Caged Warrior (28 page)

“Unlikely. Your girl screamed loud enough that every man in the complex got hard.”

Yes, Leto would do Hellix permanent damage. One day. But he would do so when Nynn
could witness the act with the satisfaction she deserved. “You are twisted.”

“Wait. What is this?” Fam barged past and knocked Lamot back from where he’d been
hunched over Nynn’s shoulder. “A dragon? That doesn’t make her an Aster.”

The other warriors returned. Even Silence frowned. She glanced between the tattoo
and Leto’s face. Weil cursed quietly under her breath and smoothed her frizzy red
hair in that habitual way of hers. Hawk actually yawned, but the reaction didn’t mask
his initial flash of surprise.

Fam had taken his usual place at Hellix’s side, which made him appear even weaker.
A pantomime warrior. “You’ll answer to the Old Man for this. He’ll have Hellix whip
the damn thing off her back. Can’t say that doesn’t have a certain appeal.”

“The Old Man will be no concern of yours.” That icy river still claimed Leto—for the
better. “Are you finished, Lamot?”

The older Dragon King turned off his soldering gun and used a cloth to wipe away streaks
of blood and ink. For motionless, speechless moments, everyone in the room stared
at the tattoo. A perfect depiction of the Dragon. Not the fire-breathing monsters
from Pendray myths, and not the snakelike creatures with great heads
and lolling tongues, as the Garnis depicted. The Tigony, with their penchant for sidling
up to the humans as the source of their long-standing power, had even gone so far
as to portray the Dragon as a woman named Medusa.

Each clan had its own interpretation.

This, however . . . the tattoo on Nynn’s shoulder was
the
Dragon. It contained elements from all of the Five Clans’ mythology, blended into
a cohesive creature.

“Now doesn’t that make your hair stand on end.” Hark shook his head. “How did he know?”

“Shut up, Thief,” Weil said. “Or we’ll ask how
you’d
know. Your kind keeps too many secrets.”

“I’m not a Sath elder, although it would be interesting for a day or two. Imagine
all the mysteries I could solve about our people.” He leaned nearer to Weil, who was
considerably shorter. “What secrets do the Pendray keep?”

She raised her red brows in challenge. “How to dispose of Dragon King bodies without
anyone being the wiser.”

“Go,” Leto said. No shouts now. “Lamot, you, too. Thank you for your work.”

The contentious, infuriating lot filed out. Some did so without fanfare. Leto closed
his mind to Fam’s parting question to Hellix. “Think he’ll wait till she wakes up
before he fucks her?”

Fists clenched, jaw rigid, Leto stood alone. Only his breathing and Nynn’s very, very
quiet respiration filled the heavy quiet. He hadn’t meant to add to her panic. The
golish
should’ve been a good thing, as Lamot had said. Leto had appreciated its effects
more than once. For Nynn, the numbness must’ve chipped away at the barriers Ulia had
constructed. Memories of being
drugged? The terrors of the labs had returned to her in bits and frightened gulps.

Why do I have scars?

Jack . . .

He’d hoped the drink would blunt her pain and keep those memories from intruding.
That assumption had been wrong enough to make him wonder which version of Nynn would
awaken. Or if a fractured mind would make her into something altogether new.

He shook his arms until his ligaments and bones and tissue worked in concert. He’d
needed to lock down his instincts to keep from mauling Hellix. Carefully, he unfastened
the straps that trapped Nynn to the supporting chair. She slumped against his chest.

Only then did he wish he’d taken the time to remove his armor and wash. He would’ve
liked to feel her body resting against his. Very little between them had been gentle.
No matter how much he desired her, he craved the gentleness he knew she was capable
of.

He stroked sweat back from her temple. Eyes closed, her brow was smooth and untroubled.
The split bite marks on her bottom lip were already healing. That symbol of her distress
and pain accentuated her exotic beauty by plumping her lush mouth. She was too pale,
unnaturally pale, and her freckles stood out as constellations across her nose.

He’d never seen constellations, only heard tales from his mother.

Leto of Garnis. Full of ridiculous, fanciful notions. His mind had no place in his
body if his body was to survive. Pell would never be safe. He would never fight in
another Grievance to help perpetuate their line.

He would never father children of his own.

Why for my sister but not for me?

With motions far rougher than he would’ve liked, he lifted Nynn from the chair. She
was still propped against him, in a way that gave him a clear view of her tattoo.
Leto had been tempted, as Hark had, to ask Lamot how he’d captured the
idea
of the Dragon so accurately. It belonged to all of the clans, in a way that made
all other portrayals seem purposefully wrong.

As eerie as that was, it was a question for another time. Nynn was his concern now.
He had come to care about her. Yes, he cared enough that he would not see her permanently
marked by the men she despised—men she would remember one day.

A more selfish reason was that she would never forgive him for letting it happen.

He’d been reviled before. The air around him was filled with the stench of unresolved
anger, jealousy, and rage, much of it pointed at him. Being champion had afforded
him respect and fear, the latter of which would turn against him when the opportunity
arose. He trusted none of them.

To be hated by Nynn, however, was unsettling.

He shook his head as he lifted her from the chair. Nothing was making sense. She’d
hated him throughout weeks of training. She’d hated him when he treated her as lab
filth, watched her dress, cut her hair. She’d hated him when he used Kilgore as punishment.
Why would this be any different?

Because he’d become vulnerable.

He’d enjoyed Nynn’s companionship as a neophyte, because she was a challenge. He’d
enjoyed it even more
when she stood by his side as his partner. No one else had ever held his hand in the
dark, and no one else had needed him to hold.

She wouldn’t get out of his way, or quit talking to him, or stop touching him.
Touching
him. How could he keep from opening himself to this woman? He’d have thought of a
way by now, had it been possible. That meant one day, when she was free of the mental
blocks and reunited with her son, she would hate him just as much as the Asters.

He liked having her there. As he held her over his shoulder and carried her toward
his dorm, he liked knowing she would share his bed—quietly at first, as she healed
and awoke from the
golish
stupor. Passionately later.

He had promised her pleasure. And he had promised to keep her safe.

In body, that had been an easy vow. But her mind? What would be left of her when she
returned to herself? Nynn would leave him. And Audrey MacLaren would never forgive
him.

N
ynn awoke by slow, slow, slow degrees. At first only her mind worked, behind the dark
of her closed eyes. She never thought her sense of smell could be so powerful. Wherever
she was, she was surrounded by masculinity—leather, metal, musk. That wasn’t just
any man. It was Leto. She could smell him in ways she’d never imagined, as if each
of her cells had been designed for taking in his fragrance, appreciating its notes
as she would scent the blood of a warrior soon to be bested.

Now that she knew he was near, she wanted her other senses back. Soon. Which would
return to her first? Taste, apparently, which wasn’t nearly as rewarding. Blood stained
her tongue with the bitterness of copper. Overwhelming it was the sweet remains of
the
golish
that had sent her into this nightmare tunnel where her body and mind had parted ways.

Make that stop. No more.

She wanted to hear him, see him, feel him.

“Nynn.”

She nearly purred at the sound of her name. There was another sense. She could hear
him. More than that,
now she knew he was nearby. His voice was quiet thunder and distant winds. Elemental.
Stronger than man, and even stronger than Dragon King. She wanted to hear her name
again, even as she imagined the shape of his lips as he formed the word.

Warmth enveloped her. She was protected. She was safe in ways she hadn’t felt in . . .
Her memory didn’t go back that far. Or couldn’t. Some dark force blocked the way.
She preferred sinking into the comfort of the moment, no matter how disorienting her
awakening.

That warmth moved. His hands. He was touching her, skin to skin, maybe even body to
body. That delicious heat was all around her, from her cheek to her toes. Was she
lying with him? In his room? She shivered, and he pulled her closer.

“Nynn, come back.”

On her first try, her voice was barely more than a rasp. She swallowed past that painful
ache—the most immediate of so many aches clamoring for her attention—and tried again.
“To you?”

“Yes.” He stroked her forehead. “Come back to me.”

Big, assured hands caressed up and down her arm. She melted into that rhythm. She
must’ve been lying near him, perhaps on top of him, because every concession her body
made elicited more from him. She shifted closer, and he gave her more. Deeper strokes
of his fingers along her sore muscles. Longer pulses of his wide palms, until her
hip and thigh came within his reach.

“Give me a reason,” she said, the words breathy. “Dark is safer.”

He kissed her temple. That such a ferocious, unyielding
man could deliver a kiss so soft made her closed eyes prickle with tears. She couldn’t
remember the last time she’d been comforted, and she couldn’t remember the last time
she cried.
Abnormal,
some deep corner of her mind screamed.
Impossible.

Remember.

“Dark is safer.” She would keep saying it until it was true and she could hide there
forever.

Another kiss. “But then I can’t see your eyes.”

Nynn groaned. Unfair. So beautifully unfair.

“Open your eyes for me.” His breath brushed her temple as he spoke. Another form of
touching. Another comfort. “I want to see your eyes and know that you want to be here.”

“Where?”

“In my bed. In my arms.” Those arms flexed subtly, as if she needed a reminder of
his brawn. The beat of his heart sped as he talked. “I want to keep touching you.
I want to do more than touch you. But I won’t do it if the
golish
still poisons your thoughts and leaves you unable to say no.”

“I won’t say no.”

“You need to look at me when you say that.”

She was identifying more detail now. His chest was bare. He was on his back. She was
lying on her side. Was he wearing any clothes? Was she? The thrill that she could
be naked in his bed shot tingles of electricity through the rest of her numb places.
She was Tigony. Gathering electricity was her gift. She imagined it to be the key
to bringing her body back to life.

Slowly she opened her eyes, expecting a sharp shaft of light. Yet the room was nearly
dark. No fluorescents
in here. No bare bulbs. Details came into focus with the same sloth. A gleam caught
her attention. The scant light that shone from a far corner caught on a pristine set
of armor hanging on a wall. And three other sets of armor, actually, of different
designs.

They hung . . . at the end of a narrow bed.

Aside from a sink, a footlocker, and a few hygiene products, the room was empty. Stark.
The lack of decorations accented what was most important to Leto of Garnis. His armor.
His life’s work.

Then why was she in his bed? Nothing else mattered to him. In that violent place,
there was no room for distractions.

Maybe that’s why they lay together in the near darkness. It
was
a violent place. If two people could find a moment’s respite, why deny herself? She
wanted him. Her body—beaten and aching—craved his. As long as she was condemned to
surviving, forced down in the underground darkness, she might as well enjoy what pleasure
they could give one another.

Condemned?

Forced?

Shivering fear tingled up from her toes and lodged at the base of her skull. A headache
exploded with the concussive force of releasing her gift. She groaned and pushed her
forehead against Leto’s chest.

“What is it?”

“Headache,” she gasped.
“Fuck.”

He sat up, urging her to do so. The blackness was back as she squeezed her eyes shut
against the pain. “Head between your knees. Bend low.”

Deadly hands turned tender as he massaged up the
back of her neck. Nynn groaned again, this time because of the relief he provided.
The headache burned like a brand in her skull, but he forced it back, back into a
corner. Soon he was paying equal attention to the tense flesh between her neck and
shoulders. Only when he kissed along the top of her spine did her body react with
want rather than gratefulness.