A puff of breath whispered over my brow. “Of course not, Priestess,” he hummed, chest somehow, inexplicably, rumbling against my cheek. “I’d never dream of it.”
***
When my feet next touched solid ground, it was to a symphony of growled curses, spat in a voice I recognized at once. “What thefuck, Aiden?” Marco barked, engulfing me in a cloud of sweet tobacco. “You’ve had her for less than an hour! What—”
“There’s been an…incidentat the infirmary,” the toy soldier returned, giving me a tiny push into Marco’s hands.
Hugging the dress close to my chest, I peeled my lids open—one at a time—and met the shadowed glare of the captain’s errand boy.
“Rebels?” Marco asked, though he didn’t bother to look away from my face or shutter his condemnation.
“No,” Aiden said, already halfway gone. “Looks like the general had some sort of fit. Broke a bunch of stuff when he…fell. Glass everywhere. See to your girl,” he added. “I think she tried to crawl through it. Tried to… escape, if you catch my meaning.”
Marco’s fingers tightened on my elbows as the other man departed. Fingers too tight. “Have you lost your damned mind, Wildcat?”
Before he could chastise me further, I said the only word that could silence this idiot. “Assassins.”
The hardened soldier broke through the man’s righteous fury, eyes wide. “When?”
I wobbled, listing toward the door. “Don’t have time for this.”
Marco yanked me back, and snarled,“When?”
“Does it matter?” I asked, trying to wriggle free. “They surround us.”
Nostrils pinched white, Marco tossed me over his shoulder, kicked the front door open, then closed. Stomping through the front hall, he followed the sounds of agonized retching, and the consequent echo of liquid chunks spattering the bottom of a bucket.
Upon entering the kitchen, my ankle struck the doorframe as he barreled through it, drawing a hiss from my lips, but little else. I welcomed the stab of pain for it pushed the hazy fog back, clearing my muddled thoughts in time to deal with a true opponent.
“Is there any question as towhyyou both look fresh from the grave?” Marco asked, setting me down across from my bonded Elite, whose back was pressed to the kitchen island. “What did you do, Lady Wildcat?”
Knees drawn up, the captain hugged a garbage pail, breathing hard through parted lips. The hollows beneath his eyes and sunken cheeks stood out against skin tinged a waxy green. Shirtfront unbuttoned, his uniform sagged open, revealing a chest flushed with the trauma of the previous hour. Absent the pendant, lest the High Priestess feed from that too. Disheveled.
For a moment, the captain did nothing but stare up at me. Pinning me still with that obsidian glare. And then, “She tried to kill the general.”
He spat in the bucket.
Swallowing the sympathetic bile burning the back of my throat, I picked at the brand, eyes falling to the floor. “What would you have had me do, Asher?”
“Emperor’sballs, Wildcat!” Marco threw back his head, and laughed. “Literallyanythingelse,” he said, flinging his arms wide, fingertips narrowly missing my face.
I yelped, legs buckling, knees striking the hardwood as my hands flew to protect my face. Cringing.
The captain frowned. “Marco—”
“Have you any idea of the danger you’ve put us in?” Scrubbing at his eyes with forefinger and thumb, Marco cursed, clipped and bitter.
“Marco.Enough.”Setting the pail aside, the captain tipped forward, shuffling toward me on hands and knees. Settling beside me with a grunt, he stripped his shirt and draped it about my shoulders.
“Enough?” Marco asked, watching the captain’s fingers trip over the buttons of a garment damp with sweat that stank of anxiety. Sparking his lighter. On and off. On and off. Left arm wrapped tight about his ribs.“Enough?Asher, she’s fuckin’ killed us all!”
Shaking, I glared at my ruined hands, letting the captain work. Only when I was decent, did his touch find purchase beneath my chin, thumb brushing the marks ringing my throat.
Fingerprints, presumably.
“The general would like me to become the centerpiece of his breeding program,” I rasped, unable to meet that inky gaze that had gone inexplicably soft. Gentle. “But I suspect you already knew that. Knew bound Priestesses are barren and the chains are to blame. Just as you know what your cousin tried to do this morning, and that Itriedto lay still beneath the man who murdered my father, listening to him brag of the assassins he’s sent to kill you. But I didn’t have a choice,” I continued, cloaked in his scent.“Weare out of choices because I failed. And now there isnothingwe can do to stop him. He’s awake. He knows enough to convict you of treason. And he’s coming to collect.”
Asher took my hands, careful of the glass. “It’s not over—”
