Chapter 1
Lirael
Present
Sebastian's hand released, and I hit the ground hard enough to jar my teeth. My knees buckled on impact, palms scraping against cold stone as I caught myself, and for one precious second I allowed myself to breathe—really breathe—without his fingers crushing the air from my lungs.
Bastard, I thought viciously, tasting blood where I'd bitten my tongue. Arrogant, self-satisfied bastard.
It didn't last.
"I don't care that you're playing dumb," he said, his voice carrying that particular tone of bored amusement I was already learning to hate, the kind of tone that said he found my resistance entertaining rather than threatening, like a cat watching a mouse scurry in circles before delivering the killing blow.
Oh, you'll care, I promised silently, keeping my face carefully blank even as rage burned hot and acidic in my chest. You'll care when I burn your entire world down around your ears, you smug son of a bitch.
I looked up just in time to see him pull something from his vest pocket—a collar that looked, to anyone else's eyes, like nothing more than an elegant silver necklace, its surface etched with delicate patterns that could have been simple decorative scrollwork. But I knew better. I could feel the magic humming beneath that innocent facade, could sense the trap waiting to spring closed around my throat.
No. No, no, no—
A Dampening Collar. The kind that didn't just mark you as property—it made you property, binding you to your owner through magic and technology I didn't fully understand and couldn't hope to break. To anyone who glanced at it, it would look like expensive jewelry, a pretty bauble around a pretty throat. Only the one who held its key would see it for what it truly was.
Fuck.
I scrambled backward on instinct, but he was already moving, one hand fisting in my tangled silver hair while the other brought the collar to my throat. Pain lanced across my scalp as he yanked my head back, and I wanted to scream, wanted to claw his eyes out, wanted to do anything except what I actually did—which was freeze like the helpless prey animal he thought I was.
The metal was cold against my skin, and then it clicked—a sound so soft it should have been insignificant, but it echoed in my ears like a cell door slamming shut.
No. God, no. Not again. Not another cage—
The patterns on the collar flared to life for just a heartbeat—visible only to me and to him—before settling into dormancy, looking once again like nothing more than an ornate necklace. But I felt something deep inside me shift, like a door closing on a part of myself I'd always taken for granted, and the constant hum of nature's energy—the whisper of plants, the pulse of living things around me—suddenly muted, as if someone had wrapped my senses in thick wool and shoved me underwater.
The loss was so immediate, so visceral, that I actually gasped. It felt like losing a limb, like going deaf or blind, like having part of my soul carved out and locked away where I couldn't reach it.
Breathe, I ordered myself, even as panic clawed at my throat. Don't let him see. Don't give him the satisfaction. Breathe, you stupid bitch, just breathe—
Sebastian held up his pocket watch, and I watched in horror as the black diamond at its center began to glow with a faint silver light—visible only to us, I realized, hidden from any casual observer. The two objects resonated, their lights pulsing in perfect synchronization, and I understood with sick certainty that they were paired, bonded, that this antique timepiece was now the only key to my freedom, and it was in the hands of a man who looked at me like I was an interesting insect he was considering pinning to a board.
"There," he murmured, his breath warm against my ear in a way that made my skin crawl. "Now you're mine. You destroyed my offering to Derek, so from now on, you're going to be my new pet. My name is Sebastian and I'm your new master. Remember that."
Pet. The word hit me like a slap. Three years I'd spent in the Foundation being called "specimen" and "subject" and "it," and I'd thought nothing could be worse, but pet—that was somehow more degrading, more personal, because a specimen was clinical and distant while a pet was something you owned because you wanted to, because it pleased you to keep it.
I'm going to kill you, I thought with crystalline clarity, staring up into those amber eyes. I don't know how yet, and I don't know when, but I swear on everything I've lost that one day I'm going to watch the life drain out of those smug fucking eyes.
---
Two Hours Earlier
The jungle was trying to kill me, which was almost funny considering I was supposed to have a natural affinity for plants.
Some affinity, I thought bitterly as another thorned vine lashed across my forearm, leaving a line of blood that would heal too slowly thanks to the Gene-Lock still pulsing its poison through my veins. These bastards are as eager to see me dead as their masters.
Black Reef Island. Eden Base. The Genesis Foundation's crown jewel of supernatural trafficking, hidden in plain sight on a private island that didn't exist on any official map, surrounded by reefs sharp enough to gut a ship and currents strong enough to drown an Olympic swimmer. For three years, this island had been my prison, my torture chamber, my own personal hell dressed up in the Foundation's pristine white corridors and clinical efficiency.
And tonight—finally, after months of planning and one perfectly timed opportunity—I was getting the fuck out.
Static Day, they called it. One day each year when the island's security systems underwent mandatory updates, when the guard rotations shifted to accommodate the technical staff, when the impenetrable fortress showed the tiniest crack in its armor. I'd been counting down to this day for six months, ever since Damian had whispered the information to me during one of his carefully orchestrated "inspections," his English accent never wavering even as he slipped me the access codes that would open my cell.
"Twenty-three hundred hours, Lirael," he'd said, his grey eyes holding mine with an intensity that made my chest tight. "The north perimeter cameras cycle offline for exactly four minutes during the system handshake. That's your window. Don't waste it."
I hadn't.
The white dress they'd given me—some sick approximation of purity that the Foundation seemed to think appropriate for their "specimens"—was already torn and filthy, the hem shredded where I'd caught it on branches, the fabric stained with mud and blood and the green smears of crushed vegetation. It hung off my shoulders in tatters, barely decent, but I didn't care. Modesty was a luxury for people who weren't running for their lives.
The alarm had started wailing two minutes after I'd cleared my cell, which meant someone had noticed faster than I'd hoped. The sound of it—that high, keening shriek that meant specimen loose, all units respond—sent ice through my veins and adrenaline flooding my system in equal measure.
Move. Keep moving. Don't stop, don't think, just run—