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“Why did you attack your comrades, Mirielle?” I ask, my voice lilting.

She frowns when she hears her name on my lips.

“I don’t know.” She keeps pacing.

“What do you mean you don’t know?” I get that this woman’s mind has been fucked three ways to Wednesday, but surely she has a better explanation for all this carnage thanI don’t know.

“We do our master’s bidding,” she says. “Nothing more.”

“And what does your master want?” I probe.

“I don’t know,” she says distractedly.

Getting nowhere …

“Who kidnapped you?” I start again.

Can she remember that far back? Some of these women have been sleeping foryears.

“My older brother,” she replies coolly, still walking back and forth, back and forth.

Herbrother?

I don’t think I heard that one correctly.

“He’s been dead for well over a century,” Des says from the other side of the cell.

My eyebrows rise and I spare my mate a glance. He knew this woman’s brother?

The soldier’s eyes wander to the Bargainer, and there they rest. Slowly, she tilts her head, like recognition is upwelling from the depths of her memory.

“You,” she breathes. “You held me once … long ago.”

Come again?

My skin flares with agitation. I glance between the two of them. Is this broad seriously admitting to what I think she is?

“You made love to me then, under the stars …”

My claws elongate.

Sheis.

Let’s eviscerate her slowly,my siren says.It will be fun.

It’s a strange feeling, to be jealous of a woman who, in all probability, slept with your mate centuries before you existed. A woman who’s now nothing more than a shell of herself, her mind and body commandeered by the Thief of Souls.

And yet, I still feel the hot burn of it.

Des folds his arms, looking unamused. He doesn’t try to explain himself to me, which is probably a good thing—doing so would make him look guilty as fuck, and it wasn’t like he cheated on me—but damnit, I want a little groveling. Is that wrong?

Hewillgrovel, the siren insists.

Alright, if she thinks groveling is kosher, it’s probably wrong. But that doesn’t mean I disagree with her.

I force myself to refocus on the task at hand.

Des had mentioned that Mirielle’s brother died a little over a hundred years ago. It takes me a moment to do the math (not my strong suit), but once I do, I realize that the timeline doesn’t work. Female soldiers started disappearing a decade ago, not a century.