“Follow me, stay close, and don’t touch anything. On three…” He tapped the count on her shoulder and then slid out of the narrow tunnel.
Sure enough, the sentry had dozed off against the wall, not expecting trouble. Normally this was probably a quiet assignment. Moving on the balls of his feet, Slay crept past and then froze when a mumble drew his attention. Talking in his sleep. He signaled to Rowena for them to keep moving and she stayed with him like she’d been on stealth recon missions before. Yeah, she underestimates herself.
Long moments later, they emerged near the edible mushroom farm. It was getting late, judging from how few prisoners were still moving around.
“We did it,” Rowena said, eyes shining.
His first instinct was to pick her up, whirl her around, and kiss the hell out of her. But his impulses had caused problems before, time to rein them in. Slay wouldn’t frighten her for the world and besides, they didn’t have time to fuck around.
“They’ll be ringing the curfew bell soon,” he said, “so we’re not in the clear yet.”
“Shit, we still need to deliver these. If we take them back with us, there will be questions. And the sooner we get rid of these the better.”
The undercity was eerie at this hour. Most of the rushlights had been extinguished and Slay found his vision skimming between night and normal, creating strange afterburn ghosts that crawled around his periphery. Or fuck, maybe there were actual ghosts. Enough prisoners had died down here to bathe the place in blood. This fresh isolation meant it would be easier for the guards to spot them if they were looking.
“These shrooms, are they contraband? Will the assholes try to seize them?”
Rowena shrugged. “They’re not illegal, but they do sub as currency, so who knows? The guards do whatever they want. Who’s going to stop them?”
“You make a good point.” Goddamn but he wanted to kill everyone involved in oppressing her people.
Normally, he wouldn’t bless a scheme for mass poisoning, but all the guards who cooperated with that bastard Vega to grind their own people down? He had no time or sympathy for any of them. Doubtless they had reasons or rather excuses but fuck them all. Poison and liver necrosis sounded about right, and hopefully they’d die in agony.
“If we hurry, we can still make our drop,” Rowena said, urgency coloring her tone.
Like she had before, she grasped his wrist and he angled his hand, lacing their fingers together. While she shot him a surprised look, she didn’t pull away. Honestly, he didn’t mind letting her drag him around, but he liked the feel of her hand in his. Something about it felt like a promise. Unfortunately, the site was on the other side of the undercity, and they got there as the curfew bell rang. Nobody was around at least. The populace was cowed enough that it didn’t take a huge number of guards to keep thousands of prisoners in check. That bastard Vega and his enforcers thought they’d broken the Gol spirit—and in some cases, they had.
But not my Rowena.
A little chill rippled through him when he framed the possessive thought, but it didn’t seem wrong. Rather, it felt as right as anything ever had.
Not all my instincts are wrong.
While Slay stood watch, she hid their harvest and then they started back to the flophouse. Slay was starting to think they’d gotten away with it when two guards strode toward them, clean intercept between them and their assigned housing. Yeah, that word’s a fucking stretch.
Oh fuck.
At closer range, he recognized Lucan, the skid mark with a hard-on for Ro and a bad case of hurt feelings. Anyone who let rejection make them do unspeakable things clearly wasn’t okay to begin with and Slay would say that this asshole deserved to have his insides mauled by a jaguar. Without hesitation, he put himself between the patrolmen and Rowena. She touched his arm, and Lucan watched that exchange with pale, hate-filled eyes. Please can I kill this shit lord? The other one would have to die too. There had to be a tunnel where he could stash the bodies.
Already his jaguar snarled, ready to leap, even if it burned the last of his energy. He let out a breath, still slightly afraid that he’d end up feral.
“Already breaking the rules?” Lucan said to Rowena. “That’s convenient. Now our king has a legitimate reason to punish you.”
He reached out and slapped restraints on her before Slay could react. “You’ve been summoned, Rowena. As promised, I told him all about you. No need to thank me, your expression is all the reward I need.”
11.
Rowena sensed that Slay was about to shift.
He’d use the last of his energy to savage Lucan and company, and that would spell disaster for the resistance. While they might get away with killing two guards and hiding the bodies, it would raise military alertness, which could have disastrous consequences for the nascent rebellion. It might make them more careful about their food and drink or cause them to double up on patrols, none of which the resistance could afford.
Gently, she touched Slay on the shoulder, knowing that Lucan was evaluating their intimacy. “Don’t. He’s spoiling for a fight, don’t give him one. I’ll be back. Killing me quickly after all this time, after I got away once? Not the tyrant’s style.”
She pitched her voice louder when she faced the guards. “I’m ready. Let’s go.”
“Rowena, no! I promised to—”
“This is the best way to protect me,” she cut in.
Everyone will be safer if I don’t fight this. I have to go. No matter how sick I feel in the depths of my stomach.
Slay let out a snarl as the guard Rowena didn’t know stepped forward with his electric prod. It shouldn’t be enough to permanently harm an Animari, but she’d been subdued often enough to want to protect Slay. She got between the two of them.
“No need for that. I’m not resisting.”
“Ro…” Slay whispered, his deep voice ragged with rage.
Lucan flashed a superior look, gloating for all he was worth. He smoothed a hand over his blond hair. “Don’t be sad. If you’re lucky, she’ll come back in one piece. More or less. But maybe you should say good-bye now, just in case.”
“Lucan! Do you have to be such an asshole?” she demanded.
“I was good to you. I loved you, Rowena. Everything could have been different.” The wild part was, he sounded like he believed that.
The Lucan from her memories was dead and gone; she had to remember that. Their shared past ceased to matter. He’d chosen the side of evil and oppression and for Rowena, there was no bridging that gap. Nothing could make up for the fact that Lucan thought it was acceptable to do this because Rowena had hurt his feelings, made him feel unwanted, whatever the hell he’d claimed before joining the enemy.
“I’ll see you soon,” she promised Slay, as the guards dragged her off.
Lucan shoved her purposefully from behind and she tumbled headlong, splitting her mouth against her teeth when she hit the stony ground. They laughed when Slay let out an anguished sound, raw and seething with fury.
“Hold it in!” she called. “Save it. Feed it.”
Our time will come, she added silently.
That much she couldn’t say aloud because it might give her captors a clue. Lucan was a huge dick, but he was also quick on the uptake, and he could put the pieces together if she lost her temper. Rowena pretended to be cowed; it wasn’t difficult when old memories scrabbled at the edge of her brain like skeletal hands scratching at the inside of a tomb door.