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I glance at the Harbinger one last time before I close my eyes and try to sleep. All we need to do is get her and us there in one piece.
* * *
In the morning, I wake to find her still asleep on the floor. I move about quietly so as not to wake her, not for her comfort, but because I can’t abide her ever-watchful gaze following me around the room, and I don’t care to see her wounded countenance trying to make me feel guilty after what happened last night.
I piss behind the screen into the chamber pot and, looking in distaste at the murky water in the ewer that she used last night when I brought her back, decide to wait for the next outpost to wash in fresh. I open the shutters to check the time. That’s one thing I’ll miss about Alcana. Its chimes. I always knew the hour. It was convenient.
The sky is only just starting to turn, so I’d guess we have a bit of time before the next Gate.
As I walk back into the main part of the room, I notice she’s still asleep. I approach her slowly and silently, taking a moment to look her over.
She’s on her back, her face calm and almost childlike in slumber. Though I suppose she was fourteen or fifteen when she left, which would put her in just her early twenties now. Not much younger than us. The bruises that I can see on her arms and legs are fading a little and yellowing. Her long brown hair is in disarray. As my assessing eyes move over her, I notice with a frown that I can see the outline of her dark nipples through the thin sack she wears. My eyes widen, riveted to her chest. I haven’t looked at her closely. If I’d realized …
I shake my head at my almost chivalrous thoughts. Would I have found her something else to wear before we left Alcana, or would I have just laughed at her and forced her to bear it? The truth is that I don’t know, and I don’t like that I don’t. What’s changed since we left Alcana? Is my animosity toward her waning?
I step away even as my traitorous cock hardens, and I make a noise of disgust at my state. It’s not because I find her attractive; it’s just been a while, and I’d react with any woman thus.
I grit my teeth. Only a few more days until I see Fiana. I may not have been celibate for the entire seven years, but I bedded females rarely and typically only when my body drove me to it. I’ll not sully my love by fucking anyone on this journey.
The Harbinger just needs clothes, real ones that cover her properly. I tell myself it’s not because I care if other males can see her body. I don’t. What matters is that we’ll attract more attention with her on display like this, and we don’t need trouble. We definitely don’t need a repeat of last night. I thought Grey and I were going to have to fight through the crowd to get her back upstairs without her being snatched from us and rutted over the tables all night.
An image of her miserable and broken form returning from outside last night appears in my mind’s eye, and I grimace.
Enough of this!
I nudge her with my boot harder than I mean to and watch as her brow creases, and she jerks awake with a gasp, instinctively curling into a ball to protect herself. I release her bindings with a snap of my fingers.
‘Get up!’ I snarl, deciding that Grey can deal with her tonight.
I’m finished minding her.
She stares up at me blankly for a few long moments as if she doesn’t remember where she is at first.
Then I see anger an instant before her expression shutters, and strangely, I feel better about our treatment of her.
She’s not broken. She’s the Harbinger. Death, not the vulnerable human girl she looks like on the outside.
She gets to her feet slowly, glancing at the screen.
‘See to yourself,’ I say gruffly as I make sure I have everything packed. ‘We leave soon.’
I find a small bag with some stale bread and cheese in it and throw it across the floor towards her. ‘Eat.’
She glances at me but then falls on it like she’s starving. I recall she hasn’t eaten since we left Alcana, and I force away the feelings of empathy that bubble up inside me.
Instead, I remember the aftermath of her escape, what the smoking shell of the keep looked like, and how long I’ve had to spend away from Fiana because of what she did. My eyes narrow at her.
‘If you’re a good girl, you can have more later,’ I say.
She chokes on the bread at my words, and I turn away, ignoring her as I search the room for anything I’ve forgotten.
‘It’s time,’ I say, banging on the shared wall that joins my room with Grey and Kal’s.
I loop the rope over her neck, seeing the welts on it from where we’ve been rough with her and then wishing I hadn’t noticed them.
‘You won’t need to wear the rope soon,’ I promise and then roll my eyes at myself.
What is wrong with me? I’ve spent the past seven years ensuring that those I was tasked by the academy to make suffer did indeed suffer! I was very good at it. Why am I finding this difficult?
