by Alexa Black
But not because she’d forgiven Teran. Teran had meant to claim her without her consent, and had been willing to torture someone else for the right to do it.
Cailyn’s rage cooled to a numb scar somewhere beneath her chest. If she had time left in her life, she would have to unearth it.
But right now, she could think of only one thing: Teran dropping to her knees in front of Lord Keriel. Buying Cailyn’s freedom.
“And what will we find, Nivrai?”
“I don’t know, my lord. Derys and I argued. I left to attend to other business—” Cailyn winced, remembering the collar falling from her neck and the door closing, leaving her alone—“and she went to see Lord Keriel. Sometime later, I got a videocall from him, showing Cailyn bound and telling me to come to his rooms.”
“And?”
“I told you already. He had her bound. He threatened to rape her, kill her, or both.” She took a deep breath. “I shot him before he was finished explaining it all. He died surprised.”
Cailyn froze. Had she heard that right?
The face on the screen blinked. “You’re admitting that you did it?”
His answer was a brittle smile. “Of course I did it.”
“But—”
“My lord, I’ve wanted revenge on Lord Keriel for years. I have no reason to be bashful about taking it.”
“You know what this means.”
“Of course. I’ll come peacefully.”
“No!” Cailyn cried, her voice cracking.
She fought not to tremble and rose to her feet. “No. That isn’t how it hap—”
“Enough!” Teran thundered.
Cailyn kept her eyes fixed on the screen. If she looked over at Teran, she might lose her nerve.
“That’s not how it happened,” she said again.
Lord Xanas’s eyes, enlarged by the screen, widened, speckled rings of brown surrounded by bloodshot white.
Cailyn swallowed hard and continued. “What my lady says is true. Lord Keriel lured me there. He said he had…” she hesitated, “…said he had something I wanted. I went. He knocked me out and bound me, as Lady Nivrai says. She came to rescue me, and he threatened to violate me, as she said.”
“And what happened then?” Xanas’s brows knotted in puzzlement.
Cailyn could guess why. The helldemon of Nivrai had just confessed to murder. Could she convince him that a monster was innocent? She licked her lips and spoke again.
“She took my place. She traded her freedom for mine. I walked away. Then I turned back, and I saw them—”
Her voice broke. She closed her eyes to block out the memory, but it remained, burned into the backs of her eyelids. “I saw her kneel in front of him. I couldn’t stand it. I picked up the gun—”
“Enough!” Teran cried again.
The words spilled free from Cailyn now, heedless of Teran’s command. “I picked up the gun and screamed. When he turned around, I fired. I shot until I knew he was dead.”
She stared straight at the screen. “It’s me you want, Lord Xanas. Not Teran Nivrai.”
“No—!”
“It was me,” Cailyn said again. “My fingerprints are on the gun.”
“You mean to tell us—”
“If my lady had come in, shot Lord Keriel, and set me free, why would my fingerprints be there too?”
Xanas’s brow furrowed and he frowned. “You do understand what you’re confessing to, Derys?”
Cailyn bit her lip. They already believed Teran. Why shouldn’t they? She was the helldemon who snatched disobedient children away.
And she’d already tortured one person and enslaved another.
“You think I don’t understand murder and treason, my lord?”
“I just want to be sure you know that you don’t have to obey her. We will protect you if you need it.”
Damn it. Did everyone think she was nothing more than Teran’s toy?
“I’m telling the truth, my lord.”
His eyes flicked to Teran. “Is she, Nivrai?”
The silence stretched. Cailyn wrapped her bare arms around herself, suddenly chilled.
Xanas spoke again. Pink lips parted to expose a pinker tongue. The size made it obscene.
“She is, isn’t she?”
“My lord,” Teran said finally, “it’s not right to punish her. This was between me and Ben—and Lord Keriel.”
“You meant to kill him.”
“I went there to kill him. I went there to rip him apart.”
“But you didn’t do it. Did you, Nivrai?”
“I say I did.”
“That’s not—”
“Take us both and decide. Or better yet—”
Teran looked up, a light in her eyes.
“What is it, Nivrai?”
“Serving me led to this. Don’t kill her for that. Let her stay here with me.”
“Nivrai, you’ve already spoken your piece, and that was a lie.”
Teran smiled, a bloodless smile Cailyn knew well. “We’ll both remain here, far away from any intrigue.”
“I’m supposed to take your word for this, Nivrai? One or the other of you just committed murder and high treason.”
“Let me finish.” She laughed, a cold chuckle that chilled Cailyn even though she’d heard it before. Xanas cleared his throat, apparently just as unnerved.
“You believe Derys, I think, and not me,” Teran continued. “Well, then, if she ever leaves Nivrai—if anyone even so much as sees her in a shuttle leaving the planet—her life is forfeit.”
She purred at his answering blink. “As is mine.”
“You’re saying she’d become your slave.” His mouth pursed in disgust. “You’re asking us to deny her rights.”
The claws emerged for a moment and then retreated. “You’ve done that already.”
Cailyn froze. A chill spread through her.
Had she heard that right?
Teran was still talking. “All that would change is that you can kill me if she leaves.”
“Nivrai, we could never allow that. That’s barbaric.”
“Barbaric, my lord?” Teran snickered, a sound of pure contempt. “You already know you won’t get the information you need from me if you destroy something you promised to me.”
Ash and acid clogged Cailyn’s throat. So it was true. They had traded her body and freedom for atrocity.
A gem in a world of stones.
She’d basked in being prized. But now they’d bartered and offered her. Traded her like a shining thing with no will or needs of its own.
She thought of her father, of his styled hair, rouged cheeks, lipsticked mouth. Even after years of retirement, he’d painted himself like a courtesan. Had he wanted it that way? Or had he done it for her mother? She’d whisked him away from a life he’d no longer wanted. Had he kept himself polished for her?
What about the crazed client who’d come after him no matter where he hid? Cailyn had never paid much attention to it. Now, seeing what Lord Keriel had done to Teran, some part of her understood.
Xanas nodded. “The Councils will have to meet. But mark my words: Nivrai is surrounded. If you try to escape, you will be shot down.”
Teran nodded, all business. “Understood.”
Chapter Forty-two
“You can’t do that!”
“I can’t do what?”
Cailyn’s fist slammed against the table. Her voice shook as she fought tears. “You can’t just trade away my freedom! It doesn’t belong to you!”
The dam burst. Cailyn’s vision blurred. She blinked to clear it.
“But it does.”
“What?”
“Your freedom. It already does belong to me.”
Teran looked at Cailyn. “Guild law doesn’t matter, little one. Not if the Councils say it doesn’t.”
Cailyn dug her nails into her palm to keep the tears from coming again. “I already know what you’re about to say, my lady. Lord Keriel already told me.”
Cailyn said nothing.
“I could use you when I liked, even if you refused. I could keep you with me, even if you wanted to leave.”
Teran’s lips pulled back in a grimace or a grin. Cailyn couldn’t tell which.
“I know,” Cailyn said, her voice flat.
“Then you know I had that right and didn’t use it.”
“You—”
“I didn’t want to force you. I still don’t. I’d much rather you choose to stay with me.”
“Then how can you do this?”
“But that doesn’t change the facts. You’re already mine, little one.”
She chuckled, sharp and harsh. The sound turned Cailyn’s insides to water. Fortunately, she was already sitting down. She thanked her goddess for the small mercy of her knees not buckling.
“I couldn’t keep Mariel alive. Claws and rumors don’t fight a sickness that wastes someone away from the inside. But I can keep you alive.”
A claw tucked under Cailyn’s chin. “If I have to keep you here to save your life, I will.”
“You can’t do this!”
“I don’t give a damn about your consent.”
“I turned myself in. It’s over.”
The claw sank back into Teran’s fingertip. Teran stood up, the gray suit she wore hugging a body Cailyn still itched to touch.
Long fingers twined in her hair. “Is serving me really so terrible?”
The richness of the voice made tears come to Cailyn’s eyes again.
“Would it really be so awful to belong to me forever?”
Cailyn pushed Teran’s face away. She couldn’t stand to feel her breath on her skin.
“No,” Cailyn said. “No. It wouldn’t.”
“Then come with me.” Newsteel glinted as it slid down her cheek.
“I’m offering you everything,” she said. “Everything I have and more. I will make this place a paradise for you. Forever.”
But what kind of paradise could there be without freedom?
“You like this,” Cailyn spat. She turned her head away. “You like the thought of keeping me. It excites you.”
Teran’s lips touched Cailyn’s cheek. “Of course.” The other hand slid over Cailyn’s chest. “So do you.”
“No.” Her hands found their strength. She seized Teran’s fingers, trapped them fast. “I won’t trade my freedom for your pleasure.”
“If it weren’t your life on the line, I would understand,” Teran returned, her voice sharp as a cracked mirror. “I would let you go. If that’s really what you want.”
“It is.”
“But now I am your life. My pleasure is your survival. This is your only hope.”
“I had a life out there. I had lovers. Clients. Friends. You were part of it. Not all of it. You can’t be all of it now.”
Teeth slid along her neck. They bit, sudden and sharp. The hand at her breast tightened. Her blouse tore.
“No!”
“No?” The richness at her throat became a growl. “If I went ahead, what would happen?”
Thin fingers reached through the torn fabric. Metal curled against Cailyn’s skin. Fingers ran over her nipple. It hardened at their touch.
“You would surrender, wouldn’t you?” Warm lips kissed their way down her neck. “You’d be mine. All of this would be over.”
Cailyn closed her eyes. Maybe Teran was right. Would she really buy her freedom at the cost of her own life?
A part of her wanted Teran to end it, her fingers plunging in, driving out her confusion and fear. She yearned for it, even as she knew it would tear her asunder.
Now she had a choice. Between death with honor and life as a broken toy.
A toy cloven by pleasure and pain, drowning in one or the other or both at once.
“No,” she whispered. She said it again, her voice loud and strong. “No.” Tears came. She didn’t check them. “You’d save me from rape so you can do it yourself?”
Metal pricked her. The hand on her breast tightened, hard.
With a cry, the claws pulled away.
Cailyn blinked away the tears blurring her vision. “I’m going. Now. I’m taking a shuttle and turning myself in.”
She took the first step forward. The next would be easier, and the next, and the next, until she sat in the cockpit of a shuttle. Ran her hands over the controls.
Left Nivrai behind her.
Like all the courtesans, Cailyn had been trained in self-defense. Guild law didn’t always deter the obsessed or the violent.
But Lady Nivrai had been trained by the best. The blow came, a solid hit to Cailyn’s solar plexus, before she even thought to expect it. She hit the floor gasping for breath.
The pain of it overwhelmed her. Its purity shocked her senses. She choked and sputtered and struggled to sit up.
After that, she would have to stand. And then—
Servants surrounded her, a silent swarm. Teran loomed over her, every part of her a weapon: claws, elbows, thighs, teeth.
A voice rang above her, a tempest in her ears. She struggled to make sense of its words.
“—to the cells down below. Care for her well, but don’t let her out.”
Hands wrapped around her arms. They pulled her up and dragged her out.
*
Cailyn supposed she should be grateful for the warm, padded bed. Grateful for the meal, simple but nourishing. Grateful for the servants who peeked in. They never said anything aloud. They waited until she told them she was well and left.
Teran could have thrown her in a box, cold and alone, on a cot that hurt her back. She could have made the light sear her eyes.
She could have done countless things to make sure Cailyn would break.
Cailyn stared into the lights on the ceiling. She’d break eventually, whether Teran was kind to her or not.
Her mouth watered. Memories of Teran’s smell and taste washed over her when the walls and bed grew too boring to stare at.
More memories followed. The five stinging cuts on her breast where Teran had grabbed her. Teran’s voice, telling Lord Keriel to go ahead and kill her.
And the worst image of all, replayed over light she gazed into: Lord Keriel’s head, blood pouring from it and pooling around him on the ground. His sightless eyes, wide in what should have been triumph.
She’d killed a man. He’d hit the floor leaking life from punctures she’d made.
She slipped, fell to the floor, and retched.
She couldn’t imagine the thing she’d done. She remembered it but couldn’t hold it in her mind. It slipped away, a bright-colored image without meaning.
Dizzy, she hauled herself up.
She blinked. Teran stood above her. The doors had already closed behind her.
Cailyn stared up at the clean lines of the gray uniform. Her stomach turned again. She’d gone from serving the helldemon of Nivrai to lying on the floor in a cell and fighting not to vomit.
She lifted her head, scrounging for dignity.
“The Councils accepted my proposal,” Teran said. “You will live.”
“If I leave—” Cailyn began.
“If you leave today, they’ll take you. Execute you. Otherwise you’re going to live.”
She reached down and offered her hand. She’d retracted her claws, but still the silvery promise glistened in her fingernails.
“I did it,” Cailyn said. “I deserve justice.”
Teran’s hand wound itself in her hair and dragged her up. “You mean death. I could do that too, you know.” She stroked Cailyn’s tear-stained cheek with a hand festooned with knives. “If death is what you want, I could just kill you myself.”
“I don’t want to die.”
“Then come.”
“We can use the tunnels, escape through them—”
“No.”
Cailyn winced. The hand in her hair stung her scalp. “Then I have no other choice
.”
Steel ran over Cailyn’s lip, down her cheek, over her chin. It stilled at her neck, sharp and deadly. “If you’re so set on dying, why let them kill you? They don’t give a damn about you. They’ll try you and they’ll dispose of you, toss you aside, broken, like—”
She fell silent. Cailyn saw tears glisten in her eyes.
“If you’re so sure they’re right, at least let yourself die well.” Steel-tipped fingers tickled the flesh over her jugular. “At least take pleasure in it.”
The room spun in Cailyn’s vision. “Is that what you want, my lady? Is that how this ends? You train me to love pain so I’ll come when you kill me?”
“I watched Mariel die by inches,” Teran spat. “Do you really think I want to watch you die too?”
“I—”
“But if you insist on dying, I can give you something those fools can’t. I can make it beautiful.”
Cailyn closed her eyes. She imagined herself hanging naked and bound, the claws running soft as leaves over her flesh and then digging in, drawing out sighs and screams alike.
Would she die that way if Teran did it? Would she drown in her own red? She imagined the dizzy sparkle as she gave herself up to the pain.
It would be unnatural, horrible as anything else in this litany of atrocity. But it would be hers. Chosen. Private.
An execution wouldn’t be. A roomful of people who’d been taught to despise her would gawk as she took her last breath. Teran and old friends and lovers would weep in some far corner as she drifted to her last sleep.
Was that really what she wanted?
She let Teran haul her up. Steel danced against her neck.
“Now?” she whispered.
The hand froze. “No. Not now. Let me take you back up first.”
Cailyn slipped her hand into Teran’s and followed, not sure whether she meant to consent or to slip away once they left the cells.
She watched for the servants, learned to predict when their gray shapes emerged and disappeared into rooms or shadows.
More than once, she saw opportunities.
She’d only have to make it as far as the shuttles, after all. If the cruisers still lurked in orbit around Nivrai, even opening the hangar doors would have them on alert.
But that wouldn’t work. Teran had said she would forfeit her own life if Cailyn ever tried to leave.