And then she felt the sensation of fingers crawling over her skin, the awareness of something other. She turned to run toward Wesley, but it was too late. The magic closed around her, her neck in a vise made of nothing material, nothing she could claw at or fight. It lifted her from the ground, her feet dragging across the stones before they dangled above. Her hands came automatically to paw at her throat, but like in her room before, her fingers found only air. With her voice stolen and her breath coming in thin gasps, Nim found Wesley, who was caught in the arms of a pair of Trust accountants, horror and regret in his wide eyes. They couldn’t use magic on him, but they didn’t need to. They only needed to hold him there, apart from Nim and unable to protect her.
Wes shouted again as the sound of heavy, booted footsteps approached, but even if he managed to escape, Wes and their guard would be too slow. The man who had orchestrated Nim’s capture was not playing by any rules.
He had her. There was nothing she could do. Nim was slammed to the ground a moment before more accountants took her arms. She jerked and fought, but they outsized her by half. And it would not be a fair fight, not when they loved nothing more than blood, not when her suffering would only feed their desire, their magic.
It didn’t stop her from trying. She rammed her slippered foot into one of her captors as her other leg found purchase, using their grip on her for leverage as she tried to spin a kick into the second man. He was too fast, her strike missed, and she was pulled harder between them before they pressed closer with magic, crushing her chest even as they bound her feet from moving.
Unable to so much as scream, Nim was hauled from the street, the vile curses she wanted to spit stolen with her air. They rushed through an alley, her chest a thousand knives of pain, her body thrashing against restraints of magic as the men dragged her farther from Wes and the guards, away from anything safe. She could not think, could not focus, could obey nothing but the violent need to draw breath. Her thrashing became weak, her vision darkening. Then she was slammed against the ground, and cool stone struck her cheek.
Nim’s chest felt suddenly run through with a sword of fire, but her body was cold with sweat as it pressed into the solid stone beneath her. For a moment, head spinning, she was sure she was alone, trapped in the dark, that she’d been thrown into a cell beneath the earth. But it was worse, far worse.
Up, a voice commanded in her head. Stand and face me.
Nim retched onto the floor, and had the sense it was not the first time she had since she’d been captured. She rolled to her back, dragging in breath, trying to force the dizziness to settle so she might find her bearings, but the magic swelled around her, undeniable proof that she’d been dragged into the undercity, deep within the catacombs that housed the Trust. Her hand found something warm and wet on the floor, and she flinched as her eyes finally focused on the flickering glow of fire-lit trenches and the dark stone of the undercity cells.
The brief thought that she might be thrown into one of those cells was gone before it could take root. Whatever the Trust had planned didn’t involve simply locking her up.
She had not woken alone.
Nim pushed to her feet, wincing and pressing her eyes closed against a last wave of dizziness before she found her place. Allister’s tonics had saved her, but the magic was still too strong.
She stood before a line of cells, their entrances low enough that they might have been made for creatures, not men, the iron bars revealing nothing but shadow beyond. The cells were never lit inside, so if anyone waited in their depths, they surely shied away from the flame, unable to watch. The accountants who’d dragged her there were gone, and Nim stood alone in a tunnel as finely crafted as the halls above. Not alone, some part of her warned, but it was far too late to heed the urge to run.
In the shadow of a doorway, a figure shifted into view, rolling lazily toward her with a shoulder rested against the wall. He was tall and lean, his form more graceful than spindly, but she could tell in just one move that he was agile, dangerous. His brow rose on one side, a sort of challenge, but Nim held her ground. It took everything not to allow herself to step back, but she understood precisely how much he would enjoy her retreat. He would have liked nothing more than to chase her, to hunt.
She shook her head, trying to clear whatever sensations were stealing over her, unsure how they could feel so much like her own. His mouth tweaked into something of pleasure, the firelight catching his dark eyes, a sickeningly familiar shade of blue. Like sapphires.
“Rhen.” Nim stepped back, queasy at the name that had rolled off her tongue. She’d never said it before, had not felt it enter her mind, and yet, she knew. It was Calum’s brother.
“Ahh,” he murmured, stepping further into the light. “What a pleasure it is to finally meet you, Miss Weston.” His voice was a satisfied purr that made Nim want to rip off her skin. Whatever Calum was, this man was worse.
He smiled as he sauntered closer then raised an elegant hand to playfully tap a fingertip to the end of his nose. “I see my suppositions have been wrong. You are not at all what I expected.” His words said she was a stranger, but his intimations teased her with images, with the knowledge that an agent of the Trust had watched her sleep. He closed the distance, Nim’s feet frozen to the ground, no part of her able to move, then took a half turn around her in his perusal before he came back to face her again. He hummed, the sound rumbling through Nim in a way that made her tremble with the urge to run. His face was so much like Calum’s but younger, maybe five and twenty, and more mischievous, as if their meeting was a lark, some good-natured prank instead of his kidnapping of a citizen of Inara to drag into the depths of the undercity.
He chuckled, his teeth flashing in a malevolent grin, and Nim had the sensation he could tell what she was thinking, though she’d not spoken a word. She had to get away. She’d never been surer of anything in her life.
“My brothers have made a plaything out of you,” Rhen said. “But you are no mouse, are you?” He reached forward to tap the end of Nim’s nose as he’d done to his own and murmured, “No, I think not.”
At her flinch, his smile fell into something more playful, catlike, and he slipped his hands behind his back in a gesture of casual ease. He tsked in disappointment, the sensation rolling off of him. “Do not disappoint me, Miss Weston. You hold your tongue as if you were not the clever girl who played in their little game, who captured a prize of her own.” He leaned forward, brow shifting conspiratorially, his intimation slithering over her skin. Show me what you’re made of.
Nim fell to her knees before him, as if the power of his intimation was overwhelming. He couldn’t know she’d downed Allister’s tonic. She had a moment, a chance. That was all. She could feel Rhen standing before her, staring down as she doubled over, one hand pressed to her gut. The other, trembling and sweat-slicked, found the sheath beneath her skirt.
He wanted to see what she made of. She wasn’t sure she’d ever known. Once, she might have said she was like any other girl, a child of sweets and laughs and the bond she’d felt with her father… But at the idea, Nim’s head snapped to the side. She gazed at the shadows beyond a low cell door, and her heart went cold. It was suddenly clear what lay beyond it. She’d not been dragged down to the cells to be thrown into one.