Carina’s face scrunched up in a mockery of appreciation. “So sweet,” she chirped, and reset her crossed ankles so she could reach for a bottle of wine already opened and resting. “Can I offer you a glass?”
“We need food, Carina.” The familiar catch of calloused fingers skated through my hair before his touch settled at my nape. Massaging as the burn of the chains began to fade, the knee at my back bent to offer a cradle against my spine. “You promised a picnic, and if you brought nothing but inedible glop, we’re leaving.”
“But we’re celebrating,” she said through a pout. Reaching to pour two glasses of something pink and sparkling.
Indulging her, the captain said, “Oh?” as he fed me another slow, drugging tendril of energy. Forestalling the roar of hunger clawing at my insides. It was a distraction. A drug. Potent enough that I went boneless in his lap and didn’t notice when the burn of liquid gold faded and was replaced with another sort of burn altogether.
One that ached with the sweetest poison and made the gusset of my panties slick with more than just the stain of his ownership.
“Yes, you boorish man,” she chided, and passed him a glass. “You’ve been cleared of wrong doing for the nasty business of Harper’s death. And our little golden priestess”—a tinkling laugh that carried over the courtyard and drew more than one set of eyes—“she’s allanyonecan talk about.”
Dazed, my eyes flicked up and found her already staring at me with a ravenous hunger. Absent any hint of petty jealousy toward the man who made no secret of his disdain for his bride, every drop of Carina’s attention was instead pinned on me. Covetous.
Of my power.
Of the status owning me might bring her.
Of the power I might lend any elite sons born of their union.
“I fail to see how that warrants celebration,” the captain drawled, and shifted his seat. Wineglass poised high and clear, he moved the bright fall of braided hair off my shoulders. And with his free hand, let his fingers trickle and slip down my back. His touch light, and full of drugging, potent energy that tasted of serenity. Obedience.
A sound of mock outrage slipped over her lips, but she flashed him a brilliant smile that went no further than her cheeks. “One might argue our pending nuptials are cause enough for celebration,” she snipped. “But this is a particularly rare vintage. One I collected from my private cellar just for this occasion.”
Enticed, Asher sniffed at the bubbly pink wine, then sipped. “Fruity.”
“Yes,” she purred, but her gaze remained fixed to my face. “Summer in a bottle.”
I blinked. Slow. Hazy with intoxication, but that sentence shook something loose.
A memory long forgotten. One I couldn’t summon at a whim, until Carina clubbed me in the temple with the reminder.
Summer in a bottle.
A slogan from my childhood.
Sluggish, I frowned. Turning away from the feast of elite flames as horror began to edge everything else out, something cold slipped down my nape and splashed into my gut. Something horrified and stubbornly patriotic.
“It’s a young vintage,” Carina went on, watching me over the rim of her swirling glass. Taking her time to truly enjoy my reaction as the alarm grew louder, a siren wailing at agonizing volume where no other might hear it. My cheeks flushed hot, as cold dread beaded across my brow. “Only five years old. But that’s what makes it so… valuable.”
I knew, then. What it was. What she would say before the words formed on luscious, painted lips.
“Tritan summer wine,” she cooed. “The very last of its kind. Bottled just a few weeks before we took Tritan, I believe.” Only then did she pause to sip. Letting that small taste bubble and boil on her tongue as she sucked air through her lips and savored the vintage, groaning as if lost in the throws of ecstasy as her throat worked around a slow swallow. “I couldn’t think of a more symbolic moment to uncork it.”
Fury pumped through my veins. Molten, golden hatred as the empath tried to surface. To buck those chains keeping me sedated, so I might embrace the black, insatiable hatred and take my time with a more common vintage—Caledonian breeding stock.
I crashed into the captain’s wall, denied. A prisoner enslaved by my own power, throttled by magic I’d traded on a whim.
Left to stew, I could do little but meet her eye and let her see the face of true malice.
But it was Asher who broke the tension when he brought the glass to his lips and swallowed every drop with a lewd groan. “You should have said,” he hummed, and collected the bottle to inspect the label. His other hand growing tight on my nape, fingers dancing at my pulse. A warning. “A Tritan vintage of notable rarity is all the aphrodisiac I need.”
She laughed, light and tinkling. “Oh, well played!”
Asher saluted her, then said, “Food, Carina. Mila needs real food—”
“Ho there!” Marco called, interrupting as he flagged down another coach. This one with a decidedly more utilitarian edge to it than the luxury vehicle the captain owned. Military. Muted colors. Driving far too fast to be appropriate given the number of pedestrians present in the courtyard.
Without shutting off the engine, a youth stepped from the pilot’s chair. A smooth-cheeked boy I had a vague recollection of having met before.
