Morbid ideas collected, piling up atop one another before she could process which direction, which style of murder, would be best. Thank the gods she’d slept, that her burns and abdominal wounds had knit together. Debilitating pain had curbed far too much of her fun—interfered with what should have been a delicious hunt.

  Rolling to her hip, her brain sloshed against her skull. She almost threw up.

  Licking cracked lips, Sigil—stumbling right past the stored water her body required—made for the exit. A toe caught on something. Tumbling awkwardly, her skull smacked the ground. Blinking, looking again at the black caked pipe in her hand, waiting for her vision to sharpen... she grew confused.

  Why was she holding the pipe?

  That’s not where it was supposed to be.

  Rolling to her back, she shucked her spare hand up the line of metal, flinging black, sticky remnants of her guts on the floor. Her belly was swollen, protruding and tender... her wound closed. Holding on to the fragile moment of clarity, Quinn put her wrist between her teeth and stabbed herself again. Screams were easy, but screams were for the weak and would draw attention. Instead she bit down on her wrist until it bled, until her mouth pooled with the taste of copper and captured groans.

  “Why are you doing this?”

  Unable to move from the pain, dazed, she stared at the return of her phantom. A clumsy mouth panted, “I told you. I have to get to Que. He’ll worry.”

  The hallucination’s voice was the same temperate tone in every conversation they’d shared. “Axirlans are incapable of feeling worry.”

  She needed water. Shuffling on hands and knees, Quinn ignored the insolent apparition in favor of her buckets.

  Draped in black and gold it crept closer, wearing an imperial tunic of high rank. “If he means so much to you, so much that you would mutilate yourself, why not demand Sovereign let you keep him? Is that not a better idea than sabotage and self-harm?”

  Stumped, swallowing down greedy gulps of untainted water, Quinn coughed out, “Sovereign would kill him; he would lock me in a room and breed me until I died.”

  The voice modulated like a caress, perfectly comforting and reasonable, “He needs you. You know that. Think of your power... Your brothers desire for you to be willing, happy. Concessions could be made. Go to Sovereign and demand what you want. Let him love you.”

  She closed her eyes, resting her aching head against the lip of a full bucket.

  The voice tickled her ear, “Imagine, your Que watching you raise your children... a guardian steadfast and loyal, as you say. There need be no struggle, no pain. You could keep him.”

  Cooling touch stroked like a feather over her stubbled cranium, leaving Quinn clinging to the container for support.

  “If you continue as you are, you’ll never make it. If I had not been watching, you would have succumbed to fever days ago. You can hardly stand. Even if the old hag were to open the byway, how will you commandeer a ship? How will you fly it? Embrace that at this moment you are the frontrunner in this little game, but if Sovereign catches you...” the soothing whisper stopped, a tongue tutting for a moment, “when he catches you, there will be no parlay.”

  Pressure came to her temples, fingers rubbing circles where her head ached. Wilting, she found something waiting to pillow her shoulder and neck. Delirious, she sighed, “Don’t... take the pipe out... again.”

  “Shhhhhhhh, Sweet Sigil. I know what’s best. Relax and listen to my voice”

  She squirmed as if she meant to try and rise, and fell back, pain muted by something intoxicating in the coolness of more water brought to her lips.

  “Imagine the pleasures, little firebrand. Imagine the joys.” The female’s neck was adjusted to a more comfortable angle, tear stains wiped away with the hem of an embroidered sleeve. “A life where you will always feel safe.”

  A deep phlegmy breath, her torso complaining at the pressure inhalation put on the swelling, and Quinn found herself unable to answer with more than, “Lies...”

  “He will learn how to best behave with you once given the chance. Every single one of your brothers will adapt. So long as you retain discomfort in the presence of humans, only family will be allowed near you. If you feel overcrowded, then sanctuary will be offered, alone or in the arms of whomever you deem fitting.”

  Looking up into the golden eyes of the man whose black clad thigh pillowed her head, Quinn felt more stinging liquid slip from the corner of her eyes. “I don’t feel safe. I don’t... feel well.”

  “I know.” There was nothing but compassion in the response. “The pipe is lined with lead, you’ve exposed yourself to the point of infection. The overdose has caused a decline in mental functioning, blurred vision, and a raging fever.”

  A laugh cut through her blubbering, the sense of relief drawing a smile. “That’s right... you’re not real. Only a hallucination brought on by blood loss, indoctrination, and lead poisoning.”

  Fingers went back to circling her temples, the man nodding. “I am very real, Sigil. Every time we’ve spoken it’s been real. You told me about your mother, about how much you dislike dry places... how you hated Sovereign’s bite.”

  Unable to stop chuckling, licking at the blood crusted at the corner of her mouth, Quinn argued, “If you were real you would not have helped me sabotage the water supply.”

  “You are quite the troublemaker, so vindictive when you do not get your way.” A deep snort, an amused sound, preceded, “It was fun.”

  Sagging further to the scuffed floor, Quinn sighed, “If you take out the pipe... you know I’ll kill you.”

  The apparition shrugged as if it were nothing. His fist closed over the stump angled outside her belly, yanking it out to throw far out of her reach. “I’m much faster than you, Sigil. You’ve missed with every shot.”

  The faint sound of the metal rod hitting the floor registered, but not so much as fresh liquid warmth seeping from her belly to track down her sides. Eyes squeezed shut from the pain, she grunted, “Don’t call me Sigil.”

  A brush of a fingertip followed the shape of her lips. “I will call you Quinn if it would make you smile for me again.”

  “There is no Quinn without Que.”

  A kiss touched a burning forehead. “I envy your Que.”

  She could not help but agree. “So do I. He’s on the right side of the byway and far away from you.”

  “Now, that was not very nice, my darling.” Again his sleeve wiped at tears and the beading sweat from Quinn’s forehead. “There is not much time until you heal to the point madness replaces illness. What is to be your fate? Will you go to him? Will you make your demands and return to us on your terms? Or do we wait until he finds you?”

  Her eyes were already closing, the feeling of more blood seeping, leaving her boneless. “I... want sleep.”

  “No, eyes open.” He jarred her just enough to earn a flared look of pained hatred. “You cannot sleep now. Now is the time you tell me what you want.”

  She was crying again. “I want to go home.”

  Her ghost looked a little sad. “Where is home?”

  “Que is home.”

  Hands lifted her from the floor, arms beneath her generating the sensation of floating until her feet were placed to the floor and she was forced to stand. The Herald slung her arm around his high shoulders, helped her press a hand to where her abdomen oozed,

  “Come, my dear Quinn, we walk to Sovereign. It will clear your head.”

  She could hardly manage her steps, would never had made it had the Herald not borne her weight. The man was right, the farther they moved, more clarity came. Once her ploy with Drinta failed there had never been a chance to leave Pax; there would never have been a plan she could carry forth, damaged as she was to avoid the hunt.

  Turning to look at the profile of the Herald, studying the clean line of his jaw and how his long, bound hair had grown messy from the time he’d spent in her presence, she choked out the question, “Why are you doing this? Why didn’t you just drop me at Sovereign’s feet?”

  The smile, the sincerity of his offer velvet, Arden promised, “Because I’m on your side.”

  “If he won’t give me Que,” she only had one threat left, “I’ll rip out my throat. There will be no dynasty.”

  “The thought of such a thing, of this hate you bear for yourself,” too many expressions moved through golden eyes, “it gives me pain.”

  Quinn held his gaze, she stared through any softness to the core of the monster in his pretty shell. “You do not know what pain is, Herald.”

  “My name is Arden. And I do not know pain as you have known pain,” he agreed, continuing their mission no matter how often her feet dragged, careful of her smaller stature. “But I do know longing. I do know that our family has suffered with their loneliness for you. And I know that you ache for them, even though you do not know the why of it. That is why you must hold on to me. I’m going to see you through.”

  Quinn forced another step for Que. “You’re going to take me home.”

  “Yes.”

  Chapter 11

  Sovereign traced the line of her spine, bone by bone, from nape until his fingertips flared to palm the swell of Quinn’s rear. Then his stroke began again, top to bottom, the continuation of touch running that unhurried course. Though lying at her back, Sovereign feigned laziness, his emotions serrated, sharp no matter how he lounged.

  Every breath she took he counted, each little twitch scrutinized with a hawk’s eye.

  Their captive didn’t want to look at him, even though it meant displaying the beauty of her back, and a vulnerable nape. To subdue her, he would need only wrap his lips over that spot, and bite down until bone almost crunched.

  He began the stroke again, giving her something else to think on other than her open obsession: Que.

  The female’s attention shifted to the medical cuff uncomfortably engulfing the greater part of her forearm. Tubes filled with black matter syphoned from the apparatus, connecting to a field kit that purged infection. Karhl had snapped the band around her limb hours ago, eliciting a shriek when contact caused thousands of microscopic fibers to burst from the device, penetrating into muscle and bone, making Quinn lurch and panic as they crawled deep into sinew and organs.

  She’d tried to claw at it, to get it off, but the white behemoth had restrained her hands. “No, young one. Don’t fight, and the discomfort of assimilation will decrease. There,” Karhl had stroked a tiny slice of exposed wrist, praising monotone when the arch relaxed in her spine, “integration is almost complete.”

  Curled up on the very bed she’d shared with Que for almost a decade, Quinn stared at the ceiling, at the walls, at anything but the lifeforms in the room. There was no deeper plot to bolster her hope, no further escape hatch, only an ill ennui behind fever and defeat.

  Quinn could not help what happened once healed enough to lose herself, and the trio had been prepared. The crack of her knuckles was the first sign, a fist forming when color bleached out of her vision and only red remained—the red of imperial blood she would paint the walls with. But there were hands on her, iron restraint. Karhl gripped her skull, kept her from biting, forced her eyes to see nothing but the calmness of a warrior’s face. Cheeks squished, spit dripping from lips hissing horrific threats, Quinn fought like a demon.

  A demon near death that could not stand on its own, let alone shift the weight of three strong men.

  There could be no sedation with the med cuff purifying her body. Even delirious, Quinn had grasped the inevitability of another rape should she find herself in Sovereign’s power again. The emperor pleased himself on the bed beside her, tugging at his cock, the menacing organ angry and swollen in his hands. Arden braced her legs, Karhl spoke to her words she could not grasp. Pain came. Sovereign’s bulbous glans slipped its way just past her unprepared opening, her swollen belly protesting invasion. The pain snapped her free of the worst of the madness and she wanted to tell them that was enough, that the pain could keep her sane. Trembling, tasting blood in her mouth, she stilled, and tried to explain.

  Not one of them answered her croaking denial.

  But Sovereign didn’t fuck into her. Instead, his pumping fist supplied the friction necessary for male climax in the minutes it took for him to come. He had the civility to keep quiet when the only thing that would truly sedate her ushered forth. Warmth, a thing that smelled of the ocean and stuck like glue, spurted like ointment. What came in the wake of the unwanted offering was a focusing mind, a great deal more despair, and Sigil’s ability to grasp just how thoroughly she was caught.

  “Hush, young one.” Karhl still gripped her skull in his great hands, still forced her attention as if it had just been the two of them, not three predators moving in unison. “We could not allow you to exercise faulty psionics in a panic.”

  How she longed to spit in his face.

  ***

  The pompous Irdesian Empire had groveled perfectly while they scampered after their slippery prize. While it had been amusing—her game, how the human fools thought to outplay her—it had grown tired. Drinta was angry now. It wasn’t the flickering lights, or even the ruined water supply; it was their openness... the empire’s willingness.

  They no longer skulked about, but instead wore their full dark raiment where others could see. They came to Swelter and partook; they enjoyed themselves openly, soldiers flaunting their meager numbers as if unconcerned they were surrounded.

  Such behavior confused her agitated guests. The show convincing many of her summoned warriors there was a scheme between her and the imperials. As if their easy smiles and haughty behavior were sanctioned, as if she had called the rabble horde to be offerings on Sovereign’s pyre.

  Subterfuge was her weapon and the Empire wielded it too well, bowing and scraping at her feet. Small minded human hubris never ceased to amaze, especially as it was so linear. The empire was boring: take, convert, annihilate, repeat. Where was the artistry in so much tedium?

  Were they wiser, they would follow her example: confuse, devour, decimate, enslave—all the while being paid by all parties.

  “I have procured a present for you,” the Tessan female crooned, an invitation in her black lidless eyes.

  Smiling beautifully, Arden leaned back on his couch and teased, “I sincerely hope this story ends with you finding me a case of Tessan fire spirits.”

  She clicked her tongue and shook her head, the light playing off glassy green scales. “No, no, no. Something much more interesting.”

  “And what would that be?” There was a glimmer in golden eyes—open, calculating assessment.

  Drinta waved her hand before her, all sharp teeth and wicked beauty. “I’m getting to that. Patience. This is far too special to rush, let me savor...”

  The golden male edged to the end of his seat, ignoring the squalor of Swelter at their feet. “My interest is piqued...”

  “Good.” It was the playful laugh of an immoral woman. “But you’ll have to wait a little longer. I find it far more enjoyable when I build suspense.”

  “In that case, I would like to admit that I have a surprise for you as well.” There was a sweet quality to the tenor, something incredibly indulgent.

  “Don’t tease me, Arden.” The tip of her tail gave a little swish. “You have no secrets from me.”

  Leaning his elbows on his knees, the emissary winked. “We’ve caught Sigil. Even now she is in Sovereign’s clutches, chained, where he is forcing her into tranquil submission. There will be no more disruptions to your station, and we are prepared to fully replace your water supply in honor of our fruitful alliance. Our apologies and gratitude will be profuse.”

  Easing back, comfortable, Drinta warned, “If you’re trying to convince me to open the byway before repairs are finished, I am sorry, but no.”

  The man shook his head, golden eyes sparkling. “I wouldn’t dream of it. Five days of her anger and Pax is near collapse. I can only imagine what the little terror did to the byway; it might be rigged to explode if opened. She wouldn’t be above killing us all.”

  The Tessan laughed, an honest cackle full of teeth and zeal. “Is that her idea of going for the throat?”

  “Not even close.”

  ***

  The Herald had done it; he had brought Sigil willingly back to them. But her ruined clothing had been clotted with blood, her face a landscape of swelling and bruises. There were no plum stained waves, but a bare skull fuzzed with new growth. Far worse than how she’d appeared was the reek of decay oozing from the broken thing’s very breath.

  Once she’d stumbled through the door with only Arden’s strength keeping her on her feet, the female had gripped her throat with one hand, nails digging in to the point little drips of red ran free down dirty skin. In a voice as desperate as her actions, she’d threatened, “Stay back and we will speak. Come nearer and you will not like what I’ll do.”

  “How did this happen?” Karhl—huge, armored in the weighty black matte of imperial military—stared at her blood crusted torso, furious with the Herald who dared return her in such a state.

  When the Lord Commander continued to approach her, Sovereign caught his bulky arm and held Karhl still, unwilling to view more red flow from his female’s neck.

  “Our little vagrant stabbed herself with a lead pipe,” Arden explained gently, winking at the furious monster he’d retrieved. “Has carried it in her the whole time she terrorized Pax.”

  “Sigil...” The white-haired warrior looked on as if the statement gave him pain, as if he too bore days of suffering impaled by a rusted cylinder. It was the first expression Quinn had seen on Karhl’s face, and even Sovereign could see she didn’t understand why it would be there.

  Her eyes left the overlarge Karhl and settled on her greatest threat.

  Sovereign knew the assassin inside her sized him up, found him dangerous even with his relaxed stance and leaner build than the Lord Commander at his side.

  He’d beaten her once. No... they both knew he’d beaten her twice.