She could feel their breath on her now. She could see the colored flecks in their eyes. Smell the sweat and blood on their skin. One of the men was sucking on a knuckle as if he couldn’t wait to taste her flesh.
They were a noose growing tighter.
Pulse hiccuping, Winter raised her hand to her throat where the soldier had touched her. She felt a prickly rope there. Tightening. Squeezing. She squeaked and tried to wrap her fingers around it, to form a barrier between the rope and her throat, but it was already too tight.
“Spoiled little princess,” one of the soldiers hissed, stooping down so she could feel his breath on her cheek. Winter shivered and knew her gaze was watery and pleading. “We don’t fight for princesses. We play with them.”
Alpha Strom smirked. “Ready to play?”
Fifty-Eight
Scarlet pushed Winter, hard, sending her sprawling to the floor with a cry. Through a veil of hair she watched Scarlet elbow one of the mutants in his nose. She reached for the gun beneath her hoodie, but the soldiers were already grabbing her, pinning her arms to the side. The gun fell uselessly to the ground.
A dozen enormous hands pulled Winter back to her feet. She hung limp in their hold, her legs too weak to carry her. She was shaking from head to foot, and the men were flickering in her vision. Engineered soldiers one moment and a pack of wild wolves the next. Prowling and baring their enormous fangs.
Scarlet screamed something. A battle cry. She was struggling like a caged tigress, hair flying, teeth snapping, while Winter hung, weak and brittle and trying to block out the vision before it overwhelmed her. Her head was heavy as moon rock and spinning as fast as an asteroid in orbit. Burdened with the brutal knowledge that this was real. They were going to die. They were going to be devoured.
The tears came on fast and overflowed quickly, leaking down her cheeks. “Why are you being so cruel? Ryu would not act like this. He would be ashamed of you.”
“Hold it together, Winter,” Scarlet growled.
The world hesitated. Dissolved into blackness before re-forming again. Winter knew she would collapse if they let her go, but she couldn’t find grounding in her own strength.
“Wait—I have an idea!” she said brightly, lifting her head. “Let us play a different game. Like when Jacin and I would play house. This one can be our pet.” Tipping forward, she tried to put her palm on the nearest soldier’s nose, but he jerked away from her, surprised.
She blinked at him. Trying to remember who he was. What he was. “No? Would you rather play fetch?”
His face turned from baffled to angry in half a second. He sneered, his teeth taking up half his face.
“What’s wrong with her?” someone spat.
“Or I’ll be the pet, if you prefer it.” She swayed against those holding her. “Sticks and bones, sticks and stones. We’ll play for hours, but I’ll never tire and I’ll always come back, I’ll always come back…” Her voice shattered. “Because Ryu always, always came back. Sticks and bones. Sticks and bones…”
“Lunar sickness,” someone murmured. Winter sought him, finding a warm-skinned soldier who could have been handsome before he’d been made so very ugly. He looked at her with the same hunger as any of them, but there also might have been sympathy.
Winter couldn’t remember what she’d said that was insane. What had they been talking about? Leaving? Weren’t they leaving? She wanted to leave. Or perhaps they’d been making dinner plans, hosting a cocktail party.
“That’s right,” said Scarlet. She was panting. “She refuses to manipulate anyone or to use her glamour, even when it would be highly beneficial. Unlike the people you serve, obviously.”
“It will not affect how she tastes,” someone yelled.
Winter started to giggle. They had all become animals now. Even Scarlet had turned wolfish, with pointed ears and a fluffy tail and flaming red fur. She turned her own muzzle up to the cavernous ceiling and sang, “And the Earth is full tonight, tonight, and the wolves all howl, aa-ooooooooooh…”
One of the hands—paws?—on her forearm loosened.
She howled again.
“A princess of Artemisia,” Alpha Strom muttered, “who does not use her gift? By choice?”
“She thinks it’s wrong to control people,” said Scarlet, “and she doesn’t want to end up like the queen. You can see the toll it’s taking on her.”
Winter’s voice cracked and she stopped howling. When she slumped again, the hands released her, letting her crash to her knees. She gasped in pain and looked around. Scarlet was once again Scarlet, and the men were once again soldiers. She blinked, and was grateful when the hallucination didn’t return.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I did not mean to interrupt your meal.”
Scarlet groaned. “When she says she’ll never manipulate you, she means it. And she does plan on giving you your freedom back. I doubt you’ll ever get such a promising offer again.”
The grate of ancient hinges startled Winter. The soldiers pulled apart. The huge iron doors creaked open and the soldiers separated, filing into neat rows fast as an oiled machine. Scarlet took the opportunity to snatch up her gun again, tucking it against her side.
Beyond the doors stood eight thaumaturges, one in second-tier red, the rest in black.
The red-coated thaumaturge, a man with silver-gray hair, saw Winter and Scarlet and smiled viper-like at them.