“Excuse us a moment, dear,” the Lieutenant General said, and jerked his chin toward a quiet corner of the courtyard that was quickly becoming anything but.
The Tilcot widow sneered, struggling to stand as she hissed, “Killion Hastings,this is a funeral. Where is your decency? How dare you—”
“Peace, Lady Tilcot,” the Lieutenant General murmured, but his fingers only grew tighter on my skin. Biting where my ribs tucked in and floated above my hip bones. “I’ll return Captain Rawlings to you in just a moment,” he murmured. “You have my word and deepest apologies, Tyra, but this is official business. We won’t be but a moment, I’m sure. Rawlings,” he said, tone clipped and frosty. Offering no room for arguments or compromise. “Come along.”
Planting a kiss on Tyra’s cheek, the captain patted the infant’s head, then turned to follow. Leaving me trapped in the clutches of a man who wanted me ruined.
Nausea splashed at the back of my throat as I tried to leash my reaction—but even that was lost to me.
A wash of tingling numb spilled from the crown of my scalp, all the way down, past where the Lieutenant General’s nails bit at my skin, to pool in knees that were turning liquid with each horrified, involuntary step I was made to take.
The captain.
He pulled on that poisoned barb lodged behind my ribs, draining me through the bond. Taking every drop, except that which was required to keep my feet moving, he left me floating and dizzy. Too drained to muster a reaction worth noting—even to a man like Hastings.
And not a moment too soon, for on my next breath, I felt it.
Like disembodied eyes rolling through my muscles and nerves. Severed, but all-seeing, Lieutenant General Hastings stole through my skin, his magic penetrating deep. Forcing me to still, I was made to endure every horrible second of his interest as he swept through my blood. His inspection the clumsy prodding of a full-blooded elite attempting to use the gifts of a priestess. No finesse, and even less skill.
But inspect me, he did.
When he found nothing but the echo of the captain’s energy, he retreated in a rush of callous disinterest that left me reeling once more. Releasing me, he tugged a handkerchief out of his breast pocket and wiped his hands clean, then said, “A fine day to bid a great man farewell.”
The captain hummed and lay a possessive hand on my nape. Tugging me tight to his side, before letting me draw in a single ragged breath.
And with it, the return of warmth.
The burn of molten gold familiar in its agony.
Asher forced my hands to remain limp at my sides. Loose, when I wanted to curl hooked fingers into claws and sink them deep into the belly of the man who asked, “And how is the girl today?” as if he hadn’t just licked the inside of my skeleton and sneered at the flavor.
The captain glanced down at me, his expression speculative, as if he’d forgotten just what lurked in his shadow. As if he didn’t know exactly how delicate an act it was to force me to do nothing. Tobenothing. “It’s hard to say,” he said after a moment. “Most of what she says is garbled nonsense”—he chuckled, long fingers almost touching at the hollow of my throat—“butI’veslept, and I think that’s more important.”
“Ah,” the Lieutenant General hummed, and clasped his hands behind his back as he guided us around the front of the audience. Past the casket, and off to the side of the courtyard, where he claimed a sliver of privacy in the shadow of a mighty pillar draped in Caledonian black and gold. “Well rested, and back in control. Good.Good.”
A grin flicked across the captain’s face, but before he could reply, I caught movement that ensnared my entire being with a visible snap.
Pale, silver-blonde hair shifting in the breeze.
Rail thin, long slender arms that hung loose from shoulders with sagging joints.
And her eyes.
Sunk deep, rimmed in dark, purple shadows.
Pupils blown wide enough that what might have once been a vibrant, icy blue, was now merely a tight ring of color that stared and stared and stared, but saw nothing at all.
Utterly vacant in a way that made my stomach lurch as acid splashed against the back of my throat as an image flashed between my temples.
Staring forward without blinking. An ominous wall of unflinching power that stood sentinel around the Head Priestess. Obedient slack-jawed slaves doomed to die in crackling blue priestess magic… men reduced to dust that might never be scraped off…
I almost wretched.
Couldn’t stop myself from taking a panicked half-step back as I stared at my reflection.My future. A girl who’d been a priestess, but was now little more than a well of power running dry. Used up, until all that remained was a desiccated husk that blinked and obeyed.
Lieutenant General Hastings’ priestess.
A living corpse programmed to follow at a distance. To obey.
