Frost to Dust by Myra Danvers
5
The front lines.
I shivered as a roiling wave of nausea came over me. Stinging where a now distinct sort of pressure weighed heavy at the back of my throat—a threat that meant to strangle before it bubbled over. To reject the very thought that I would be used to slaughter rebels. My power turned against the people I’d sacrificed so much to save.
“Please,” I whispered, setting my heels as he threw open the front door, one hand wrapped firmly about my wrist. “Don’t do this.”
Inky eyes flicked back for an instant before he snorted.
I swallowed, throwing my weight back. Toward the chips of plaster and broken glass where the captain had almost had his way and taken everything I’d never give. “We’re healers,” I whispered, frantic and flailing for rescue. “Not murderers.”
“No,” he replied, and ushered me into the evening breeze once more. “You’re slaves. Tools of war owned by the empire.” He locked the door, fingers never leaving my wrist. “It’s time you learn what it really means to be a priestess.”
“You can’t—”
A tingle surged to life in my wrists and throat, and without so much as bothering to glance back, he showed me that yes, in fact, he could.
In the street in front of the captain’s townhouse, a utilitarian, battered coach sat idling by the curb. No hint of gaudy decoration. Not a glimmer of obnoxious Caledonian pomp, it was a vehicle meant to ferry soldiers.
Nothing more.
Surging forward on long legs, Marco claimed a seat behind the wheel. “Come on,” he said, and flicked a lighter with his left thumb, igniting a cigarette in a puff of sweet smoke. The cherry glowed a bright, cheerful shade of red before he exhaled. “You’re gonna want to see this, sir.”
“Dare I trust you behind the wheel?” the captain drawled, jaw tight when he opened the door and ushered me inside, giving me no room to fight him. Almost as if the great and powerful Captain Rawlings were hesitant to give up an inch of control.
“See,” Marco said, and shifted the coach into gear, “it’s this kind of flagrant disrespect that really erodes the confidence of the men, sir.”
Hurling down the cobbled streets, Marco sent the vehicle lurching to the left, narrowly avoiding a collision with another parked coach before careening around a sharp corner carrying too much speed.
“We need encouragement,” Marco said, dragging the word out as the coach picked up a nauseating velocity. Buildings and pedestrians zipping by at an ever greater pace. “A leader who builds confidence and rewards the skills of his men”—he jerked the wheel and sent us into a fishtail around another sharp right turn—“with incentives. Like access to high-quality pussy. All expenses paid. Vacations that last longer than a night off at the bathhouse.”
Knuckles white, I clung to the door handle and slid into the captain’s hip, a gasp of shocked terror caught high at the back of my throat.
“Fucksakes, Marco,” the captain hissed, and dragged me off the bench and into his lap. “Slow down or the only pussy you’ll see for the next year is the one between your own cheeks. You’ll have to find a mirror and bend to see it.”
Marco gasped, his attention leaving the cobbled streets as he spun to stare at the captain in open-mouthed shock. “You wouldn’t dare!”
The only response offered was a tight jaw an unblinking glare.
With a huff, Marco flicked the last half of his smoke out the window where it flew by in a shower of sparks, steering one-handed as he took another aggressive corner and sent the captain and I rocketing toward the opposite door. “We’re almost there, you old prude. And just for the record,” he grumbled, “you’d be lost without me.”
Taking a deep breath, the captain reached with his left hand and wrapped white knuckles around a handle hanging from the roof. Enveloping me in his scent, he anchored me to his lap, pressed his lips to my ear, and murmured, “Just close your eyes, pet. Deep breaths.”
And for the first time, I didn’t fight for space. Didn’t argue or bicker. Heart in throat, a visceral fear for my life pulsed behind my eyes. Writhing as if it were a living thing that sent vicious, icy cold barbs spiking into my heart and racing down the inside of my spine, leaving my hands to tingle. My toes numb where they were braced against plush carpet, feet tangled between the captain’s.
“Annnd”—Marco threw the vehicle into park—“that’s a new base record, lady and gent!”
Staggering from the coach, the captain hauled me out. Fingers too tight where they were wrapped around my elbow, his face sallow and tinged just the slightest shade of green—a sentiment surely reflected on my own face.
Before either of us could cherish the relief, the captain was surrounded by solders. Swamped with a deluge of information and questions. And, sending one last scathing glare over his shoulder at Marco, he silenced them all with a raised hand, and said, “What’s the situation, Gabe?”
“They’ve built a shield, sir,” the soldier said. “Our weapons don’t have enough firepower to punch through them.” Gabe patted a matte black weapon strapped to his hip with a grimace. “Hoping an elite can get the job done where we can’t, or we’ve got some serious problems. General Tilcot wants it to be you, sir.”
I jerked as if slapped. Eyes flicking between the captain and Gabe, impending murder forgotten in the face of this new information. This sneak peek behind enemy lines, for everything I’d heard over my years of battling the empire, it had been my assumption that only an elite could use an energy weapon.
None of the slavers I’d come across had access to such a thing, but if the soldiers of the Caledonian army did?
The Elorans had already lost this war, no matter what kind of technology they managed to forge in the depths of their exile.
But… if the Caledonians had managed to give their regular soldiers the power of an elite, unfettered access to their devastating weaponry… perhaps there was a glaring opportunity for me to do the same…
Long legs propelling him up a set of rickety stairs and into a shoddy, makeshift building, the captain hauled me along in his wake without saying a word. Without touching me, he held me in thrall. His influence a gentle pulse of pins that pierced my veins mid-way up my forearms. Wrists and throat tingling, he kept me utterly enslaved as he approached a large glass case in the center of a room packed with soldiers. Running his fingers along the edge of a sealed lid, he paused to caress a bronze latch. Eyes going bottomless and inky with the same gleam I’d seen only minutes before.
Lust.
I could name it, now. Recognized the thing that burned and left me with scars I could only feel. Couldn’t see.
He flicked the latch.
Silence fell on the gathered soldiers. A hush that drew my nape tight with the sort of tension that spoke of something deadly lurking in the wood. That I’d stumbled into the den of a predator more vicious than any I’d ever known before.
Reverent, he put hands on the massive, cruel thing inside.
A cannon twice the length of my forearm, three times as thick. Matte black with chrome accents marking levers and knobs.
At the first instant of contact, it came to life with an angry series of beeps. The muzzle glowed the most intense, vibrant shade of green I’d ever seen. Enough that it made me hiss and recoil, overshadowing the burn of my manacles—now creeping past my elbows in a slow, agonizing burn—but only for an instant.
The men cheered.
“Shiiit, sir,” Marco said, and slapped the captain’s back. “Looks like the wildcat packs a helluva punch!”
Grinning, the captain merely caught my eye. Watching as I tried to rub. Tried to push the golden burn back down into the manacles from which it had come. That sinister glimmer swirling in his eyes growing all the more ravenous the longer he looked.
“Never seen a weapon charge so quickly,” Gabe said, a distinct note of awe in his voice.
“Owning a priestess does have its advantages,” the captain drawled, and stroked the side of my face with his free hand. Balancing an instrument of mass destruction on his hip. “Now,” he said, “let’s see what we can do about these rebels and their shields, shall we?” He placed a hand on my back, once more guiding me from the building into the cool evening air.
And though I couldn’t feel much else with the power that had been stolen from me, I could feel the undeniable bubble of excitement just waiting to boil over.
The captain’s elation at the prospect of bloodshed.
I tripped, staggering along at his side. “What are you going to do?” I asked, voice a pathetic quiver that held no strength as I tried to right myself.
He steadied me. “Whatever needs to be done.”
“It would seem,” Gabe said, easily matching the captain’s pace, “their shields are absorbing the energy from our weapons before we can even come close to punching through. Dispersing it, maybe, I’m not sure yet. What I’d really need,” he added, and flipped through a folder with a scowl, “is to study one before it’s destroyed. But we ran out of charge cells half an hour ago, and the rebels have been advancing ever since.”
“Clever bastards,” the captain murmured, adjusting the cannon where it sat on his hip. “Marco, order a new shipment of cells and inform General Tilcot of this development.”
“Already done, sir,” Marco said with a smug smile. “And the general is on the way. Said he’d like to see this for himself.”
From the corner of my eye, I watched the captain’s lip curl, and I was the only one who heard him say, “I’ll just bet he does.” And louder, “It’s hard to imagine they could’ve come up with a viable defense,” he said, and turned dark eyes down. Idly checking the mechanisms of his cannon, avoiding eye contact as he busied himself with the menial task. “In the meantime, allow me to charge your cells, gentlemen.”
Both soldiers removed chunky black boxes from their weapons and handed them over without complaint or hesitation. Almost eager as they watched.
Just as it had with the cannon, the internal features of the cells lit up the instant it touched the captain’s skin. An intense, glowing green I could see through my lids no matter how hard I squeezed my eyes shut.
And the burn.
It burrowed deeper. Sinking beneath my skin and into the bone where it charred my meat. Passing my elbows in a brief flare, before it receded back to simmer in my wrists. My throat.
The captain’s bark of laughter surprised me, but when he tossed the charge cells back to his soldiers and spun, scooping me up in his arms, I gasped. Stupefied when he bent to claim my lips in a searing, blatant display of ownership that was met with jeers of encouragement from the gathered soldiers. “The things I’m going to do with you,” he murmured, and flexed. Making me feel the bulge of angry possession where it was trapped behind his slacks. Throbbing, held barely in check. And then, louder, so his men might hear, “Rebel scum aren’t going to know what’s hit them, boys!”
The men cheered.
But my blood ran cold.
Clotted and thick in my veins, for although I could feel a whisper of the captain’s eager glee, I couldn’t help the way my eyes strayed. Pulse pounding high at the back of my throat, I searched the horizon for the rebels. The Elorans who would die by my hand, because of the man who’d claimed me for the empire. A man who meant to use my power for murder.
“We’d better stop here, sir,” Gabe said when we reached the crumbling, burnt-out shell of what might have once been a park. Crouching behind a low wall, he added, “Don’t want to give them the advantage in this half-light.”
“How close are they?” the captain asked in an undertone, scanning the area.
Gabe jerked the muzzle of his weapon. “Few hundred meters north, sir. Just past that statue. Got the rest of the unit waiting behind those buildings with the last of our charge cells. Ready to flank ‘em if they’re stupid enough to make another push forward,” he said, nodding to the abandoned houses behind us.
“Perfect,” the captain said, and without warning, went utterly stiff. His shoulders rigid, tension building in every line of his frame.
Startled by the sudden change, I tried to taste that pillar of elite power. Tried to see through his eyes and found nothing but what he’d left anchored in my blood and sinew. My senses blind to all but Captain Asher Rawlings.
The crunch of heavy, approaching boots made me jump and I spun just in time to see a face I hated before he spoke.
“Gentlemen,” General Tilcot said, leering as he glared down the length of his nose. Eyes fixed to me when he too knelt behind the crumbling shelf of ruined concrete.
“Come for the show?” the captain asked without taking his eyes off the field.
But I heard nothing else of their whispered rivalry, for the creature skulking in the general’s wake claimed every forgotten ounce of my attention.
The Head Priestess.
Consumed in the general’s shadow, she was a shell of the woman I’d been taught to fear. No longer the leader of the temple my father had hidden me from since the day my status as a priestess had begun to manifest.
Instead, her head was bowed. Eyes downcast, her shoulders slumped and curled, protective of what little she had left. Whatever spark remained that kept breath moving in her chest.
Broken.
The word echoed through my skull. A perfect description of the creature I couldn’t bring myself to look away from.
“Are…” I swallowed. Wet my throat and tried again. “Are you okay?” I whispered, and heard nothing of the men discussing strategies to subdue the rebels. My gaze fixed to the sallow, empty face before me.
She flinched, but that was all.
“I’m sorry,” I pressed, knowing it wasn’t enough. It would never be enough… wasn’t so much as a start.
But when she turned liquid blue eyes up, blinking as the ghost of an understanding smile lit her pale face, I knew it was… something.
“Quit your stalling, Asher,” the general said and broke the spell. “We need a prisoner or two for the inauguration of the new elites.” A smug little smirk tugged at the edge of his lips. “I’ve managed to entice the capitol this year, which means we might just have ourselves a royal visit. Let’s see what you can do with our wildcat.”
“She’s my wildcat, sir,” the captain retorted beneath his breath. Irritated and sulking, but to Marco, he said, “Take her to cover, but make sure she’s got a good view.”
Marco’s grip landed on my shoulder. “With pleasure, sir.”
I slapped his hand away, set my teeth, and said, “I won’t let you do this.”
The captain blinked. Tearing his gaze from the field, he turned to face me with a slow roll of his neck. A viper’s smile drawn tight across his lips. “Is that so? Tell me, priestess,” he drawled, and sent the full might of his power pounding through my veins. Making me smolder from the inside out, skin searing with the burn of submission that lit my very blood ablaze. And then he forced me to my knees before an audience of men who devoured every instant of the confrontation, and said, “How exactly do you plan to stop me? And please…” He paused, extended one finger to trace a line between my breasts. “Be explicit.”
Scowling, I refused to blink, trying with all my might to fight his influence. To ignore the trail of blazing flesh left in his wake and gain some equal standing.
The lick of dark flames stroked at the backside of my ribs, the captain filling me from the inside. Making sure I felt it when he rose to the unspoken challenge. That I was with him when his head tipped to one side, tongue darting out to wet his lips…
… when he forced me to bow.
His point made, the weight of his influence evaporated. Leaving me gasping and trembling where I’d been submitted in the dirt. On my knees. Unable to find the courage to lift my head and see the gloating, Caledonian smirks I knew were weighing me down.
Strong fingers wrapped around my elbow and the captain drew me to my feet. Pressing my cheek to his chest so I might hear the heavy thump of a heart I wished would stop beating. “It’ll get easier,” he murmured, tangling his fingers in a sheet of silky, silver-blonde hair just to tug my head back. To force our eyes to meet. “Accepting your place at my feet.” He smoothed my hair back, clearing my forehead before his thumb dropped to trace the ridge of my left cheekbone. “As mine.”
A hiccup spilled over my lips, voice strained and fragile, but still, I said, “No,” with all the hatred I could muster.
He grinned, showing teeth. “Fire and fury, Mila,” he whispered, reminding me of his threat to turn a coin. He spun me then, sending me stumbling into Marco’s arms and said, “To the barracks with a view, if you please.”
Marco engaged his weapon and tapped the muzzle to his brow. “Yes, sir.”
“Sasha, you too,” the general said, and flicked his wrist at the Head Priestess, dismissing her. Watching me with murky eyes.
With a shiver, I turned away. Not willing to test the captain where the general might be motivated to assume my punishment.
Cool, dry fingers slipped between mine, unwinding my clenched fist.
It was the Head Priestess. Her touch soothing to the inferno of tempered flames. The helpless, seething mass of hatred I couldn’t act upon calmed by her offer of… something.
A thing only another priestess might understand, for we were to be made to watch the murder of innocents. Made to participate.
To watch, and know the blood spilled was blood we’d be forced to wear into the Void between this life and the next.
Marco guided us to the shoddy headquarters building, holding the door as if a Caledonian soldier had any idea what it was to be a gentleman. “By the windows,” he said, and pulled the Head Priestess’ chair out, offering an upturned palm as she perched on the ledge of a three-legged stool and set sightless eyes to the pockmarked wreckage before us.
A sight she’d seen often enough not to be alarmed by it. Desensitized by the carnage.
I cleared my throat, ignoring the wave of numb terror washing over my skin. “Baby-sitting duty suits you,” I snipped, and crossed my arms over my breasts. Jaw clenched, manacles stuffed out of sight. Into my armpits.
Marco lit another cigarette, took a drag, and mirrored my posture. Bumping one hip against the counter, his back to the row of windows as he watched me. Amusement flickering across his face. “Wouldn’t call it that,” he said at length, exhaling a cloud of sweet smoke in a jet toward the ceiling.
I sneered. “What else could it possibly be? You’re in here, made to watch with the slaves,” I spat, “while the menfolk do the killing.”
“Or,” Marco returned, and let me see the flash of slightly crooked teeth, “Captain Rawlings has assigned his best soldier to safe-guard his most valuable asset in a less than ideal situation.”
I whirled to face him, clenched fists held stiff at my sides. “That man cares nothing for my safety,” I hissed, fury spattering between the points of my modified canines. “He isn’t capable of it.”
Marco shrugged. “Not sure the distinction matters all that much.”
“And why would it?” I asked, a bark of bitter laughter bursting free of my lips. “Nothing matters as long as the empire has access to their precious assets, is that it?”
Taking another deep drag, the soldier’s smirk became a grin. “Now you’re getting it.” A tendril of smoke curled from his nostrils before he snorted, and said, “Not sure what you’ve got to complain about, lady wildcat. You were rescued from a life of struggle and starvation, living in the forest with nothing and no one. And now?” His hands flew out, an all-encompassing gesture that swallowed our surroundings. “Luxury, food, and security in exchange for power your people couldn’t even use without an elite to harvest it.”
Shock rendered me mute. My lips working around a stupefied silence. That this soldier thought so little of the women who’d been stolen from a life of peace and altruism? Women who’d been made to kill for a country that wasn’t their own, whose power of healing had been so corrupted by warmongers.
Caledonian propaganda. Indoctrination for evils the average citizen hadn’t thought to ask forgiveness for.
“That’s”—I shook my head, rubbing at the burn in my throat as I searched for a rebuttal, and failed.
But a moment later, the burn became something else. A reminder of what it had felt like when the chains were first bound to my skin, when I’d lost everything at the captain’s hands. Incinerating heat that didn’t scorch looped around my throat and wrists, the glow from my Tritan chains lit up Marco’s face.
I couldn’t even scream. Couldn’t only gape at Marco’s awed, slack-jawed expression and know my veins were bulging with molten fire that had traveled up, over my forearms, past my elbows on its way to cauterize my heart and wrap it in a beautiful, inert cast of pure gold.
“Such power,” Marco whispered, and turned to watch the window. “Come, lady wildcat. This is what you were meant for.”
But I couldn’t move. Paralyzed in a tomb of complete agony, my lungs seized solid and immobile as the gold crept and wormed. Crackling beneath my skin, baking my flesh.
And then three things happened all at once.
Pure, unfiltered torment tore through my chest—and was gone in an instant, leaving me utterly boneless. Drained to the point of collapse.
A flash of blinding green ignited the distant field, imprinting the contents of the headquarters building into my retinas as the world tilted back on its axis.
My knees kissed the floor, unnoticed in the wake of a mighty explosion.
“Holy shit!” Marco hollered, whopping along with the rest of the soldiers packed into the safety of the headquarters building. “That was incredible! Lady wildcat, you’re—”
But that was all I knew before the last speck of light faded from my vision and everything fell into darkness.