Corroded

“I a’ no sla’e,” I spat. For all his pretty words, a slave was something I would never again allow myself to be—neither by flesh nor by marriage.

His thumb caught a thread of saliva tinted gold by the candlelight. Smeared it over my upper lip. “Yes,” he assured me, with extreme gentility. “You are. Why deny this freedom?”

Freedom? Freedom in becoming a man’s possession? I would have laughed, if I weren’t driven beyond madness.

I had faced this path before, selling my dreams in marriage—risking it all on a good man, much less a monster such as Hawke had become.

I would debase myself for nothing less than total freedom.

The exchange allowed me opportunity to work a hole large enough into the other silk ribbon that my weight did the rest. The sound of rending fabric said all that needed to be said.

My weight dropped like a stone, tearing me free of Hawke’s grip as he leapt back. I hit the stage hard enough to ring every bone in my body like a jumbled bell, but I wasted no time feeling the pain.

The severed silk floated to the stage floor, a rain of crimson, as graceful as ink drawn across the page of my comprehension. I surged to my bare feet, and it was as if I was living flame—I had no explanation for it, no real understanding.

In my state of mind, I embodied grace and retribution, facing Hawke down as the ribbon trailed to the floor between us.

The fabric hung from the knots tied around my wrists; near enough to my dreams that for all my surety, I hesitated.

Was this real?

Was I dreaming another dreadful opium dream?

Hawke splayed one hand out, his face a twisted mask of malevolence. “You are mine,” he snarled.

I tore the gag from my mouth, barely cognizant of it when twisted hanks of my hair snapped with it. I threw it at his feet. “I am no man’s,” I returned in like aggression.

The wrong answer, to his mind. An expression of violence turned into rage incarnate. His mouth peeled back, baring white teeth. His eyes blazed. “You will not deny me!” The air over his palm crackled.

Blue light gathered, a sizzling surge of energy. It flickered like electricity, but the central heart of it did not go out, gathering in bright intensity.

I stared, open-mouthed and suddenly empty-minded.

This must be a dream.

A high scream rent the air. On it’s heels, a desperate, masculine voice. “Move!”

From the left, I heard what could not be the sound of swords clashing. That would make no sense. Swords? Here?

From the right, a man’s shape leapt onto the stage. Red hair glinted copper bright. Aristocratic features had not softened, but only sharpened with severe intensity. He appeared nothing more than a forceful man determined to interfere.

Hawke’s teeth bared in a manic smile fraught with challenge. He flung that blue light with such savage fury that I flinched, threw my arms over my head—but I had no need. The blue orb soared, unerringly precise, launched at the man who dared to reach for me.

Madness erupted.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Hands seized my waist, and I was dragged from the stage. Blue fire exploded, hotter than any fire I’d known and brighter than the most complex Chinese firework.

I hit the ground upon my backside, my shoulders colliding with a stone seat. Agony tore through my re- opened wound; my vision went spotty.

“The hell,” I heard in a voice I swore was familiar, but all I knew was that rough hands tore at the gag until the wood was removed from between my teeth and I could breathe normally again.

Those same hands cupped my face. “Wake up,” he ordered, a pleasant enough sound were it not for the anger and—what? Something else twisted it. Shaped it to a ragged severity.

I forced my fluttering lashes to part.

Sculpted jaw, sandy blonde chops.

The blood drained from my face. I gasped, but could not form the words.

To my shame, a faint threatened to swallow me.

The hands at my cheeks tightened. “No! Wake up!” He slapped me once, a tap compared to that which Hawke had delivered, but it sent heat surging to my cheeks. I startled, clawed at his grip until he let me go.

“Compton,” I croaked.

“Now,” he agreed, but as he pulled me to my feet, I realized that it was not my late lord standing before me, but his brother.

Lord Piers Everard Compton, inveterate rake and no stranger to the Menagerie’s delights, had been invited to this special show.

I had no time for shame.

I shook him off, tossing back the weight of my loosened hair as I did. “A weapon,” I demanded. My voice was hoarse, my jaw aching from the strain of that damnable gag, but I could at least speak.

Lord Piers stared at me as if I’d lost my mind. His brother had so often worn that very expression.

The ache this caused in me shattered what was left of the mind I retained.

I pushed him, hard enough that he nearly tripped over the seat behind him. “Get out,” I ordered.

“I will not leave you to this madness!”

“Out!” I screamed it, as wild a banshee as I imagine he’d ever seen. “While you can, you fool!” I pushed him again, and this time, he did fall backwards, crown over elbows. “Go!”

I left him, certain he’d have quite the tale to tell his rakehell friends come morning.

If he survived the chaos.

What had begun as an event of prestigious invite had turned into warfare. I stood, feet bare and one bleeding, gasping for breath through a terrible knot in my side, and saw bloody hell rain down upon the amphitheater.

Zylphia, her braid in a wrapped crown and her tunic and trousers similar to that of the Chinese servants, fought those same servants. She had no weapon, but the way she moved—fluid and precise—mirrored the men she fought. As I watched, a spark of something red glinted between her hands. One palm flattened against a short Chinese man’s chest.

The man she battled howled as his eyes turned red. The same light spilled from his nose, his mouth, even boiled from his ears. He clawed at his face, but ash tinted the air on a ragged exhale and he collapsed.

Over the slumped figure, separated by the smoke of fanned candles and wicked lights, Zylphia’s gaze locked with mine. She curled her fingers over a palm I’d sworn glowed as red as the firelight.

I opened my mouth.

She shook her head hard and turned away, this time to shout at a youth who swung a club at a knot of tangled bodies. “Watch your friends, Tovey!”

Chaos. Screaming, thrashing, bloody chaos.

Delilah had torn free of her bindings, and she wielded a sword taken from heaven knows where. Perhaps from Zylphia’s people, though that spoke of civil war in the making—a truth I had recognized no signs of. What bloody coup had been planned in the wings? So many secrets in these grounds.

With skill fine enough to make a fencing instructor proud, Delilah defended Talitha and Jane, who stood back to back, the remains of broken vases in hand. Jane’s eyes were wild, her teeth bared, but Talitha looked winded and afraid; I could not fault her.

Others had joined the fray. It was too chaotic to see them all, but I saw enough to know that not all who fought would walk away this night.