N
ynn could not remain stiff. The woman Ulia’s voice intoned sounds like bell chimes,
urging Nynn to sink deeper into a recessive state. With her last conscious thoughts,
she clutched tighter to Leto’s hands. So intimate once again. Wrapped together. Arms
over arms. Legs twined with legs. They sat like lovers offering respite after an arduous
task—in their case, surviving Dr. Aster.
They weren’t lovers, but that comforting pose was not entirely unwelcome.
Part of her still rebelled at the idea of including Leto in this ceremony. What if
some part of her slipped free? What if Ulia opened his mind, too, and let him see
all her secrets? He’d see how much she’d come to rely on him, even desire him. She
shivered. He gripped her fingers more tightly.
His presence couldn’t be helped. There was danger in this operation. Ulia could lose
her grip on Nynn’s consciousness and leave her somewhere dark and adrift forever.
Perhaps a physical anchor—Leto’s body-to-body strength—could help lead her home.
They both faced Ulia. Their skin touched. He burned
and she burned. His heavy muscle pinned hers. Pinned, but embraced. Large, strong
hands seemed to be everywhere. Or was that her mind slipping? She only sighed when
he found more skin to hold. Fingertips, throat, cheek.
The room was dark. Ulia became a bronzed glow between Nynn’s temples. The woman’s
lined face, stooped back, and prosthetic leg never materialized. Only the color that
matched her faded copper eyes. Nynn blinked against the disorientation.
Leto was there, too. She couldn’t see him. No other senses found him either—smell,
touch, sound. Even taste. She wanted more of his taste.
That shock made her struggle past the anesthetizing hold Ulia had over her mind. But
again, Leto held her stable. Some
element
of him, beyond senses. Outside of the darkness, he held their bodies together on
the floor of the practice Cage. Held her. Held . . .
What sadness do you bear?
Nynn flinched. The bronze glow was sharper now. The living entity of Ulia without
taking her shape or form. “My husband was murdered. A Dragon King stood by while the
Asters’ men ripped us from our home. Caleb was already dead in the kitchen. My son
is being tortured. I’m here alone.
My family is gone
.”
Even in her mind, she cried. The grief was more raw there. No inhibitions. No physical
limit to how loud she could scream or how deeply sobs could rock her body. No one
to hear her, look at her, punish her for what could not be contained. Dr. Aster had
used a scalpel. And he’d handed Hellix a whip.
What do you fear?
Nynn flung hideous images toward the glow that centered just behind her forehead.
Worst-case scenarios. All of the nightmares she’d had time to conjure for more than
a year. Jack . . . oh, Dragon be. Jack in
pieces
. How he’d cry for her. He’d think she had abandoned him. He would die alone and so
would she.
What else do you fear? There is more. Deeper.
An ancient memory surfaced. Nynn gasped. Struggled. Had she been outside her mind,
she would have vomited. Only, in that place, she was the silently screaming witness
to an old, old crime. A crime she’d committed.
She’d used her powers. Only thirteen years old. A house demolished. A woman dead.
Some things are too dangerous to set free.
Among the Tigony, she had been suspect because of her mother’s indiscretion with Nynn’s
Pendray father. Barely trusted. That explosion had marked the end of even that scant
trust. Where had her mother gone then? Gone . . . gone . . .
No . . .
dead
.
Nynn thrashed against the pain stabbing through her mind, lashing, like that whip
across her back. They’d stripped her gift and made her fear it. Made her think it
had never even existed. Most had cast her out in all but deed.
Then let go.
“Let go? I have nothing left! Why am I here, if not for my son?”
You are here because you have no choice.
Certainty began to seep deeper and deeper. It slid like molten rock through her veins,
arteries, and every pinched little capillary.
“No choice?”
No choice. Let go.
“My son!”
Will be returned to you in one year. Remember?
“One year.” She was slipping. Even Leto’s ethereal presence had faded, as distant
now as a man waving across a vast chasm. “I must fight.”
With your powers, Dragon King. Harness it. No distractions. Join Leto in victory.
You are Nynn of the Asters.
That name didn’t sound right. She was spinning and falling without moving. Only the
most important thought refused to be submerged. “I
will
have my son back.”
The promise will be kept.
“And I will burn down this hellhole.”
Of course not. This is your home now.
Was it? Nynn was sure she’d hated this place. The gentle lulling of her thoughts,
however, set aside images of such violence.
The dull bronze light faded. In its place, a rush of stinging energy burst to life.
She shrieked. It surged through her limbs, shot out her fingers and toes. Even the
ends of her hair lit and lifted. She ran through her thoughts, hearing bittersweet
memories that gouged her heart into crimson strips.
Memories. Deep memories.
The first time . . . she’d
exploded
. And her mother had been put to death.
Nynn’s gift from the Dragon was a curse. An abomination.
She grabbed at flashes of remembered light. Caught every strand. Formed electric pulses
into potent, controlled
beams. From her eyes or from her hands, she was in control. A sense of power unlike
any she’d known filled her chest and made her laugh. When was the last time she’d
had
control
? All she knew was that it felt good. Right.
Devastating.
She closed her hands, her eyes, and breathed out. Her raw gift was tamed. She coiled
it back within her breast. Even among that vacant, formless place, she remembered
Leto’s snake tattoo. Now she had a serpent, too. Waiting to strike.
But a trade, Nynn. Put
them
away.
Ulia’s voice was whip-sharp now. An undeniable command.
At first, the only sound in that infinite space was Nynn’s heartbeat. Others soon
joined. Overlaid. And cracked open her heart. She heard her clan’s laughter when a
pair of acrobats had performed at a Tigony feast in honor of Mal’s ascension as Honorable
Giva. Then fire. Crashing wood. Terrified shrieks.
She felt her mother’s touch across her cheek. “So beautiful, my child. You will not
be ignored.” Then . . . that touch was gone forever.
Caleb next. Oh, Caleb. His quiet voice never entirely left her thoughts.
At the bookstore where they’d met. “Would you like to get a cup of coffee?”
At the topmost pod of the London Eye, on their first vacation together. “Will you
be my wife?”
At an outdoor altar in Central Park on a sunny spring afternoon. “I do.”
Their first kiss as husband and wife. Gasps of passion.
Groans. Awed whispers in the night. So many plans.
And the best. The most perfect. The hardest to hear again. “It’s a boy, Audrey. Our
son.”
After Jack took his first breath on a gusty cry, their nighttime whispers had been
for him, about him, centered on keeping their little family happy and whole.
Her mind was crying again.
“Hush, now,” she’d whispered while trapped in a cell in Aster’s lab. Jack’s baby-fine
hair had smelled of antiseptic and iodine. “Everything will be all right.”
She’d lied to her boy. Nothing was all right.
Everything will be all right. The voices . . . That pain is gone now.
Yes. Gone now. Thankfully gone. The painful weight Nynn had carried for more than
a year lifted and lifted. The agony was a bird escaping, flying, disappearing into
a blue too bright to follow. It carried away the sharp brambles of her mind.
The space was empty now, quiet now. What had been there? She’d lost something.
Just the pain, child. You’ve only lost the pain.
“What do I do?” she called into the black. “Ulia, help me!”
You will fight for the glory of the Asters. Keep your promise.
Relief washed her like a cleansing rain. Her skin was new. Her mind was clear. Her
gift was ready to surge. She would wield it as easily now as Leto swung his mace and
circled the Cage with unimaginable speed.
Leto. Holding her.
“Yes,” she whispered. “Yes, I promise.”
Although she could no longer remember what promise she’d made.
♦ ♦ ♦
Leto stroked back the sweat from Nynn’s brow and temple. Her body raged with a sudden,
fierce fever. Unnatural. Overwhelming. She shook uncontrollably no matter how firmly
he pulled her against his body. Lithe feminine limbs twitched without warning. Strong.
Punches and kicks to the air. More than a few struck him.
The strangest Cage match of his life.
The consequences extended beyond winning and losing. He wasn’t accustomed to long
games.
All he could do was tend to the woman he held. He focused on Nynn. The hair he’d cut
short was not entirely blond, as he’d assumed in her cell. It was tinged with streaks
of copper. A half dozen strands here and there. Thin as filaments. Ethereal as ghosts.
Her freckles covered more than her cheeks. Nape, shoulder blades, and forearms—all
touched by a faint dusting of beige color. He traced a line of them up her neck. He
didn’t know what caused her to shiver at that moment, but he tightened his arms.
He wanted the cause to have been his touch.
“Promise, promise, promise . . .”
Her chant grew stronger as her body began to still. More voice. Less frantic fighting.
Leto exhaled against her damp skin. He forced his muscles to release. Slowly. The
adrenaline rush of combat, no matter how strange, began to ebb. First his legs, where
hers no longer kicked. Their limbs were sticky with sweat. Locked together. Then his
arms—softer now, as she eased back.
His chest became her wall, although he remained hyperconscious of the damage done
to her back.
A quick-fire fury reignited at the thought of what he’d seen done to her. Hellix.
That thick, powerful whip. Nasty smiles and debauched taunts.
Nynn’s breath shuddered with every ragged inhale and sloppy, off-tempo exhale. Even
that pattern wasn’t normal. Warriors breathed hard and fast after a tough contest,
yet always with the rhythm of lungs and heart working together. Her body had no grace.
No balance.
He pressed his mouth against her damp, salty temple. “What do you promise?”
“Save my son.”
“One year, Nynn. You will.”
“Burn it all down . . .”
Leto frowned on a sharp intake of hot, electric air. He banked his surprise as Ulia
was the first to emerge from her trance. The old woman looked toward him with those
eerie, dull bronze eyes.
“Was it a success?”
That was not worry in his voice. He was only evaluating whether a tool at his disposal
would be ready for its time in the Cage.
Ulia smiled in a way that gave him no assurances. “Of course. Nynn will have full
control of her powers now. She may even outshine you, champion.” She cackled softly,
as if her pun about Nynn’s powers was intentional.
Shaking off his frustration, he stretched his aching legs. “What happened in there?”
“We freed what needed to be freed, and tucked away what needed to be tucked away.”
More foreboding. Leto hated this. He couldn’t remember a time when his skills and
reputation hadn’t been enough to solve a problem. The whole night had been a study
in just that. Frustration built under his skin. With the collars deactivated there
in the Cage, his gift became a flood of water ready to burst through a dam. He could
destroy concrete and wrought iron and steel.
Nynn coughed. Gasped. Jerked nearly to her knees. Only Leto’s arms kept her from toppling.
Watching her wobble because of muscle fatigue after a hard day’s training was one
thing. Satisfying. Goals achieved. To see her disoriented and graceless for so many
hours was disconcerting. This creature hadn’t returned from a hellish place. Not yet.
That it existed in her own mind was not something he could shake away. He’d suffered
it as well. Looking too closely would mean admitting the same dark places lurked inside
of him—darker than he already knew.
“Nynn,” he said. “Sit still. Breathe with me.”
Slowly, with exaggerated care, he showed her the rhythm she needed for respiration.
He stroked her bare arm with the same tempo. She nodded in time as well. They were
more attuned than Leto had ever been with another being. Rather than push that realization
away, he hid it. Kept it for later. A Cage warrior could not afford softness.
Yet he was a champion. Surely that meant one small concession.
“Leto,” Nynn whispered. She turned in his arms. She touched the head and the tail
of his tattoo. Soft fingertips shook where she traced lines of ink and his throbbing
veins. She lowered her head until her mouth nestled behind his ear. “I have a serpent,
too.”
“Where is yours?”
The touch of her hot, wet tongue against his skin was as unexpected as it was provoking.
“Behind my breast. It waits to bring down our opponents.”
“Good.” Better than good. He smiled against her roughly cut hair. “It will be a treat
to share victory with another. Something new.”
He swallowed. Exhaled. She had barely emerged from a psychic trance. The desire he
felt had no place in that moment, but the need remained. Changed. Stronger. More dangerous.
He meant what he’d said. The prospect of standing beside this unflinching woman while
the crowd cheered their shared triumph was incredible. He wouldn’t be alone. His heartbeat
sped and his body swiftly roused. Concern plunged straight back down to primal need.
He’d never had a partner in the Cages. They shared the same goal: win. Win again and
again.