by Keri Lake
Don’t do anything stupid, I remind myself. Having found Will, I have more reasons today to survive and get back to Szolen, but the thought of being subjected to Remus’s sick and twisted pastime a second night in a row is a dread I can’t bear to face again.
As I attempt to pass the guard, I feel a tight clutch of my arm, which sends alarms through me.
“You want out of this place.”
It’s not a question, and I’m certain he can see the answer written all over my face. “You know a way?”
“It’ll cost you. Freedom isn’t actually free.”
“I’ve … got nothing with me, but … back in Szolen, I can--”
“I don’t mean your worthless little trinkets, girl.”
Frowning, I tug my arm from his grasp, my lips peeling back with disgust. “Is everyone this side of the wall so preoccupied with that?”
“You haven’t lived out here long enough, princess.” A hard shove of my body sends my spine crashing into the bars behind me, where he holds me prisoner against them. Panic explodes through my muscles that are comparably weak, but ready for defense, if necessary. “I’ve not seen a woman in weeks. Weeks. My balls are swollen to stones. I’m not asking to fuck you. Just put your mouth on it, is all.”
Body trembling, I grind my teeth, catching the tic of his jaw. The man is so desperate, I wonder if he is capable of taking without my consent.
“Suck me off, and I’ll see about sneaking you on the next run to the hive.”
“See about it? You’re lying, then. You can’t help me, at all.”
He licks his lips, eyes riveted on mine. “With time, maybe I can. I could get us both out. And you could be mine.” The glint of unseen fantasies in his eyes is enough to make me puke, but I can’t deny the lure of possibility.
“And all I have to do is suck you off.”
“Yes,” he says on a shaky exhale. “Please. Women are hard to come by out here. A man can only go so long before he cracks.”
“And what then? You take it, anyway?”
“Maybe I do.”
Strange how the mind works this side of the wall. The way the questions begin to shift from how will I survive to how low am I willing to sink? Unfortunately for me, I was born with a stubborn streak.
“I’d rather suck the guts from a worm than put my mouth on you.”
Lips twisted to a wicked smirk, he gnashes his teeth, and I wonder if he’ll punch me like the other guard, or petition Remus to have me strung up and whipped again.
Doesn’t matter that he was the one who propositioned me in exchange for freedom, it’s his word against mine.
“What are you doing, Jarvis?” The sound of Agatha’s voice is a needling prick to my eardrum, and with a quick glance, the guard releases me, taking a step back.
“She resisted, Miss Agatha. I was merely warning her.”
“That’s a lie.”
The look he shoots me is the last thing I’m certain his enemies would see before he sliced a blade across their throat.
“Take her to Remus. Immediately. As you were instructed.” Without another word, she spins around, the flowy gown trailing after her as she exits the cell block.
The moment she’s out of sight, Jarvis snarls and grips my arm with more force than necessary. “Fuck with me. See what happens.” He gives another hard shove forward, and as I make my way toward Remus’s room, the guard follows after.
My pulse is hammering when we approach the door, a dozen scenarios playing out in my head. What if he tries to force himself on me? How will I outsmart him tonight? To what degree will Remus exert his control?
At first, it doesn’t appear there’s anyone in the room, but at the sound of splashing, I turn to the open door of the bathroom, and find Remus submerged in the tub, his arms slung over the sides of it. The ridges of small muscles prove he’s not a skinny man, by any means, but certainly not as brawny as Titus, or even Will, for that matter. A map of blue veins peek through his pale, white skin, giving him an almost sickly appearance, and when he waves me over, my stomach sinks.
As the guard turns to leave, Remus leans forward, spilling a small bit of water onto the tiled floor.
“Wait.” With his command, the guard halts his steps. “You’re new, right?”
“Yes. Sir.” Backtracking his steps, he stands in the bathroom doorway again. “I met you at the arena.”
“There are so many of you now, I can’t even remember faces, let alone names.”
“Jarvis. Name’s Jarvis.”
“Right. So, Jarvis, I understand you had a situation with my lovely Thalia down in the cells.”
Somehow, Agatha managed to return to the room, inform him of the incident, and leave again before we arrived?
“Just a misunderstanding.” The boredom in the guard’s tone reflects the lack of respect—something, I suspect, Remus picks up on, as he stares back with a twitch in his eye. “No big deal. Sir.”
The ‘Sir’ seems to be an afterthought each time, as if he can’t really bring himself to say it to Remus. Not that I blame him, but from what little I’ve learned the last couple of days, he’s walking a dangerous tightrope and apparently can’t see the vast cavernous drop below his feet.
“It was my fault,” I offer, even if the man doesn’t deserve my reinforcement. “I hesitated to come when summoned.”
Remus’s gaze slides to mine, and he tips his head with the kind of deadly curiosity that sends curls of fear down my spine. “Why ever would you hesitate, Dove?”
The click of the door interrupts my attention, and Agatha sweeps into the room, followed by another guard, who pushes a steel cart holding a lidded steel pot, and trailed by a second guard behind him.
Something coils deep inside my stomach, telling me there’s a game in play.
I remember reading a book on the dinosaurs, the way velociraptors hunted in tandem, and I can’t help but visualize Remus and Agatha the same way. Just as the hair on my neck stood on end reading about the animals, imagining myself caught between them, I feel equally at a disadvantage now, staring at that pot.
Jarvis takes notice, too, though his stance is far more relaxed than mine. Every nerve in my body is alive and in defense.
At the sounds of splashing water from behind, I turn to see Remus step out of the tub, the stark view of his naked cock enough to send a jolt of discomfort through me. I lower my gaze, catching Agatha’s amused expression as she hands him a towel.
“Agatha tells me you touched Thalia. That your hand was at her throat.”
“She resisted, as she said.” The casual dismissal in Jarvis’s voice is unsettling, the way he doesn’t seem to question Remus’s sudden interest.
“Of course. Yet … you weren’t asked to punish her. You were only asked to bring her to me.”
“And what am I supposed to do when she doesn’t want to?”
“Is that the case, my dear? Did you flat out refuse?”
If I say yes, it’s my ass on the line. If I say no, it’s the guard’s.
“I just wasn’t feeling well, is all.”
“Did. You. Refuse. Him?”
Pulse racing, I carefully consider how to answer his question. “Yes. I refused.”
A cold thumb traces down my temple, as Remus smiles down on me. “You have no sense of self-preservation. Do you, dear?” He lifts his gaze just enough to give a quick nod to the guard who rolled in the pot.
My stomach sinks.
Both guards seize Jarvis from behind, trapping his arm behind his back.
“Jesus had no sense of self-preservation, either. He died for our sins.” The calm of Remus’s voice over the scuffling and grunts stokes my anxiety, my nerves flailing beneath my skin like livewires. “Our present sufferings are not comparable to the glory that will be revealed in us.”
Agatha opens the lid to the pot, releasing a cloud of steam.
In the guard’s grasp, Jarvis struggles, but to no avail. One of the men stretches the unwitting guard’s arm out toward the p
ot, the contents of which I can’t see from my angle.
“No! Wait! Please wait!” The harrowing sounds of Jarvis’s screams tell me whatever is in the pot is enough to have an otherwise impassive grown man wriggling and begging for mercy. Something I won’t be able to stomach. I can’t watch this. I can’t stand by and watch this horrific spectacle beside this man’s impassive tormentor.
Heart slamming against my ribs, I turn to Remus. “He didn’t mean to. I know he didn’t mean any harm.”
“You’re very kind. But, unless you want to join him, I suggest you shut the fuck up.”
“She …. She told me! She … told me to … do … it!” Jarvis’s words are clipped with his stiff jaw, but their meaning is clear.
I snap my attention to Agatha, whose wretched grin confirms what I already know about these two: they like games. Sick and sadistic games, designed to torment their victims to the fullest.
The guard manages to shove Jarvis’s hand down into the pot, and the gut-wrenching sounds that crack through his chest are too much to bear. Screwing my eyes shut, I cover my ears in a poor attempt to mute the sounds, but the screams bleed through, and when they finally die down to a gurgle, I open my eyes to see the guard pulling his hand out.
White bones make up his fingers where the skin and flesh have melted away. Jarvis hangs from his captors’ arms, passed out.
As many horrible things as I encountered as my grandmother’s assistant in births and injuries, I’ve never seen something so grotesque in my life.
Acids shoot up my throat, and I lean away from Remus just in time to expel what little I’ve eaten today. The liquids splash to the floor, and I fall to my knees as another torrent shoots from my mouth. My chest tugs for another round, but I swallow it back and breathe deeply, trying to catch my breath.
Remus holds a corner of his bath towel to his nose and shivers. “Gather up her vomit. He can eat it for dinner.”
I raise my hand to cover my mouth, but a third round of fluids spills out onto what I’ve already expelled.
An arm hooks in mine, as Remus helps me to my feet. “You look positively awful, Dove.”
While one guard drags Jarvis out of the room, the other kneels down and sops my vomit with a towel, scooping it up from the floor.
“I don’t feel so good.”
His long, bony hand cups my face, and he tips his head with a feigned expression of concern. “You don’t desire to play with me, after I punished your attacker? I did it for you.”
This twisted Prince Charming role only raises the hairs on my skin. He’s insane.
“Get her out of here.” Plopping down on the bed, Agatha holds up her glass as if to keep it from spilling over, before guzzling back a sip. “It’s a wonder you can stand the smell.”
“Go on back to your cage, little Dove. Get some rest tonight, and we’ll pick this up tomorrow.” The smile on his face fades to a grimace, before he steps away and strides across the room to sit alongside Agatha. “I don’t need you puking all over me.”
Hand clutched to my stomach, I hobble toward the door. And pass a small bit of Jarvis’s flesh on the floor as I exit the room.
Chapter 15
Night in this place is harrowing, with the shadows crawling over the walls and sounds of critters scampering in the darkness, ones I’d bet would love nothing more than to gobble up my small, injured bird. In Szolen, we had streetlamps that flickered on, the moment the sun disappeared for the day, but out here, they only have the moon, and the sliver of light streaming in isn’t enough to see past my own nose. For now, I’ve taken my purple pillowcase and crumpled it into a makeshift nest, until I can find some proper bedding for her. Earlier, I broke off tiny pieces of my ash bread from the dinner tray left outside my cell, a meal I opted to forego after tonight’s events, and fed the little wren from my palm. Using the spoon from my mush, I left a small amount of water for her and closed the drawer a crack, so she won’t hop out. She seems to appreciate the comfort, not having made so much as a peep since.
In the stillness, my thoughts turn to Will, and how miserable he must be, locked in that dingy, damp cell, without a cot, or a blanket.
And Titus.
Titus.
I can’t place why my stomach flutters at the thought of his name, and it’s unnerving, the way my body reacted earlier today in his cell.
Agitated. Edgy. Hyper aware of his presence all the damn time. And that annoying tickle in my chest, along with the involuntary clenching of my thighs whenever I hear his voice has become the most frustrating part of our encounters.
Perhaps it’s because I’ve never had a man, aside from my father, fight on my behalf. Not even Will. In fact, when the church decided to ordain me as a Daughter, instead of offering marriage, or something that might sway my mother, he decided to run off and join Legion. At the time, I thought it was his efforts to commiserate with me, to share my suffering, but I later came to understand it was simply an act of anger and selfishness on his part. Anger toward me, as he admitted the night he took my virginity.
Behind shuttered lids, the visuals of that night come to mind. The cold earth pressing into my back, as we lay beneath the stars. The tremble in my hands while I touched his smooth skin. The pain and discomfort and yearning to tell him to stop, but I stayed silent, anyway. Because even if it hurt, even if I found little pleasure in the act, I’m glad it was Will.
Sweet and gentle Will.
At the opposite end of the spectrum is Titus, where my thoughts somehow swing toward like a pendulum. How utterly devastating it would’ve been for a man that size to have been my first. In spite of the wrongness of it, I can’t help but imagine his hulking body over mine, that warm metallic scent hitting the back of my throat, muscles flexing, those honey eyes burning over my skin, hungering and desperate. Like an animal. He’d probably stretch a woman in unimaginable ways. Leave her ravaged and destroyed afterwards.
The thoughts twitch my thighs, sending a strange ache to my core, and I clamp my eyes while squeezing my legs together. What the hell is wrong with me?
How can I possibly think of such things, after the night I had, watching the skin of a man’s hand melt away from its bones. A twinge of bile tickles my chest again, and I clutch the edge of the cot as the acrid taste climbs my throat, but it quickly settles back down. He said Agatha told him to come onto me, which has me certain now that I’ve been swept up in their game. To what end, though?
Here, I thought it was blind luck that Remus hasn’t yet forced himself on me, but there’s a bigger picture that I’m not seeing yet. Perhaps some twisted foreplay of building up my trust, only to catch me off guard. Like two cats toying with an unwitting mouse.
Only, I have to be shrewder, if I intend to survive them.
For not only my sake, but Will’s, too.
How did Will even get tangled into this web?
He mentioned a transport of silver cages. It’s possible those silver cages held the same mutations as the one I saw in the arena. According to him, his vehicle was raided by marauders on the route back from the convent, and that’s how he ended up here.
Remus raided the trucks.
And the cages.
Which means those mutations might very well be here.
What a distraction they would make. One that could surely allow for escape, somehow.
My objective tomorrow is simple: find out where, and if, the silver cages are here.
Chapter 16
The last thing I want to see when I wake up is Remus sitting at the entrance to my cell.
It’s hard to say how long he’s watched me, but the smile on his face, as he straddles the threshold, casts a sensation over my skin like a thousand tiny maggots crawling over me. It’s only when I’m fully upright that I notice the small baby bird cradled in the crook of his elbow, which sets off alarms inside my head.
“Good morning, Sleepy.”
“Good morning.” I keep my eyes on the bird, watching every stroke of Remus’s h
and over its feathers. “She’s, um … not fully healed. I suspect she needs her rest.”
“You nurse animals, as well as humans.”
“I’ve cared for the occasional animal, yes.”
“No wonder you’re so skilled with Titus. I hear his wounds are doing quite well. Of course, his Alpha genes certainly help, I’m sure.”
“Alpha? I … I was under the impression the last of the Alphas was captured by Legion.” It’s a known fact that, for the last couple of years, Legion has hunted the former soldiers of Calico. I know this, because my father was responsible for capturing them out in the Deadlands.
If it’s true what Remus says, then everything I’ve questioned and suspected about Titus makes sense now. The band at his throat. The way he fought the mutation so effortlessly, as if he’d been trained. I heard they were designed by Legion as a means of defense against the Ragers. Genetically modified, with both strength and agility, and speed to dispose of dangerous threats.
Only problem is, they viewed the Legion officers as threats, and promptly turned against them.
“How are you privy to such information?” The constant, knowing smile on Remus’s face always sets my teeth on edge with his questions.
I consider my next words very carefully before answering. “My father’s friend is a Legion officer.” The knowledge could either make me a friend, or foe. Marauders are the enemy, and therefore such a connection might be deemed worthy of death, but then, why keep Will alive? He must see value in him, somehow.
“Is that so? I happen to have a captured Legion officer down in the cells.”
“Oh?”
“Perhaps you know him. He goes by the name Will.”
“There are a number of Legion cadets.”
“I never mentioned that he was a cadet.”
“I know the officers, and I don’t recognize his name, so I assumed.” Clearing my throat, I continue to watch him pet the bird. “You also managed to capture an Alpha. Impressive. I heard they don’t go down very easily.”
“Like any beast, it just takes the right poison. Titus was nearly dead when I brought him back here. In fact, I nearly had him tossed over the cliff, thinking he wasn’t going to make it, but Lisbeth, bless her heart, came through with the cure. Saved his life! I’ll admit, I don’t know much about them, aside from that they fight like lions. It’s sort of like having my own exotic animal.”