Page 13 of Beg the Night (Mystics of Ashora #1)

THIRTEEN

sinner

I couldn’t help that initial wave of relief that hit me when New Girl told me she’d negotiated for Mags’s release. Was it possible she really did care about my sister?

It was hard to say, because I didn’t trust her for a damn second.

She slept sitting with her back against the wall, her legs stretched out in front of her with one ankle crossed over the other. Her head was slumped to the side as her chest rose and fell with each deep breath.

The dress was fucking ridiculous. They would have to bring her new clothes eventually, and thank god, because there was no way I could live in this tiny-ass room with her dressed like that.

A deep, all-consuming annoyance crept up the back of my neck. I hated her. I really did. I hated that she was sleeping like that. I hated that she actually seemed to care about my sister.

And that she was actually willing to perform the claiming with me.

That part surprised me the most.

Despite my hope that she would so we could get out of here, I’d assumed she’d never agree. Why would she? She had been kidnapped and dragged to a dungeon full of men she didn’t know. The last thing on her mind was probably having sex with one of them.

Especially me.

But maybe she’d finally realized the truth—that the claiming was her one and only ticket out of here. Or maybe she was finally accepting the fact that somewhere buried deep inside of her, she was a mystic.

New Girl had power.

I could feel it down in my soul. What was left of my soul, anyway.

Her eyes fluttered beneath her closed lids as she slept. She was probably cold. Exhausted. Starving.

I shouldn’t give a shit about any of those things.

But the damn claiming changed things. We were still a while away from the actual ceremony, but it was as if my body knew she was mine. My power knew it, too. The shadows under my skin sang, pulling me toward her.

Pressure built in my chest as I tried to focus on anything but her.

But it was no use. Trapped down here, forced to be so close to her, my thoughts consumed me.

Slowly, silently, I climbed to my feet. Fuck, every muscle ached. Whatever they’d used to knock us out at that ball had done its job and much, much more.

Not that I’d ever really known comfort. Maybe that’s why I’d survived down here for as long as I had. This life wasn’t all that different from the life I’d come from.

Breath held, I scooped her up from the floor, one arm under her knees and the other behind her back. Her head rolled onto my chest as I stood, causing me to inhale sharply. It was a mistake, because I was instantly engulfed in her addictive scent.

I laid her on the small bed in the corner of the room and as she shifted, I stepped back. She murmured nonsensically as she adjusted her body to the new position but fell still again quickly.

I picked up the jacket I’d tossed to the floor when I’d first woken up in here and covered her with it. As much as I didn’t give a fuck about whether she was cold, my power damn near insisted I take care of her. Like it would disobey me for her if given the chance. It was more of an annoyance to me than anything.

But at least this way I didn’t have to stare at her every time I opened my eyes.

I gave her one more glance, then returned to my spot on the floor.

It was quiet here. Lonely.

My chest ached for Mags. Wherever she was, I hoped to god she was safe. The dungeons? This place? It was the farthest thing from it. The only reason Director hadn’t used her in the claiming ritual yet was because she was more interested in my power than my sister’s, and I would have never agreed to participate if anyone had even looked at Mags the wrong way.

But with every day that passed, my control dwindled and the Ministry’s grasp on me grew tighter. It was fucking suffocating.

Less than two weeks until the blood moon. Until the claiming. Less than two weeks until this was all over, and we were out of the dungeons for good.

“Help me, help me, somebody help me!”

I bolted upright, my senses on full alert as my eyes adjusted in the dark room.

New Girl thrashed, arching off the bed. “Help me. Help me. Help me.”

Before I was aware that I’d moved, I was hovering over her, shaking her shoulders. “Athena! Athena, hey! Wake up!”

Her eyes popped open, her lips parted, and for a moment, all she did was blink up at me in confusion. Sweat beaded on her pale skin, glistened across her chest. “What happened?”

“You were screaming.”

Her eyes went wide, becoming the deepest, darkest pools. I could have fucking swam in the depths of deep brown. It was rare to see her this way—defenseless, unassuming.

“Sorry,” she muttered, her voice hoarse. “Did I wake you up?”

“Did you screaming ‘help me, help me’ wake me up?” I bit back a smirk. “A bit, yes.”

She sat up, and I stepped back. She took a few long breaths, slowly calming herself. Like this, she reminded me so much of my sister. I’d seen Mags go through this same kind of shit far too many times.

I didn’t care about New Girl, but I couldn’t let her scream in her sleep.

“You called me Athena.”

“Excuse me?”

“When you woke me up, you didn’t call me New Girl. You called me Athena.”

Fuck. I fought the urge to smack a palm to my face. “Yeah, well, I assumed using your actual name would be more effective. Don’t worry. It won’t happen again.”

A weak laugh escaped her. “You don’t have to do that, you know.”

“Do what?”

“You don’t have to be the big, scary tier three who hates everyone. It’s just us now. You don’t have to pretend anymore.”

Her words were like a knife to the gut. “I’m not pretending. I called you by your name once, you don’t have to worry about that becoming a habit.”

“Right.” She sighed, shoulders sagging. “And what about your real name?”

I bit back a growl. She was awfully fucking talkative for someone who’d just woken up from a nightmare. Though I supposed maybe that was the point. She was distracting herself from whatever had scared the shit out of her.

But turning the conversation on me? Wasn’t going to fucking work.

“What were you dreaming about?”

The smile slipped from her face. “I can’t remember.”

“You can’t?” I hummed. “It must have been bad. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have been screaming for help.”

She swallowed thickly, her eyes so wide another version of me might’ve felt bad for her in the past. But that version of me was gone. Dead. Forgotten.

The man I was now didn’t give a fuck that those big doe eyes were locked on me.

“It was only a nightmare.” She lowered her head, focusing on her lap. “It wasn’t real.”

I scoffed. “We both know nightmares are very, very real in this world.”

Even drenched in sweat and clearly still recovering from the battle she had been fighting in her mind, she looked at me in defiance, her jaw set, ready to wage war.

All the more reason I knew she was hiding something. People like that—fighters—weren’t simply born. The world made them that way. The world had shown New Girl here that for whatever reason, she had to be tough. She had to fight.

Fight what? Director, sure. The Ministry, of course. But what else? What was she fighting in that pretty little head of hers?

I leaned in, loving the way she flinched slightly as I approached her space. “I’m going to ask you one more time, New Girl, and you’re going to answer me. What were you dreaming about?”

“Dying.” The word was so quiet I barely heard it.

My stomach sank. “You have nightmares about dying?”

She finally broke our electric gaze—thank god, because I never would have—and dipped her chin. “I have nightmares about dying, and I have nightmares about being alive. I can’t quite decide which ones are worse.”

No fucking shit.

“I don’t buy it.”

“Don’t buy what?”

“A girl like you seems to have very little fear of dying. You don’t seem too concerned with your safety here. Unless you’re an expert at hiding all that behind that mask you’re always wearing.”

Her expression lit with anger. Good. I liked her angry.

I liked it a little too much.

“I know you think I’m an idiot, but I do possess a basic need for survival. If I didn’t, then I would have left this world a long, long time ago.”

Her words created a pit in my stomach I didn’t want to examine.

“There are always reasons to fear death. Even if you don’t know what they are in this moment.” It took me a second before I realized I said that aloud.

New Girl only shrugged. “Sometimes they’re hard to figure out.”

Footsteps echoed off the stone walls, growing quicker and closer with every second.

We both froze, watching the door to our cell, waiting for what came next.

A woman dressed in black tactical gear approached. She was young, with her hair pulled away from her face in a way that made her look almost innocent.

But she was one of them. Regardless of her looks, she was far from innocent.

“Here,” she motioned, passing a glass jug through the bars. “More water. You’re going to need it.”

“Why are we here?” I asked. “What are you doing with us?”

Her eyes softened a fraction as she looked from me to New Girl. “Prepare yourselves. Drink the water. I’m sorry, I tried to stop this.”

Then she was gone, retreating as quickly as she’d come.

“Okay,” New Girl said. “That was suspicious. I’m going to try really hard not to panic right now.”

“Don’t worry,” I said, even as unease wormed its way through me. “She probably has no clue what she’s talking about.”

Silence fell between us, though New Girl studied the door, then me, as if dying to ask more questions. Questions I didn’t have the answers to. I tried to relax, and I tried to forget about the strange woman who had come to warn us.

If she was one of them, why would she have bothered? And what were we supposed to prepare ourselves for?

A few hours later, after we’d both pretended to relax, our questions were answered.

It started slow—a tendril of smoke creeping down the hall and into our cell, but before long, the smoke grew thicker and filled the room.

I scrambled away at first, but it was no use. Whatever this fog was, there was no escaping it.

“Oh my god,” New Girl gasped. “What is that?”

“Stay calm,” I said, not that I felt at all calm. “We don’t know what this is yet.”

“ Stay calm ? Are you kidding me? There’s a strange gas filling our cell, and you want me to stay calm?” She scrambled back onto the bed.

It was pointless. Within minutes, we were completely engulfed in the gas. We had no choice but to breathe it in, to move in it, to become part of it.

“They’re trying to kill us, aren’t they? This is how we die!”

“You are really not helping right now.” Panic crept into my voice, regardless of how I tried to hide it. They wouldn’t kill us like this, would they? With gas pumped into the room while we were trapped here like fucking dogs?

They were cowards, yes, but they needed us.

I held my breath for as long as I could, then covered my nose and mouth with my hands and tried to keep that gas out of my lungs, but it was no use.

We were pawns in the game of the Ministry, and there was nothing we could do about it.

“Oh, god,” New Girl groaned from behind me.

Heart racing, palms sweating, I turned to her. Fuck, was I imagining it, or were my senses heightening?

“It’s them,” she said. “They’re drugging us.”