It didn’t matter how hard I fought, the strength of my logic, nor how valiantly I might struggle—Captain Asher Rawlings could simply take whatever he wanted. With nothing but an errant thought, he had my submission. The dark flames of poisonous elite energy an infection that spread through my veins and left me too hot. Flesh aching with alien need, despite the way my heart thrashed at the back of my throat, the organ panicked and trying to escape. To spare me this final horror.
“Please,” I breathed, and felt something blunt press against my core. Making me throb. Clench. “Please,don’t—”
“I can feel it, Mila,” he rasped, and leaned back. Releasing the fabric at my front, he left my breasts swinging free and claimed one cheek of my bottom in either hand. Peeled me apart so he might have an unobstructed view at the thing he meant to ruin. “Your fear.” Thumbs sliding in tandem, he caught the lips of my sex and made them gape around what was blunt and foreign. “The intoxicating sweetness of your helpless curiosity. The way you ache…” I felt his hips shift, the burning stretch of secret flesh yielding to a force greater than any I’d ever dared imagine. “I’m already inside you, and I can feel it all. That’s how I know—you were born to serve an elite,” he whispered, not unaffected by the weight of this moment. Poised at my entrance, hanging on the edge of something unforgivable as if to savor what I’d never willingly give.
The front door banged open.
Startled, the captain’s hips sluiced forward a fraction of an inch, making me hiss in shock. Frozen by his influence, my breasts rippling with the tension snapping taut between us both. Every inch of my flesh on full, lewd display to an intruder I couldn’t see.
“Holy shit, captain,” came a voice I recognized, but couldn’t place. “Sorry, sir. I didn’t mean—”
“What are you doing here, Marco,” the captain drawled, unhurried, despite the strain I could feel vibrating through his muscle. “And why,” he added, and stroked the length of my spine with the flat of one hand, “can’t it wait for morning?”
“The rebels are attacking, sir.” Marco cleared his throat, not totally able to mask the edge of excitement when he said, “They’ve got somethingnew. And General Tilcot wants you on the frontlines to test out the new girl. Now.”
“She hasn’t even been assessed yet,” the captain spat, pushing just a little more of himself through the slick ache of swollen lips.
Marco chuckled. “Tilcot said he’d bring Sasha so, and this is a direct quote, mind, ‘You have nothing to worry about, boy.’”
At this, the captain huffed a deep, frustrated sigh and let my dress fall. “Insufferable prick.” Shifting forward, he adjusted my front and hid my breasts from view before tucking himself away.
Released from his compulsion, I sank to the floor amid the shards of broken glass and plaster. My breath hitching, cheeks wet. Back pressed to the wall where I cowered and shook with relief. Adrenaline burning in my veins.
“Come along, priestess,” the captain said, extending his hand—the very same extremity I could still feel on my hip. On my chest and in the lingering ache throbbing between my thighs. “Let’s test out my new power.”
I shook my head, teeth bared. Confidence in tatters, but still, a defiant, “No,” rolled off my tongue with spiteful ease.
“Wasn’t a question, Mila,” he replied as Marco handed him a jacket.
“You know… we could always stay,” Marco said, eyebrows waggling. A lewd grin spread across his lips to reveal slightly crooked teeth. “Just for a little while. Wouldn’t mind a free show…”
Hissing, I scrambled to my feet in a rush that left me dizzy. Swaying without daring to tear my scowl from Marco’s face, I opted for open conflict between warring nations over a private show. “I’d prefer death.”
Marco clutched at his chest as if wounded, and the captain reclaimed his grip on my nape, pressed his lips into my hair, and said, “How easy the coin turns.”
5
The front lines.
I shivered as a roiling wave of nausea came over me. Stinging where a now distinct sort of pressure weighed heavy at the back of my throat—a threat that meant to strangle before it bubbled over. To reject the very thought that I would be used to slaughter rebels. My power turned against the people I’d sacrificed so much to save.
“Please,” I whispered, setting my heels as he threw open the front door, one hand wrapped firmly about my wrist. “Don’t do this.”
Inky eyes flicked back for an instant before he snorted.
I swallowed, throwing my weight back. Toward the chips of plaster and broken glass where the captain had almost had his way and taken everything I’d never give. “We’re healers,” I whispered, frantic and flailing for rescue. “Not murderers.”
“No,” he replied, and ushered me into the evening breeze once more. “You’re slaves. Tools of war owned by the empire.” He locked the door, fingers never leaving my wrist. “It’s time you learn what it really means to be a priestess.”
“You can’t—”
A tingle surged to life in my wrists and throat, and without so much as bothering to glance back, he showed me that yes, in fact, hecould.
In the street in front of the captain’s townhouse, a utilitarian, battered coach sat idling by the curb. No hint of gaudy decoration. Not a glimmer of obnoxious Caledonian pomp, it was a vehicle meant to ferry soldiers.
Nothing more.
Surging forward on long legs, Marco claimed a seat behind the wheel. “Come on,” he said, and flicked a lighter with his left thumb, igniting a cigarette in a puff of sweet smoke. The cherry glowed a bright, cheerful shade of red before he exhaled. “You’re gonna want to see this, sir.”
