Except suddenly I was back in the sex club, with the white-haired man. Run back to your prince, then.
The idea that the military team worked for him was too terrifying to comprehend. My brain refused to process it: yet that had definitely been his voice.
We were still at the red light. Sarik’s advice came back to me. When you know something’s wrong, run. Don’t hesitate. You may only get one chance.
Sorovic was putting his phone away. I swore I could hear my heart pounding, rising to a crescendo. Without turning, I felt for the unfamiliar door handle, pulled it and rammed myself hard against the door, scrambling out as it opened. Sorovic looked up and I saw the shock on his face change to guilty realization. That’s when I knew I was right.
I stumbled as I hit the sidewalk. That saved me, because I fell backward enough to slam the door closed on Sorovic and he spent vital seconds getting it open again.
We were in one of the poorer areas: run-down stores and dilapidated apartment blocks jammed together. There was a narrow alley running between two buildings, so dark it looked like a giant, open mouth. I ran for it. Behind me, I heard Sorovic throw open the door and race after me.
No more than twenty feet from the street, the alley ended abruptly – a tall metal fence topped with razor wire. I could hear running footsteps behind me. That was it: he was going to catch me.
Unless.… The fence hadn’t been fitted well. On one side, the bolts that held it to the wall were loose. That opened up a gap, if you pushed against it. Not big enough for a man, but big enough for a child. Or maybe me.
I pushed one shoulder through the gap, my evening gown rasping against the brick wall. I had to turn my head sideways to get it through, which meant I was looking at him as he pounded towards me. The cold metal post crushed my stomach, my breasts. I squeezed and pulled….
Just as Sorovic grabbed for my trailing arm, I popped through and fell to the ground. One foot was still on his side and I panicked, pulling it through the gap. He caught my shoe, but it slipped off. I was free – for now.
We stared at each other for a second, his face contorted with fury. Then he started trying to squeeze through the gap to follow me. I ran, kicking off the other shoe, my stockinged feet slapping on the damp, filthy street. When I reached the end of the alley, I looked back. He’d only managed to get one shoulder of his bulky frame through, and was whacking the fence in frustration. I saw him pull back and run for the vehicle.
I ran.
I ran for what must have been several blocks, until my lungs felt like they were filled with burning lava and my legs gave up and dumped me on the ground in a doorway. I’d heard Sorovic’s vehicle a few times, but never closer than a street away, and not at all for a few minutes. I’d either lost them or I hadn’t: there was no way I could run any further.
As I sat there heaving for breath, things started to sink in.
Our military crash team, meant to protect us, was working for the white-haired man –the one Sarik thought was behind the attack on the King. Were they alone, just a small band of traitors? Or had the disease spread wider?
I got my answer. An armored personnel carrier sped past, followed by three trucks carrying troops. They were heading away from the center – so they weren’t going to help at the opera house.
This was a coup. A military coup. Sarik had said the poisoners had been well organized - this explained it.
The palace, I thought. I have to get to the palace. If Jagor was still alive, and if he was free, he’d head there. If he’d been captured, I could shelter with the King and Queen. But with the military on the streets and presumably looking for me, there was no way I could go like this. I looked down at myself. I was barefoot, in an elegant purple evening gown. And around my neck was the shining engagement collar Jagor had given me, the one with his seal on the front. That collar was going to get me killed. And it was designed to stop me taking it off.
I went around the back of the building and found a graffiti-covered car park. There was a dumpster that looked like it hadn’t been emptied in a month with broken glass scattered around it.
I needed to get a piece. And I had bare feet.
Picking my way very, very carefully through the glittering shards, teeth gritted, I found a curved hunk with what looked like a wickedly sharp edge. I retreated and hunkered down between two cars to work.
Now that I’d stopped running, the panic and the gut-wrenching pain of not knowing what had happened to Jagor were threatening to overcome me. My hands were shaking: I had to close my eyes and will myself to be calm. You can’t help him if you’re dead, I kept repeating, until finally it began to work.
Very gently, I eased the sliver of glass under the collar, just where the lock joined the leather. There was a narrow strip of fabric there, without any metal.
The glass wasn’t made for sawing – or for holding comfortably. I crouched there, feeling the cold glass sliding back and forth on my bare skin, waiting for the moment when my hand would slip and slice open my neck. The need to concentrate, the robotic monotony of it, actually helped to keep me calm.
I don’t know how long it took. I know that when the collar loosened, I could no longer feel my feet and my stockinged legs were turning purple-blue with cold. I dropped the glass and ripped the collar the rest of the way. As it broke there was an unexpected jolt inside me. I hadn’t appreciated how much the collar had become a part of me: taking it off was severing my last link with Jagor.
I couldn’t bear to throw it away: I folded it up and carried it. Now I wasn’t obviously the Prince’s property, but I was still in an evening gown. It wouldn’t take a genius to look at a barefoot, disheveled woman in a long purple dress and figure out she’d been at the opera house.
I found the glass again and hacked away the skirt at mid-thigh. It didn’t come away neatly, but after a few minutes I’d turned the gown into something more like a tight, short cocktail dress. I couldn’t get all the way to the palace like that, I figured, but it might get me a few streets without attracting too much attention. All I could think was get to the palace. If I couldn’t trust the military, I knew that at least I could trust Arno and the other bodyguards.
I headed off in what I thought was roughly the direction of the palace, head down and walking fast. More and more military vehicles sped past me. What I needed was a suburb with a clothesline I could steal washing from, like in the movies. But I was in a city, on a cold, wet night, with everything shuttered and locked down. Where the hell was I going to find clothes?
Around the next corner, shouting and cheering. There was a car on fire, and the front of a department store had been smashed open. The people were rioting, I realized, or at least taking the opportunity the chaos afforded them. I saw people running with TVs, but most of the action seemed to be on the next street along: it looked like they’d already ransacked this store and moved on.
A store would have everything I needed. I waited until the last rioter was out of sight, then crept towards the store. The sidewalk was strewn with broken glass: I eventually used a piece of cardboard as a bridge to cross it and climbed through a shattered window.
I headed for the women’s section. Halfway to the clothes, I spotted something else. Wigs.
I’d never worn a wig before, but after a couple of minutes of experimentation with fixing up my own hair, I had a long blonde one that kind of worked. I sure as hell didn’t look like a natural blonde, but neither did I match my usual description.
I found some sneakers and socks that would fit and carried them with me to the clothes racks. I was rifling through the jeans when I heard something behind me and spun around.
It was a rioter. A few years older than Jagor, with dark, greasy hair. His hands were ingrained with dirt – a farmer, or a mechanic, maybe. Relief sluiced through me: I’d thought he was a soldier. I subconsciously touched the wig. I was pretty sure he wouldn’t recognize me as the Exkella: he’d just think I was a fellow rioter out to score some free cl
othes.
The guy stared at me. Maybe he did recognize me, after all? But there was something weird about the look he was giving me. It wasn’t recognition. It was more…delight. He stepped closer, and before I could stop him he had a hand on my shoulder.
That’s strange, my ragged mind chipped in. That’s what men do to—
I’m not wearing a collar!
***
If you haven’t lived in Asteria, it’s difficult to understand the concept of uncollared women and their claiming.
When Jagor first explained it to me in Monaco, it didn’t make sense. Surely, I’d thought, mistakes must happen all the time: every time a collared slave slips her collar off for a second, some man could come along and claim her. The problem was, back then, I assumed a collar was something that you took on and off – the way a woman might remove her wedding ring to wash dishes. I didn’t get that, partially because of the “found slave” laws, slaves just don’t take off their collars – ever – even if they can find a way to do so. Not only does it place you in great danger of being stolen away from your owner, it’s also hugely offensive to him. Taking a collar off is not like taking a wedding ring off: it’s like throwing the ring in your husband’s face.
The “found slave” laws have a few exceptions: slaves in hospital, for example, have to have their collars cut off them. But apart from those, the simple rule is that, as a man, if you find a woman over twenty-one without a collar on, you may claim her as your own simply by making it clear to her what you’re doing. You then own her. For life. Or until her owner can persuade you to sell – not give, sell – her back. The traditional way of “making it clear” is to put your hand on the slave’s shoulder and state, “You belong to me, now.”
So: slaves who’ve found themselves a permanent owner simply never take their collar off. That leaves only two occasions when a woman might be found uncollared. A slave market slave who’s escaped during a rental and managed to remove her collar (not easy – slave market collars are particularly heavy and strong). Or, even rarer, women who’ve failed to find a man to own them at twenty-one and have gone on the run instead. Without a collar and an owner, a woman can’t get a job or rent a place to live: she has to sleep rough and beg for food (and as soon as a man sees her, she’ll be claimed). Put all that together and seeing an uncollared woman over twenty-one is like seeing a unicorn.
Which was why the guy in the department store thought all his Christmases had come at once.
***
My brain failed to work for a few seconds. I could feel cool air breezing around my neck, and tried to understand how the hell I hadn’t thought of this earlier.
While I was frozen, the guy stepped closer. “You belong to me, now,” he stated with great satisfaction. And that was it: I did.
He coaxed me forward, his grip gentle but firm, and I stepped closer to him. He was taller than me, particularly with me barefoot. “Come on,” he told me. “We can talk when we get home.”
He wanted to get me away fast, I realized. Until he got a collar on me, someone else could easily take me from him and he’d have little hope of proving he got to me first. Once he got me to his house…my stomach lurched. I couldn’t let that happen.
“Clothes,” I said suddenly, in Asterian. “I need clothes. And shoes.” I lifted one bare foot to show him.
He looked at me suspiciously. He wasn’t stupid: no uncollared woman would let some stranger claim her by choice. He was expecting me to run. I had to lull him into a false sense of security first. I reached out and took his hand. “You stay with me,” I offered. “So they know I’m yours.”
He gripped my hand so tightly I thought he was going to break my fingers, but he allowed me to grab some clothes. The jeans I’d been just about to take. A vest top. A sweater, and the sneakers and socks I’d found earlier. I picked up the pile and looked around for a changing room.
“Here,” he told me.
I tried to think of some excuse, something that would mean I didn’t have to strip off in front of him. There was none. He was already suspicious: he thought I was on the run and homeless, and had been since I turned twenty-one. He was crediting me with a lot more wiliness and street smarts than I actually had. If I didn’t do as he said, he’d just drag me out of here in the dress.
I settled for making it quick, dragging the jeans up over my bare legs, rucking the dress up around my waist. Then hurriedly pulling the dress over my head and pulling the vest top down, with as little time spent in my bra as possible. I got on the sweater and sneakers, not daring to look at his eyes. I didn’t want to see that look of raw male lust, because it might scare me out of what I had to do.
I plucked a raincoat from a rack and slipped it on before he could protest, then gave him my best smile. “There. Now we can go.” I’d dropped Jagor’s collar on the floor when he’d first appeared – now I managed to scoop it up with my dress and slip it into a pocket. I felt it nestle there, close to my body, giving me strength.
He nodded, in a hurry to get going, and pulled on my hand. “Wait!” I said, as if thinking of something. “Did you come in the front way? Or the back? The back is quieter.” I saw his eyes flick towards the front of the store in a moment of indecision.
I kicked him in the balls, as hard as I could.
He made no sound – there was just the skin-crawling sensation of soft flesh squishing under the toe of my sneaker and then him slumping to the floor, as if all the bones had been removed from his legs. I ran. I looked back as I clattered down the escalator, but there was no sign of him.
Just before I hit the street, I remembered to turn up the collar on the raincoat, hiding my neck. Head down, I set out for the palace again, trying to be small and inconspicuous.
Every street I hurried through was different. In some, the residents had locked their doors and stayed inside – it could almost have been a normal night, save for the wailing sirens. In others, a full-blown riot was in progress. It seemed to be sweeping outwards from the center of the city, with cars ablaze and screaming crowds. Everyone protesting seemed to be men, and it seemed to be the poorest neighborhoods that were worst affected.
It took me three terrifying hours of skulking through backstreets to get close to the palace. Twice, I had to hide from military patrols as they shone searchlights into every dark alley. Whether they were looking for rioters or me, I couldn’t tell. Both times, I hid out in abandoned buildings, back against a freezing wall as the searchlights swept in through the windows, eyes squeezed shut, imagining myself back in New York, with Jagor swinging me round and round in his arms.
Gradually, the buildings changed to the beautiful old town houses and smart shops that lay near the palace. At last, I cleared the last street and could look across the parkland that led up to the canyon, the bridge and the palace itself. I stopped dead.
Armored personnel carriers and troops lined the bridge and the gates were open: I could see soldiers walking inside. The palace had already fallen.
I slumped to my knees, cold mud soaking through my jeans. Jagor was likely dead. The King and Queen, if alive, were in the hands of the enemy. I was utterly alone.
Chapter Twenty
I don’t know how long I knelt there, half-hidden in the trees, the cold ground slowly chilling me. I know that I cried in long, silent sobs: for Jagor, for our life, for what could have been.
I heard them approaching, heavy boots squelching in the mud. I pulled off the wig and shoved it into a pocket because I knew it was over.
There was a shout behind me as they saw me; I put my hands up. When I stood and turned around, I saw there were two of them. One was a soldier barely out of his teens, nervously pointing a rifle at me as if I was armed to the teeth. The other was a huge bear of a man, his bald head making it hard to judge his age. “It’s the Exkella,” the young one said, disbelievingly.
“Call it in,” said the bald one. He spoke in thickly-accented Asterian – he sounded Russian, and as he stepped forward I c
ould see how much older he was – late fifties, at least. “He’ll want to meet her.” Then, to me, “Turn around!”
I turned to face the palace – probably the last time I’d see it. I felt him step close and jerk my hands behind my back. My wrists were pulled together by something hard and scratchy that dug into my skin.
Then I felt his hand cup my ass and my whole body went cold.
“I’m not sure—” said his companion.
“Who’ll know?” said the bald one. “Who’ll care? They’re going to kill her anyway.”
In front of me, maybe a hundred feet away, lay the ravine. If I sprinted, I might reach the edge and throw myself over before they caught me. Better that than....
I ran. There was a shout of surprise from the young one and cruel laughter from the other. My feet slithered and skidded on ground turned to mud by hundreds of soldiers’ feet. Every slip made my heart leap into my throat: if I fell, I had no way to catch myself, and once down they’d be on me in a second. Or would they even bother chasing me: would they just shoot me in the back as I fled? With every step, I tensed for the sound of the shot ringing out.
I reached the ravine…and stopped, feet skittering on the very edge. I couldn’t even see the bottom: just the rocky sides descending into pitch-blackness. Behind me, the sound of boots lazily approaching. Why have you stopped? I screamed at myself. Do it, do it, do it!
“She won’t jump,” I heard the bald one say.
I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. I wasn’t going to let him touch me. I lifted one foot….
Behind me, the brutal sound of wood on bone. I spun and saw the young one slumping to the ground. The giant who’d felled him stepped out of the darkness, his dinner jacket shredded and his shirt stained with blood.
Jagor.
The bald one barely had time to turn around before Jagor swung the tree branch, face contorted with rage. The man crumpled like a rag doll.
Asteria - In Love with the Prince Page 24
