Page 63 of Power of Draken

"A shit?"

"Don't mock. I'd say you owe your life to my stomach ache. If I'd shit an hour earlier, you'd be dead."

Mercer regards me with an amused glint in his eye then snaps his fingers. The underling to his right—a wiry man with a face that’s all sharp angles and deep shadows—steps forward, raising a crossbow and leveling it at Rowan.

Everything inside me goes cold.

"Wait, you don't want to kill her," Chambers calls out. "That's the commandant's daughter. The commandant wouldn't want her dead."

A corner of Mercer's mouth lifts toward a bemused smile and my hands curl into fists with the desire to rip Chambers’s head off.

"Oh, I'm not aiming to kill her," Mercer says, his voice disturbingly casual. "But sometimes people require a reminder of just how fragile their position is."

With no more ceremony, Mercer kicks my injured leg. I fall to my knees just in time for him to bury his fist into my stomach, with a powerful blow I know better than to try and block. This isn't a fight, its punishment. And Mercer knows exactly how to ensure my cooperation. He's strong for a human, his fists forcing air from my lungs with the strike I let him take. A few hits later, I swallow my pride and double over, spitting out blood from a bite I give myself. The truth, that I'm now well enough to take him apart with my bare hands and that—thanks to Rowan’s earlier effort to corrode the chain—I can break my leg shackles anytime I want—isn't going to get me anywhere just now.

But this isn’t about winning a fight. It’s about keeping Rowan safe.

Having delivered the appropriate retribution for my insolence, Mercer steps back, giving me a final appraising look. His eyes narrow as if he’s trying to decide whether to press the issue further. I must have pissedhim off more than I intended. But that's par for the course for me.

Very much so, Ulyssus agrees. His concern for me dissolved once Rowan removed the auric steel from my leg, leaving his usual apathetic self behind.

I’m glad at least one of us enjoyed that. There is a small wince in my mental voice, another marker of my split focus.

If you’d gone where you were needed, you’d not be here.

I tighten my shields, shutting out the rest of that conversation.

Mercer lets out a thoughtful grunt, then tosses a small sack in my direction. It smacks onto the dirt floor and rolls to a stop by my knees, spilling out a few meager rations—stale bread, dried meat, and a handful of apples that have seen better days.

“Keep your strength up,” Mercer says in that same disturbingly casual tone. “We’ll be back soon enough.”

I force myself to keep my head down as I clutch my stomach and pant like a man struggling to keep breathing. The footsteps of the mercenaries retreat up the stairs, their heavy boots pounding against the wooden steps. The door slams shut, and the room plunges back into near-silence, broken only by the faint rustle of the others adjusting their positions and the distant murmur of the storm raging outside once more.

A nagging feeling that something isn’t right about this whole set up seeps into me. It’s vague, not concrete enough to even form a coherent thought toward Ulyssus, but it’s enough to have me on alert.

I give it another beat, then push myself up where I crouch on my haunches, keeping one hand on my stomach for effect. "Well, that was charming," I mutter, then make the mistake of meeting Rowan's gaze. Her eyes are wide, filled with concern that twists in my gut like the auric steel should have done, if it had taken root.

“Kai,” she scrambles toward me with her shackles clanking against the cold stone floor. "Are you?—"

“I’m fine,” I manage to snap out. I don’t want her touching me, not when her concern makes my guilt sting even more.

Rowan looks hurt for a moment, but then her jaw sets with that stubborn determination that I’ve come to both admire and loathe. She reaches for me anyway, attempting to lift the hem of my shirt to examine the bruises. They are there, they just don't go as deep as she thinks. And they are certainly not behind the blood I'd spit out. But I can't tell her that, no matter how worried she looks.

It’s a necessary deception. Everything I do is necessary. Which doesn’t stop the bitter taste in my mouth.

“Ainsley, stop.” No point in hiding her name now that Chambers spilled it. My voice is hard and I catch her wrist before she can truly examine the damage. “I said I’m fine. Save your energy. And your pity.” I press the sack of food into her hands. "If you want to be useful, you can distribute these."

"Right." She lifts an eyebrow at me, but I have no idea what that means, so I ignore it and find a spot near the wall. I'm used to lying. I'm not used to feeling so stars' damned guilty for it and I need for it to go away, because when I knelt on the floor, taking Mercer's hits... part of me wanted him to keep going. The part of me that wants to somehow make up for all the wrongs I'm bringing into Rowan's life.

The other part of me though, it just wants to make it stop. This insistent, burning connection to the woman who I have no right to love. I wish I could just make it stop.

I lean my back against the stone and address the room, my eyes narrowing on Collin Chambers and the other nameless cadet. That feeling of something being off returns. "When were you taken?"

"Just took me now," nameless replies, but Chambers stays suspiciously quiet.

"It's been a full day for us," Ellie offers from where she and Rowan huddle together. "They had us down here for a bit, then in a room upstairs for a while, and now here again."

"Wait, what?" Rowan's spine snaps straight, her eyes flashing with something dangerously close to fury as she glares at Collin. "If you've been with her all this time, why does she still look like this? In fact, why are you sitting on your ass over there now instead of healing her?"

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