My eyes flicked open an instant before a breath was forced through my lips and into my lungs. Warmed by lips that weren’t my own.
Silver-blonde hair.
Tearful blue eyes rimmed in red that shimmered when they focused on mine.
And just there, crinkled at the corner of those eyes, the gentle whisper of age.
“Oh, Goddess, Mila,” the Head Priestess whispered, cradling my face between her palms. “Breath for me, girl. That’s it. Another deep breath, all the way to the bottom. Just one more.”
Ribs screaming a wordless protest, I did as she bade despite the wet wheeze that crackled in my lungs. “What—” I coughed, weak and helpless where I was cradled in her lap. “What happened?”
She swallowed, tearing her gaze away as if in search of the words. And then, “I think…” She smoothed her palms over my sternum. Fidgeting with the rumpled edges of my silken dress. “Mila… I think you’re a—”
But before she could tell me what I was, a mighty crash shook the entire building.
The captain burst through the door with frantic chaos gleaming in eyes gone deep as pitch. “Where is she!?” he bellowed, pausing only long enough to seek out my limp form before he was moving in a rush. Sinking to his knees, he scooped gentle hands beneath my thighs, cradled my head, and pulled my pliant body into his embrace.
And without saying a word, without bothering himself to ask what had happened, he filled me with the kiss of dark flames. Elite energy pulsed to life in the place where my senses had once been saturated withmynatural gifts. Licking at every forgotten corner, his attention seeped through the places that hurt and left them aching with something far,farworse than desiccation and rot.
“Stop.” I pushed at his hands, voice a hoarse whisper of helpless denial.
“Don’t move,” he barked, brow furrowed as if in great concentration to utilize a skill he should not possess. Assessing my health for himself with the rightful power of apriestess.
I flashed my teeth, and though I fell limp against the heat of his chest—luxuriating in ecstasy of elite energy replacing what had been sucked away—I mustered a scathing, “Don’t tell me what to do.”
A breathless chuckle was pressed against my temple, lips daring to press a smile into sweat-damp skin as his fingers found their way into my hair and stroked at my scalp. “Glad to see your mouth’s intact.”
“Sasha,” General Tilcot snapped, the next to fill my bleary line of sight as he loomed above us. “What happened?”
The Head Priestess wrung her hands where they were folded in her lap. Eyes downcast, a sheen of anxious sweat glistening on her brow. “The girl”—she cleared her throat—“she hasn’t been trained, sir. I would have noticed if I’d had the chance to test her—”
Stomping forward, the general seized a handful of the Head Priestess’ hair and hauled her up. “Don’t be fucking coy, Sasha. Explain this.Now.”
Both hands wrapped about his wrist, she writhed in place, but said, “She’s not a priestess, sir! Please!”
Going still, the captain’s grip grew tight where he cradled me against him. Possessive and stiff.
An ugly bark of laughter burst from the general’s lips. “What I just saw on the field would beg to differ. Try again,” he cooed, and hauled back on her scalp. Making the Head Priestess arch into his thigh. Exposing herself to the cruel whims of a monster, showing complete submission in a bared and exposed throat.
But despite the tears, she said, “She isn’t, sir. Not really.” She gasped as long, cruel fingers wrapped about her throat and squeezed. “Mila was never trained in the temple! Her power is volatile—please, sir!” she begged, standing at the very point of her toes to relieve the pressure on her scalp. “The girl is dangerous. To herself and Captain Rawlings.”
Murky eyes pinched with suspicion, the general said, “Go on.”
“She’s an empath—the very thing we strive to avoid and the reason the temple seeks to take in fledgling priestesses. I don’t know how it might have happened, but her power was left to mature unchecked, festering when it should have been guided. Nurtured.” A tattered, pained sob spilled over the Head Priestess’ lips, but she pressed on. “Instead of being centered inside, where it can be throttled and protected, her energy is tied to everything around her. She’s n-never learned to separate herself from it.”
“Sounds like she’s a bottomless resource to me,” the general said, and released his grip on her throat, smoothing his fingers over the red marks he’d left behind.
But the Head Priestess shook her head. “Her life force is tangled too deep. If you fire your weapon,” she said, and caught the captain’s eye, “you’ll drain her long before you can exhaust the energy she’s tied to. You’ll kill her, like you almost did tonight.”
For a moment, silence reigned in the headquarters building. Heavy and oppressive, for deep in the center of my heart, where the memory of my father lived to whisper warnings and advice, I knew she was right.
That I’d been sheltered and spoiled did not come as a shock. But to learn that one misinformed decision—what might have been my doom—was the one thing that offered a glimmer of salvation?
I laughed. Saturated in elite energy, surrounded by the distant sounds of ongoing battle, I began to shake with the sort of mirth born from exhaustion and peak irony. “You can’t use your new toy without breaking it,” I gasped, head lolling where it hung over the captain’s bicep. Mocking him in a room packed with his peers.
The general let go his hold on the Head Priestess’ scalp, and turned that murky scowl upon me. “Can she be trained?” he barked, fists clenching at his sides. As if aching to wrap aroundmythroat and squeeze… “Trained to use this… this empath power for the empire?”
Rubbing at the place where cruel fingerprints bruised her skin, the Head Priestess’ shoulders hunched. “I-I don’t know,” she stammered. “It’s never been done before.”
