by Sara King
Victory froze, the idea not having occurred to her. Oh gods, her panicked mind thought. He could make me disappear again.
“Unchain my ankles,” Dragomir said. When Victory simply stared at him, he grinned. “You want an exchange? The trade begins now.” He shoved a shackled foot at her, arms crossed, waiting.
“My brother’s already made his plans,” Victory snarled. “If I’d known you were going to be ridiculous, I would have told him to set me up with the quarry.”
“How is this ridiculous?” Dragomir demanded, shaking his foot, making the chain rattle. “I’m going to have you at my mercy—for months, it sounds like—and you seem to expect me to treat you no differently than I would a house guest. Would it kill you to return the favor as a show of good faith?”
Victory felt her heart beginning to pound. He was right. All the money and influence that she brought to the table meant nothing if he decided to take advantage of the situation.
And I’ve given him every reason to hate me, Victory thought, remembering chaining him to the bed, remembering the jeers of the dining hall as he ate his slops.
Dragomir jiggled his foot again. “Well?”
I can’t do this, Victory thought, looking at the man’s shackles, feeling the key resting between her breasts. Then, a disgusted part of her said, Then why would you expect him to do differently?
Slowly, reluctantly, Victory inched forward across the floor, until she was within reach of his shackles. At the way her throat seized at his nearness, however, she hesitated. “I think I’m going to need another cleansing first,” she said, as her nerves started to betray her. “The fear is coming back.”
“Unshackle me,” Dragomir said. He made no move to reach for her and work his energy through her body, only waited.
Victory gave him a shocked look. He hadn’t refused until now.
“Someday, Princess, I intend for you to discover that, despite your every belief otherwise, I’m not going to hurt you.” He shook his foot. “So unshackle me. I won’t have you drugged as I prove it to you.”
For some time, she could only stare at him.
Dragomir dropped his foot with an irritated look. “Then don’t bother taking us to my village.”
He’s serious, she realized, in horror.
Victory’s hands were trembling as she reached into her shirt and retrieved the key. One by one, she unlocked the titanium bands, her heart jumping at each metallic click.
When she was finished, Dragomir’s hand snatched out and he grabbed her wrist. Victory gasped and froze, peering at the dark hand encircling her pale skin, every muscle caught in growing horror.
Uncoiling like a big cat, Dragomir moved forward over her, forcing her to the floor as his big body came to rest above her.
“So,” Dragomir said, lowering his weight atop her, pinning her to the carpet. “Do you trust me?”
Victory was so terrified she couldn’t scream. She started panting, hyperventilating as her mind began to shut off.
She felt something grab her mind, force it back into full awareness.
“I’m not letting you go anywhere this time,” Dragomir said. His blue eyes were intense as he looked down at her, his face only inches from hers. “I want you to really think about it. Do you trust me?”
Feeling all the tiny places where his great body melded into hers, Victory squeezed her eyes shut and tried once more to separate her awareness from her physical body, but something was holding it tightly in place. Realizing she was trapped, she started to panic. She opened her mouth to scream.
“Didn’t think so,” Dragomir said with a sigh. He raised his weight off of her and picked up the shackles from the floor. These, along with the ones from his wrists that she had looped over the hook in the headboard, he carried to the window. He yanked it open and, with a heavy grunt, hurled the shackles out into space.
“I can get others,” Victory blurted.
Dragomir closed the window and turned to her. “You can,” he agreed, his legs spread wide, his arms crossed across his big chest, “But from now on, considering your plans, Princess, I think you should really start taking to heart the Golden Rule.”
“Is that a threat?” she squeaked.
He shrugged. “It’s a fact. You want my help. I may or may not be inclined to give it.”
The cruise was scheduled to depart tomorrow morning, and Victory was cursing herself for waiting this long to determine that Dragomir was going to be uncooperative.
“From what you told me,” Dragomir said, as she stared at the floor in frustration, “We are getting on a ship tomorrow morning, where your father intends for you to die. There may or may not be an assassin onboard, and if there is, I would like to have my hands and legs free so I can kick him in the face the moment I see him.”
Victory blinked and looked up at him. “What?”
“I can tell a sociopath or a psychopath at a hundred yards,” Dragomir said. “Like that guy in the hallway, right before you had your breakdown. He had an au like I’ve never seen before. If I hadn’t been trying to calm you down, I’d have tried to get you to sic your Praetorian on him. That one has done very many bad things with his life, and the world would be a better place if he took a dive off of your Vanishing Spire.”
Victory’s jaw fell open. Until now, she had thought that maybe she had just been seeing things, a figment of her panicked mind. “You saw him?”
Dragomir gave her a curious look. “Saw who?”
“The blue-eyed man with the scar on his lip,” Victory cried. “Can you recognize him again, if he were wearing a different guise?”
Dragomir snorted. “I could see that one coming a mile away.”
“He’s an assassin,” Victory babbled. “He sabotaged my ship, on its way to the Imperial Academy. He took my virginity and handed me over to the rebels.
Dragomir’s face hardened in a scowl. “You recognized him and said nothing?”
“My Praetorian know,” Victory said. “They’ve been looking for him, but it’s like he’s a specter. Everyone has seen him, but no one knows where he works or sleeps.”
“Then,” Dragomir said, “If I see him again, I have your permission to end his miserable existence?”
Victory gave a bitter laugh. “Only if I get to watch you do it.”
Dragomir grinned and tugged the chain hanging between them. “Unfortunately, I don’t really see how you could miss it.”
Whip’s Close Call
Dragomir slept on the bed that night. He was actually surprised that she offered, though it left him chuckling inside. Remember the Golden Rule, he thought, grinning at the ceiling. You sly dog.
The princess, quite adamantly, had taken up residence on the floor—along with half the blankets and most of the pillows. Dragomir let it pass. Someday, she would trust him. Whether that day came sooner or later, it didn’t really matter in the cosmic scheme of things. He wished it was sooner, rather than later, but whenever it happened, it would come in time.
Probably sooner than she would like, he thought, thinking of the days ahead. He felt himself hardening at the idea of having the princess as his own, finally giving her no choice but to open up and trust him.
He was tired of having his hands tied, both literally and figuratively. If her brother’s plan carried through and they came off of the cruise alive and her brother dropped them into his village with her and her two Praetorian as make-believe little slaves, he was going to take full advantage of the situation.
When it was over, perhaps she would never speak to him again, but by the gods, he was going to open her ramas. One by one. He was going to restore balance to her energy-starved system, and if she took offense, then that was too damn bad.
He was tired of watching helplessly as her past overtook her. He could fix it, and he was going to, and if she didn’t like it, she could kill him after he was finished. He was a healer. He would heal her, or die trying.
At dawn, they ate a big breakfast that the Praetoria
n brought to them, then he watched as her maids came and packed enough luggage to clothe an entire army for a week. Once the princess’s belongings were safely secured and on their way to her chambers upon the cruise ship, her Praetorian came—all nineteen of them—and herded the both of them through the palace, out into the courtyard, and onto the ship in a huge fanfare of song and celebration from the observers.
That many people, all in one place, had always made Dragomir nervous. He shielded himself from the barrage of scattered emotional energy and trusted the wall of black-clad bodies around them to keep out any poisons or daggers.
They made their way quickly to the princess’s suite, and once they were out of the chaos of the courtyard, Dragomir finally allowed his shields to come down.
It was then that he saw the woman step from the princess’s chamber, dressed in a maid’s stark black and white. He froze, however, upon seeing the roiling black mass of energy billowing around the woman.
The woman’s ice-blue eyes met his stare and he thought he detected amusement there. Then she curtseyed and, ducking her head, hurried down the hall.
The princess hit the end of the chain and turned back to him, frowning.
“That was him,” Dragomir said. “I’d recognize that au anywhere.”
“Who?” Victory demanded. “The maid?”
“Unless your father employs two assassins,” Dragomir said, “That was the man from the hall.” He refused to move further down the hall, despite the Praetorian pushing at him to continue. “Either way, Princess, I’m pretty sure you don’t want to stay in that room.”
Victory frowned, but then turned to chatter in Imperial at her Praetorian.
Four of them took off at a run down the hall, turning the corner after the maid. Four others entered her chambers while the rest remained stationed around her in the hall. Dragomir could hear thumps and crashes from inside as they searched.
Finally, they came back with a needle, clasped between a Praetorian’s fingers like she were holding a viper. The princess’s other captain, Whip, stumbled out of the room and leaned against the doorframe, pale and sweating, staring at the needle. Her au was flickering, like a candle flame that was burning low.
The one called Lion muttered something in Imperial, gesturing at her pale companion, who was rapidly starting to slide down the doorframe, to the floor. The princess narrowed her eyes and replied in a growl. Immediately, the Praetorian started herding them down the hall, away from the chamber, towards the front of the ship.
“What happened?” Dragomir asked, once they were moving again.
“I told them to put me in another room, one with a better view,” Victory said.
“No,” Dragomir said, “to the woman.” He nodded at her. Something was wrong with her steel-gray energy—it seemed to be slowing down, pushed aside by an inky blackness.
Victory grimaced. “They found a needle in my bed,” she said. “Nano-poison, I would guess. It sank into Whip as she swept the sheets back. They don’t think she’s going to make it.”
The tall, lean Praetorian in question was panting, her face becoming a very dull gray. She was strung between two of her companions, head down, wheezing. Watching the energy within her stagnate on her gi meridians, a black energy overpowering them, Dragomir frowned. “Tell them to set her down.”
Victory frowned at him. “I told you they used nanobots. We need to get her to a doctor.”
“Do you want her to die?” Dragomir snapped.
Hesitating, Victory gave the command to lay the woman out on the floor. As she did, Dragomir saw her eyes start to glaze as she went into shock. He dropped to his knees beside her and, without taking the time to think about it, put one hand over her core rama and another over her soul rama. The Praetorian gasped and tried to struggle away, but Dragomir tightened his grip and held her in place.
Immediately, several Praetorian unsheathed their swords and made to use them.
Dragomir ignored them. A palm on her groin, the other on her crown, he shoved energy through her from both sides, catching the blackness before it had a chance to enter the ramas, then shoving it back out through the roiling black wound in the meat of her hand.
Beneath him, the Praetorian gasped and arced her back. Dragomir kept working, hunting down every last shadow, burning it away.
Once he had scoured all the blackness from her central body, he moved his consciousness down her arm, squirting it from her gi lines like ink from a pricked water-bag. When he finally reached the wound itself, the Praetorian was panting underneath him, alert gray eyes fixed to his face, but holding entirely still. Dragomir sought out the blackness in her palm, isolated it.
“Tell her to hold up her wounded hand,” he said, maintaining his trance, monitoring the flow of energy.
Victory did, and slowly, reluctantly, the Praetorian lifted her hand to Dragomir.
He took his hand off of her core rama and, still pushing energy through her soul rama to keep the roiling black energy in her wound contained, grabbed her wrist.
Then, feeding energy through her wrist from his hand, he released her crown and, still focused on the woman beneath him, held up an open palm to the Praetorian around him. “I need a knife.”
It was Lion who offered her blade.
Dragomir took it, and, while the Praetorian on the floor watched nervously, brought the knife to the meat of her hand.
“Tell her I’ve got to cut it out,” Dragomir said.
Victory must have relayed his message, because the woman’s eyes went wide. Instead of flinching or trying to pull back, however, she simply nodded.
Dragomir made it quick. He sliced into the woman’s palm at an angle, just deep enough to collect the source of the roiling black material, then came at it from the other side. The woman winced and gritted her teeth, but did not so much as whimper. He tossed the scrap of skin and flesh aside and looked again to make sure he had gotten all of the voidlike darkness. After ascertaining that the wound was clean, he grunted and handed Lion back her blade.
“Tell her that the blade should probably be destroyed, in case it carries any infection,” Dragomir said. He stood up and gestured at the bloody flap of skin on the ground. “And the piece of her hand, as well.”
For a long moment, everyone in the hall simply stared at him. Victory didn’t relay his words, and Dragomir frowned at her. “Tell them.”
“You healed her?” Victory said, instead. She was staring down at the woman, who was cursing and wrapping her hand in her shirt, but whose color had already returned to her face, the sweating stopped, her breathing back to normal, if a bit faster than standard. Her steel-gray au was shimmering, brighter than Dragomir had ever seen it, and it contained traces of his own golden energy in patches here and there.
All of the Praetorian seemed to be glancing from their companion, then back to him, awe forming in their battle-hardened eyes.
Embarrassed, Dragomir looked at the ground. “Can you ask her how she’s feeling, at least?”
Still staring at him, Victory uttered something in Imperial. The Praetorian woman hissed something back, and, using the wall as leverage, started getting to her feet.
“She says her…” Victory hesitated, “…blessed hand hurts.” She gave him a small frown. “But aside from that, she’s never felt better. You even cured her head-cold, or so she seems to believe.”
“Probably,” Dragomir said. “I wasn’t being specific.”
Victory frowned up at him. “You can cure the sick?”
“That’s what I did back in my village,” Dragomir said. “In between cutting hay, herding goats, digging potatoes, and plowing fields.”
“You never said that,” Victory growled.
“I’m pretty sure I did,” Dragomir replied. “You just didn’t believe me.”
Victory looked at him for several more breaths, flicking her attention between him and Whip, then silently gestured at her guard to continue.
The Praetorian led them to a new chamber
, and for the rest of the day, as they waited for the passengers to load and the ship to get underway, Dragomir caught the black-clad women staring at him. When they brought out food for their first meal, one of the sleek, armored women handed him her hunk of cheese, saying that she didn’t need it. Another gave him a half-loaf of bread. A third offered him an apple she claimed she didn’t want. Dragomir, blushing, took it all quietly, getting the very distinct idea that he would be pounded flat for the insult of refusing.
As the ship finally powered up its engines and shuddered as it left dock, Dragomir felt the tension in the room increase tenfold. A disagreement began, and for the first time, he saw Victory and her Praetorian argue.
“What’s going on?” he asked, watching the Praetorian snarl amongst themselves.
“Father will want me to make an appearance at dinner,” Victory said. “They are insisting that one of them eat before I do, to test my food for me. I am telling them ‘no.’ I know it’s their jobs, but it’s not right that they sacrifice themselves that way.”
“Then don’t eat at all,” Dragomir said. “You’re supposed to be feeling very sick, right? Use it as an excuse to not partake in dinner. I saw the amount of food your Praetorian brought along. You have plenty of stores to keep you from starving.”
Victory sighed. “You don’t understand. This cruise is in my honor, supposedly celebrating my return from the Academy. I will be expected to—”
“This cruise is orchestrated to kill you,” Dragomir growled.
Several of the Praetorian stiffened at his tone, but didn’t interrupt.
“You do whatever you need to do to stay alive until we can get off this ship,” Dragomir said. “If that means hiding in your room, pretending you’re sick, then so be it, I’ll hold you here myself. The less you are out and about, the less opportunity that sly little bastard has to slip you something deadly.”
The princess gave him a look like he had suddenly sprouted antlers. Scrunching her face disgustedly, she said, “And just what makes you think you have any say at all in—”
