Chapter 5
Lirael
I reached up with one hand to catch raindrops, watching them pool in my palm like tiny mirrors reflecting moonlight, and felt something in my chest crack open. Not breaking—opening. Like a door I'd kept locked for three years finally swinging wide.
And with it came the fury.
Cold. Clear. Crystalline.
I'm out, I thought, and the rage that had sustained me through three years of captivity crystallized into something sharper, cleaner, more focused than it had ever been. I'm out, and everyone who put me in there is going to pay. Victoria. Her parents. Every guard who looked the other way. Every scientist who took notes while they tortured me.
You're all going to burn.
But underneath the rage, my analytical mind was already working, filing information away for later use.
Someone else wanted me. Someone powerful enough that even the Genesis Foundation had been acting on their orders. Someone who'd wanted to keep me for "study"—which, knowing this place, meant even worse torture than what I'd already endured.
That was useful. That was leverage. That was a threat I could potentially use against Sebastian if I played my cards right.
Think, Lirael. Think. You're not dead yet. You're not back in a cage yet. You just traded one captor for another, but this one doesn't know what you're capable of. This one underestimates you.
Use that.
Sebastian carried me up the gangway of the most expensive yacht I'd ever seen. The Obsidian—I could see the name emblazoned in silver letters on the hull—was a floating fortress, all sleek black lines and tinted windows that reflected the storm-dark sky. The staff—because of course someone like him had an entire staff—stood at attention on the polished deck, their faces carefully neutral even as their eyes widened at the sight of me.
Yeah, that's right, I thought bitterly. Get a good look. Girl in a prison uniform, soaking wet, wearing a collar that marks her as property. I'm sure you've never seen anything like it before.
The judgment in their eyes made me want to scream. Made me want to tell them that I had three advanced degrees' worth of knowledge in my head, that I'd built a multinational black-market network from inside a fucking cage, that I could hack into any system they cared to name and bring it crashing down.
But I kept my mouth shut and my expression blank, because that was the smart play. That was survival.
He carried me through a maze of corridors—teak floors, ambient lighting, the faint hum of engines beneath my feet—before depositing me on a leather couch in what appeared to be the main cabin without ceremony. I immediately tried to scramble to the far end, putting as much distance between us as possible.
Get away get away get away—
The genetic lock activated the moment I got more than six feet away.
The pain was worse this time. Or maybe I was just more aware of it, more conscious of what was happening. Either way, it felt like my nervous system was being shredded, like every neuron in my body was firing at once in a screaming chorus of wrong wrong wrong.
I heard myself cry out—a broken, animal sound that I couldn't suppress—before I could stop it.
No. Damn it, no. Don't show weakness. Don't—
The pain drove me back onto the cushions, my body curling in on itself as I tried to breathe through the aftershocks. My hands were shaking. My vision was swimming. And I could feel tears—actual tears, the first I'd shed in three years—gathering in my eyes from the sheer overwhelming agony of it.
Don't cry. Don't you dare cry. He wants to see you cry, wants to see you break. Don't give him the satisfaction. Don't—
"I'd suggest," Sebastian said mildly, settling into the chair across from me like we were having tea instead of him torturing me with nanobot-induced nerve pain, "that you get comfortable. We have a long voyage ahead, and fighting the lock will only make you miserable."
Fuck you, I thought, glaring at him through the curtain of my wet hair. Fuck you and your comfortable suggestions and your calm voice and your stupid perfect face.
My chest was heaving. My whole body was shaking. And I couldn't muster the energy to do anything except hate him with every fiber of my being.
He looked completely unruffled, like carrying off stolen property and threatening to burn down international auction houses was just another Tuesday for him.
Probably is, I thought bitterly. Probably does this shit all the time. Rich, powerful, handsome—I bet he's never been told 'no' in his entire privileged life.
He leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees, and studied me with the kind of focus that made my skin crawl. Then, slowly and deliberately, he reached out and ran one finger down my cheek.
I flinched. Couldn't help it. His touch made my skin crawl, made every instinct I possessed scream at me to run, to fight, to do something other than sit here and let him touch me.
But the collar meant I couldn't run. And fighting had only brought more pain.
So I sat there and endured it, and hated myself almost as much as I hated him.
"Let's play a game," he said softly, and oh God, I didn't like the sound of that. "I'm going to see if I can make you talk. Make any sound at all—words, whimpers, screams, I'm not picky."
Over my dead body.
His thumb brushed across my lower lip, and I had to physically fight the urge to bite him. "Do you know why I want to hear your voice, little elf?"
Because you're a controlling psychopath who gets off on breaking people?
I kept my mouth firmly shut, but I couldn't stop the way my breath hitched when his fingers moved to my nose, pinching it closed and cutting off my air.
Son of a bitch—
"Because," he continued, his voice dropping to a whisper, "I own you now. Every part of you. Your body, your time, your silence. And I always claim what's mine. So the question isn't whether you'll speak for me—it's just a matter of when."
Never, I promised silently, even as my lungs started to burn. I'll die before I give you what you want.
He held my nose closed for another few seconds—long enough that spots started dancing in my vision, long enough that panic started clawing up my throat—before releasing me abruptly.
I gasped for air, hating the desperate sound it made, hating the way he smiled like he'd won something.
He stood, straightening his cuffs as if we'd just had a perfectly civil conversation. "Clean her up," he ordered the hovering staff. "Feed her. Find her something to wear that doesn't make her look like an escaped convict. And someone check if elves have any special dietary requirements. I'd hate for my new pet to get sick from improper care."
Pet. There's that word again. I really, really hate that word.
He turned toward the private stateroom at the rear of the cabin, then paused, glancing back at me over his shoulder. "Oh, and one more thing. That collar? It's not coming off. Not tomorrow, not next week, not ever. So I'd suggest you make peace with your new reality, little beast. You're mine now, and I don't give back my toys."
The stateroom door closed behind him with a soft click that sounded like a death knell.
I sat there on the couch, soaking wet and shaking with exhaustion and rage and the first stirrings of real fear, and thought: You have no idea what you just bought, Nightlord. No idea at all.
You think I'm a pet? A toy? A frightened little beast who's going to roll over and obey?
Fine. Let him think that. Let him underestimate me. I've been playing dumb for three years—I can keep it up a little longer.