He grinned. “Deal. Now—”
“Get off me.”
Nostrils flared, the captain ignored my attempt to separate us. “You will not speak unless spoken to.”
“Ha!”
“You’ll address me,” he said, clasping a palm over my lips, “and anyone who speaks directly to you as ‘Sir’ or ‘Mistress’.”
I choked on helpless rage.
“Unless, of course, they are a slave, and then you may use one word sentences.” He released my lips. “Do you understand?”
A shiver prickled at my skin, blood pounding in my ears. “Yes.”
“Yes, what?”
I glanced at the spot pulsing beneath his jaw, hovering too close. Looming over me. His knee lodged between mine. To strike him now would result in injury to myself and offer nothing in the way of forward progress.
“Yes what, slave?” he drawled, inky pools gleaming above me. Lips twitching at the corner.
Oh, how the pain of retaliation would be worth it for the chance to bleed him dry! But I swallowed that too, and forced, “Yes,sir,” through clenched teeth.
Stepping back, he smirked. Extending his hand. “Then you shall have your meeting, Miss Tannovic.”
Chapter 16
Scowling, I pushed off his desk, righting my skirts with far more force than was necessary. Noting, for the first time since waking, just howmuchskin was exposed by the silk draped around my body. Crossing once over my back, the fabric hung low, leaving me naked from hairline to hip, though it passed over my modest breasts before ending in an elegant twist around my neck.
Bloody impracticable rag. How was I to run with a skirt brushing the tops of my feet? How did one fight without the ability to take a wide, braced stance? I closed my eyes, dragging a breath into tight lungs.
The High Priestess. She’d know what to do. I just had to endure long enough to speak with her.
A calloused palm landed on my nape.
“Don’t touch me,” I snapped, bracing for the flood of ki that never came.
His smirk didn’t falter. “It’s what they’ll expect, little Priestess.”
I flexed my jaw, glancing again at the fleshy bit where his pulse fluttered. Would I need leverage, or would I be able to climb him like a redwood? I picked at the gold marking my wrist.
“What murderous little thoughts are floating through your head, hmm?”
“I would like to bury my teeth—”
With a snort, the captain cut me off. “Sometimes it’s better to say nothing, girl.” He steered me from his room toward a narrow staircase. “Especially now. Lead him to think you’re simple. That your brain has been addled by your time in the forest.” The captain seized the pendant, glassy eyes staring through the bricks and mortar. “Give him no reason to think of you past this moment, and we may just come through this unscathed.”
That the sentiment was almostexactlythe same advice Alicia had given did not escape me. Had the little traitor been working with them all along? Conspiring to lure me from the Grandmother’s embrace?
I couldn’t help but think of the day we’d been captured. Had Alicia flown into danger without hesitation, not because of my insidious influence, but because she’d been paid to do so? Perhaps she’d been planting ideas inmyhead, leading me to be a docile thing with a pleasant temperament—and it had escaped my notice until it was too late?
Digging my blunted nails into the meat of my palm, I simmered, trying to find clarity through the layers of swampy, murky confusion and festering rage.
Alicia and the captain would have me play the part.
Kas would bide her time, strike when the moment was perfect.
And of course… Belle would have begged me to wait for reinforcements.
