For a few delicious moments, Skye thought she was dreaming, her body warm and comfortable, a hand rubbing her back with long, gentle strokes. A dream from another time. Another place. But the hand at her back wasn’t her mother’s. The sound beneath her ear was that of a strong, masculine heartbeat. And the scent that filled her nostrils was lush and male.
Paenther’s.
She tensed, her mind scrambling to make sense of her situation. Beneath her cheek, she felt warm flesh, damp from long contact with her own. Clearly, she’d been sleeping on his chest just as she’d done in the caverns, except this time he was holding her.
How could this not be a dream? How was it pos
sible that the dangerous Feral who’d come close to raping her was now rubbing her back with a gentle touch? Even as the notion seemed ridiculous, the feeling of being cared for, even for a moment, was so sweet that it welled up until tears burned in her eyes.
She didn’t want it to end. Trying not to move, she fought back the tears, not wanting to weep on his chest and give herself away. The memory of how she got there came back to her slowly. How she’d sat in that prison cell knowing midnight would come, then felt the first invisible blade tear across her cheek. She shivered at the memory of what had come next.
The hand left her back to cup her head gently.
“I know you’re awake.”
With a sigh, she lifted onto her elbow, swiping away the errant tears, feeling both awkward and wary. Why was he being nice to her now when he’d come so close to hurting her before?
Pushing herself up until she was sitting beside him, she avoided his gaze, instead taking in his long legs encased in soft gray pants, and the hard, muscular planes of his bare chest. She studied the golden armband curling around his arm before finally lifting her gaze to his face.
The moment she did, their gazes locked. Paenther’s body tensed, something harsh and ugly flaring in his eyes.
Skye flinched and turned her head against the blow, an instinctive move. Her heart began to thud.
“Skye.” His voice was low and pained. “I’m not going to hurt you.” But when she felt him move, her heart raced faster. She squeezed her eyes closed, fighting against the instinct Birik had beaten into her, and forced herself to turn back to him.
He was sitting up, now.
Too close
. But there was no violence in his expression. Of course, there was rarely any in Birik’s, either, before he struck her.
With a low sound of self-disgust, Paenther turned away and climbed from the bed, padding to the window with the quick, sinuous grace of a jungle cat. He stared out the glass, his hands fisted on the window frame.
“I saw the copper in your eyes, and for one moment, it took me by surprise, Skye. I’ve had some bad experiences with Mage eyes. But I’m not going to hurt you.”
“Unless you decide I’m your enemy.”
Paenther didn’t reply to that. He didn’t have to. They both knew it was true.
Paenther turned and met Skye’s gaze, but remained by the window, giving her space. Inside him, the old rage started to rush back in, a rage he’d thought had been permanently carved into his soul until a delicate Mage witch made it disappear every time she slept curled around his body. It had happened in the cavern and again last night. He’d woken a short while ago feeling almost at peace.
But the respite hadn’t lasted last time, and it wasn’t lasting this time either. Almost as soon
as she sat up, the peace had started to fade. As always, he gathered the fury in an iron grip and bound it within his icy control. The last thing he wanted to do was frighten her more.
Even from here, he could hear her heart pounding like it was trying to escape her chest. He’d scared her with the flash of hatred he hadn’t even given voice to. A hatred that hadn’t been meant for her. And she’d reacted with a look in her eyes like the one she’d had the night Birik had crashed into the room and beaten her half to death.
“Why did he punish you with the cutting?” he asked quietly even though he was certain he knew.
“Because I didn’t perform the moon ritual.”
“The sacrifice?”
She nodded, drawing up her knees and wrapping her arms tight around them as if she could protect herself that way. In the middle of his large bed, dwarfed by his shirt, she looked small and terribly fragile.
“How often does he make you perform that ritual?”
“Every night.” Her tone was bleak.
Every night?
“I find the animals during the day, and he kills them at midnight while I raise the power he wants.”
He felt his fists tightening and forced himself to loosen his hands. The thought of her riding that white-haired bastard as she’d ridden him made his skin crawl with something akin to jealousy.
But the thought of him taking her like that at eight made him crazy.
“Has he always been your…sexual partner?”
Her body jerked. “No. Sex has never been part of that ritual. Not until you came. Usually, I just dance.”
The rush of relief nearly weakened his knees.
“Thank the goddess.”
She looked at him, her gaze probing. Uncertain. “Why?”
“How long have you been doing that ritual for him?”
“Since I got there.”
“Since you were eight?”
“Yes.”
“That’s why.”
She stared at him, then looked away, as if suddenly fascinated by the paintings on his wall. There was something about her, a sudden brittleness that made him feel like the wrong word would make her shatter.
And he knew.
“He hurt you anyway, didn’t he? When you were young.” She didn’t react, and he didn’t push. “You don’t have to tell me, Skye. I just want to understand you better.”
Slowly, she turned back to him, in her eyes a strange mixture of pain and strength. She met his gaze, held it, as if trying to comprehend him instead.
“Why do you want to understand me?”
Why are you being nice to me now when you nearly raped me
last night?
She didn’t have to say the words for him to hear them.
Paenther pushed away from the window and leaned his shoulder against the wall, crossing his arms over his chest.
“You’ve been a contradiction to me from the start. The forthright siren with the sad eyes who led me into the woods, took me into her body, then enthralled me. The gentle witch who was beaten bloody for not forcing herself on me. My instincts have told me all along that you weren’t like the other witches I’ve known. That you were innocent. That’s why I couldn’t hurt you, even though the part of me that has always hated the Mage wanted to.”
He looked up at the ceiling, remembering last night with a crushing ache. “When I saw the cuts, Skye…” When he looked down, he found her watching him with an odd combination of wariness and tears in her eyes. “When I saw the cuts, I knew my instincts were right. Whatever else you might be, you were every bit as much a captive of that place as I was. I judged you without knowing you. I saw the copper rings around your irises and expected the worst from you. And even when I didn’t get it, I chalked it up to enthrallment or subterfuge.”
He shrugged. “For the first time, I’m listening, Skye. I want to know who you are. And I’ll try my damndest to judge you on that and not your race.”
The edges of wariness in her expression soft
ened. She brushed away the single tear that had escaped her eye while he spoke and met his gaze. “The first time he raped me was two weeks after he took me from my mother.”
Goddess.
“I’m sorry.” He suddenly wasn’t sure he wanted to hear this after all, but he wouldn’t turn away from her now. Not after he’d begged her to talk to him. “Why did she let him take you?”
“She tried to hide me, but I wouldn’t let her.”
“You
wanted
to go with him?”
“No.” She released her legs, digging her fingers into her hair and raking it back. “Going with him was the
last
thing I wanted.” Her words were hot and vehement. “I don’t know how he found out I was an enchantress, but he just showed up one day. I detested him on sight. Even then, I think I sensed he was without a soul. He told me to come to him, and I refused, so he grabbed me. One of my dogs attacked him. A small one, unfortunately. The big dogs were all outside.”
She wrapped her arms tight around her legs again, pulling into herself. “He killed her with his magic.”
“Again, I’m sorry.”
She shrugged one slender shoulder. “It was probably a good thing. It told me all I needed to know about him. That night, the leader of our clan, the archsorcerer, told my mother I had to go with him. Birik was too powerful, too dangerous to attempt to cross. But after I went to bed, my mother came to me and told me to run. I’d befriended a human girl a couple of years before in the neighborhood
on the other side of the woods and had played with her a couple of times. She wanted me to go there, thinking the humans might hide me.”
Skye shook her head, meeting his gaze with remembered fear in her eyes. “But I was afraid Birik would destroy my friend and her family as he’d destroyed my dog. And he would have, I know that now. So I hid in the woods by the house that night so my mother wouldn’t try to take me away and endanger herself. When morning came, I went to Birik and told him I was ready to go.”
She turned her head, pressing her cheek to her knees. “I don’t know if my mother ever forgave me for that.” Her voice was soft and low, as if she were speaking to herself. “She was so upset.”
“She forgave you. Whether or not she understood why you did it, she never blamed you, Skye. She only wanted to protect you.”
Skye lifted her head to look at him, her mouth turning wry, a glimmer of thanks in her eyes. “I hope you’re right. I don’t know if I saved anyone in the end. My entire clan may be soulless by now.”
“You never saw your mother again?”
“No. I never heard from any of them. They disappeared from my life. I’ve often dreamed of escaping Birik and going back, but I don’t know where they are.”
She pulled her knees closer to her chest, her eyes taking on a faraway look. “After we left my clan, Birik took me to the caverns and taught me the chant and the dance of the enchantress that raised my power. They were kind of fun, though I didn’t
like dancing without clothes on. It was too cold, but he insisted I be sky-clad. Then he took me outside and told me to call the animals. Dozens came. In hindsight, I think it made him angry that I could call them so easily when all he could call were snakes. But he selected a beautiful doe and her fawn, and we led them back into the cavern. I was happy. I’d been scared and lonely, and the creatures comforted me. He promised me I could bring them to watch me dance that night.”
His stomach rolled. “He slaughtered them in front of you.”
Her mouth compressed, and she nodded. “I went crazy. I refused to dance. I tried to run away, but he beat me. Every night he dragged me back to the ritual cavern, but I refused. He tried one thing after another to punish me. He ripped me out of the plush little room his people had prepared for me and locked me in the cell where you were chained. Then he took away my clothes and stopped feeding me, but still I refused to dance.
“Finally, one night, he’d had it with me. He grabbed me by my hair and dragged me all the way up the stairs to the room where he held the rituals, the stone stairs tearing up my bare back. But I still wouldn’t do what he wanted, so he threw me to the floor, followed me down, and raped me. Then he ordered the sorcerers to do the same, one after another, and they did. For hours.”
Paenther’s scalp crawled with horror at what she’d endured. Fury pounded in his ears, his teeth
bared as he imagined ripping every one of those bastards apart with his panther’s fangs.
“After each rape, he told me to dance, and I refused. My creatures were standing there, watching me. For them, I never gave in.”
He stared at her, in awe of her courage, her sheer determination.
At eight.
“You were a stubborn little thing.”
To his amazement, she smiled. It was a small smile. A lopsided one that didn’t reach those sad eyes, but it was a smile all the same.
“That night I chopped off my hair so he could never again drag me up the stairs. I’ve never let it grow long since. For all his power, he couldn’t make me dance, and it infuriated him. He chained me in that cell, like he chained you, and used me for weeks, promising it would stop when I danced. Finally, one of his sorcerers came up with the idea of the cantric.”
“Putting it in your heart like that could have killed you.”
“I was of no use to him the way things were. With the cantric in my heart, the battle was no longer between him and me. It was mine alone. Every night…” She closed her eyes on a shudder.
He tried to image that child, that stubborn, determined little girl, suffering that cutting, and it almost brought him to his knees. “Is that the only punishment?”
“No, though I don’t know what all he loaded into it. I shouldn’t have been able to leave the
mountain. Every time I’ve tried in the past, I’ve hit a wall at the outer warding, then been consumed by so much pain I couldn’t move. I don’t know how you got me out of there.”
“You were unconscious. If you suffered, I didn’t know it.” His brows drew down as another thought occurred to him. “How did you get down to the Market? Did the warding extend that far?”
“Only recently. After Vhyper arrived, Birik became intrigued with the idea of seeing what kind of power I could draw from Ferals. Vhyper and I created sparks between us, but they weren’t the right kind.”
Something coiled in his chest. “Did Vhyper hurt you?”
“No, not really. He kissed me, and I hated it. I’ve never had an affinity for snakes, nor for the soulless.”
“He’s not soulless.”
The words came out hot and fast. But as he watched Skye visibly tense, he forced himself to calm his voice. “His soul is still there. And I’m going to find a way to free him.”
She met his gaze. “I hope you do.”
Paenther nodded once. He would. “Anyway…” he prompted.
“Anyway, Vhyper assured Birik other Ferals would come. He knew you’d come looking for him. So Birik extended the warding to include the Market.” A fleeting smile flickered across her face. “It was the first time since I was a child that I’d been able to touch the outside world. I spent two days in that place, watching the television,
looking at the magazines, and drooling over the junk food before the day you finally arrived.”