She wanted that. Wanted someone to confide in, and who might confide in her.

Defying her body’s juddering protests, she climbed his body until she pressed her lips against his strong jaw. Stubble abraded her lips with gentle sensation. He’d always been immaculately clean shaven in her company. Just how long had they been awake and, for the most part, suffering?

“Please,” she whispered against his skin. “I don’t want to be alone anymore.”

His big body was fiercely powerful, but at her hushed words, he shuddered. His head listed toward hers, until their cheeks met. The jaw muscle by his ear bunched, as hard as teeth and metal and Hellix’s strokes across her back.

“I’m not alone,” he said.

She frowned, gripped his unblemished forearm. “I never said you were. That’s proof, though. You feel it, too. Being isolated here. I’ve seen how the others avoid you. They move aside when you pass. Respect. Not companionship.”

“I have what I want.”

“But you needed to be restrained. What did you want that you couldn’t have?” The defined ridges of his forearm tightened until he made a fist—open, then closed, as if trying to reawaken a deadened limb. Nynn put her hand over his restlessness. This time they shuddered into one another and connected in a way that resonated behind her breastbone like the bass notes of a cello. Fear and hope—hope, that evil thing. “Leto, I’m being torn to shreds. My life, my thoughts, now my body again. You want me to be your partner in the Cages. That means trusting me. And I need to trust you. Please.”

His swallow was audible. “I didn’t want them to hurt you.”

She might’ve taken comfort in his words had he said them with any more passion. She would know the truth, even if she needed to pull it out of his mouth with both hands. “You’ve hurt me. And you’ve punished me. What’s the difference?”

“Because you’re mine.”

She reared back to look into his eyes. He’d already looked away. Blank again.

“My neophyte,” he added quietly. “Mine to train as I see fit.”

“So, a beating is worse than what you threatened with Kilgore.”

“You said it yourself. I gave you an out. You took it.” He’d stopped stroking her hair, instead cupping the backs of her thighs. He pulled her closer, and she accepted that comfort. “I’ve worked to make you stronger. You’d be able to stare anyone down, with red in your eyes. Even those first few days, I never doubted we could make that happen.”

Maybe it was pain or fatigue—no telling—but Nynn blinked a surprising sheen of tears. “And now?”

“Now they’ve undone everything. Made you a victim again.”

She found her same ragged chuckle. She sounded insane. “I climbed that post to get free. Had you been anyone else, I would’ve died defending myself.” She sat up a little straighter, as much as her trembling, aching limbs would permit. With his jaw in her hands, she forced him to see her eyes. “I wouldn’t have been able to do that without your training. Sick as some of it’s been.”

“Necessary.”

“Fine. Necessary.” She touched his injured wrist again. “Tell me what happened. The real reason.”

“I didn’t want Hellix to hurt you. Or the doctor . . .” He turned to kiss her forehead. “Kilgore looked like a man should look. Turned on. Eager for release. It was disgusting but predictable. Whereas the doctor never changed that sinister expression.”

“Scrutiny . . . It’s all for posterity. How much can a person take?”

“That. Yes.” Another kiss. This time he didn’t pull away to talk. Just spoke against her skin, pushing his rasping words right into her mind. “I fought back. Tasers, napalm bullets—the whole arsenal.”

“I saw,” she forced out. “For a few moments, anyway. After?”

“I was chained over there, in that corner.”

Nynn looked toward where he indicated with his chin. “I never noticed them. Locks on the wall?”

“To force me to watch.”

She lifted his injured wrist and kissed the bruised skin on the tender inside. Then the other. “It was my fault. My impulse to try to play Kilgore’s game.”

“Maybe to start,” he said, shifting their positions. “But how can anyone predict what a man like Aster will do? No rules. No honor.”

“Do you see why I hate him so much?”

Leto nodded, then slowly, very slowly, got to his feet and helped her stand. She wavered. Clutched at him. She bowed her neck and pressed her dizzy, pain-spiked head against the chest plate of his armor. His muscles would be just as hard as that protective metal, only warm and pulsing with life. She shivered, then shivered again when he gingerly gripped her upper arms.

“I’d carry you,” he said, “but I think I’d do more damage than if you walked.”

“Walk where?”

“To the Cage. Turn off our collars for a while. It’ll speed the healing process.”

She dumbly followed him toward the wired gate entrance. He flipped a switch on the outside control panel. Step up. Walk inside. Breathe.

She gasped, but it sounded less like surprise or pain. More like freedom, no matter the bars and locks. She stumbled, then knitted her fingers into the wire mesh. Leto entered, too. She saw the exact moment when the collar released him from bondage. Pleasure washed across his expression, too potent to be concealed. Eyes shut, neck tilted toward the ceiling—he looked like a man who’d just come. Pure satisfaction.

He stood behind her and laced his hands over hers. His warmth layered across her back. Maybe that was the rush of sensation that came with being free again.

And to think she believed she’d never possessed a gift from the Dragon. Now she felt its power coursing through her body as strong and sure as her own thunderous heartbeat.

Leto was so careful. He didn’t touch her anywhere other than where their hands fused with the charged metal that gave them back what made them special. But his voice had always been a force, an enticement, a touch of its own.

“I can see why you hate him,” he said, as if their discussion about Dr. Aster had never ceased. “And how much danger Jack is in.”

A sob coughed out of her lungs, which burned as if she’d run for miles in the searing winter cold. “That’s the first . . .” She coughed again, leaned her head back to rest against his solid strength. “That’s the first time you’ve called him by his name.”

“Maybe it was time.” He let go of her hand and smoothed his fingers along both of her cheeks, back across her hair. He turned her, held her, would not let her look away. “You need to decide now, Nynn. Are you ready to do what you must?”

“Will you be here, too? I mean, an Indranan witch . . .”

“Yes. I’ll be here.”

A chill unlike any she’d ever known stole over her skin. Not even Leto’s nearness kept it away. But she had no other choice. She needed to control her powers, no matter the cost.

“Then, yes. Let me meet her.”

Within minutes, Leto had secured the gates to the training arena, locking Nynn inside. He couldn’t trust the guards, so he behaved as he always would. Champion of the Asters. With any luck, they wouldn’t notice his slight limp. Most of the napalm bullets had missed the mark, but one had pierced his thigh. The bullets didn’t go through flesh; they nestled just inside the skin and burned and burned.

Even with time spent in the Cage, they’d both be long to heal. They were in no shape to fight at top form. Not physically. Not mentally. Despite the embrace they’d shared, and the awkward kisses, they weren’t partners either. For the first time, he envied Silence and Hark. They were both Sath. Same clan. Same history and abilities. When they stepped into a Cage together, they moved and breathed as one. Unified and deadly.

He didn’t want that—not permanently. But to feel it just once?

I don’t want to be alone anymore.