Rapture - Jacquelyn Frank Shadowdwellers

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souls, just as all cities did, but even their most impoverished people were finely dressed compared to this outfit. “Look, not that I want to go back where I was, but there’s been some kind of mistake. I mean, surely you can see I’m not handmaiden material.”

      He folded his arms over his chest, leaning a hip against the weapons ledge next to him, and took his time perusing her tall, shapely young figure. She was lean and strong, her arms especially well developed for a woman, probably from some kind of hard labor. Her callused, rough hands supported that. She clearly hadn’t owned shoes in years, her feet coarse and dirty, and he’d glimpsed knees just as toughened. He was willing to bet she was sporting a few bruises as well, and not just from her tussle with the guards earlier.

      The thought made him frown with dark anger. He owed that guard for hitting her. Oh yes, there’d be penance to pay for that. And if he found out that either of them had tried to mess with her sexually, he was going to have them castrated. He might even let her do it, since she seemed to have a taste for it. He grinned when he thought of the way she had made him aware of just how vulnerable he had left himself to her with the nudge of her foot.

      “I see nothing of the kind,” he responded easily, moving away from her in order to search his maintenance drawer for something to cut that damn collar off. Just looking at the thing made him feel surly and jaded toward his own people. He had already sent guards to fetch her miserable relations, though he fully expected they had hightailed it by now. Still, it was daylight for the next few hours, and there was nowhere they could go outside of the city. He would find them. And when he did, they would suffer just as she had.

      He’d bet they had been damned shocked when the guards had come to the door offering a bride price for a girl they weren’t supposed to have. Thank Drenna they had persisted. If they had left, he’d hate to think what those two would have been capable of doing in order to cover their tracks. The very idea made his stomach churn with righteous anger.

      “B-but…” she stammered, showing insecurity for the first time, “I’m not…I mean, I can’t…I’m rude! A-and coarse.”

      “Manners are learned, just like anything else. You are smart enough.”

      “No, I’m not!” she argued heatedly, her hands on her hips as she grew angry at the compliment. “I’ve never even been to school!”

      Magnus dropped the cutters with a crash and turned to face her.

      She smiled smugly, and for a minute he thought she was having him on. Then he realized it was because she thought she had won her point. Which meant she was telling the truth. She had said something similar earlier, but he had thought…

      Again, he didn’t have to touch her to know it was the absolute truth, although there was still that urge. Ever since Karri’s betrayal, in fact, he had found it harder and harder to take someone at their word without reaching to touch them in order to verify the truth. However, she understandably didn’t like to be touched, and he had already promised her not to do so without her permission. That would have to change quickly, of course, because priest and handmaiden came into constant contact with each other throughout the course of an ordinary day, but for the time being he was willing to take the time to earn her trust of touch.

      “How old are you?” he heard himself asking.

      “Twenty.”

      Gods. She was a child after all. Yet there was cold maturity in her eyes, and it probably just felt that way because he was…what? Fifteen times her age?

      “Can you read?”

      “Of course,” she scoffed.

      “Write?”

      “Yes,” she sighed impatiently. “My mum taught me. I have street smarts, just no real book smarts. I never came to Sanctuary before today.”

      “No. You were a slave before you came of age to go to school,” he realized. Shadowdweller children were home-schooled until they came to Sanctuary for lessons at age thirteen.

      That also meant she had never had any sexual instruction. At least, not the formal instruction every ’Dweller had when they came to Sanctuary. Their culture believed everyone should be taught in the ways and pleasures of the body, unlike humans, for instance, who kicked their awkward birds out of the nest to learn the hard way. This meant that, for K’yindara, anything she had learned had been likely done by back alley or by force.

      Magnus had to turn away from her at the thought before she could see the rage in his eyes. Light, he couldn’t remember a time when he had been so easily enraged. He knew it had something to do with his previous handmaiden’s deceptions and the way the shock of her betrayal had struck him so very low, and that ever since then his emotions had been a stormy sea of unpredictability. However, he had been a priest of Darkness and Light for nearly his entire life, and he had spent centuries learning tolerance and forgiveness. He could overcome this jaded rush to fury he constantly felt.

      “Are you a virgin?” he asked, grabbing the cutters and turning to face the shock on her half-swollen features. Despite her injuries, however, he already knew how pretty she was. He had seen her face over and over again these past weeks.

      “I’m not answering that.”

      “Why not? It’s a logical question. You had no formal education, so no sexual education, and you’ve been locked away since you were twelve. I am only wondering if your uncle got to you, or perhaps someone else.” Though he doubted it, considering how hard and dirty she liked to fight. Still, as she had noted, there were always other ways.

      And that was when he realized why she was being so defensive, why he could all but smell her anger and fear rising hand in hand.

      She didn’t know.

      “You’re not sure, are you?” he asked gently as he came close to her and showed her the cutters. She picked up her blood-black hair and hesitantly turned her back to him, watching him cautiously over her shoulder. “You think it’s possible you were violated while you were insensate.”

      She was silent, and he saw her wince as he worked the cutters under the tight collar. With one strong squeeze, the cursed thing snapped off. But not before the broken circuit sent feedback through them both. She cried out and he cursed, but the necklace dropped to the floor destroyed. Magnus tossed down the cutters and quickly touched his fingertips to the slender length of her throat.

      “Bituth amec,” he hissed softly when he saw the blackened, burned skin that had been hidden under the collar. Yes, as a Shadowdweller she would heal quickly, except perhaps for a scar, but that didn’t make this any less savage to him. “I have a salve for this. It will numb and heal. It will be gone by tomorrow evening.”

      “Thank you,” she said awkwardly, trying to brush his touch away. However, Magnus caught her fingers in his and squeezed as he turned her around to look at him. There was vulnerability hiding in those tough, angry eyes of hers.

      “Answer me. Do you feel it was possible that someone was with your body sexually while you were unconscious?”

      “I’m not sure. I always thought I would be able to feel that, but we heal so quickly I—I’m not sure. I never came up pregnant and I was just thankful for that. Counted my blessings.”

      Magnus knew it was the truth because he had compelled it from her. In this, he couldn’t be ignorant. He had used his power to hear her confess what she didn’t want to talk about, and he was sorry he had to, but it was better for her if they spoke of it now.

      “No one will do that to you here, K’yindara,” he assured her softly. “If they try, they will answer to me, and trust me when I say people avoid having to answer to me.” He gave her a wry smile. “Provided they survive answering to you first, of course.”

      That made her shoot him a sly smile, her quick eyes appraising him as though she were trying to figure out if he was all right. Magnus could see she wanted to believe him, but life had taught her to do otherwise. Then something occurred to her and she jerked her hand angrily out of his before

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