Caged Warrior

every little detail.

That was his gift. Every time the collar held him in check, he missed his gift as he would an absent limb.

Nynn’s gift was a ghost hiding somewhere in her mind.

“If you had no powers, you wouldn’t drop to your knees,” he said. “You wouldn’t have cried out if you didn’t feel it. Humans can walk into a Cage and feel nothing.” He stared down at her as she crawled to her feet, with eyes like the blue center of a flame. “I hope you enjoyed your seduction, neophyte. Break’s over.”

NINE

The release of the collar’s damping hold shot power to the deepest recesses of Nynn’s body and mind. Energy coursed through every cell—energy she needed. That vitality was even more potent now, after the adrenaline rush of Leto’s persuasion. He was right. A human wouldn’t have noticed that empowering shift. The woman named Nynn was exhilarated and freed.

No. She caught herself. I’m Audrey. I’ve been Audrey since high school.

Did it matter?

He had kissed her, she had let him, and something chilling was pressing in from the back of her mind.

She was losing herself.

Even in the labs, she had rarely felt as helpless as when Leto had traced his lips across hers. The intensity of his attention had been . . . enticing. Unsettling. Full of potential.

Wrong.

The gold-flecked mask of his eyes and the exploring touch of his tongue had been terrible enough. Terrible, because she’d responded. Not by running or shouting. She’d been too shocked for that. She’d responded by relishing each honey-slow caress. Just his mouth and her mouth and what sick spell they’d brought to life. Her body was keyed up and aching in ways she’d never known. The call and response of ancient needs.

Needs she’d thought dead and buried with Caleb.

The depth of her betrayal was staggering. Her heart stuttered, and the taste of ash settled at the back of her mouth. For that alone she needed to stay clear of Leto.

As if that were an option.

She couldn’t shake free of those moments when his exhales had tangled with her inhales. She’d shivered through the entire encounter—not from fear, but from an elemental exchange. His curiosity about her. Her unconscious response to that curiosity. She’d practically stopped her own heart. Wondering. Searching. What did he see when he looked at her?

Now she was nauseated to realize how easily she’d responded.

Her limbs buzzed all the way to the tips of her fingers and toes. Not fear. Not hatred. Dragon be, not even simple lust. For those moments when he’d stroked her jaw and her cheek, she’d wanted comfort. From a beast. She’d only found real comfort when in the company of her cousin, Mal, and in the arms of her late husband. Any reaction—anything—to Leto’s enticements was like personally shooting Caleb in the heart.

That was where the torture had started. She had wanted to fight back. She was a Dragon King. She should’ve been able to do something. Her gift had failed her, as it always had.

Another darkness slunk forward. Distant fear. Grief she couldn’t identify. A terrible thing sat at the edge of her vision, like being stalked by a wraith.

Muscles coiling, blood surging, she faced her tormentor—the brainwashed brute who’d just kissed her.

“Use logic, Nynn. You know I’m right. You have greater potential than you’ve yet tapped.”

“What would an animal like you know about logic?”

With a casualness that mocked the situation, he glanced around the Cage wires. “Animal? Seems we’re both locked up.”

“But you’re so subservient that you stay locked up by choice.” She couldn’t stop moving now. Spinning. Her head was a tornado. She couldn’t keep still. Didn’t want to keep still. “How can you sit down here in the dark? You’re a circus freak, not a man. I knew a good man and I loved him and he’s dead— murdered—by the cartel family you serve without thought. I look at you and I want to throw up.”

He didn’t react. He didn’t even taunt her with the kiss she’d just accepted. “Who did you lose?”

“My husband!”

“No. Farther back. There’s a hole where something happened. Where someone should be.”

“No one!”

“Think about it. I didn’t hit you. I didn’t threaten you. I only asked who you’d lost. Now look at you. Look around you.”

As if of its own accord, a ball of light appeared before her. It grew and grew until it was half her height and twice her width. Explosions sparked at its heart. She was mesmerized by what she had wrought.

Beautiful. Fascinating. Destructive.

“Let it go,” Leto called. “Release, Nynn.”

Her impulse to hold on to the magic was strong. She only wanted to look at it a while longer. Otherwise she wouldn’t believe it. She couldn’t even trust that she’d remember it. The bursts of color and hot violence were like vicious fairies in pitched battle. She could watch it forever. Let it grow. See if she could crack a crater in the earth with one blow.

In the back of her mind, where the woman once known as Audrey MacLaren still thought and assessed, she saw the truth in an instant. Such a release would kill her.

She closed her eyes. Arched her back. Spread her arms.

The ball that shivered out from deep within—it was part of her. She had to let it go.

It burst.

A wave of heat and electricity shot around the Cage in whirling circles. That power hit her back in the face. The ricochet effect knocked the air from her lungs and threw her back in a lopsided stagger. She landed hard on her ass. The back of her head connected with one of the Cage’s metal posts.

“Aw, fuck,” she muttered. Blood seeped from the base of her skull. Leto strode toward her and knelt. She touched a strip of that leather woven through his armor—leather singed black. “How?”

“Less damage? I was ready this time. Flat on my back, or it would’ve been shredded to pieces.” He grabbed her upper arms and gave her a hard shake. “Tell me you remember that. Nynn, you stubborn little shit. Tell me.”

“I’m not stubborn. I did what you wanted.” She wiped the blood on her pants. No number of blinks cleared the image of what she’d just done.

Dragon be. I have a gift.

She had expected Leto to remain as still as statuary, yet his features spoke of surprise—and something close to approval. “You did. We can move forward now.”

She shook her head, which added dizziness to her pain. Or maybe that was another aftereffect of her gift. He was right. Audrey MacLaren was not a Dragon King. Yet Nynn was. This demonstration, the unnatural way she took so quickly to Leto’s training, maybe even how she’d responded to his physical allure—all proof.

But to let go of Audrey? That would mean turning her back on the life she’d shared with Caleb. She would not be the same mother Jack loved. Perhaps that might be for the best. For his safety, he needed her to become a warrior like Leto. Only later could she offer comfort and the pure affection she longed to give. Warrior and mother were interlinked.

A year in the Cages.

She didn’t want to become such a monster.

“The next step is for you to control it,” he said plainly.

“That I managed to do it at all is as good as it gets.” She pushed to her feet. Her balance was unnaturally