The captain stood, plucked a cookie from my fingers, then claimed the bottle of Tritan summer wine, and said, “Right. Come along, pet. Better be gone before Marco returns. Don’t want to make Alicia’s work any harder than it needs to be.”
Scowling when he disappeared around the corner, I snatched two more cookies—and then a third. “These’re good,” I said, spattering crumbs everywhere.
“Think of them as my apology,” Alicia murmured, and all hint of merriment evaporated from her face the instant the captain turned his back. “The recipe was agiftfrom the Head Priestess. Something she cherished enough to pass on, asking that I shared it withyou, priestess, because she knew how much you’d need it. Only you.”
Her words made something in my chest wriggle.
Memories howling up from the yawning dark. Sick, painful things that wanted to fester and rot.
Frozen mid-chew, I blinked at her. Too shocked to do anything more than meet those glittering green eyes as the cookies turned to ash on my tongue. Tacky and thick. Sickly sweet.
Grease of the dead that couldn’t be scraped away…
“Mila!” the captain called, already halfway up the stairs. “Move that sweet ass!”
“You understand?” Alicia asked in a low rasp, stumbling forward. Moving to seize my forearm, she said, “The Head Priestess had me deliver—”
I recoiled. Flinching clear before her fingers landed on my skin. Before her touch could betray whatever secret she was trying to spill.
Because he would know.
The instant her energy brushed against my skin, Asher would be able to taste whatever treachery might lie in wait.
Without a word, I turned on my heel, cookies clenched and forgotten in my fists, feet moving. Mind racing. Eyes unfocused enough that when I stepped into the hall, it was to collide with an unforgiving wall of muscle.
Marco.
The echo of violence sang in his eyes. The memory of what I’d done. Of what I’d taken without permission. Raping him of any choice, I’d toyed with the core of who he was and set him loose, changed. An animal on a tight leash. A monster… a weapon of my own design.
And I’d enjoyed it.
To be that strong, that sure, even if it was only the illusion. That I’d lived it through him, the victory and the hurt. Pain… lust…
I remembered.
The joy of such freedom.
The rage and fear.
I remembered everything.
“Run along, priestess,” Marco murmured, his lips scarcely moving. Scowl blazing with the promise of retribution and unfinished business. Daring me to reach out and touch…
I slipped around him without wasting another instant.
Fleeing up the stairs, my skirts kicked out behind me as adrenaline flooded my system. Fueling me as I raced to escape the graveyard howling in that deadened stare.
There was blood on his hands—but mine were soaked to the elbow in the sort of gore that couldn’t be scraped off.
Breath coming hard, I closed the door with a soft click, then set my shoulder blades against the cool dark wood. Staring at the floor as I let the memories play.
I’d been murderer and victim.
I’d lived inside Marco and Dez, both. At the same time.
A conqueror whose every landed blow was another closer to suicide.
A casualty drowning in an ocean of gore, I’d spilled myself with those fists. Each blow falling with the weight of punishment that would never be enough to atone for all I’d wrought.
