AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Saga waved a hand to indicate the millions of books bearing witness to this dangerous meeting. "Because he who controls the information, rules the world. No weapon possessed by the Prime’s army is more destructive than a single word from Castor's lying mouth."
"You'll never get to him, either," Dare said, turning away.
"It won't be easy," I said. "But it is possible. Castor is smart, but he's also got weaknesses."
"Like?" Saga asked, leaning forward.
"His ego, for one. He believes himself to be invincible. But he's also incredibly superstitious. I know for a fact that he's terrified of crossing the Sisters of Crimson."
"Why?"
I shrugged. "I have no idea, but he goes to church every Friday."
Dare looked up quickly. "Really?"
I nodded. Our eyes met for a brief moment. "There's a special chapel for upper-level Troika in the city. Its location isn't made public for security reasons, but I've been there."
"Why would they take you there if it's so secret?" Icarus sneered.
>She'd lowered the gun and crossed her arms. "That's why you finally left. You couldn't stand it anymore?"
"No." Now that I'd admitted so much, I decided it wouldn't hurt to offer one last confession before I met the maker. "I left because after enduring their tortures, they found the one invasion I could not endure."
She frowned.
I laughed, but the sound felt flat to my own ears. "You haven't put it together yet?" I didn't wait for her to confirm what I already knew to be true. "Several months ago, the Prime came to me with good news. I was going to be given a great honor. The Troika officials loved my sweet blood so much that they were going to make me the first brood mare in their blood stables."
Dare gasped softly but I was beyond offering consolation.
"According to him, I was going to be put in a special dormitory and given my choice of men of high blood with whom to mate. If any of the children I created turned out to be AB-, they would be raised in the most favorable conditions and be given the honor of becoming concubines to the top Troika officials."
"And if they weren't high blooded?"
I looked her in the eye and ignored the phantom pain in my stomach. "Aborted."
The silence in the room was complete. Unlike the last time, it wasn't a silent gulf that kept two foes separated. Instead, those quiet moments were filled with shared knowledge of duty and loss and the longing for a tiny heartbeat against the skin.
“The night I left?” My hand went to my belly. “They just had informed me that I was to be impregnated again. I couldn’t go through that again—the loss.” I looked up again and saw empathy in her yellow gaze. “But more than that, I was terrified it would work this time and they wouldn’t abort it. How could I doom a child to my life?”
She watched me silently for a few moments. Tension zinged through the space between us like lightning. Finally, she sucked in a long, slow breath. "How can you say you want to run? They took your mother. They took your life." She stepped forward and pointed at my stomach. "They took your child. They took your choices away. How can you just run when you have every cause to turn around and fight back?"
I blinked to stall the tears. "Because I want a chance to live for whatever time I have left."
She snorted. "Running isn't the same as living."
"Unbelievable." I shook my head at her. "You walked in here ready to kill me, but now you're angry that I'm not trying hard enough to live."
She made a disgusted sound and shoved the gun into her rear waistband. "I wasn't going to kill you. He just told me to scare you a little until you agreed to help us."
I crossed my arms. "That's what I don't get. Why would you want the Troika's whore to help you?"
She licked her lips and glanced sideways. "Look I-- I'm sorry about that. But see it from my perspective. You showed up all glowing and healthy and with your reputation preceding you. How could I not be suspicious of you?"
I laughed bitterly and lifted my shirt. Her eyes widened when she saw the patterns of bruises and scars covering my abdomen and torso. "They made sure the skin that showed was clean for the camera, but the rest was open season. And as for my reputation, well, I gave you credit for being too smart to believe their propaganda."
She grimaced at the dig. "Look, can we start over? We both came in with our own prejudices. Hard not to when we've both been burned, right?"
I nodded slowly. "Suppose so."
