She would not help Maksym harm anyone else, refused to be a weapon wielded in someone else’s war.
Even if it meant ending her own pathetically short life.
She stood and brushed away her tears, stony determination sweeping through her as she stared into in the tub.
What would it feel like? To sink beneath the water and wait for death?
She peeled off her filthy silk dress, then choked back a painful sob as she stripped off Cael’s underwear.
She couldn’t bring herself to be upset with him, with the choice he’d made. A part of her was grateful he’d found a way out, though she did wonder how he’d managed it. Maybe the answers would await her in the afterlife.
She crawled over the lip of the tub, the chilled water pebbling goosebumps along her skin.
Lowering beneath the surface, she closed her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest.
And waited for blissful oblivion to embrace her.
* * *
Xenia burstthrough the surface of the water, her lungs a conflagration of burning pain.
She couldn’t fucking do it.
Couldn’t even be brave enough to end her life rather than be used as Maksym’s pawn.
Curse her useless survival instincts.
Her arms flopped over the side of the tub, her golden curls matted against her cheeks as heaving gulps of air razored down her throat.
As her breathing slowed, she scanned the small, circular chamber for anything she could use as a weapon. If she didn’t have the willpower to end her own life, perhaps she could hasten her destruction by foolishly attacking her captors.
Her gaze caught on a corner of crumbling stone at the bottom of the wall.
She climbed out of the tub, searching for a towel.
Of course Alexei hadn’t left her one.
She shook herself dry, then twisted her hair, squeezing out as much moisture as possible back into the water.
Cael’s black underwear tugged against her wet skin, and the glittering midnight blue silk clung to her as she slipped her dress back on.
Crouching, she picked at the cracked stone, using a fingernail to pry off a small shard. It was thin and brittle, but the edge was sharp.
It would have to do.
She tucked the shard into the waistband of the underwear, hidden beneath the scoop of her backless dress, then leaned against the tub to await Alexei.
Ten minutes passed. Fifteen. Then surely twenty.
She strode to the chamber door and pulled on the rusted iron handle, but it didn’t budge.
Pressing her ear against the door, she listened for sounds in the hallway, but the stone was too thick to hear anything through.
After what felt like an hour, the iron handle squeaked and the door groaned open.
Alexei poked his head in, his waist-length onyx hair falling over his shoulder, and grunted, “Out. Now.”
Xenia pushed up off the floor and followed him into the breezeway, biting back questions about why she’d been left in the chamber for so long.
