Caged Warrior

Keep this woman safe.

SIXTEEN

Nynn could not remain stiff. The woman Ulia’s voice intoned sounds like bell chimes, urging Nynn to sink deeper into a recessive state. With her last conscious thoughts, she clutched tighter to Leto’s hands. So intimate once again. Wrapped together. Arms over arms. Legs twined with legs. They sat like lovers offering respite after an arduous task—in their case, surviving Dr. Aster.

They weren’t lovers, but that comforting pose was not entirely unwelcome.

Part of her still rebelled at the idea of including Leto in this ceremony. What if some part of her slipped free? What if Ulia opened his mind, too, and let him see all her secrets? He’d see how much she’d come to rely on him, even desire him. She shivered. He gripped her fingers more tightly.

His presence couldn’t be helped. There was danger in this operation. Ulia could lose her grip on Nynn’s consciousness and leave her somewhere dark and adrift forever. Perhaps a physical anchor—Leto’s body-to-body strength—could help lead her home.

They both faced Ulia. Their skin touched. He burned and she burned. His heavy muscle pinned hers. Pinned, but embraced. Large, strong hands seemed to be everywhere. Or was that her mind slipping? She only sighed when he found more skin to hold. Fingertips, throat, cheek.

The room was dark. Ulia became a bronzed glow between Nynn’s temples. The woman’s lined face, stooped back, and prosthetic leg never materialized. Only the color that matched her faded copper eyes. Nynn blinked against the disorientation.

Leto was there, too. She couldn’t see him. No other senses found him either—smell, touch, sound. Even taste. She wanted more of his taste.

That shock made her struggle past the anesthetizing hold Ulia had over her mind. But again, Leto held her stable. Some element of him, beyond senses. Outside of the darkness, he held their bodies together on the floor of the practice Cage. Held her. Held . . .

What sadness do you bear?

Nynn flinched. The bronze glow was sharper now. The living entity of Ulia without taking her shape or form. “My husband was murdered. A Dragon King stood by while the Asters’ men ripped us from our home. Caleb was already dead in the kitchen. My son is being tortured. I’m here alone. My family is gone.”

Even in her mind, she cried. The grief was more raw there. No inhibitions. No physical limit to how loud she could scream or how deeply sobs could rock her body. No one to hear her, look at her, punish her for what could not be contained. Dr. Aster had used a scalpel. And he’d handed Hellix a whip.

What do you fear?

Nynn flung hideous images toward the glow that centered just behind her forehead. Worst-case scenarios. All of the nightmares she’d had time to conjure for more than a year. Jack . . . oh, Dragon be. Jack in pieces. How he’d cry for her. He’d think she had abandoned him. He would die alone and so would she.

What else do you fear? There is more. Deeper.

An ancient memory surfaced. Nynn gasped. Struggled. Had she been outside her mind, she would have vomited. Only, in that place, she was the silently screaming witness to an old, old crime. A crime she’d committed.

She’d used her powers. Only thirteen years old. A house demolished. A woman dead.

Some things are too dangerous to set free.

Among the Tigony, she had been suspect because of her mother’s indiscretion with Nynn’s Pendray father. Barely trusted. That explosion had marked the end of even that scant trust. Where had her mother gone then? Gone . . . gone . . .

No . . . dead.

Nynn thrashed against the pain stabbing through her mind, lashing, like that whip across her back. They’d stripped her gift and made her fear it. Made her think it had never even existed. Most had cast her out in all but deed.

Then let go.

“Let go? I have nothing left! Why am I here, if not for my son?”

You are here because you have no choice.

Certainty began to seep deeper and deeper. It slid like molten rock through her veins, arteries, and every pinched little capillary.

“No choice?”

No choice. Let go.

“My son!”

Will be returned to you in one year. Remember?

“One year.” She was slipping. Even Leto’s ethereal presence had faded, as distant now as a man waving across a vast chasm. “I must fight.”

With your powers, Dragon King. Harness it. No distractions. Join Leto in victory. You are Nynn of the Asters.

That name didn’t sound right. She was spinning and falling without moving. Only the most important thought refused to be submerged. “I will have my son back.”

The promise will be kept.

“And I will burn down this hellhole.”

Of course not. This is your home now.

Was it? Nynn was sure she’d hated this place. The gentle lulling of her thoughts, however, set aside images of such violence.

The dull bronze light faded. In its place, a rush of stinging energy burst to life. She shrieked. It surged through her limbs, shot out her fingers and toes. Even the ends of her hair lit and lifted. She ran through her thoughts, hearing bittersweet memories that gouged her heart into crimson strips.

Memories. Deep memories.

The first time . . . she’d exploded. And her mother had been put to death.

Nynn’s gift from the Dragon was a curse. An abomination.

She grabbed at flashes of remembered light. Caught every strand. Formed electric pulses into potent, controlled beams. From her eyes or from her hands, she was in control. A sense of power unlike any she’d known filled her chest and made her laugh. When was the last time she’d had control? All she knew was that it felt good. Right.

Devastating.

She closed her hands, her eyes, and breathed out. Her raw gift was tamed. She coiled it back within her breast. Even among that vacant, formless place, she remembered Leto’s snake tattoo. Now she had a serpent, too. Waiting to strike.

But a trade, Nynn. Put them away.

Ulia’s voice was whip-sharp now. An undeniable command.

At first, the only sound in that infinite space was Nynn’s heartbeat. Others soon joined. Overlaid. And cracked open her heart. She heard her clan’s laughter when a pair of acrobats had performed at a Tigony feast in honor of Mal’s ascension as Honorable Giva. Then fire. Crashing wood. Terrified shrieks.

She felt her mother’s touch across her cheek. “So beautiful, my child. You will not be ignored.” Then . . . that touch was gone forever.

Caleb next. Oh, Caleb. His quiet voice never entirely left her thoughts.

At the bookstore where they’d met. “Would you like to get a cup of coffee?”

At the topmost pod of the London Eye, on their first vacation together. “Will you be my wife?”

At an outdoor altar in Central Park on a sunny spring afternoon. “I do.”