The Benefactor

by Dylan Steel

  “What happened between me and Rosalind is none of your business. And it’s in the past now anyways. It doesn’t matter anymore.”

  Sage shook her head slowly. “It matters. It mattered to her.”

  For the first time, it all made sense. After all, that was when Kai had changed, wasn’t it? After he’d lost his first love. Eprah had destroyed everything good in him too, but he’d decided to stop fighting it. He was just as broken inside as Sage was. She might have felt sorry for him if he hadn’t taken so much away from her—but she’d never be able to forget what he’d done to all the people she cared about.

  “I have to go.”

  Kai didn’t wait for her to respond. He turned, leaving her standing by herself in the doorway.

  Frowning, she left the hall and made her way to a table along the back wall, settling in.

  Expecting Kai to do her a favor was absolute foolishness, and she knew it. She should’ve known better than to get her hopes up. She’d tried not to.

  Desperation was starting to make her crazy. She’d already lost her freedom, and she didn’t trust Weston enough to believe he wouldn’t exercise the tether’s failsafe. Her days were numbered. If she could find a way to remove her bracelet, she might still stand a chance of escaping and becoming a Rogue—but without the device she’s stolen from Boulder, that was impossible. She needed a different plan.

  The familiar sting of her zeptobes made Sage’s shoulders hunch up in pain. Her eyes widened. Someone had stripped a Chance from her—in Perjaash. It couldn’t have been Weston—it was too soon for him to have returned. She looked around wildly, wondering who would have the nerve to blatantly disregard the rules of their brotherhood in a room full of Kunbriat.

  Her eyes narrowed as they locked on Carnabel.

  Her old classmate sauntered over to the table. “I just wanted to make sure you got a proper welcome.” Carnabel’s tone dripped with manufactured sweetness.

  “I may not be on the best terms with the Kunbriat right now, but that doesn’t mean you can strip my Chances,” Sage growled. “We’re still bonded.”

  She sneered. “That’s where you’re wrong. You have a benefactor now. Your ties with the Kunbriat have been completely dissolved.” Her mouth stretched into a satisfied smile. “You’re not one of us anymore.”

  Sage’s heart beat faster. “You’re lying.”

  “Am I? You really think any Kunbriat would stand up to a benefactor to save you? No.” Carnabel shook her head. “Your new pairing means saying goodbye to the Kunbriat.”

  “Well, if that’s the case, then it works both ways.” Sage grabbed her bracelet, glaring at her. Strip a Chance.

  Carnabel smirked. Sage’s face fell as she realized nothing had happened.

  “I think you’re forgetting something.” Carnabel rested her hand on her stomach, patting it smugly.

  Sage’s mouth fell open. Her cheeks burned with the realization. She’s pregnant. Nic had told her, but she’d forgotten.

  Her nostrils flared. It shouldn’t have hurt anymore—she was over Nic—but it still stung a little, dredging up the way he’d hurt her in the past.

  “You can’t strip my Chances, but I can strip yours.”

  “You wouldn’t dare.” Sage’s eyes darted around the room. “Not with my benefactor in the next room.”

  “Duh. I’m not stupid. I was just saying hi a minute ago.” She snorted. “But your benefactor will get tired of you eventually. They always do. And when that happens, I won’t need to strip any of your Chances.”

  Carnabel tossed her a triumphant look and flipped hair over her shoulder, practically strutting away.

  Sage swallowed. Her fingers curled around the edge of her seat, gripping it tightly. She’d been under the impression that the club was still a sort of haven, but she wasn’t safe here anymore. And thanks to her tether, she couldn’t leave.

  “Are you ok?” Nic suddenly appeared at her side, his voice startling her out of her thoughts. “I just got here,” he explained, noticing her confused look. “I saw Carnabel come over, and I was worried she might have…” He winced apologetically. “Are you ok?”

  “I’m fine, Nic. Great, actually.” She leaned back, crossing her arms. “Or haven’t you heard? I got a shiny new pairing. A benefactor.”

  “I heard,” he said. Irritation scrawled across his face.

  “Apparently, that means I’m not Kunbriat anymore either.”

  He shook his head. “I’m sorry, Sage. When I heard you’d been paired with Mr. Bennick, I knew right away they’d blacklist you, but at least they aren’t debating whether or not to kill you anymore. I just…” His jaw flexed. “I had no idea you could be paired with a benefactor so long after graduation.”

  “That makes two of us,” she muttered.

  “I want you to know…” he licked his lips, “I haven’t given up on you. On us.”

  “What’s the point?” she asked bitterly. “Unless you have some way of convincing Mr. Bennick that he doesn’t want me to be his pair—some way that doesn’t make him think I’m completely useless to Eprah,” she added, “there can’t ever be an us.”

  “He seems like a reasonable man. I’m sure if we—”

  “Reasonable?” Sage laughed. “He’s insane. He tethered me. Rox, Nic. I’m on a throppin leash.”

  Nic’s eyes widened. “He tethered you?”

  She lifted her wrist, shaking her bracelet. “Said it was for my own good.”

  “I’m sure he had a good reason,” he said with a frown, looking unconvinced.

  “Oh, wake up, Nic,” she snapped. “Benefactors aren’t any more perfect or all-knowing than the Quorum—than Eprah. They lie to us so that they can control us, and as long as life seems pretty good, we don’t question anything. But guess what? My life? It’s not good. It’s awful. It’s nothing like I ever wanted, and thanks to this stupid bracelet, I can’t do a throppin thing to change it.”

  He stared back at her with his jaw hanging down. “That’s Lawless talk. You don’t mean that.”

  “Of course I do.” She raised her chin in challenge. “It’s what I’ve always thought, too. But it was never worth the risk to say it out loud. But now that I’ve got nothing left to lose…” She shrugged, looking away. “But I’m not Lawless,” she mumbled. “Never will be.”

  Nic reached for her hand. “Look, I’m sure you’re still mad at me about what happened with Everett, but that’s no reason to—”

  “What, you mean killing him? When you killed your friend?” Venom flashed behind her eyes as her pulse roared in her ears. She jerked her hand back. “Oh, no, I’m totally over that. Obviously.”

  “I didn’t have a choice,” he said, cringing. “I care about you, and it kills me every day that I had to…” He lowered his eyes. “And I wish there was something I could do now. But my hands are tied. When I found out you’d been paired, I tried to argue your case for remaining Kunbriat, but the other heads…” He trailed off. “It’s just not something that’s ever done once someone’s been claimed as a benefactor’s pair.”

  An idea struck her in that instant. It was crazy, and she doubted he’d ever go for it, but she had nothing left to lose—other than her life, and that could be over soon enough anyway.

  She bit her lip, forcing herself to calm down. “What if there was something you could do?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Sage took a deep breath. What she was about to ask of him was beyond dangerous. Crazy. Unlike her, he still had everything to lose.

  “You said you wanted to be with me. That you loved me.”

  “I do. I still do.”

  “Then I need your help.”

  “Name it.”

  A twinge of guilt threatened to silence her. She was using him, risking his life for hers. There was no way her feelings for him could ever go back to what they once were, not after he’d been with Carnabel and killed Everett. But she couldn’t let him know that—not if she wanted to hold on to any hope
of living.

  She held her wrist to her chest, rubbing the bracelet with her thumb. “I need you to get a fake for me.”

  Nic’s eyes widened. “A counterfeit bracelet? That’s treason.”

  “I know.” Her eyebrows dipped lower. “But if you don’t, I’m as good as dead. I don’t know how much longer my benefactor will care about keeping me, but I know benefactors’ pairs don’t tend to have the longest life expectancies. And as long as I’m paired with him, we can never be together.”

  “Are you saying…” A spark of hope lit his gold eyes.

  She shook her head. “I don’t know, Nic. What you did—I honestly don’t know if I can forgive you for it—”

  His face fell.

  “—but I know there won’t ever be a chance of us being together if I’m with him. And he just had me tethered to him—he’s not letting me go willingly.” She searched his eyes, pleading desperately. “Nic, I need this. Even if we’re not together, can’t you see what this is doing to me? Today, tomorrow, a year from now—I don’t know when—he’s going to kill me.”

  Nic leaned forward, lowering his voice. “How am I supposed to do get a fake bracelet? Even if I wanted to? I have no connections to the Lawless—to the right Lawless. Actually, no. It’s worse than that. The only connections I would’ve had, I’ve killed or turned over to Eprah. They’d be crazy to trust me now.”

  “That’s just a lame excuse. You’re smart, Nic.” She worked her jaw back and forth. “You could find the right people if you wanted to.”

  “I don’t know, Sage… What you’re asking for…”

  “You mean a chance to live?” She rolled her eyes. “How unreasonable of me.”

  He looked at her helplessly. “Sage, I—”

  The door to the back of the club slammed open, interrupting their conversation as Weston stormed out. He glanced around, barely noticing Nic as his gaze passed over him and settled on Sage.

  “Time to go.”

  She hopped up, hurrying after him. It didn’t seem like the meeting had gone well.

  “Please,” she whispered to Nic one last time as she passed him. She walked out of the club at Weston’s side, holding her breath, not daring to look back.

  All she was left with was the thinnest hope. It wasn’t much at all—Nic had shown her before that his loyalty lay with Eprah over her, and he was likely to do so again. And he hadn’t actually agreed to help her. In fact, he’d been incredibly resistant to the idea.

  But there was a chance—a small chance—that he might have regrets, maybe even want to make things right between them. A chance that—even if she no longer wanted to choose him—he might still choose her.

  11. WHAT DO YOU SEE?

  Sage ran her fingertips along the shelf, pausing to admire a small glass horse figurine. Sunlight danced inside its translucent chestnut body, casting a beautiful display of flecked lines on the stack of books beside it.

  It had been a week since they’d been to Perjaash, and Weston had spent the entire time holed up in his room—meaning Sage had essentially been stuck in hers too, thanks to the tether. She hadn’t gotten much past the end of the hall before her zeptobes started buzzing under her skin, warning her she was getting too far from her benefactor. Fortunately, Martha had at least made sure neither of them missed any meals, but Sage was definitely grateful when he’d finally decided to leave his quarters that morning.

  After knocking on her door, he’d gone straight to his office, which Sage didn’t mind one bit. Anything was better than staring at the same four walls for another day.

  The office was enormous and lined with all sorts of fascinating relics. She’d been immediately drawn to the shelves of smaller trinkets, but there was more art throughout the room as well—all things that appeared to be very rare and very old.

  The last time she’d seen this many relics in one place, she’d been in the basement of the Archives. But this room was entirely different. Everything was intentional—deliberately placed, carefully curated. There were no stacks of random junk interspersed with priceless treasures here.

  “That was my father’s.”

  She pulled her hand back from the figurine hastily, nearly bumping the shelf. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be. You didn’t break it.” Weston pulled out a chair, settling in behind the desk. “Most everything in here was his. And a lot of it is older than Eprah. But I haven’t had much desire to add to his collections. Not since… well.”

  “Since he was killed,” Sage said softly. “I’m sorry.”

  Weston’s lips twitched. He picked up his tablet. “That’s your second unnecessary apology this morning.”

  Her shoulders deflated a little as she turned her attention back to the shelf, tapping her finger along its edge. At Perjaash, she’d asked Nic for help, but she knew she couldn’t count on it. He’d keep her request a secret, but committing outright treason was a pretty tall order for someone as entrenched in the system as he was. No. If she had any hope of escaping Weston’s hold, she needed him to trust her enough to untether her. And to gain his trust, she needed to get him talking more. She’d been paired with him for nearly a month now, but with all his absences, she still barely knew the man.

  She turned back around, moving closer to his desk. “So what exactly do you do?”

  Pausing thoughtfully, Weston set his tablet down. “I would say I manage the estate, but truthfully, Martha does most of that.”

  Sage tilted her head. “Then that’s not an answer.”

  “No, it’s really not, is it?” He smiled. “I think you will find my days are quite dull. I spend much of my time planning and talking.”

  “Talking?” She raised an eyebrow. “So this conversation is in a benefactor’s job description?”

  He chuckled. “Not exactly. Although, perhaps it is in a roundabout way. My time is now spent mostly on petty politics, unfortunately.”

  “So you do more than just crash exclusive clubs?” she joked.

  His expression darkened.

  Sage’s heart leapt in her throat as she realized she’d accidentally hit a nerve. “Sorry,” she said quickly, “I shouldn’t have—”

  “The Kunbriat like to think of themselves as being on the same level as benefactors.” Weston scowled. “They’re not. They play at power, but it’s only a game. Pretend. Without their numbers, each member is just as powerless as every other citizen in Eprah. Less, in fact, if their secret were exposed. They’d be hunted down by the rest of Eprah’s citizens for their arrogance. Eliminated.”

  She dropped her gaze, her cheeks burning.

  “They’ve always gone to extreme lengths to protect themselves. What happened with you was no different,” he said gently, setting his hand on hers.

  “You said you needed to talk to the heads—” she crossed her arms, shifting the topic away from her past mistakes, “—but you didn’t even meet with all of them.”

  “I didn’t need to.” He reached into a drawer and retrieved a flask, pouring a small amount in the empty glass on his desk. “Kai was the only one with the connections to really matter. I learned what I needed to know.”

  “And what was that?”

  A weary smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “All in good time, Sage.”

  Her eyes narrowed slightly before she could catch herself. Not wanting to upset him, she forced her expression back to neutral.

  “You weren’t alive the last time there was a transition of power in the Quorum of Five. Neither was I,” Weston said emotionlessly, swirling the amber liquid in his glass before taking another drink. “But that won’t hold true for much longer. The members of the Quorum are not long for this world.”

  Sage’s brows dipped. “But you said only one of them was sick. What makes you…” she trailed off when she noticed the sober look on his face.

  “Indeed, I did. The Venerable Nicholas Pruitt is violently ill.” He leaned back, running a finger over the rim of his glass. “Strange, isn’t it? For a ma
n who’s been in more or less perfect health for his entire life?”

  She lifted her shoulders uncertainly.

  “If he survives this, he could serve on the Quorum for another ten, twenty years,” Weston said. His eyes flicked to hers. “But he’s going to die.”

  Her lips parted. “How do you know?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “I may be a benefactor, but that doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten all my medical training. His symptoms…” He shook his head. “It won’t be quick. His mind will fade as his body deteriorates. I’m told paralysis has already begun to set in. He can’t speak—he can barely communicate simple answers to simple questions. He’ll suffer a silent agony for months if no one steps in.”

  “You think someone will?” Sage balked at the idea of anyone deeming a member of the Quorum no longer useful to Eprah—even if it was true.

  “Someone already has.” He nodded, setting his glass down. “Whether or not they’ll finish what they started or let nature take its course is another question.”

  “You mean—”

  “His sickness is no accident. I’m certain of it. The only real question is who?”

  “Why?”

  “Why do you think? Power. Control.”

  “Do you think it was Mr. Gaztok?” Sage asked without thinking. She swallowed hard. The man was certainly capable of it. He’d committed a number of atrocities in the name of Eprah’s betterment—and she had no doubt he’d done much more than she was aware of.

  “That is one possibility. He is next in line, but I doubt any of the Quorum will relinquish their duties for years—or expire of natural causes. He may have grown impatient waiting for his turn in power.” Pulling up a file on his tablet, Weston motioned her closer. “All of Eprah’s individual leaders think that they can run the country best. And not just the Quorum and benefactors. There are a number of people who would jump at the chance for a seat on the Quorum.” He pointed to a picture on the screen. “There. What do you see?”

  Sage peered over his shoulder, and a wave of unpleasant tingles immediately raced down her spine. “Grayson,” she ground out.