Blinking hard, I forced myself to look around. The interior of the shuttle was larger and more luxurious than any vehicle I’d seen before—I might have mistaken it for a room if it were not in motion. As the voices outside the glass case rumbled, I couldn’t bring myself to focus on them. Rowan leaned against the wall near Zia, rubbing his temples as if trying to work through the effects of the gas himself.
“Ben,” I murmured.
I expected to find him curled in the corner, making himself as small as possible, but no. He was up and around, pacing the opposite wall of our container. His eyes were glazed. He alternated between scraping the back of his hand and running his fingers through his hair. He caught himself against the glass each time a bump in the road made him stumble.
When I tried to stand and go to him, Zia squeezed my hand and made me stay.
“Your friend is not well,” she murmured. “He has not responded to me. If my magic weren’t locked away, I would help,but…” Her lips pressed into a thin line. “I’m so sorry you two have been dragged into this.”
No one dragged me, I wanted to say. I chose to make myself bait. Chose to put my trust in—
“Cliff.” My voice closed around a sob, pitching into a howl. “Cliff!”
The conversation paused.
“Hear that?” Rhett chuckled. “Your pet healer is mewling for you.”
I caught sight of Rhett’s terrible smirk and immediately turned away, unable to stomach him. But somehow, he washere. He was real.
As though this living nightmare needed any more fuel.
“I have that effect on just about everyone.” Cliff smiled—and it was such a contagious,sweetsmile that it made the cool edge in his gaze stun me all the deeper. He was watching me, leaning against the sturdy steel wall that separated the drivers from the back of the vehicle. His tuxedo was partially undone, as though he was already distancing himself from what we’d attempted to do.
“She thrives on attention,” Cliff went on. “If I said ‘jump’, she’d ask ‘how high?’”
I lost my voice, gaping at him as fury and grief warred for dominance. If this cage hadn’t separated us, I’d have speared him with ice for speaking about me like that.
Rhett lingered by the transport tanks, leaning down to catch my eye. His voice dropped a decibel when he purred, “What’s the matter, darling? Didn’t you miss me?”
“Go to hell,” I croaked.
“Aw, don’t take it out on me thatElliothere finally put you in your place.”
“Shut the hell up,” Cliff said with chilling coolness. When Rhett opened his mouth to protest, Cliff doubled down. “That’san order, Iverson. Guess you were too busy sucking my dad’s dick to realize this, but I’m your fucking boss now.”
Eros growled in his throat, making the other two stiffen. “He’s right, Iverson. But I don’t want to spend the next hour listening to you two bitching at each other’s throats.” He cut a stern glance at Cliff, too.
Rhett swallowed his outrage with a sour look—and to my surprise, a flicker ofhurt. Had he expected to be favored for his loyalty? The vulnerability changed his features in a way that disarmed me, but it vanished in a blink.
“Of course,” Rhett said, that too-white smile inching back into place, watching Cliff. “It’s good to finally have you on board. I’m sure we’ll be best pals soon enough.”
“I’d rather have a lobotomy,” Cliff muttered.
“You haven’t given me a real chance. We’ve gotplentyof catching up to do.”
Rhett clapped him on the shoulder, giving him a rough but well-meaning squeeze. Cliff’s frown deepened as he scanned Rhett up and down, honing in on his leg—the limb that had been gnawed to sinew and bone by the vicious sirens outside Veloria over a month ago.
Shifting his weight easily, Rhett stood with no indication of discomfort. Under the dark pants and combat boots, it was impossible to tell the state of his leg, but it looked like time had been unwound, and he was healthy and vital as we’d first met him at the outpost.
“How did you survive?” Cliff asked.
“You mean when you left me for dead in a putrid, siren-infested swamp?” Rhett chuckled wryly, some of his ire perhaps pacified by the presence of Eros and the three armored guards sitting in line across the way from us.
He rolled up the sleeve of his jacket, a heavy black canvas not dissimilar to that worn by the guards. The skin of his forearmwas interrupted by a flash of metal. The sight made me recoil, my insides squirming. I didn’t understand the mechanism entirely, but it looked like it wasa part of him.It was roughly six inches in length, with a circular piece at the back that looked like it was meant to receive some sort of frequent injection.
“Backup wasn’t far off by the time I faded. Should’ve heard the tantrum when they only missed you by only ten minutes,” Rhett said. “They brought me to Price himself, saved my life with his signature procedure.”
Cliff frowned. “Price?”
