Still, he shoved those fears to the base of his skull and got on with his mission. He couldn’t be caught lurking outside the barracks, but he had to scout for Chantisse. They needed a rough idea of where provisions were located and how much the guards had stockpiled, as the resistance needed time to rest and fuel up, after they took the undercity.
It would be a race against the clock, for the upper tiers would get suspicious when the lifts stopped working and the undercity went silent. There were plans in place to deal with any guards sent to investigate that silence, but that would only buy so much time.
We’ve got one shot at this, and they already failed once.
Idly, he ambled from the workshop to the market, remembering how Rowena made him enjoy exploring this shitty place. Without her, nothing was okay, and the war he fought in his own head escalated. Soon it would be snarls and nocturnal screams as the jaguar drove him mad.
Keeping his movements casual, Slay navigated an indirect route to the barracks. From there, he watched a whole patrol rotation from the shadows near the wall, and in the confusion from the shift change, he finally slipped inside. The barracks were leagues better than where the prisoners slept, actual furniture and beds with plush mattresses. He realized how long it had been since he saw such things, amenities he once took for granted. It was inconceivable to him how the Gols could allow their own people to live this way. While he didn’t approve of treating prisoners of war in this fashion either, it was more comprehensible than enforcing a permanent underclass with no hope of upward mobility.
Behind him, came a noise and he spun to the side, silent as a blade in the dark, hiding in an alcove as a pair of off-duty guards headed out. They passed within arm’s length, and it would be so easy to snatch one, snap his neck and hide the body. Fuck, but he craved some violence, an outlet for the rage rioting his head.
“Comfort house?” the first said.
“Gaming tonight. I’ll have a better chance of hearing something important there. I might be able to parlay that into privileges. Hettie likes her secrets.”
“You’re a little too fond of that gutter rat,” the second observed.
It sounded like they were scuffling, good-natured assholery from two fuckers without a care in the world, despite what they did for a living. Slay fought the urge to live up to his name. God damn it, why can’t I kill them off one by one?
Fuck. Rein it in.
Slay counted to one hundred, making sure it was safe to explore. Then he mentally mapped the barracks from front to back, moving only when it was safe. He had no way of knowing how long it took, but he was sweating by the time he crept out and took a circuitous route back to his meeting point with Nolen. The boy had a scrap of paper and a nub of a pencil waiting for him. Thankfully, he didn’t speak to Slay while he drew everything out with as much detail as he could manage, indicating all the food storage and meal prep area.
Likely Slay would number among the poisoning team, as there were multiple barracks spread throughout the undercity. Each needed recon: they couldn’t assume everything would be laid out the same, but tonight, he had to get back to his quarters before the final bell. When he got there, most of the others were crashed out, and some whimpered in their sleep. Slay stepped over their sleeping forms carefully, wishing Rowena would return already. In the quiet like this, his head went to bad places, running nightmare scenarios where—
No, don’t do it.
His skin rippled, an involuntary shift threatening. If he let it happen, the jaguar would go nuts looking for Ro. Slay closed his eyes, hanging onto sanity by a thread. Think of happier times. But Ash Valley was full of sorrowful memories and regret; he had to reach so far back, before Dalena died, before he rejected Pru in front of her family and his whole life went to shit. Now those recollections felt so far away that they offered no warmth, no comfort. Nothing for him to hang onto as the jaguar pushed for control.
Then he caught a faint echo of Rowena’s scent and he remembered the softness of her curling into him without fear, the incredible sense of amazement that washed over him when she said she trusted him. Felt safe with him.
He breathed in. Out. Each inhalation came a little slower as his racing heart calmed and the great cat inside him settled. It was fucking agony for an Animari to be caged like this. Not that it was better for the Gols, but down here many of them literally had no idea how the sun looked or the way the wind felt skimming over their skin. They had never seen the sky or a tree growing out of a mountainside.
That bastard can never suffer enough for what he’s done, not even if I drain every drop of blood from his body.
Is he hurting her right now?
God damn it, brain, shut up. Fuck, I hate being careful. Hate being patient. Strategic bullshit, that’s what it is.
At this point, Slay only knew one thing.
If Rowena wasn’t back tomorrow, he’d lose his shit and maybe his life storming the upper tiers to liberate her.
13.
“I’m a prisoner now,” Rowena said deliberately. “As I was then.”
She didn’t miss the clench of the tyrant’s jaw. He hated her calm, remote manner most of all. In the old days, he savored it when he managed to make her cry. The further she went from equilibrium, the better he liked it. He would find no purchase for his mind games; she was determined to be a glass barrier he could not surmount.
“Not true,” he whispered, prowling close with a menace that raised the hair on the back of her neck and made her flesh crawl. “You adored me at first. Worshipped me. The way your eyes shone whenever I called for you…”
She swallowed, wishing she could spit a denial. “Does it please you? Living in the past and clinging to dead memories.”
“It does not,” he admitted, stopping within arm’s length. “If you hadn’t refused—”
“Your memory is playing you false. In my recollections, you wearied of pretending to be kind, pretending to bear me fondness and introduced games of another sort entirely.”
“Because you rejected me,” he roared.
Finally, his dead eyes lit with real emotion. Anger. Anger and acquisition, those were all Tycho Vega understood. Rowena didn’t know if he’d been born this way or if his father had twisted him into this loathsome shape. Certainly, his mother had done nothing to prevent it. Either way, it didn’t matter, for there was no changing the monster standing before her.
She refused to flinch as he traced a finger down her cheek. “You rejected me,” he repeated in a softer tone. “You were my first, the one I cherished most, and I would have raised you above all others if you had—”
“If I had abandoned my mother. If I’d chosen to forsake all my friends below. That was what you asked of me.”
“I would’ve given you the world,” he said in such a wistful tone that it might have aroused pity if she didn’t know he was incapable of softer emotions. Like a bird that learned to mimic, he could only offer the facsimile, never sincerity.
“No, you wanted to change the color of my cage. As your first concubine, I would’ve been imprisoned in a more luxurious environment. Acquiescence would’ve bored you in time, just as my defiance did.”
“You’re wrong,” he said, his tone almost gentle. “I would have treasured you. Lest you forget, I chose you, you among all others. I set you apart from everyone else, and you were meant to be mine, body and soul. Perhaps it seems as if I have everything, but—”