Edging toward hysterics, I snorted. “We couldn’t beat him at his own game because he’s not abiding by any of your precious rules, Asher. He wasn’t interested in whether or not I could make the Lotus bloom, only in my potential for creating hybrid children for the Empire to play with. That’s the sort of sickness that can only be cured with death, but you knew that, too. Because you were with me,” I said, throat tight. “You gave me the power to end it and you were with me when I failed. When our freedom wastaken, because you see, we haveno allies. No brilliant green-eyed traitor offering insights we couldn’t see, and no High Priestess working in secret to help you achieve your designs. Do you know who stopped me?” I asked, lifting scalding, blurry eyes to meet his at last. “Do you know who hit me with the Lotus theinstantbefore I could send your cousin into the Void?”
My bondmate swallowed. “Sasha.”
“Sasha,” I whispered, cheeks wet. “She took it all. Took everything we needed to defend ourselves using the ringyougave her—” I pulled my bleeding right hand from his, driving my point home with the point of a branded finger. “She carries the power ofthree, and through her, Tilcot, though I don’t know if he knows it. The pendant is theonlyoption we have left, and we both know why that cannot work.”
Asher claimed my hand once more, but Marco cleared his throat. “Care to explain for those of us whose lives depend on a little more clarity?”
When I answered him, it was with a voice absent inflection or passion. “I cannot touch my mother’s pendant without succumbing to the darkness.”
Marco frowned, spinning his lighter. “The darkness being?” The silence that followed was answer enough, and his eyes widened with horrified understanding. “Berserker,” he whispered, stepping back. Hand wrapping about the butt of his weapon. “I do love a good ‘I told you so’, but… Bloody hell, mate. I fuckin’toldyou! Crazy ones are too much work. And this one, a bloodyBerserkerof all things.”
“No,” the captain murmured, picking glass from my palms. “Not a Berserker.”
“An Empath,” I whispered, not bothering to wince as he worked.
Asher’s thumbnail caught at a bit of glass, sending it deeper before he worked it free. “Berserkers spend ki until they burn out. An Empath will take until there’s nothing left.”
“Whatever,” Marco snapped. “She’s unnatural. Cursed.” He laughed, eyes wild and ringed with white. “You best believe I’m putting in for danger pay, old man—” he slapped the countertop, pointing with shaking finger.“Double!”
Asher shrugged. “If we live through the day, sure.”
“I’m holding you to that,” Marco snapped, and collected the pendant off the kitchen counter, holding it at arm’s length as if it had the power to corrupt anyone but me. “You’re not dying today, you understand me? We run. Let the wildcat take us to her forest and—”
“We’re surrounded by Elites authorized to kill,” Asher said, and tore a strip from the hem of my ruined dress and wrapped it about my left hand.
“Then we tell them what you are!” Marco pressed. “We go above Tilcot’s head, and make the curator’s wet dreams come true! It’s not ideal, but at least you’ll live another day! At least there’s a chance you can be freed. ThatIcan free you when the dust settles.”
And then, from the street beyond, a bellowed challenge. “Asher Rawlings! Come out here and face me, traitor!”
A tiny, fatalistic smile tugged at the corner of my lips as the captain wrapped my second hand. Unhurried. “Time’s up,” I whispered, drying my cheeks with the makeshift bandage.
“Well then,” Marco said, and tugged a cigarette from his pack. He paused to light it, in spite of Alicia’s order not to do so in the house. “Looks like we get that last stand after all, old man.” When he exhaled, blowing a cloud toward the ceiling, he thrust the pendant toward us, showering us in blue, green, and purple shadows.
Grimacing, the captain hauled me to my feet, leaning on me to keep himself upright. “Marco, go. You don’t have to be a part of this.”
“Asher!” the general screamed, voice thick with madness. “I know you’re in there! Bring me your witch or I’ll bury you both in rubble and take vengeance on your corpse!”
Marco drew his weapon, lit smoke dangling from a crooked smirk as he approached, then pressed the pendant into Asher’s palm. “Give the man what he wants.”
Rough fingers tangled with those that were scarred and bloody, and with little more than a nod, the captain looped his pendant over his head.
Chapter 13
Peeking through the window at the street beyond, Marco cursed, and said, “Got half the bloody city gathering out there.”
I swallowed. “And Sasha? Is she—”
“Yep. Looks like she took a trip to the fighting pits, but she’s there. Oh,fuck,”Marco gasped. “Tilcot just backhanded her! Doesn’t look like she’s conscious—oh, wait. Yep. She’s still moving. Tough lady,” he added, and passed his weapon back, into the captain’s hands, without taking his eyes off the street.
Asher paused, holding the deadly thing by the hilt, his pendant with the other. Brow furrowed, bared chest heaving with indecision.
“Is that a good idea?” I asked, sweating and cold, remaining on my feet with willpower alone. “Whatever insulation Sasha built around the bond is gone. I destroyed what was left of it.”
“You have ten seconds, traitor!” the general screamed, the declaration supported by the murmurings of a growing crowd.
“He’s bluffing,” Marco whispered. “I’ll let you know when he draws and starts counting backward.”
“Asher—” I tugged at the hem of my borrowed shirt.“Don’t.It’s bad enough that I can feel the pendant without Sasha’s barrier. Don’t you think—”
