The doors burst open to admit a small crowd of soldiers. Many faces I recognized from the captain’s hall this morning. Many more I didn’t. All seeking the comfort of the women who stood in a rush of perfumed opulence, cooing in welcome.
Slipping around the column, I shifted into darkness to watch. Sickened, yet fascinated. Not by the men, who were crude and obvious in their sordid desires, but thewomen.Their energy sparkled with a particular blend of eagerness and want, yet was laced with something much more… sinister.
Greed.
“This is all the power they have,” Alicia breathed, appearing at my side. She watched with me as some of the women pulled men into private rooms while others went to work right there in plain sight. Amid pillows and onlookers, they were utterly shameless in their eagerness to undress. “Come,” Alicia said, and touched my elbow. “I have the key.”
She unlocked my collar. Freed me from the column.
I didn’t move.
Eyes flicking left to right, searching for an exit I might take before any could stop me.
“Don’t,” Cal warned, his dark eyes narrowed. One hand drifting to his belt, where a weapon was holstered.
My lip curled, but without argument, I allowed Alicia to lead me into the powder room and left Cal standing just outside the door of a windowless room with only one exit.
Six latrines were set on a single, high bench made of polished marble, each separated by a privacy wall. Secluded by mellow orange curtains.
Without pausing to admire the obscene luxury, I claimed the one furthest from the door. Jerked the curtain closed behind me, hiked my skirts, and sat, taking the first full breath of relative privacy I’d had since my arrival.
“Use the cloths to pat yourself dry, unless”—Alicia cleared her throat—“your business is… well.” She laughed. “There’s a pot of warm soapy water there if you need it.”
Cheeks burning, my lips parted on a condescending snarl that died in my throat when I saw the offerings she referenced. The pleasure slaves used actual soft fabric to clean themselves—a far cry from the leaves and moss I’d grown accustomed to over the years, and one that made me feel every bit the uncultured wild thing instead of the Tritan lady I’d once been.
I finished with my affairs without a word, as if I used fine cloth for such business every day.
And when I stepped clear of the curtain, Alicia was there, waiting.
“Are you the one who’s been freeing slaves?” she whispered, a soft breath of sound that hardly dared to touch my ears, let alone travel from this room.
Eyes flicking to the door, I hesitated. Unwilling to trust this woman who boasted of her influence over men like Captain Asher Rawlings. Of her position earned on her back, a traitor to the very people I’d risked everything to free.
“Please,” she hissed, green eyes sparkling with the first hint of something earnest I’d seen from her. The act fell away. “I just need to know if my daughter… if she… if she made it.”
I swallowed the rising lump because… just as with Jake and his tattered little family, Alicia was surviving. Using any tool she had to do it, and, for that, I couldn’t blame her without also judging myself. And so, with a tight nod, I acknowledged my role in sending refugees across the ocean.
Alicia’s lips went white around a slow whistle of held breath. “She had my eyes,” she began. “My hair, and—”
“Kyra?” I asked, a horrible sense of gloom spreading through my chest.
Alicia blinked, just once, before she said, “We called her… Katrina.”
“I… I’m sorry,” I whispered, glancing again at the door. Leery of revealing my accent, but to reunite Kyra with her mother? “We were captured together.”
Folded hands clapped over Alicia’s throat, practiced and elegant, as if to keep a sob of grief locked away where none might hear it. “Then I’ll see her soon,” she breathed, as artful tears gathered on her lashes. Making her eyes sparkle in a way I couldn’t help but empathize with, for it reflected my own deep well of grief. Loss. “That’s… that’s something.”
“I’m sorry.” I took a breath, hypnotized by the things playing across her beautiful face that looked so much like the girl who’d offered me comfort in a place barren of such things. And then, I placed an awkward hand on Alicia’s forearm. “I didn’t get the chance to save her, but”—I licked lips gone dry and bloodless—“but if you can help me escape, Alicia, I can helpso manyothers. Your people. Your family. Please…” My grin tightened in a desperate bid to make myself heard, clinging to the only woman who might be capable of helping me evade a fate far worse than a life of spread thighs and unwanted orgasms.
For a long moment, Alicia was quiet. Her pulse thrashing at the base of her throat the only hint I could see that promised she was considering my words. Her energy a swirling mess of conflict and hesitation laced with something I couldn’t name.
And then, “I can get you free, sister. Soon, if we’re lucky.” She smiled, then. And it was beautiful. An invitation to trust I couldn’t quite reject. “What’s your name?”
My breath caught. Tears flooding my lashes, I choked on a sob. “Mila,” I said, giving up my name for the first time since Josh had betrayed me to save his dirty, starving children. “My name is Mila.”
Green eyes went wide, ringed in white. “You’re Tritan,” she said, hardly bothering to whisper.
My eyes flicked back to the door, and I hushed her. Hissing through bared and pointed teeth.
