You know I can’t do that.”
I said nothing.
“Have you any idea how valuable you are?” He shook his head, something akin to wonder spreading across his face, though without my ki, I was unable to know for certain. “An unbound Trila-Glís whono oneis looking for? No one even knows to look because you shouldn’t exist.” He laughed, incredulous. “They even explain away your rather obvious modifications as magic. It’s uncanny.”
“Sounds familiar,” I rasped, but in spite of my bravado, a cold pit opened in my belly. Made wider by the Raith.
He smirked, not denying it as he retrieved his blade from the sink. “Do you know how long it’s been?”
