CHAPTER 4
BRYN
Ihear low chatter as I slowly waken. It makes me feel happy. Safe.
My body is warm and cozy. My belly isn’t torturing me with its hunger and thirst for once. I’m not in danger. I can sleep longer.
No, that’s not right.
I escaped the pits. I’m traveling with a master, which means?—
My eyes are open and I’m jumping from the bed immediately. My body hits a wall and I’m looking around in earnest, trying to take stock of my surroundings as quickly as possible.
There are three of them.
One lolling on the bed. One standing in front of the door to stop me leaving. A third, the one who brought me here, sits at the table with a mug of something hot in front of him, looking half dead. His other eye is swollen now. Some of his fingers are at odd angles. He’s the one who helped me escape, the one who’s taking me to the Light. Locke, they called him.
The other two…found me here late last evening. I felt…
I stare at the bed for a moment.
Between my legs is sore.
I look down and see that I have no trousers on.
I give them an accusing look. I can’t pretend to be the meek slave girl this morning, I find. Not after they…
But that’s not how it happened. They didn’t force me. They didn’t have to. I clench my eyes shut, embarrassment making my cheeks heat. The smaller of the two strangers… We fell on the bed. But it was I who took from him, not the other way around.
‘What did you do to me?’ I whisper. ‘Was it some magick or a potion to make me want…’
I look over at the bed again and then away. They both made me feel pleasure more than once, and that somehow makes it worse.
‘It wasn’t us,’ the large one rumbles slowly.
My hand covers my mouth as I gasp. My only thoughts in those moments on the bed were of survival. I’m not sure why I didthat, when I should have been fleeing instead.
DidIforcea master?
I glance at the smaller one, some foolish part of me wanting to make sure he’s not harmed somehow, to tell him that I’m sorry.
I push that ridiculous notion away. I did only what he would have done to me. At least it was on my terms this time.
‘It’s all right,’ the largest of them begins to say to me in a tone that belies the lack of calm I feel.
I shake my head.
‘It’s not all right,’ I snarl. ‘None of this is all right.’
I look at the one who’s at the table. He’s mostly awake now. He’s looking at me with guilt in his eyes.
‘Take me to the Light Realm as you promised,’ I order. ‘Do it now, mage, or, I swear to you I will make sure we are all caught by the city guard and I will tell them that all of you are slave thieves.’
Locke opens his mouth to answer, but the large one speaks first. ‘For fuck’s sake! Fix whatever you did to her, Locke, and do it now!’
He nods. ‘I think I have the strength to do it, but I’ll need a healing potion before I attempt it. In—in case it’s difficult to remove…’
‘You didn’t think of that before?’ the smaller one snarls.
