The air damp with the onset of night.
All around me the scent of distrust lingered at the back of my sinuses. Thick and cloying, an ominous weight that hung on the breeze as the soldiers scanned the streets for any hint of danger.
But I closed my eyes to all of it, feet silent on the cobbles as I followed without complaint. Too tired to do more than obey, I was enthralled by what Sasha had given me. Charmed, pacified by a thing of beauty no one else could see.
A thing that would ensure a measure of distance remained between me and the captain’s lewd intentions. A wall of protection granted by the Head Priestess herself.
And when the captain’s residence loomed dark and ominous at the end of the street, I dared a tiny, secret smile.
Things would be different this time. This time, he wasn’t facing some terrified, untouched innocent.
There was nothing left to lose. Anewbarrier between us that couldn’t be breached by mere flesh.
In the least traditional sense, I was armed.
Keeping me sandwiched between them, Marco and Gabe entered without hesitation and guided me through gloomy halls. And even in the dark, I recognized the way to the captain’s office. Knew the place where he’d first put me on my knees and introduced me to the monster lurking beneath the handsome veneer.
At the sound of a throaty, feminine chuckle, the soldiers paused. Content to wait in the hall until summoned.
“Well it wasyourslave who ruined dinner, after all,” she said. “I think the least you can do is treat me to a proper meal.”
The low murmur of the captain’s voice answered her, unintelligible at such a low pitch.
I frowned, glancing at Marco.
“Carina,” the soldier supplied, and didn’t bother to hide the exasperated roll of his eyes.
Teeth clenched, I nodded. Eyes adjusting to the low lighting as we stood in wait.
Silent.
Made to listen to the one-sided conversation until Carina said, “Mmm, well I have nowhere to be, Asher. I could stay for just… a little longer.” She giggled, and I turned my attention to the shield. Letting that soothing power wash my senses clean before I was forced to endure a Caledonian courtship in real time. “I could stay all night…”
But a few seconds later, the door swung open. Blinding us with a warm, yellow glow as Carina stumbled out, awash in a cloud of alcoholic fumes. Her elegance left rumpled and askew, the fine coil of dark hair mussed as if straightened in haste and without a mirror. And at the corner of wine-stained lips, a smudge of makeup and blurry lines.
It took a moment, but when she realized she wasn’t alone, her reaction was not one of shameful contrition, but instant haughty contempt. “What a surprise,” she slurred, taking a single step toward me. “Should have known I’d find Asher’s little pet lurking in the dark. Listening. I sure hope you learned something valuable,” she cooed, and jabbed a perfectly shaped fingernail into my chest. “Perhaps you need instruction, hmm?”
I said nothing. Offered her nothing but a slow blink. Distracted from my meditation by the lancing sparkle of pain as she scored my breastbone. And then her fingers glided up, to pinch at either side of my jaw, to hold me in place so she might watch and see the impact her words held as they struck my ears.
“He may be bound to you,” she breathed, stinging my eyes with the flammable quality of her breath, “but it’ll bemybed he seeks when we’re married. I’ll see to it. That you’re allowed to watch. To clean up the mess.” She smirked, smoothed her hair back into place, and adjusted her rumpled skirts. “Foreign pussy may be an entertaining distraction, but it takes one of his own kind to truly satisfy a man likethat.”
It happened in an instant.
In one breath, I was existing inside myself. Content to brush against the pure, numbing bliss that was my shield.
In the next, I lashed out. Using the cruel touch clamped tight about my jaw, I dove straight into the Caledonian woman towering above me. Flooding through her system, I mimicked what Sasha had done to me. Flush with excess, I was seduced by Carina’s unstable energy, meek an unappetizing as it was.
Mundane.
Almost indiscernible, it was utterly void of the intoxicating crackle of dark, elite flames. Bland and tasteless next to the wash of soothing, complex might of a priestess.
I felt the bruise still smarting on Carina’s shin and knew a brief flash of spiteful pride for having been the one to inspire it.
I swam through veins swollen with drink, explored old injuries, and grew intimate with a woman whose heart floundered at the thought of the man I hated most in the world.
All before Marco took his next blink. Before either soldier could do more than part their lips in my defense, I spun through her system and loosed the dark thing slavering for a taste.
A creature Sasha had provoked only to cage. Primed for battle, then denied.
