Anya Bast - Witch Heart

Kai and Tevan exchanged a glance that let her know she was correct.

Encouraged, she continued. "Keep me alive and I'll tell you everything I know of the Ytrayi and of Yrystrayi. If the Atrika haven't defeated the Ytrayi, the information could be essential to you. After all I've lived at Yrystrayi my entire life as handmaiden to Rue himself. I slept in his quarters. I ate with him, studied with him. There is no one who knows him better than I do."

Tevan pursed his lips. "Information from Rue's pet. It's an interesting notion."

"I know all of Yrystrayi's inner workings." It was true, but, of course, she had no intention of giving them the correct information. There was no place in the entire universe, not any of them, where the Atrika could be allowed to rule.

Tevan pressed a huge hand on her chest and forced her back down. "You are at our mercy, Claire, and not in a position to negotiate. We will torture this information from you, should you live through the extraction of the elium. The elium is more valuable than your knowledge of Yrystrayi. Do you understand?"

Yes, she understood.

"Now lie back and be still and, for the sake of all the Houses, keep your mouth shut."

Did they expect her to be passive in this?

She reached for the elium, barely touched it, and found hard fingers in her hair, head yanked to the side, throat exposed.

Fangs sunk deep.

Pain flared along her nerve endings and venom rushed through her veins. Hot. Metallic. The taste of it sat behind her teeth, made her gag.

Claire screamed. Memory flashed.

Standing in the center of the bare, well-warded training room with Rue in front of her. His golden eyes boring holes into hers. His magick ripe and hot in the room, tingling through her as he sank his power into the seat of her magick — twisted here, prodded right there.. .

The first time he'd done it, it had almost felt like rape — his will asserted over hers, her protests falling on deaf ears. She'd fought the insertion of his power into her body, had squirmed from him and ran. He'd forced it into her anyway, gentling her with softly spoken words. It was the only time he ever spoken so sweetly to her, when he'd wanted her to settle down and allow him to mold her.

Over time she'd learned to accept the sessions with Rue, and as her magick had grown in power, she'd actually started to look forward to them. Although Rue had never provided her with complete answers to her questions, never explained exactly what he was doing.

He'd most certainly never opened up to her emotionally as the parental figure she supposed she'd been longing for. The Ytrayi weren't good at that, though in the privacy of their romantic relationships, with their mates, she knew there was a degree of shared emotion, caring, even love.

But in her relationship with Rue — owner and pet, master and slave — true openness of feeling never evolved. Even though she'd always known — well, she thought she'd known — that Rue cared for her well-being on some level. She'd believed that up until the day he'd imbued her with the elium and sent her tumbling into a foreign world.

Where was Rue now? If he still lived, would he care that she was about to be tortured, probably killed, by these two Atrika? And why did she care what Rue felt for her anyway? Why was she even thinking of him in this moment at all?

Probably, because he was one of the few people in her life she'd ever formed a relationship with, no matter how dysfunctional.

Probably because it was too painful to think about Adam. Especially about losing him.

Adam.

Pain lanced through her and her spine bowed. Right after the flash of agony, blessed numbness started at her toes and worked its way up her body. Her mind, already befuddled from the venom, flashed again to parts of her life — watching her mother die, meeting Ty.

Then Adam's face filled her mind. Instead of balking from the fear of losing him, she embraced the image and held it close.

Adam smiling at her, Adam glancing at her, annoyed that she was endangering herself. The curve of his lips, the light in his eyes, the warm glow of caring he'd bestowed on her at the gas station right before she'd been taken.

Claire was glad that was the last memory she had of him. It warmed her even as her body went cold from the demon poison making its way through her bloodstream.

Her vision blurred. She blinked and the color of the world bled away to black and white. The numbness and chill in her limbs and body unfortunately did not prevent her from feeling the hard grip of the demon's hands on her arms and legs, or the heat of Kai's breath as he leaned down and examined her eyes.

All sound was muffled, as though she existed underwater. Tevan and Kai spoke to each other in clipped, harsh tones. She could tell by the looks on their faces and the abrupt way they spoke that they were not working well together. The information filtered through the thickness of her thoughts as important and she filed it away.

If she was able to endure what was to come, if she lived through the day, maybe she could use it against them in some way.

Demon magick slipped inside her, like Rue's had so many years ago. Claire closed her eyelids with effort, unable to manipulate any other part of her anatomy. Every fiber of her will screamed at her to fight, fight, flee! But, of course, that was impossible. Instead she fought to give in and allow it, the way she'd taught herself to allow Rue's magick inside her.

Claire had learned over the years that when she couldn't avoid something distasteful it was better to bend a little and permit it. If she couldn't bend, she might break.

And she wasn't about to let these monsters break her.

Tevan's power touched the seat of her magick, flicked out and tasted it like a snake's tongue. She shuddered deep within. Undoubtedly, he found the flavor to his liking, just as he would find her flesh delicious to his taste buds. He hesitated a moment, long enough to make her wonder just how strong a handle he had on his control, then he moved to the elium.

The elium flared under the touch of demon power, thrumming deep within her. The core of the magick nestled in the heart of her, like a pearl embedded in the meat of an oyster. It responded like-to-like and Claire could tell that the elium wanted to go to Tevan. It reached out like a child wanting its mother, preferring to dwell in the heart of a pure demon than in a mere halfling.

Claire wanted it to go, too.

Tevan stroked the elium carefully, like a mother bird protecting a fragile egg. It was as close to caring as she'd ever known an Atrika could get. It made sense, she supposed, that it was a weapon an Atrika would show tenderness for.

Around the edges of the elium, she sensed how her magick had interwoven with it. Parts of the seat of her magick were tangled with the outer threads of the elium.

Tevan went straight for those threads and started to pull them apart. White-hot needles of pain stabbed through the center of her. Had she not been paralyzed, she would have screamed until her lungs exploded. This was like Micah's spell quadrupled, performed with no finesse or caring.

Unconsciousness threatened but was only snatched away. Claire knew the venom would keep blessed unawareness from her. It was a well-known side effect.

Tevan tried again to unthread the elium from the seat of her magick, and again agony seared her. For every tendril of power Tevan managed to untangle, another wrapped tight.

Her mind swamped with pain, she considered insanity. It might be the only way she could get through this. A wild giggle rose within her, unable to be voiced.