Page 3 of Incandescence

Chapter Two

Maya

Istared at the manwho seemed so eerily self-possessed. Like a prisoner from a concentration camp who’d survived the war and wouldn’t—couldn’t—examine or recount what he’d lived through.

Even with my brain screaming denial and weakness dulling my senses, I noted every inch of the man standing before me. A man I despised, but who I sensed just might be the key to getting out of this hellhole.

He was fit and honed, not to mention tall. He had to be at least six foot three. His hair was a shade lighter than dark chocolate and curled at the ends, an inch away from being scruffy. His ever darker stare was sharp with intelligence, if one discounted the apathy I’d glimpsed. He looked young, but his eyes told a different story.

I mentally shook my head. I didn’t want to dwell on a man who’d watched other women die, and who probably expected me to die too.

Not in this life.

I blew out a slow breath. “Are you that thing’s accomplice?”

He looked shocked, as though he played no part in whatever tragedy had occurred. But of he’d seen other women trapped here and taking their own lives, he wasn’t innocent of the crime.

“That ‘thing’ is our master, and you’ll soon discover that thinking or calling him by any other name in his presence...well, you won’t be feeling too great afterward.”

I glowered, hating his strangely accented, honey-smooth voice that hinted of warmth even as I was all too aware of the coldness beneath. “He’ll never be my master.”

He shrugged. “Then you’ll die.”

He didn’t look too perturbed, yet I sensed his unease, just as I’d sensed an unexpected frisson of desire the moment he curled his warm hand around my arm.

Blood loss, nothing more, I told myself. The man might be good-looking in a hard, world weary kind of way, but he was far from my type. No, I didn’t go for murderers.

I stood straighter, determination flooding through me. I wasn’t waiting around for whatever hell the so-called master had in store for me. I had to find a way out of here. I wouldnotend up like Alexander, or worse, the women who had died up here. I wasn’t being a victim of circumstance again.

I forced myself not to touch my throat again, though the twin punctures continued to burn. “So...Alexander, what exactlyisyour master?”

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