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Heat flushed under her skin. She let out a trembling breath, steadied it, then tipped her face up. For a heartbeat, he thought she’d kiss him despite the roll of the cameras. The hunger to take that kiss nearly broke him. She didn’t. She let the want hang in the air like rain waiting tofall.
“Okay,” she whispered.
He nodded once at the armed men inside, who watched him, her, and each other the way men eyed ladders that might break. He held her hand.
Behind them, the headman laughed. The sound floated up the stairs like it belonged to the air itself. The hatch groaned, the door sliding shut, locking them in with guns and a future he wouldn’t allow to unfold except on his terms.
The stairs rattled away. The plane’s engines deepened their growl. Locus laced his fingers with Hannah’s and held on as the door sealed with a final, heavy clank. The sound cut a clean line between what had been theirs and what now belonged to the headman.
The plane shuddered. The headman’s promise of fairness hung in the air like a lie laid out on fine china. Locus didn’t look away from the locked door. He would walk into whatever waited with hunger wrapped tight around control, with his vow sharpened into a blade.
They lifted into the gray morning, and the only way left was forward.
Chapter 15
THEY BROUGHTEmmeline to the platform like a prize they didn’t deserve, chains tight enough to mark her wrists, chin forced high by a guard’s hand so the cameras could drink in her beautiful face. She was more petite than Hannah, her features both delicate and elegant with brown hair streaked with gold and eyes the same hazel-green shade as her mother’s.
Hannah went rigid beside Locus. Her fingers curled, nails whitening, then she folded her arms hard across her ribs as if she could hold herself together by force. The light hit her eyes and turned them wet. She blinked until they cleared. She refused to cry forthem.
She pressed closer and his mind filled in the truth of what those chains meant. He knew she was remembering her past. He saw it in her eyes, and the images from that past clashed with this moment, of Emmy displayed like livestock.
The roar of the crowd hammered at Hannah, metallic and deafening, and he recognized the fight in her body to keep fromscreaming. There was a spark of vows in her silence, her anxiety not to lose her sister forever, her determination to survive long enough to find her again.
She leaned into Locus without realizing it, her trembling pressed into the unyielding muscle of his side. The hard line of his thigh brushed against hers, every shift reminding her she wasn’t alone. Her skin prickled where his heat bled into her, and the more the crowd crowed, the more her body betrayed her—pressing closer, clutching at him for both safety and something far more dangerous.
The yard had changed for spectacle. The headman had ordered a taller dais, rough-hewn planks hammered over sawhorses and oil drums, cables snaking to nearby poles, drones buzzing in restless orbits. Floodlamps burned white, washing the dirt to chalk, lifting dust into a glitter that stuck to tongues. Men pressed close. Some sober. Most not. Currency chips clicked in a woman’s metal bowl like teeth.
The headman stood at the center with a microphone that didn’t need the volume, his voice already trained to cut through riot. “Voss,” he called with a smile that was thin and cutting, more scar than grin. “You said you wanted to see her before the hunters took their fun, and here she is. Front of the line. Prime. So far, untouched.”
The guards hauled Emmy to the edge rail. She stumbled and recovered fast, stubborn pride where strength should’ve been. Her light brown hair was tangled, her mouth split at one corner. She bled a little where the chain had bitten her wrists. She didn’t bow her head. She looked for Hannah first, as if the yard didn’t contain a single face that mattered exceptone.
Hannah shifted to be seen without stepping forward. Locus moved with her, always the wall between. Emmy’s throatfluttered when she found her sister. She took a breath as if that one breath had to carry everything she couldn’tsay.
Locus measured the distance. Thirty paces to the dais. Twelve men between. Two on the steps, one on the mic line, three with rifles high. The rest carried knives and swagger. Drones circled, lenses flaring. Aportable energy barrier unit hung above the platform, its faint shimmer betraying the edge of its field. If he reached Emmy, they would trigger it like an electric storm. That was the trap. The yard dared him to spring it. The headman’s grin said he would love the attempt. Locus let the calculation finish, then let itgo.
He spoke low for Hannah alone. “Do not move forward.”
“You think I’m going to rush them?”
“Affirmative.”
Her mouth opened, then shut. “Then stand closer. Keep me from doing something stupid.”
He moved until her shoulder brushed his chest. Heat pressed through the thin scraps they’d been forced into again—the halter and skirt that barely covered Hannah, the loincloth at his own hips. The coarse fabric did little to hide the press of her body againsthis.
Every time she breathed, he felt it. Every shift of her weight slid soft skin against his thigh. Her scent lifted with fear and stubbornness, threaded with something sweeter that set his blood humming. He absorbed the tremor of her breasts brushing his side, the line of her hip fitting too neatly into his palm when he steadied her. Each taunt from the crowd made her cling harder, and with every heartbeat his need to shield—and to claim—intensified. It cut him clean and low, need threading through discipline.
He kept his voice level. “You will not be stupid. You will be brave.”
The headman raised his hands. The yard went quiet with the quick silence of men who loved a show more than they craved blood. He turned to the nearest camera, smile growing theatrical. “For those of you watching from home and elsewhere, this is a rare thing. Amatched piece. Sisters.”
The crowd loved that. Laughter rolled like stones down a hill. Some shouted offers before the ask. Others jeered cruelly: “Strip her!”
“Let’s see if she screams!”
A bidder’s voice from a screen mocked, “She looks too soft—she won’t last a night.”
Another cackled, “Pair them up, I’ll pay double to see them break together.”
