Passion Untamed (Feral Warriors #3)(40)

His stomach rolled. "He slaughtered them in front of you."

Her mouth compressed, and she nodded. "I went crazy. I refused to dance. I tried to run away, but he beat me. Every night he dragged me back to the ritual cavern, but I refused. He tried one thing after another to punish me. He ripped me out of the plush little room his people had prepared for me and locked me in the cell where you were chained. Then he took away my clothes and stopped feeding me, but still I refused to dance.

"Finally, one night, he'd had it with me. He grabbed me by my hair and dragged me all the way up the stairs to the room where he held the rituals, the stone stairs tearing up my bare back. But I still wouldn't do what he wanted, so he threw me to the floor, followed me down, and raped me. Then he ordered the sorcerers to do the same, one after another, and they did. For hours."

Paenther's scalp crawled with horror at what she'd endured. Fury pounded in his ears, his teeth bared as he imagined ripping every one of those bastards apart with his panther's fangs.

"After each rape, he told me to dance, and I refused. My creatures were standing there, watching me. For them, I never gave in."

He stared at her, in awe of her courage, her sheer determination. At eight. "You were a stubborn little thing."

To his amazement, she smiled. It was a small smile. A lopsided one that didn't reach those sad eyes, but it was a smile all the same.

"That night I chopped off my hair so he could never again drag me up the stairs. I've never let it grow long since. For all his power, he couldn't make me dance, and it infuriated him. He chained me in that cell, like he chained you, and used me for weeks, promising it would stop when I danced. Finally, one of his sorcerers came up with the idea of the cantric."

"Putting it in your heart like that could have killed you."

"I was of no use to him the way things were. With the cantric in my heart, the battle was no longer between him and me. It was mine alone. Every night..." She closed her eyes on a shudder.

He tried to image that child, that stubborn, determined little girl, suffering that cutting, and it almost brought him to his knees. "Is that the only punishment?"

"No, though I don't know what all he loaded into it. I shouldn't have been able to leave the mountain. Every time I've tried in the past, I've hit a wall at the outer warding, then been consumed by so much pain I couldn't move. I don't know how you got me out of there."

"You were unconscious. If you suffered, I didn't know it." His brows drew down as another thought occurred to him. "How did you get down to the Market? Did the warding extend that far?"

"Only recently. After Vhyper arrived, Birik became intrigued with the idea of seeing what kind of power I could draw from Ferals. Vhyper and I created sparks between us, but they weren't the right kind."

Something coiled in his chest. "Did Vhyper hurt you?"

"No, not really. He kissed me, and I hated it. I've never had an affinity for snakes, nor for the soulless."

"He's not soulless." The words came out hot and fast. But as he watched Skye visibly tense, he forced himself to calm his voice. "His soul is still there. And I'm going to find a way to free him."

She met his gaze. "I hope you do."

Paenther nodded once. He would. "Anyway..." he prompted.

"Anyway, Vhyper assured Birik other Ferals would come. He knew you'd come looking for him. So Birik extended the warding to include the Market." A fleeting smile flickered across her face. "It was the first time since I was a child that I'd been able to touch the outside world. I spent two days in that place, watching the television, looking at the magazines, and drooling over the junk food before the day you finally arrived."

"Drooling? You didn't buy any?"

"I didn't have any money."

That simple statement told so much, confirming that she didn't have the power of a witch, to control the mind of a human and take what she wanted. Then again, he suspected she wouldn't have taken even if she'd been able to. Stealing wasn't in her nature any more than the slaughtering of innocent creatures. He wasn't sure how he knew that, but he'd bet money on it.

"How did Vhyper know I'd wind up at the Market?"

"It's the only public building on the mountain."

Paenther considered that. "I won't send you back there."

"I don't want you to." The strength in her eyes hardened. "I meant what I said to Lyon. I won't be used to free more Daemons." Fire leaped in her blue-and-copper eyes as she released her legs and rose to her knees. "I'm not your enemy, Paenther. I'm not the enemy of any of your people. I hate Birik. I hate what he's doing, and I'll do anything to help you stop him. Anything. I know you can never completely trust me, but trust me in this. Please?"

He pushed away from the wall and went to her, as drawn to the fire of her conviction as to the woman herself. She didn't back away when he sat on the edge of the bed in front of her, mere inches from her knees.

"I do trust you." He reached for her hand and took it in his. "But I want you to trust me, too. Trust me when I tell you I don't hurt women, not without certain cause." His thumb brushed the back of her hand, his fingers, caressing the soft flesh of her palm, sending tendrils of excitement snaking along the edge of his flesh. "It may take me a while to get past the copper in your eyes. It's been a symbol of all I've distrusted for too long to forget easily."