Her throat ringed by a burnished, ugly gold. Impure… and yet…
She was the very picture of Caledonian perfection.
“I brought a gift for you, Rawlings,” the Lieutenant General said, and produced a black velvet bag that clinked when it changed hands. “As promised.”
The captain loosened the ties and peeked inside. “And the crown gave permission?” he asked, tone light, despite the tingle of warning that sparkled at my wrists and throat.
With a shrug, the Lieutenant General said, “Given the special circumstances, I’m confident you’ll get approval.”
“Thank you, sir. But”—the captain tucked the bag into his jacket pocket—“if it’s all the same to you, I’d like to wait until it’s in writing. I’ve already pushed my luck more than I should have with Mila.”
For a moment it seemed that Lieutenant General Hastings might insist, for it was obvious enough that he wished to clap the contents of that bag around my wrists himself. That he’d ushered us off into the shadows for but one reason—to watch the blue flames in my heart flicker and die.
Irritation rippled across his features, flicking through that narrowed, stormy glare. But then, with a tight smirk, he said, “Suit yourself. And again,” he added, clapping the captain on the shoulder, “my condolences for your loss.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Oh, and after the service,” he added, “I’d like to schedule a meeting.”
The captain cleared his throat. “Certainly, sir. May I ask what it’s regarding?”
To this, a sly grin spread over the Lieutenant General’s lips, and he said simply, “Your future.”
He turned to leave, then, and with him, the ghost followed a score of paces in his wake. Her body moved before her head felt the silent command, before her eyes caught up to the action. Giving the illusion of a puppet jerking to the orders of unseen hands. A phantom tethered to Lieutenant General Hastings, bound in iron and gold, forbidden from slipping into the Void until there was nothing at all that might be of use to the empire.
When the shaking started, it came from deep inside. Down deep where the well of power had gone cold, frosted over with a fine layer of dust. Where a monster lurked. Howling at her bonds. Clawing and raging and trapped with no outlet, but that which was made of her own power.
Through blood and bone.
A breath rattled through my teeth, chattering.
The captain surged into me, wrapped both hands about my shoulders, and pressed me back. Back, until my spine bumped the pillar and my world was filled withhim.
He stooped. Lips set to my ear, he murmured, “Just breathe. Breathe with me, Mila. That’s it,” he droned. Inhaling with me.Forme. “Slowly, now. In and out.”
Teeth clattering, I shook my head. But I couldn’t find a single word for what I’d just seen. Couldn’t describe so exquisite a horror asthat.
I could only obey.
Long fingers moved to cradle my throat, his thumb pressing at my pulse. A tiny, invisible gesture laced with a heady sip of elite strength that fed the fire that wasn’t allowed to burn. “This is Caledonia,” he said when I took another breath, unprompted. His touch was gentle—his words a hideous excuse. And his eyes? They’d gone liquid with something that almost tasted like pity. “It canalwaysget worse.”
I swallowed back the lump of nausea on a nod.
Focused on drawing one breath in, just so I could force the other out.
“One day at a time, pet,” he said, voice low as he murmured his new mantra. The words hot on my cheeks as he let me drink from that bottomless cup and lent me a soldier’s endurance. “And we’re almost through today.”
I almost laughed.
The grass was still wet with dew—the morning sun not yet hot enough to burn it away.
But when the storm had passed, my nerves well tempered by waves of lapping calm, he set one hand to my lower back and drove me back to his place in the front row. Stepping around a line of formless, well-dressed blurs—only to find Carina already seated in his place. Her lips pressed to the Tilcot widow’s temple as she whispered against tear-stained, blotchy skin.
Red-rimmed eyes darted to my face—a face that twisted into something hideous at the mere sight of me, and for the first time, I was grateful to Carina for injecting herself into the captain’s life. That she’d taken it upon herself to absorb the grief of a woman who loathed me on sight.
Before the widow could voice that hideous expression, the captain’s fingers caught me beneath the chin. And in a voice that brooked no argument, he said, “Kneel,” and pulled the very breath from my lungs. My knees went boneless, and with lingering contact, he took all that he’d given. Filling my chest with a liberal dusting of frost that left me sagging before him.
Beforethem.
