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  “Soup, General?” Crash held out a tray he’d been carrying on his palm, with two steaming bowls of vegetable stew with some kind of meat chunks, and crusts of bread picked up from our last stop. “Utar’s men hunted up some fenna from around here,” he added when I glanced at the stew.

  Usually Crash’s food, seasoned with a blend of his spices, made my mouth water, but now the smell of food turned my stomach.

  “Later, Crash. I—” I glanced at Setora, taking in her worn-out face, her deep breathing and decided not to wake her. “We’ll eat after she’s rested.”

  Crash opened his mouth like he was going to argue, probably to insist I needed to eat. I raised my brow, and he closed his mouth with a nod.

  “I’ll…uh…just leave this here for you, General. In case you change your mind.” He set the tray down and hobbled for the entrance of the tree.

  “Crash.”

  He turned.

  What had I meant to say? The kid had known this trip wouldn’t be a holiday when he’d signed on for it.

  “Get off that damn leg,” I told him. “Get Diamond or Emmy to help you with things. I don’t need another man dropping before we even reach Delta.”

  He grinned. “Yes, sir.”

  He made his way out of the hollow.

  I shook my head and stared across the room at Steel. We’d lost too damn much since we’d left the Grotto. How much more would we lose?

  Two men already dead and one who, if not for Doc’s care, could easily have left the Four with one less Brother. I had to keep the rest of us alive.

  I had to.

  Ignoring the food Crash had brought, I lay down beside Setora, propped my head up with the pelt so I could easily keep an eye on Steel, and gently pulled Setora so that she lay with her head on my chest. She made a sleepy sound and snuggled closer. Her warmth seeped into me, and I soaked it up, taking more comfort in her closeness than I’d ever admit to anyone, including her. I wound the other end of the leash on her arm around my fist and covered us with the pelt, closing my arms around her.

  Setora nuzzled my neck, her warm face heating mine, her soft breath fanning my skin. I rubbed my cheek against hers, letting two days of stubble lightly scrape her cheek.

  “My foolish Little Spy,” I muttered.

  I let my mind roll over all that had happened since leaving the Grotto, and the temptation to use a far more coarse string of words on her reared up, ones I would have used if she’d been awake to hear them.

  The first fight with Saketh and his band of fuckhead cronies was all on me—there was no denying that. More than once, I’d heard Hawk say that Latch and Pup’s deaths were his fault. As both my Captain of the Guard and the next in line for my position as General, he saw it as his duty to protect the club as much as I did. In his eyes, Latch and Pup had died on his watch, and as a Yantu warrior, my second in command always carried the weight of the world on his shoulders, whether he was supposed to or not. But I knew the truth. Hawk wasn’t yet the General, I was. Regardless of whose actions directly put my men at risk, at the end of the day, the responsibility to keep them safe fell on me and me alone.

  Hawk thought he failed Pup and Latch. He’d even told me that Emmy had been taken because he hadn’t acted fast enough, leading to the second confrontation with Saketh’s Hellhounds. But he hadn’t failed anyone. I had.

  I’d chosen the camp where the Dregs had found us. I’d failed to ensure the area was properly secured, missing the tunnels in those cliffs where the Dregs had stationed themselves and used Pup and Latch for fucking target practice. I’d been sleeping comfortably when they attacked, failing to see them coming. The first attack was on me, but the same thing could not be said for the confrontation last night or the clusterfuck that had followed it.

  At least, not entirely.

  A considerable amount of the blame for that fight fell squarely on the beautiful shoulders of this gorgeous slave lying in my arms.

  My thoughts rolled over that battle, how much worse it could have gone, and my arms tensed around her. The woman hadn’t just disobeyed me; she’d taken my orders and trampled them all to hell.

  What had I told her? How many times had I told her not to play the hero? The plan had been to get into the Dregs’ camp, rescue Emmy from her cage, and get out. Utar and his men, his women—the other slaves caged in that camp—weren’t ours. They didn’t matter. Emmy was her only concern. But no, she’d gone and tried to rescue Utar, too, and because of that, everything went to shit.

  Oh, but that hadn’t been all. She’d then offered her sweet little body to Saketh, freely giving what belonged to me, to the Four, to a pirate far more sick and twisted than my men could ever be.

  And why? Because she’d been afraid to see Steel—a gladiator trained to fight in the ring exactly like the one Saketh had put him in—get hurt? Just like a woman to let her emotions rule her.

  Fuck. Most of the time I didn’t think much about why anyone who didn’t have a dick was a slave by law, but times like this offered a stark reminder of exactly why. Had my men been sent in to rescue Emmy, they’d have stuck to the plan, but not Setora. Her bleeding heart left her incapable of seeing the logic of the situation. That even when things went south, my men and I could take care of matters so that Steel would never have had to fight. Or if he did, we’d have had the situation well in hand, and offering herself up wouldn’t have been necessary.

  A man would have known better.

  My jaw clenched, and I nearly woke her then and there. I damn near laid her out and bared her pretty little ass, blistering it until she howled, then fucked her raw, pounding her into the floor of the tree. Simultaneously reminding her of her place and reclaiming my authority all at the same time.

  My dick turned to a rod of iron at the thought. I willed my body to calm. She needed sleep. Punishment, and staking my claim on her, would come later.

  Besides, I couldn’t fool myself. Much as I hated to admit it, not all of what had happened in the Dregs’ camp was Setora’s fault.

  When she’d volunteered to go into that camp and rescue Emmy herself, my instincts screamed to deny her. When she’d begged for us to save the rest of the slaves, I should have seen how wrong things would turn out. Hell, I had seen it. But I’d let her go in there alone. Sure, she’d disobeyed me, but I’d let the situation end up that way.

  Damn it, Dice would never have let this happen. Mount Dire’s old General would never have allowed Setora to have such a responsibility. He’d have entrusted the linchpin of a rescue operation to a man, and Steel wouldn’t be lying there on a bed of flea-bitten Dreg pelts, unconscious. He wouldn’t have allowed things to get so out of hand that he’d nearly gotten everyone killed. I had let a woman take on a man’s burden, and now I had to pay the price.

  I’d pay the price, but she would, too. Oh, would she ever.

  Closing my eyes, I clenched my fists and willed the anger building in me like fire to ebb. Anger with myself as much as her. Done was done, and all I could do was put things right.

  Still, as I went over the minutes that led up to the gladiator fight, my mind refused to let go of what I’d heard Saketh call Setora.

  Worldmaker.

  What did that mean? I’d been the General of the Dark Legion since I was fifteen. I’d been to every Zone within a month’s ride of the Grotto in any direction with my men, and I’d never heard that term before. The Dregs came from an area close to Delta, a lot further north than us. Not nearly so far as Ivek’s men, but still. It had to have been a northern term.

  But then, how had Setora recognized it? I’d seen it in her eyes. When Saketh had called her Worldmaker, she’d looked at him like she’d heard it before.

  Had Damien ever called her that?

  On the surface, I could guess what the term meant. Setora had told Saketh she could birth a whole new Dreg nation for him, an offer made to convince him to release us without a fight. True Violets had such high fertility—I knew she hadn’t been wrong about that. But
something about the way Saketh had used the term gave me the sense there was something more ominous to the name than just her Violet-born fertility.

  It suggested she had the power, not just to repopulate, but to recreate the world. To reshape it. How? Was it connected to all the other things she could do? To her ability to sense other Violets? To her blood and the way it glowed or turned blue when she was wounded?

  I looked down at her, my breath catching as I asked myself the same question I’d seen in her eyes when I’d shown her the vial of her glowing blue blood. Why was she like this?

  She was valuable beyond measure, that much was clear. Even if I didn’t fully understand the situation, that fact only underscored how imperative it was that I never let her step out of line or place herself in danger again. That I drove home the importance of her role and her place in the Legion.

  Her place as our slave.

  I shook my head at the tree ceiling. How in the hell had a woman like her gotten it into her head that she needed to play the hero? Even Utar’s people thought she was the fucking Maker come, and that didn’t help things.

  Such a fierce savior complex couldn’t have come from Damien Vale. He and his J’nai had trained her to be the perfect slave, the perfect servant for a man. So how had she ended up with such a stubborn need to run in and save people who weren’t even hers to save? People she didn’t know?

  Women weren’t supposed to be saviors and heroes. Hundreds of years of strict, government-mandated enslavement had driven it out of them. Setora had been raised and trained for servitude, but sometimes, when she felt she needed to right some injustice, she almost seemed like a…

  The thought danced away, half-formed, and I almost growled my frustration. Familiarity, like an image or a story half remembered, tugged at me, but it refused to solidify.

  Damien probably knew what she was, or at least he knew more than we did. The bastard had raised her nearly her whole life. No, he couldn’t have known everything. I was sure if he had, he wouldn’t have intended to sell her to Talek. Whatever a Worldmaker was, it sounded too powerful for him to knowingly hand her over to someone else. Still, I’d have loved to see what information he had on her, information that he would have been savvy enough not to give her.

  Fucking Damien. The thought of that man sent a fresh wave of anger coursing through me. What I wouldn’t have given to get my hands on him, and not just to learn about her, but for what he’d done to me. To my…

  Vengeance burned the back of my throat like acid. I pushed it down. His J’nai were still out there, hunting our woman. Damien’s day would come. Right now I had to stay focused on my men, on protecting my club and Setora. On taking care of Steel. On staying clear of Saketh and his men if he chose to come for us. On finding the man responsible for stealing our gems, and the mission at Delta.

  There was enough to worry about without throwing Damien into the mix.

  I refocused my thoughts on Setora, placing at least part of the blame for the confrontation with Saketh where it lay. On setting things right. The first step toward that was to deal with her.

  I let out a long breath, and her dyed black hair fluttered against my cheek. How to deal with her, exactly? Tie her up and take my belt to her ass before I fucked her senseless? My dick hardened again at the thought. No, that had already been done. Twice. A slave couldn’t become used to any one punishment, or that punishment lost its effect. Oh, I’d screw her brains out, make no mistake, and let her lick off my cum with that sweet tongue of hers, but whatever I did before that, it would have to hit home hard.

  I glanced down at her again, and some involuntary warmth for her, even a twinge of respect for her ideals, mixed with my anger, threatening to cool my temper. But she’d gone against orders, placing everyone in danger. I couldn’t go easy on her, no matter how noble her intentions. She’d fucked up, and she’d pay for it.

  My cock jerked against her thigh, and a vicious smile spread across my lips as a plan began to form. Oh, would she pay.

  Leaders led, and lead I would.

  I’d failed as a general last night, but I wouldn’t fail as her master.

  “When the world as we know it falls into darkness, one of two things happen. We either cling to what we once knew and try to hold off the inevitable, or we move on.

  Those who cling, die with nothing but broken hearts and dead dreams. Those who move on, forge from the New World the hope for something better.

  In the servitude of women lies the hope of man.

  -Efric Snowbane, Last Governor of Carnn City, the Old World,

  excerpt from the speech before the Call of Women’s Service

  Chapter 2

  The New Normal

  When I opened my eyes, I’d thought the horror of the past few days had been some cruel and violent dream.

  Consciousness slowly pulled me up from sleep, and at first, all I felt was the warmth of a man’s hard chest against my back, a strong male arm around my waist. Hot breath fanned my ear. Thick furs covered me, comfortable but almost too warm.

  For one glorious heartbeat, I was home. I was back in the Grotto, the only place I’d ever felt safe. I was with my beloved masters and they were safe, the Legion whole and unbroken, untouched by the horrors of the nightmare my mind remembered. The horror brought on by my mistake.

  Then I blinked in the dim light that illuminated the room. Torchlight. I lifted my head, scanning the rough inner bole of a tree that surrounded me. A tangle of roots traveled along the wall.

  I wasn’t in a room, but in a tree. In the forest.

  At once, the memory of the past two days flooded back on me. Dregs. Saketh, with his bright blue mohawk, laughing maniacally. A fight. Men dying. A funeral pyre. And Steel. Oh, Maker, Steel, falling from his bike and lying on the ground unmoving.

  Steel.

  My throat tightened painfully, my eyes stinging at the thought of him. A crack spread across my heart, and panic for him welled up.

  I jerked upright. My eyes found Steel lying motionless a few feet from me on a thick bed of furs. The memory of that dream filled my thoughts. Images of him with his face an awful yellow and the next moment covered in blood. And then his words.

  Do you want me to die?

  Except his skin wasn’t yellow now, and his face wasn’t slicked in blood. In fact, other than the dark blue bruises around his eyes, and that he looked too still for sleep, he appeared unharmed.

  He wasn’t dead. I could see the slow, shallow rise and fall of his chest. A thin tube traveled from his hand up to a bag of clear liquid hanging from a pole.

  “Steel…” I moved to stand, but the arm around my waist tightened, holding me in place.

  I turned, my gaze locking on eyes so dark blue they were indigo.

  Sheriff.

  My heart gave a terrible lurch. The mistakes I’d made last night, my disobedience of him, slashed at me, and something close to despair sank its teeth in. That despair didn’t lessen when I saw the glint of smugness in his eyes. The dark promise in them clutched my throat in a stranglehold.

  “Going somewhere, sweetheart?”

  “Steel,” I croaked.

  “He’s fine. Doc’s taking care of him.”

  “Please let me see him, Master.”

  “In a minute. Lie down.”

  I opened my mouth to argue, but then my gaze dropped to the leash encircling my wrist, the other end wound around his fist, and I dropped my shoulders. After last night, I dared not challenge him.

  Before I could lie back down beside him, he pulled me onto him and closed his arms around me. There was nothing for it but to let him hold me, even if being this close to him after what I’d done to him—to his men, to his club, and to Steel—was too painful for words. His eyes trapped mine, and I blinked at what I saw there.

  What I’d expected to see from him come morning, I didn’t know. Anger. Rage, even hatred. Those things I would have deserved. But instead, his eyes danced with amusement. Amusement and what I could
only call a calculating, calm revenge.

  That was almost worse. He looked like a man who knew he had me, who knew that my actions had given him every right to do his worst with me, to pull out all the stops he normally would have kept in place, and who intended to take full advantage of that fact.

  Make no mistake; whatever his expression said, he was furious. I could feel it in the angry thudding of his heart against my breast, in the banked fire in his eyes, but that anger was controlled, like steel being tempered just right for use. He’d unleash it on me, but at the right time, the way he chose.

  I swallowed hard, my breathing shallow. Half of me struggled to rationalize my actions the previous night, while the other half scrambled for a fitting apology. “Master…”

  But no apology, no amount of pleading seemed adequate. Not with Steel lying there. I was in for it, and there was no stopping it.

  Sheriff cocked a brow. “Something on your mind, slave?”

  Once more, my gaze fell on the leash tethering me to him. He wound more of the rope’s slack around his fist, pulling me closer to him until his face was right in mine.

  “What…” The word came out a shaky croak, and I cleared my throat. “For last night. What will you do to me, Master?”

  “Haven’t decided yet.” Totally relaxed.

  Oh, Maker. That didn’t sound good. The two times Sheriff had punished me, he’d whipped me with that infernal belt of his. If he had to think about it, whatever he came up would be something a lot worse than a few swats on the ass.

  Well, I had nearly gotten everyone killed, going against him. I looked away, new despair roiling in my gut. Steel could have died. If that dream was any indication, he still might.

  “We’ll get to your punishment later, Setora,” Sheriff added, grabbing my attention. “There’s a lot to take care of first. Starting with getting some food into you and getting both of us a bath.”