I slide the mask over her face. “Breathe deep, little creature.” She flops as though boneless. I nearly expect her to crumble to dust she is so slight. “Aster,” I say her name as though I’ve said it a million times before. “Little Aster.”
She inhales the reversing gas. It awakens her slowly. Her eyes move beneath their lids, then they open, her red lips parting on a small exhale as she gazes up at me.
“My king.” She smiles. She fucking smiles at me… “You can see me. You are here.”
I stare at her inebriated expression; the gas has hit her hard. Discomfort crawls along my fingertips, taking hold of my veins and coiling them in tight knots.
“I thought you said you would eat more.”
She swallows when her face comes within an inch of mine. “I-I think that I forgot to.”
Fuck. “You’re weak,” I say to her. I expect a wince or a tear, any kind of response, but I get an immediate acceptance of the truth in a sad nod.
“I tried to be strong. I tried to survive.”
So close to her violet-coloured eyes, staring at her, staring at me, it is in this moment that words carve through my cranium. Words I tried to forget from a time that fades each year with my humanity. ‘Strong things survive because they are strong. Fragile things survive despite it.’
It can’t be.
The baby we took from the Common community? It must be. An Opi allergy is rare. Her violet eyes, black hair, the age sits right… Fuck.
“You will look after her.” Her eyes hit mine like a hammer to a skull. She asked me—directly. I should say no; it doesn’t concern me, but I don’t. I want to be their saviour— her saviour.
“I will.”
It was an ignorant declaration from a time long before I painted my soul with the blood of hundreds and let it dry to a dark crust. Perhaps it was my last selfless moment.
My last slither of humanity.
Her hair falls like an ink-black river over my hand, my fingers, unbidden, moving through the thin, silky strands. “Do you still want to come with me?”
“Yes.” In a daze, her gaze losing constancy, she lifts a hand to touch my face as though to check I am real. “You are here.” I clench my jaw as her soft fingertips caress the rough surface. “You’re so hard.”
My heart squeezes.
I often forget the organ exists outside of firing my pulse for violence. It is too buried in layers of Xin De skin and muscles, lead and bullets, indiscriminate deaths and welcomed evil. My heart isn’t often reached, no, affected by anything.
Forcing my eyes from her, I survey the warehouse; one Guard is taking evidence for Cairo; three are hauling unconscious Endigos outside; Kong is staring at me.
Fucker.
“What’s happened here?” Kong asks, approaching me while I cradle this tiny creature in my arms. A Common Silk Girl with the audacity to touch me—stroke me—without permission.
I can barely look at him.
Scowling, I shake her hand from my face, and it drops. “I’ll have the doctors look her over when we return to The Estate.”
He stops. “We are bringing them back with us?”
Them? I look across at the other one being carried by a Guard. A redhead with a full body—perfect proportions for a Silk Girl.
“Cairo wants heirs. Yes?” I stare at Kong again. “We have two Silk Girls here. That’s a complete set for my Collective. Why return them to the aviary when we already have them.”
It wasn’t a question; I don’t know what bullshit it was.
“What a successful campaign, then?” Kong mentions. “It couldn’t have gone any better if Cairo had planned it himself.”
I hiss, “I thought you wanted a damn heir.”
“I do. If this is how it happens then good. I only want to make sure you see the big picture every time. Not just the pieces but the player, too. What do you know about this Silk Girl?” Suspicious, Kong gets inches closer, but instinct forces my hand out, stopping him before he gets anywhere near the fragile girl in my arms.
He lifts his hands. “Easy”—his cunning gaze measures my expression— “I was going to take her to the other tank for you, Sire.”
“I’m quite capable.” I don’t like the idea of handing her over for reasons I do not know, and don’t care to dissect at present. It’s simple. Surely. She’s my property, and her current condition is unacceptable.
The CR Guard follows me, focused on capturing such a moment of pure altruism from their king. Yeah, I hate every fucking second. I stride to the tank, using my body to shield her from the winds.
I stare straight ahead, but feel her eyes mapping my face, hear her heart’s rhythm race, fearful or anxious, so I hold her tighter.
“Close your eyes,” I demand, and she does.
Needing to focus, I climb the outside of my tank with her scooped to my chest. The wind blows her black hair around, whipping it through the red gale.
Talons scrape on metal.
On top of the tank, Odio opens his enormous wings to hit the desert skies, but stops. Intrigued by the creature in my arms, he hovers on the current.
She has her eyes squeezed shut as he looks her over, head cocking, beady gaze shuffling. He blocks the wind to get a better view.
I climb inside and shut the hatch.
Chapter Seven
Rome
She opens her eyes just as the hatch closes. Her head rolls with the gas, seemingly heavier than her neck can handle.
I set her down on the green cushioned bench and ignore the backward glances from the Gunner at the front. This is foolishness. Bringing her into my space. She has already occupied too much of my interest and now I am practically alone with her. This isn’t good.
The first time I saw her at the parlour, she walked backward into me. I thought she was pathetic in that second, a small, insignificant little Common girl who would never be selected for my Collective…
Then she looked up at me.
Those eyes…
She didn’t drop to her knees; she leaned into me, spoke out of turn, and touched me without asking. She rambled about flowers and cities, too many damn spare thoughts, and I wasn’t bored at all, a rare state for me, especially in the company of silly, little girls.
So, intrigued as I was, I felt the need to thank her for that, for making me feel something.
And now I know.
She is bound to the fibres of my last human cells, the parts of me that dwindle from nearly two decades ago when I was an idiotic boy who wanted to be a saviour.
She stares at me as though keen to map my bone structure. Blinking the cloud of gases and dust from the warehouse, my nictitating membrane slides across my cornea. She follows the sweep of the eyelid, seemingly fascinated.
I clench my teeth. Hate it. A shiver rushes the length of my body. The intimacy she presses without knowing is utterly torturous.
“Have you been inside a tank before?” I ask, sliding down the bench, adding space between us. Space that adds a much-needed reprieve from the intoxicating way her scent rouses my cock.
She is slumped backward against the inner wall, barely propped up, and I notice she holds her wrist protectively. “No, my king. Never.”