An Eloran soldier still hiding where he’d been safe, until the captain had been deployed.
Until he’d used my energy to—
“Put me down,” I rasped, untangling one leg from the cradle of elite arms.
The captain obliged me, setting my bare feet into the muck. Where green lightning swirled about my ankles for an instant before it sank into my skin. Reviving me with energy that was at once familiar and alien. Mine and his.
Blended together in one confusing soup of power.
I shivered.
Said nothing as my sense of balance returned in gradual surges the longer my feet remained in that hyper-charged muck.
“Gabe,” the captain said, and jerked his chin at the Eloran soldier stumbling clear of the shield. “Tilcot wants him alive.”
A choked sound slipped from of my lips, but that was all.
Gabe saluted, and said, “Sir,” turning to the field with weapon drawn.
I didn’t think.
It was as simple as falling back into old habits.
I faked a stumble, landing hard on my knees in the mud. Where my hands were buried to the elbow in grime and rejuvenating elite energy.
“Up you get,” the captain murmured, running a soothing, calloused palm down the length of my naked back before scooping me beneath the armpits. “Come. Let’s get you into bed, pet.”
With a whimper, I let him lift me. My eyes fixed to Marco’s boots when the soldier stepped up to the captain’s side. Eyes fixed to the distant shield.
It wasn’t until I accepted the captain’s hand, allowing him help me stand on trembling legs, that I thanked him by yanking Marco’s weapon from its holster.
“Oi!” Marco hollered, but I was already gone.
Sprinting through the mud, I whirled. Weapon raised, the captain’s stupid, handsome face caught in my sights. And through clenched, bared teeth, I hissed, “Call him off,Asher.”
For a moment, dark eyes simply watched. Unblinking.
And then, at the corner of his lips, the slightest whisper of a smile flickered to life. A hint of aching burn tingling at my wrists and throat, as if to remind me that hecouldhave me on my back in the mud before an audience of his men, but chose not to do it.
“Go ahead,” he said, and unbuttoned his sleeves. First the left, then the right. Fingers working over the dark fabric and golden buttons to reveal the wrist cuff that matched my chains—and on the opposite wrist, a matte black one I’d never bothered to notice before. “Take your shot, Mila. You’ll only get one.”
Icy terror sparkled through my veins, but though my palms had begun to sweat, my grip did not falter. Instead, my gaze flicked back, over my shoulder to the spot where Gabe was frozen mid-stride. Eyebrows all but buried in his hairline, lips parted in shock as he watched our confrontation unfold.
Forgetting his mission to collect the wounded Eloran and make the man a sacrifice to some faceless Caledonian with royal blood. As I watched, a pair of rebels wearing white sprinted to the field, collecting their fallen in the confusion of my distraction.
And despite the fear, despite knowing that I’d overplayed my hand and earned what was sure to be a dreadful punishment, I smiled. Treasuring this one, tiny victory. In saving just one more from the clutches of the empire.
The captain’s attention didn’t so much as waver. Not even for an instant. And instead of bothering with the lost victim, he said, “I’m waiting,” in a placid drawl that drew my eye back to find a predator shrouded in dark flames. One who’d been held in check too long by duty to his superiors, starved for the hunt while pretending to be the perfect, obedient soldier.
I didn’t have to take the bait, so I shrugged and said, “No.”
“No?” he returned, soft and deadly. As if there were no one else but the two of us in the entire world. “Don’t tell me my warrior priestess has lost her nerve. Here,” he said, and took a measured step. “Let me help you.”
I adjusted my grip, matching his advance with a retreat—and tried to toss Marco’s weapon into the mud.
Couldn’t.
My fingers had seized about the cold, matte metal. The distant tingle all the warning I needed to know that the captain hadn’t finished toying with his meal.
