Surrender: Saving Setora Book 6

by Dark, Raven

  She had called out, asking where I was. I tried to tell her I was here, with Damien, in Hell’s Burning. Apparently, some part of me had realized where I was, even when the rest of me hadn’t. But had she heard me? She kept asking where I was, but if there had been more to the dream, it was now gone from my memory.

  Had the dream been real, or just another hallucination brought on by the virus, like Julian and the warrior woman?

  Maker, was there even a virus? If Doctor Olan had been capable of kidnapping me, he could have been lying about that. On the other hand, he’d said Violets shared a hive mind. I knew that, at least, was true. My mother really could have been there, in the dream. If she had been, and if she knew where I was, maybe she had told my masters.

  It was a long shot, if ever I’d heard of one.

  Either way, there had to be something I could do. I couldn’t just lie here and let Damien do whatever he wanted with me. I couldn’t just wait for my Four to rescue me, especially when there was no guarantee they even knew where I was.

  I crawled slowly off the bed, trying to shake off whatever drug was making my thoughts so sluggish. The throbbing in my jaw made me nearly dizzy with pain, and it wouldn’t be easy escaping with this sling on my arm.

  I glanced around the room but didn’t see anything that offered a way out.

  Damien wouldn’t have set only the one guard on my room. Knowing him, he had a handful of others close enough to come running the moment anyone thought I was trying to escape. I didn’t forget what had happened months ago when I’d tried to escape after he’d told me I was going to be sold. One of his J’nai had snagged me around the neck with a whip. I hadn’t made it five feet before I was brought down.

  Think, Setora, think! What would Hawk do if he were trapped here?

  Maker’s mercy, I wasn’t Yantu. I wasn’t a warrior who could take out trained guards like Hawk. I wasn’t a pirate who could steal a carriage and barrel past armed guards like Pretty Boy. I wasn’t a hulking Gladiator who could bust skulls like Steel, and I certainly wasn’t a General who could scare the pants off any man who crossed me like Sheriff.

  I was Setora. I was a slave, nothing more. And right now, I was also very much alone.

  Fresh helplessness clawed at me, and I sat back down on the bed.

  Before I could consider what to do next, the door to the room opened.

  “Good, you’re awake. Time to get you ready for your master.”

  Herma, the same maid who’d trained me until I’d been stolen from here, marched into the room. Just as before, she wore a white apron over her plain black uniform, the same disdain written all over her aged face. Seeing her made my stomach feel as if a large stone was sitting in it. She served as a stark reminder that I really was back in Hell’s Burning.

  She held up one of those long, white gossamer dresses I’d always worn when presented to Damien. “All right, on your feet. Come here so I can put this on you,” she ordered.

  When I didn’t move right away, too busy trying to absorb the shock at the turn my life had taken, she strode over to me.

  “Up.” She yanked me to my feet, by my good arm, thank the Maker. “Get a move on. Captain Vale won’t take to being kept waiting any better than he did the last time you were here.”

  I stood there, forcing myself to remain still while Herma carefully removed my sling, then slid the dress over my head, being just as careful not to disturb the wrap on my head. She helped me dress, but I knew any gentleness she showed me wasn’t out of compassion, but rather in effort to avoid further damaging me, the same way one would with a prized mare.

  “Those pirate savages are rough with their women, aren’t they?” she mused, replacing my sling. She shook her head, clucking with disapproval at the damage done to my face and shoulder, yet when she met my eyes, her gaze gleamed with amusement. “How did it feel, being a pirate’s whore?”

  I could see it in her expression, plain as day. She thought my injuries were the product of the Legion men’s savagery. And equally infuriating, she thought I deserved what I got.

  I looked straight ahead, giving no reaction to her baiting.

  Herma clucked again and shook her head, straightening my dress, my hair, looking me over as if prettying me up was a lost cause.

  “They did a number on you, that’s for sure. Well, come on then. Let’s go.”

  She pulled me from the room by the elbow, keeping a firm hold on me the whole way down the hall to the doors that led out of the slaves’ quarters.

  I was in Damien’s main house, I realized now. Once we were out of the slaves’ quarters, I recognized the same lavish surroundings. The white marble floors, the large electrical-powered chandeliers—in-home lighting only the supremely rich could afford. Damien’s house was still lit by that odd mix of torchlight and electricity, the latter powered by solar panels. Looking at the lights made me miss the Grotto with a painful intensity.

  We drew nearer to Damien’s Throne Room. The double doors were guarded by two of his J’nai, each with a sunburst on the breasts of their black uniforms, the visors on their helmets hiding their eyes and the top half of their faces.

  The guards opened the doors, revealing the room beyond.

  The cavernous Throne Room was exactly as it had been when I was last here. The golden sunburst, the symbol of one of the most powerful Families in the world, stared up from the center of the pristine marble floor. Murals of Old World images covered the walls depicting flying machines and buildings that towered hundreds of feet higher than any buildings currently standing today. A dais stood at the back of the room, but unlike the last time I was here, two throne-like chairs had been set atop it.

  Strangely, though the chairs were throne-like in style, they were almost facing each other, the way they might have been arranged in an office.

  Herma escorted me into the room, stopping when I stood on the sunburst. She kept a grip on my elbow, but I hardly noticed it once I saw the man waiting in the room.

  Damien Vale stood in front of one of the two large windows that flanked the dais, his back turned to the doors. With his hands clasped behind him, he didn’t turn around when we entered, giving me a moment to observe him unnoticed.

  Even without seeing his face, Damien’s presence seemed to suck all the air out of the room.

  Dressed as he’d always been when I’d grown up here, my former master wore the same sort of dark pants, wide in the legs, with a black sash holding a red, long-sleeved silk tunic in place. The tunic seemed stretched too tightly over his wide shoulders and back, making me almost wonder if he was bigger than he had been when I’d last seen him. I swallowed, barely able to breathe.

  “Leave us.” Damien didn’t address Herma directly, but I knew he was speaking to her.

  Herma released me and scurried from the room without a word, her slippers whispering swiftly across the floor tiles. The doors thudded heavily shut behind me.

  “Welcome home, my Little Dove.” Damien’s voice washed over me, like poison through my veins. A poison that turned my stomach as much with its cultured, refined perfection as with the possession in it.

  I barely heard him, but perhaps that had more to do with the way my heart thudded in my ears. The thudding sped up when I registered the too smooth pleasantness in his tone.

  Even if I could have answered him, I didn’t know if I would have. I didn’t trust my own voice.

  Damien turned to face me then, and as soon as he did, I wished he hadn’t.

  Funny how knowing the evil he was capable of didn’t make him look any less beautiful. His thick dark hair was as luxuriant as ever, every hair in place. His pale blue eyes glinted in the room’s light like chips of ice. He was like a demon, one who hid his monstrosity behind the face of an angel. So much so that if I hadn’t known better, I would’ve had a hard time believing the man before me was the same man I’d seen at Lord Falnar’s.

  This was the same man who tried to kill Sheriff in a sword fight, who would have kille
d the rest of my Four had he been given the chance, not to mention Sinister, Savage, Beast and Reaper. The same man who had helped Mattais kill Lord Falnar and who had stabbed and killed Crash.

  I let those memories burn themselves into my brain, allowed them to stir my anger and give me courage.

  Courage I needed, especially when Damien’s eyes turned chillingly hard as they took in the bandage around my face and the sling on my arm.

  Then in a blink, as he crossed the room to me, his expression softened. His lips pulled into a charming smile.

  I was supposed to bow my head, supposed to kneel on the floor at his feet, and yet I couldn’t bring myself to offer my submission to him. That belonged to my Four alone, and giving it to him felt like a betrayal, every bit as deep as if I’d called him master.

  Damien stopped right in front of me. I expected him to order me to my knees. Instead, he held out his tanned palm. I blinked at it, confused.

  “Come. Sit with me.”

  I looked up at his face without thinking, unsure how to react.

  “It’s all right. Come.”

  I slid my trembling hand into his. His skin was so warm it almost scalded mine. The Devil’s touch.

  Damien walked with me over to the dais and up the steps to the chairs. I had a sudden memory of the last time I’d walked with him hand-in-hand. He had taken me out to his garden and then told me I was to be sold at auction.

  I shuddered.

  “You need to be careful of that shoulder. Have a seat.” Damien nodded to one chair and sat in the other.

  He wanted me to sit with him. Not on his lap, not on the steps at his feet, but on a dais, on a heavily cushioned, throne-like chair of velvet and gold. What was going on here?

  I lowered myself slowly into the chair, feeling like I was waiting for a bomb to go off.

  Only when I was sitting did I notice the bag lying beside his chair. It looked heavy. Before I could think too deeply about what might be inside it, Damien cupped my chin with one hand. He tipped it up and studied my face, taking in the wrap around my head. He turned my cheek to the side. Looking at the bruise that was likely left there from Greeger’s fist.

  “Who did this to you?”

  The question was obviously rhetorical, since he could see I couldn’t answer him. The flash of anger in his voice startled me, but I didn’t dare think it was out of compassion for me. The way he studied my face, watching my reaction, unsettled me.

  Damien released my face and ran his fingers over the sling on my shoulder. “No one is ever going to touch you again, Little Dove. You have my word on that.”

  Unsure how to react to his statement, I just kept my head down, looking at my knees. He wasn’t promising anything for my sake.

  Damien sat back in the chair, his hands clasped between his knees. He looked almost fatherly.

  “Maja is still here waiting for you, you know.”

  My eyes shot up to his. My horse. The only true friend I’d had while I was here.

  Rare joy speared through me, but it died a quick death. He didn’t do anything without a selfish reason behind it.

  “She misses you,” he went on. “She won’t eat for anyone unless we promise her she’ll see you. You can ride her as soon as you’re in good enough condition. Would you like that?”

  I made a small sound in agreement, though my mind screamed that this was a trap of some sort. I was almost glad for the wrap holding my jaw shut. If I couldn’t talk, he couldn’t make me call him master, something only my Four had a right to.

  “Good. I’ll have a guard take you to her as soon as we’re done here. You can finally get her healthy again.”

  He stroked my hair, long strokes that sent disgust rolling through me. I had the strange feeling he was soothing himself more than me, the way one might with a pet.

  Someone rapped on the doors.

  “Come,” Damien said.

  The doors opened, and a guard stepped in. “Doctor Olan and his assistant are here as ordered, Captain.”

  “Good, send them in.”

  The guard stepped aside, and Doctor Olan entered, Greeger towering a step behind him. The guard started to close the doors.

  “Guard, remain here.”

  With a nod, the guard closed the doors and stood in front of them, waiting for further orders.

  Olan and Greeger crossed the room, stopping on the starburst. “Captain,” Olan said. His eyes were on Damien, but I didn’t miss the way his gaze flickered to me for an instant.

  Damien pulled the bag that had been sitting beside his chair across the dais until it sat between us. “You’ll be leaving soon, I gather, Doctor?”

  Olan’s gaze fell on the bag. His tongue lanced out to wet his lips before he dragged his stare back to Damien’s. “Yes, Captain.”

  “You have everything you need, I trust?”

  “We do. You were more than generous setting us up with enough supplies for the long trip back to the Reach.”

  Damien waved a hand. “It’s the least I can do. You brought my Setora back to me.” He stroked my hair again. “I read over your instructions for her care. That tonic will be expensive to produce, but I want nothing but the best for her.” Damien stood and picked up the bag. “I appreciate your service. My thanks to both of you.”

  When he walked to the edge of the dais, Olan stepped back, his eyes lifting nervously to follow Damien’s. Tension seemed to infuse my former master’s body. He dropped the bag sharply at their feet.

  Confusion flashed across both men’s faces at his sudden switch in manner. Damien snapped his fingers at the guard by the doors. The guard crossed the room while Damien went down the steps.

  What in Maker’s name was he up to?

  As soon as the guard was within reach, I knew.

  Damien seized the sword at the guard’s hip. Greeger and Olan didn’t even get a chance to move before he spun, swinging the sword, taking their heads off in one stroke.

  Blood sprayed everywhere, and both heads rolled, the bodies dropping with heavy thuds. I heard a piercing scream, and slowly realized it was my own.

  Damien didn’t seem to notice.

  “No one damages my property,” he growled softly. He kicked the bag toward the guard. “Have this taken back to my safe.”

  “Yes, Captain.” The guard bowed, not even looking at the bodies on the floor.

  Everything in me wanted to bolt from the room, but all I could do was sit in that chair, frozen, my breath sawing in and out. Olan’s dead eyes glared out at me from inside his skull. My stomach gave a spasm, trying to empty itself on the floor.

  Damien pulled a handkerchief out of his pants pocket and carefully wiped the length of the guard’s sword, cleaning off the blood, then handing the weapon and the bloody handkerchief to him. “You should always clean a sword after use.”

  The guard sheathed the blade. “Of course, Captain. I’ll have this mess cleaned up for you.” He indicated Olan and Greeger’s bodies.

  Nodding, Damien turned and walked up the steps to me. “Now,” he said with a chilling pleasantness. “Now that that’s taken care of, I’ll have you taken to see Maja. Just briefly, mind. You need your rest.” He took my hands, pulling me to my feet. I swayed. His grip tightened, his fingers pinching like talons.

  With my head feeling like it would float away, I only half felt him lead me down the steps. Standing on a sunburst now splattered with blood, Damien took my arm until I turned and faced him. My whole body shuddered at the feel of his hands on me.

  “Little Dove, I trust you now see what happens when someone goes against me.” He set his hands gently on my shoulders, stroking lovingly. “Intruders in this compound meet with the same fate as anyone who damages what is mine. You understand, don’t you?”

  My heart nearly stopped. I knew exactly what he was telling me.

  If my Four came beyond his gates, they’d die the same way Olan and Greeger had.

  My stomach roiled with the realization that I’d once looked on h
im as a father figure. That I’d trusted him.

  My eyes caught sight of the bodies that, even now, two guards were coming in to drag away. Faced with a choice, to give him my obedience and betray my Four, or to defy him and risk never seeing them again, I found myself wishing for the very last thing I ever thought I’d wish for.

  Whether Julian was a real person or the product of a virus, I wished he would make one of his horrible appearances. I wished he’d take possession of me, that he’d pump my veins with enough strength to snap Damien’s neck and take out his guards. Then, at least, I could have escaped and somehow found my way back to my masters where I belonged.

  I hated it, but the only way I had a chance of getting out of here was to play his game…for now.

  I put on my best obedient expression and nodded.

  Chapter 13

  The Way into Hell

  “General.” Hawk stepped into the entrance of the cave my men and I had shared over the last two days. “They’re back.”

  Bike engines outside the cave cut off, and I heard men’s voices greeting Pretty Boy and Steel’s return.

  I nodded and followed my Captain of the Guard out into the blazing desert sun.

  Having arrived at this camp after almost a half a day’s travel, we’d been here for only forty-eight hours, but in this fucking heat, hidden in caves two miles from the walls of Hell’s Burning, it felt like a month.

  Less than an hour after Setora’s mother had told us where Setora was, the men had mobilized. A selfish part of me had wanted to let Sinister and his men come with us to Hell’s Burning, but the rational part of me had refused, regardless of Sinister’s insistence. We’d left them at Mayhem’s the only way we could have.

  After a quiet goodbye to Mayhem and the Angels, and a promise to D and Cherry that we’d bring Setora back safely or die trying, I’d led Sinister to believe we still had other things to do before we’d left. While they were having a late lunch with Mayhem, we’d stowed our bikes in the carriages and rode out of the Hold before they knew we were gone.