by Alexa Black
And if it didn’t, it would at least mean she’d go back to Kara knowing what she really was. Knowing what parts of her had broken, and what could and couldn’t be repaired.
“Descending,” Dehek said. Sue looked out the window at a swirl of devouring sand and the rising shape of the obelisk.
He lowered the craft just in front of the obelisk. It hovered in front of the maelstrom.
Sue swallowed hard. Dehek’s fingers moved on the console again and the door slid open.
He stepped toward her, shadows swirling. The cracks in his ashen skin blazed with light.
“Human,” he said.
Sue slipped off the safety harness and stood. She stepped toward the door, clutching the frame to steady herself.
“Do you want me to jump?”
“Do you want me to drop you?”
“Is that how it works? I guess you should.”
There was something in those words, some hint of the anger Sue had felt before. She shot Dehek a look of pure rage.
He laughed in her face. But she heard the nervousness in it, and that was good enough for her.
Clawed hands scooped her up, held her too close to his chest. His scars, his cracks, felt too intimate. She’d gotten close to Kara. She’d seen where Kara broke. But Dehek was a child, and he’d been born shattered.
She wished his shadows would enfold her. But they were stretched out behind him, letting him glide, like the remnants of wings they were.
“All right, human,” he said with another rich laugh.
Then he let go, tossing her to the ground below.
* * *
The sands battered her cheeks.
She noticed that before anything else, the roughness blasting her skin. She hadn’t realized just how fragile her flesh was. It was hot under her feet, too hot, and she wondered too late if she might burst into flame.
It hadn’t hurt the damned souls much. As far as Sue could tell, they hadn’t even noticed.
But they’re not made of the stuff I am. Not anymore. Not skin, not muscle, not bone. They don’t know that this tears you apart.
She forced one foot in front of the other. Cruel as Dehek was, he’d at least had the sense or the kindness to drop her near the obelisk.
All she had to do was get to it.
If that. The other humans had just stopped, clasped their hands over their heads, and waited for the Outcasts who would come to punish them.
She stared ahead, wondering. Lightning struck, and she thought she could smell sulfur. Was it raining, or did the sky just do that here?
She could limp her way toward the obelisk and hope it would offer her shelter, hope she could cool her burning feet. But she’d invite torture as soon as she stepped inside it. So should she give up on trying to walk through these wastes, raise her hands now, and hope for a tormentor and a savior in one?
She shuffled a few more steps, her feet scorched. But then the wasteland made the decision for her. A fierce wind battered her, knocking her to her knees on the sands.
She narrowed her eyes, focused her gaze on the obelisk, and lifted her hands above her head.
She didn’t wait long. The silver shimmer of a craft appeared above her. She blinked at it. She’d called for a savior, but part of her wondered if it was only a mirage. But under the roar of the winds, she could hear its engine.
A shape emerged from the craft, gray-black and female. Her shadows flared out behind her like the wings they once had been, and gold light blazed from her cracks and scars.
A blast of sand forced Sue to close her eyes.
Gold.
The sands tore at her, ripping through her clothes and into her skin. Why had she come here at all? She didn’t know, didn’t remember. She only knew it tore at her, exposed her, bared the things that haunted her mind just as it scraped her skin.
Gold. Look.
She forced her eyes open against the grit and sand. Gold.
Gold and gray.
Kara.
She unclasped her hands and lowered them before she realized why she was doing it. Kara’s stony hands curled around hers. They felt warm and smooth and reassuring.
Sue forced her eyes open wider. She looked into a familiar face. Kara’s eyes glittered gold, and the scar on her chin glowed bright.
“Kara,” she gasped. “You shouldn’t have—”
“Shouldn’t have followed you? You are a fool, Sue Jones. Are you trying to get yourself killed?”
Sue tried to say something. But the only sound that she could make was a strangled noise.
Kara scooped her up. Firm, solid arms cradled her. They pressed her to a chest warm with vital heat.
Sue wasn’t supposed to want it. She wasn’t supposed to like it. She was supposed to want punishment and absolution.
But the warmth felt good. Soothing. And she was so tired.
She took a deep breath, cocooned in Kara’s embrace, and closed her eyes.
Chapter Twenty-two
“So now what?”
The question was too normal. Sue shook her head and forced her eyes open. They stung, dry and scratched. Why did that feel almost ordinary? When had she grown used to this, to questions asked in inhuman voices by glowing people who’d lost their wings?
But it made perfect sense that Kara would ask it, now that Sue had—what? Run off, angry at Kara and angry at herself. Obsessed with the images in her own head, with the way she couldn’t make them go away.
But she wasn’t in her little room, or even in Kara’s apartment.
“The obelisk,” she whispered.
Kara nodded.
The walls were red, a deeper and purpler red than the winds outside, like dark blood from a vein. There were small lights embedded in the walls, and the walls gleamed with a strange iridescence, bright crimson against the darker maroon.
Sue shrank back. In the dim light, Kara’s scars were a bright blaze. But that only made it harder to see what was here.
“The others?” she gasped out.
“This one is empty. I made sure of it.” Kara laughed, a bitter and cold echo. “Whatever you wanted in coming to this place, you don’t want to see any more of this. I watched you looking at it. I saw what happened to you after.”
“I needed to see it.”
“Did you?”
“There are things I can’t forgive myself for. Just like those dead ones can’t forgive themselves.”
The light in Kara’s eyes flared. “And all that seeing them did was remind you of it.”
Sue stood up and walked away from Kara. How could she explain? Kara had fought and lost and found some way to live with it. Sue saw the boy all the time in her mind.
“You wouldn’t understand,” Sue said, hating herself for those words. They made her sound like a petulant child.
“Wouldn’t I? I see the marks of war on my own body every time I look at my reflection, human.” Kara slid her hands down her body.
“And I fought a war, Sue. No one who fights in a war ever forgets. Remember, the people I fought were like me.” Kara looked down at herself. “Or I was like them, before our curse.”
Sue hung her head. What could she say to that? She’d seen violence, yes, but she’d never seen war. Somehow her dreams and visions, horrible as they were, didn’t seem so bad, thinking of that. She’d watched some hooligans beat someone. Maybe even kill him.
But she hadn’t tried to kill them first. And she hadn’t considered them her kin, either. She shut her lips tightly and watched Kara, saying nothing.
“No one who fights in a war ever forgets it, Sue,” Kara said. “And no one who loses forgets what it’s like to lose one.”
Kara’s hands moved again. Sue watched, mesmerized. Kara paused just above one of the cracks that tore through her abdomen. “And then there’s what it did to me. These scars.”
Sue stepped closer, her skin burning, her leg aching. She wanted to touch Kara, to reach out, to comfort, to soothe. But could she now? She’d run away fr
om Kara and thrown herself at Dehek, of all Outcasts, just to indulge some crazy yen for self-mutilation.
And Kara had come after her. Scooped her up and saved her. And reminded her that whatever she’d endured, Kara had known far worse.
“I’m sorry,” she stammered, because it was the only thing she could think of to say. Then she did reach out, pressing her fingertips to one of Kara’s arms before she could think better of it.
Kara moved under Sue’s hands. Sue froze. Was Kara pulling away?
But Kara didn’t move. She stilled under Sue’s hands. Sue pressed her fingers against the stony skin until her whole hand, fingertips and fingers and palms, pressed against it. Light flickered in one of the cracks on Kara’s arms, and Sue thought she heard Kara sigh.
“My body is broken,” Kara said. “My wings are gone. That’s mutilation, Sue. Mutilation I see on the bodies of the others every time I look at them. Even the young ones. Even the ones born long after I made my choice. So don’t try to tell me that I don’t understand.”
“This was foolish,” Sue answered. “Saying that to your face was worse.”
“It was.”
“You asked me to forgive you once. I said—”
“That there was nothing to forgive. I remember it.”
“If I ask you to forgive me, will you?”
Kara chuckled, low and sad. “I do not know. But I do know what it’s like to remember, and not want to.”
Sue turned away. There was an alcove in front of her, just wide enough for a human to lean against and wait for…what? Torture? Violence? She shook her head to clear it and looked away, not wanting to know what she was seeing.
“So now what?” she asked, remembering Kara’s words to her from before. “Now you take your wayward pet home?”
Kara laughed and licked her lips. “I should. Withdraw what’s mine and keep it safe. Under lock and key, if necessary. I said I would protect you. Even if you make that difficult.”
Sue shivered. The Outcast woman had said she couldn’t go home again. And Kara cared for her and wanted her, both. Even if it was a little bit insulting, why not let herself be kept? She smiled.
But Kara wasn’t smiling now. Her lips were closed and set in a grim line. “But if you found a way to wander out here, all by yourself, and let a fool like Dehek fly you into one of the temples, then you must have had a reason.”
“It’s just like what you said. About the war. About remembering. I close my eyes and I see the boy. I can’t stop thinking about him. And once I heard about you, about what the Outcasts do…I don’t know. It haunted me.”
Kara nodded. “That is how it is for many of the dead. Though they’ve done far worse than you. You fear your inaction cost another human his life. These people killed, violated, maimed. They chose it. And kept choosing it.”
“Until they died.”
“Only when they came here did they see what they deserved.”
Deserved. Did they deserve it? She’d thought she deserved it, when Dehek dumped her out here. Then Kara had rescued her.
“You are different, Sue,” Kara said, her voice soft. Her clawed hands curled. “You don’t see it, but you are.”
“Maybe. But I can’t make myself believe it.”
“Then you need someone to show it to you.”
Chapter Twenty-three
“That is what these temples are for,” Kara said.
“For punishment?” Sue stepped toward the alcove. An X-shaped cross hung in the shadow there, chains and bonds hanging from it.
“For absolution.”
“What’s the difference?” But even as Sue asked it, she slipped out of the clothes she’d brought with her. It seemed only right, somehow, to stand naked in this room. To slip out of garments that the sand had scratched and torn and stained red, and expose herself, as she was.
To Kara, and to whatever holiness might exist here. Sue had called it an obelisk, in her mind, but Kara had called it a temple.
“Punishment is about doing wrong and paying the price for it,” Kara said. “Sometimes, a price chosen by the ones who feel that you wronged them. Not by you yourself. It lets those who hate or fear you feel vindicated or avenged.”
“And absolution?”
“Absolution is about letting go.”
Sue leaned against the cross. Her breasts pressed against it. It was warm. Had the Enemy made this? His torture house for the people he’d rejected? Or had the Outcasts built this place, like they’d built the Rings?
“The boy,” Sue whispered. “The things in my head. The dreams. The blood. You.”
Kara stepped closer behind her. The shadow of Kara’s wings fell over her, heavy with a warmth of its own.
Kara picked up the chains and wrapped one of the cuffs around Sue’s wrists but didn’t fasten it. “I can’t promise you those things will ever leave you, Sue. They don’t leave the dead ones.” Her eyes flickered. “They haven’t left me.”
“You were in a war, though.”
Kara sighed. “I was. And war is unlike anything else. But I shouldn’t have said what I did to you.”
“No, you’re right. What I saw, what I did, what I didn’t do…there will always be something worse in the world. Always be someone who’s known worse. I’ll never know what you know.” She twitched her shoulders. “I never had any wings to lose.”
Kara reached out her other hand and ran it down Sue’s back. Sue shivered.
“I am glad of that, Sue Jones,” Kara said. “We Outcasts were born a prideful race. That is both a good thing and a bad one.” She slid a single claw tip over the ridge of Sue’s spine, careful not to dig or cut. Sue froze under it, her skin tingling.
“So this won’t make me forget,” Sue said. It wasn’t a question.
“Nothing will make you forget. But it might help you to remember less, if you let it.”
“Then I guess I’ve got to do it.”
Kara’s hand splayed out against the flesh of Sue’s back. “Not necessarily. Not unless you feel that this is what you need. There are many ways to let go, Sue Jones. If you’d like to find another one, I can take you home, and we can find another one together.”
Sue shook her head. “No. I wanted to see this. I wanted to know what your people do. What happens to the human men and women who go to hell.”
“All right.” Kara clasped the cuff around Sue’s wrist. “But I can’t do to you what we do to the dead.”
Sue’s head snapped to the side. She stared at Kara. “We? What we do to the dead? Not what you do to them?”
“I will do this for you, Sue, because you asked for it, and because I know why. But I will never do it to the damned again.” For a long moment, Kara let her hand linger in the center of Sue’s back. Then she moved it away, lifted Sue’s arm, and clasped the second cuff around it.
Sue turned her head again, facing the wall. She took another deep breath and studied the iridescent streaks in the wall, imagined meaning in the patterns of the light. She was making things up, of course. But doing it soothed her. Helped her forget what would come next.
“In my dream,” Sue said, “the Outcast carried a scourge. It had lots of tails, and all of them were tipped with fire.”
Kara’s voice reached her from somewhere far away. “Fire wouldn’t harm a ghost. A soul isn’t made of flesh and blood. But it would harm you.”
“Then what do you use?”
“Don’t worry.” Sue could hear Kara’s grin. “I’ll find something.”
Hearing her felt almost good too, a little shock of expectation, half eagerness and half fear. Sue pressed her legs together and let herself savor it as best she could.
She heard Kara rummaging through something and closed her eyes to force herself not to turn around and look. Then she heard Kara’s footsteps, getting louder and closer. She tensed, expecting a blow.
But instead, she only felt Kara’s hand on her again, pressed to her back.
“What are you doing?” she stammered, as
Kara’s hand slipped down to her waist and over her buttocks. “You’re supposed to be hurting me, not—”
But Kara only slid her hand over the curve of Sue’s buttock and slipped her fingers over Sue’s pelvis.
“I am going to whip you,” Kara said. “I said that I would and I will.” She moved her fingers again, let them slip over Sue’s mound. Sue gave a strangled little sound and canted her hips, pushing her ass out to let Kara touch it.
She hadn’t come here for that, no. She’d come here for something very different. But she was tired, and Kara had saved her. And Kara was a demon warrior in her prime. If she said this was going to hurt eventually, well, then it was going to hurt.
If Kara wanted her first, why not let her do this? Sue spread her legs wider.
Kara slid her fingers over Sue’s labia, wetting them with Sue’s moisture. She slipped one finger lower, finding Sue’s clit and moving on it. Sue closed her eyes and bucked her hips. I’m not sure if this is supposed to redeem me, but I sure as hell don’t mind.
Kara slipped her fingers in. Sue moved with her, finding the rhythm.
Then Kara pulled away. She slid her fingers out of Sue and traced them over her thigh.
“Why did you stop?” Sue gasped, her heart pounding.
“The question is why I started in the first place,” Kara said, still tracing a claw over the sensitive skin of Sue’s inner thigh. “And the answer is: because this is a ritual. Even if it’s a ritual of hell, fit for the corrupted dead and not for the living. This isn’t just about your shame and guilt, Sue Jones. This is about letting go.”
She slid her hand up Sue’s side, the claws an almost tickling tease.
“That doesn’t mean it’s about pleasure.” Kara spread out her hands across Sue’s back. She tilted her claws inward, not pricking Sue’s skin, but offering a promise of danger. “But there is no sin in taking pleasure in it. Not if that helps you to forgive yourself.”
Kara bent down and pressed her lips to Sue’s shoulder. Then she opened her mouth and pressed the tips of her fangs to Sue’s skin.
