“Tell me, child.”
“It didn’t even slow him down,” I rasped, squeezing my eyes shut as if that alone could turn the tide on my hunger. “But the captain sends his compliments. Called your shield ingenious, or something to that effect.”
She frowned, for her energy lanced through the barren waste the captain had left in his wake, and found nothing she might work with. Nothing with which she could use to soothe me—I felt it happen.
Saw the way the wrinkle between her brows deepened, and knew the scent of fear for the tantalizing whisper it was.
“Help me,” I whispered again.
She stepped back. Face arranged in a careful mask of concern, she bumped a hip against her desk. “Captain Rawlings managed all that, did he?”
I nodded, tone an echoing void of empty destruction when I said, “Before breakfast.”
Ignoring the risk, she took my hands and put a stop to the anxious twisting. And I felt her try again, to pull from an empty cup. “Everything will be okay.”
“Don’t you see?” I laughed, and launched myself from the chair. Evicted from her presence before I succumbed to the temptation. Before I turned the tide and sent an inferno ripping through her palms, so I might feed from a well of a once-powerful priestess. “Nothingis okay, Sasha! He left me with nothing, can’t you feel it?”
“Mila, please. I need you to sit and relax so we can begin to sort this out. We’ll try something different, this time. I have to admit I didn’t expect”—she pushed a hand through her silver-blonde hair and glanced to the door—“didn’t think the captain had come quite so far in his explorations. But we expected this. That things would be different for you.” A breath whistled through her nose. “There’s a way we can dampen your empathic abilities. We just have to find what works.”
A wash of cold awareness settled over me.
Twisting and sick, it stuck to my nape and oozed from the back of my skull, forward.
Realization.
The Head Priestess’ icy blue eyes flicked back to the door.
This was just another betrayal.
She didn’t want to help me tame the empath.
She wanted to destroy it.
The only weapon our enslaved people might possess, the only scrap of power that didn’t lie between thighs forced to spread or knees purpled with bruises.
I should have expected nothing less.
“You were right,” I breathed, and felt a stillness bleed through my chest. “Right and so very,verywrong.” It was my turn to touch, and I did it without thought. Claimed her hands in fingers that had become deadly, hooked claws. “I am nothing but a plaything. No talent. No skill. Defenseless against a man like Captain Asher Rawlings.” I took a step. Forced her back. “There’s nothing but hunger. A thirst for more. And he made me like it, Sasha. Just like he promised he could.”
Sasha’s pale skin went a sickly shade of green. “He ignored my warning. That stupid boy!”
I cracked my neck, pointed teeth flashing at the question that wasn’t. “He served me a diet rich in elite energy and infected me with the need to be fucked raw by a man I hate. An enemy. A man I want to see brought to his knees before me.” A choked sob splintered over my lips, but I couldn’t stop the admission from spilling over. “And Ilikedthe taste. If he were here now,” I whispered, and felt the salty burn of tears when they spilled over my lashes, “I would go to my knees, right here. Right in front of you. I’d choke him down and beg for more. Just another… little… taste…”
“You have to fight this, Mila,” she said, standing tall before me. Broken, but unbent. “Fight the empath, and it will pass.”
“Yes,” I hissed, and didn’t blink. “That’s what you want for me, isn’t it? To learn to bend before I break? To learn to love the bruises on my knees, as you do.”
She swallowed and it was dry. I heard the click of her throat working.
Thumbs working back, I traced the fine bones in her wrists. “Because I can’t beat him, can I? Not as I am. So why bother fighting at all?”
“This isn’t you, Mila.” Icy blue eyes flicked to the door. “It’s the empath.”
“But that’s notentirelytrue, is it?” I drawled, licking dry lips. “He showed me, Sasha. What you wouldn’t. That priestesses and elites are two sides of the same coin.” Jaw flexing, my head tilted to the side and I watched her every tiny movement. “And then he showed me what could be done with it.”
Again, her eyes flicked to the door. “It doesn’t work like that, Mila. Once we are bound, there’s nothing we can do to stop them using our power.”
I sneered. “Ah, yes. It keeps coming back to the chains, doesn’t it?” I glanced at the covered pedestal on the far side of her office, where an unused set sat hidden beneath dark cloth. “A convenient shield foryouto hide behind, hmm? One that absolves you of your sins in this war.”
