His mouth opens in mock surprise and then he laughs.
‘What are you doing?’ I ask, eyeing them, wondering how he’s timed it so perfectly.
‘What I’ve been waiting to do ever sincemyslave ended up here because of you, you cunt. It was bad luck that Bere and Kobeth had her down in the pits where I couldn’t get to her, too,’ he continues as he turns and goes straight to the narrow door. ‘It’s taken this long to ensure I’d get out with her. At least we’re very close to the Gate room here. It shouldn’t be too hard to convince the guards to let me and my slave leave for Merediea. I’ve been building rapports with them since we got here.’
He glances back. ‘Good luck explaining to the rich pricks who run this place why Kobeth and the others are here on the floor like this.’ He laughs a little. ‘Though if they hadn’t imbibed so much of the wine so quickly, they would but sleep instead of being quite so dead.’
He opens the door. ‘Still, fewer loose ends this way.’
‘Come, slave,’ he calls in a singsong voice.
I watch as Bryn blinks slowly and gets to her feet, leaving the room where the human male lies dead and returning to this one. She looks around, eyeing the bodies of the orcs and Bere with a detached expression.
‘Do you know me, Bryn?’ Warrior asks her.
She glances up at him. ‘I think so, my lord.’
I look over at her sharply. Does she remember? I want her to. I need her to realize who he is, what he’s capable of, what he did to her in Dead City, how he’s already tried to use her,hurt her. She can’t let him take her with him.
‘How do you know me?’ he asks with a shit-eating grin, side-eyeing me.
‘You spoke to me when I first came here,’ she says quietly. ‘You asked me if I knew you then as well, my lord.’
‘And had you seen me before the first time I asked?’
‘I don’t think so, my lord.’
‘I’m your master now.’ Warrior’s dark smile widens.
‘We’re leaving, Kismet,’ he tells her. ‘You and I are going to put right so many wrongs. All who cross me will feel Fate’s wrath as we make our way to your new home!’
I lurch a little under the chains, making them clang.
Kismet?
‘Put this on.’
Warrior pulls a dirty, roughly spun slave dress that may once have been blue from his pack and she throws it over her head without question.
I stare at Warrior and then at Bryn.
Bryn is Fate Touched.
Kismet.
Gods. Of course! The injuries that seemed to happen when she was around. The bovine that rampaged through the barn in the Seventh Circle for no reason at all…other than that Bere had hit Bryn, I recall. How could I have missed such a thing?
But then, I missed many things. Perhaps nothing so large as the human slave we were traveling with being Fate Touched, though.
Her dull eyes stray to me and Warrior smirks when he sees where she’s looking. ‘Do you remember him, Kismet?’
‘He brought me here, my lord,’ she answers tonelessly.
Her brow furrows a little as if she’s trying very hard to do something.
Does she remember?
If she does, at least she’ll understand the danger that Warrior poses to her. Maybe she can escape even if I do see the hatred she’ll feel for me in her eyes before she leaves me here to die.
