Page 6 of Beg the Night (Mystics of Ashora #1)

SIX

athena

S omething was wrong.

The sun was just rising in the distance, its light filtering through the small window above my new cot. I sat up in bed and surveyed the silent, still dungeon.

I wasn’t sure what caused my heart to race and my palms to sweat. I couldn’t pinpoint what made adrenaline surge through me. But it was something .

My body was always one step ahead of my mind, always ready to fight before I knew what the fight was for.

To my right, Sinner was laying in his bed, shirtless, propped up on an elbow and staring at me.

He didn’t speak. He only watched me, his dark eyes intense and his brows drawn together like he wanted to ask why the hell I was freaking out.

The answer came seconds later when the massive steel door, the one that only opened on the occasion the Ministry felt generous and came to feed us, creaked, the locks turning.

Sinner went rigid, his focus flying to the door. Margaret stirred in bed next to me, but didn’t wake. I couldn’t blame her now that she was no longer sleeping on the dungeon floor.

It was probably better if she stayed asleep rather than witness whatever the hell was about to go down. Though, the sounds of the locks were anything but silent, so with each one that clanged, more men around us stirred.

When Director entered, I sucked in a gasp.

“Morning, gentleman,” she called out. Her voice echoed off the walls, vibrating through my bones. “Ladies.” She scanned the room once before landing on my cot.

Beside me, Sinner grumbled and pushed himself all the way up to stand.

I did the same, suddenly feeling vulnerable seated like this.

Director entered the dungeon for the first time since I had been dragged here. Five armed, masked men followed, each holding a baton as if prepared for us to attack.

As if any of us had the energy to.

The men and their weapons weren’t what had the hair rising on the back of my neck. No, what scared me the most was the way Director stared directly at me.

I took two steps forward, my bare feet aching, only then realizing Sinner was doing the same, his expression neutral but his arms crossed. He was clearly eager for them to get to the point so they’d leave again.

Feeling was mutual.

“Athena,” Director started, “it looks like you’ve made yourself comfortable here. I trust your new roommates are being warm and welcoming?”

A few of the men around me scoffed.

I mustered a smile that probably looked more like a grimace. “They sure are,” I spat. “Just like home.”

Behind me, a man coughed a laugh. I didn’t bother turning to see who.

“I’m here to have a little chat with you,” she pushed, her fake smile dropping. “To see if you’ve changed your mind about what we discussed previously.”

Changed my mind? Did she really think I’d grown magical powers overnight? Because I was fairly certain I had not .

My stomach dropped. “I couldn’t change my mind if I wanted to.” The panic of the threat slowly creeped into my chest. “Like I said before, I don’t have any powers. I can’t help you.”

Flanked by her guards, Director stopped a few feet away from me, head cocked. “Such a disappointment,” she said. “I really thought you and I could work together. Be friends, even.”

Now it was my turn to choke back a laugh. Though I was tired and slightly pissed off, so I hardly succeeded.

“Don’t make me hurt you again,” she said, clearly annoyed by my response. “You wouldn’t want to damage yourself even further, would you? Scar that pretty skin? If you’re not careful, you’ll ruin any chance you have at finding a willing partner for the ritual.”

I tossed my head back and laughed. Really laughed. I sounded freaking psychotic, and based on the way a few of the men around me flinched, I probably looked it too. I didn’t care. “You really think I care about the claiming ritual? You really think I care what my skin looks like after being kidnapped and thrown into a dungeon? You can do whatever you want to me. I’m not a mystic.”

The room fell silent. Nobody moved. Nobody snickered this time. Even Director froze in place, taking the time to process my words.

Eventually, she pulled her shoulders back. “Fine, then,” she ordered. “I guess we’ll have to do this the hard way.”

As one of her freak guard dogs stalked toward me, I forced myself to keep my chin lifted. With a sick grin, he swung a baton, as if he was looking forward to what came next.

Margaret screamed behind me as the black steel hit my knees.

I let out a cry and fell to the dungeon floor. Pain radiated through my body, rendering me immobile. But that didn’t stop my attacker from hitting me again, his baton landing in the center of my back this time.

I fought to stay on my knees, but I would not let them break me completely. I would not let them see me crumble.

“Stop!” Margaret screamed. “What are you doing to her?”

“Athena can easily stop this,” Director replied far too coolly for the situation. “All she has to do is tell us what tier she is. As soon as we know that, we can match her with a partner for the claiming.”

The weapon struck me again, this time below my shoulder. I grunted in pain, squeezing my eyes shut to keep the tears from falling.

When I opened them again, my vision blurred, everything around me spinning. Hands roughly grasped my arms and hauled me up, then into a chair one of the guards had dragged in.

“Are you ready to fight back? Are you ready to show us what your power is?” Director asked as she loomed over me.

God, I wanted to. Maybe I would have come up with a half-decent lie if I’d had time to prepare before a blade impaled my upper thigh, the cool metal slicing through the clean pants and my flesh.

That hurt. My vision went spotty. Air rushed from my lungs.

Margaret screamed again, something about how ridiculous this all was.

Yes, it was freaking ridiculous. I didn’t have any powers. I wasn’t a mystic. I was an ordinary, dull earthly. I didn’t belong here.

But that didn’t stop Director from believing I was hiding powers.

The man with the blade raised his arm again, and I squeezed my eyes shut, bracing myself for another hit.

But none came.

Instead, a gasp echoed around the stone walls.

I blinked my eyes open, dumbfounded by what stood before me. Or who.

Sinner was standing in front of me with a thick hand wrapped around the man’s wrist, keeping the weapon frozen in midair.

The whole room had frozen in surprise, actually. I couldn’t see Director from here, but I could imagine the shock spreading across her face. She was probably just as confused as I was, though I wasn’t sure I was seeing all this correctly since each wave of pain threatened to pull me into unconsciousness.

“I’ll do it,” Sinner said.

What. The. Hell? Blood poured freely out of my leg, and my head spun.

Director cackled lightly. “You’ll do what, exactly, Tier Three?”

Sinner slowly let go of the guard’s wrist. “I’ll perform the claiming. If she really has power, it will be exposed then. She won’t be able to hide it from a three once she’s claimed.”

I opened my mouth to argue, only to choke on a mouthful of blood. Had I bitten my tongue that severely? And was I really hearing this all correctly?

Or had I lost so much blood that my mind was creating a false reality?

Yeah, that had to be it.

When the guard with the knife moved again, Sinner’s chest rumbled with fury. “She’s mine now. If you touch her again, I’ll kill you.”

Margaret knelt at my side, murmuring something about me and her brother that I couldn’t fully comprehend.

I was too focused on Director, who hadn’t immediately shut this idea down. She couldn’t really be considering this, right? There was no way she’d pair me with a tier three for a claiming that I had no right to take part in.

Was the Ministry really that insane? I shook my head. Of course they were. How else had they earned their horrid reputation?

“You’ll willingly claim with her?”

Sinner stood, slightly rigid, with his hands clamped behind his back. “Yes.”

“And why is that? You haven’t been exactly forthcoming in the past.”

He took a long breath, his focus sliding over to me.

I froze under his scrutiny. Nothing but distaste and hatred lingered there. Disgust, even. Hell, I didn’t blame him. I was feeling all the same things.

“Maybe I’m ready to get out of this shithole.”

His words were so sharp, Director actually stepped back. But she quickly recovered, huffing a laugh. “Well, well. Our tier three wants to cooperate now, and we might have what we’ve been looking for since this war started.” She turned to me, one brow arched. “Isn’t that right, Athena?”

Blood now ran down my chin and dripped onto my thighs. That didn’t stop me from glaring into that bitch’s face. “Like I’ve said a million times before, I can’t help you. Find someone else for him to perform your weird claiming ritual with.”

Director laughed again, sharper this time, as she sauntered around me. For an instant, she was completely out of sight, so when she grasped my hair and yanked my head back, I couldn’t stop the surprised, pained gasp that escaped me.

“You will perform the claiming. Either that, or you die. Those are your only options. The blood moon is in three weeks. I expect you to get acquainted with your claimed now that you’ve been spoken for.” She shoved my head forward, sending a shooting pain down my neck.

Margaret squealed again somewhere nearby, but I was too disoriented to locate her.

What the actual hell just happened? Sinner hated me. He was repulsed by me. Now he wanted to have sex with me during the claiming?

It made no sense.

Through the ringing in my ears, Director’s next words were barely audible. “Get the healer in here. I don’t want her dying on us when we’re this close.”

Blood poured from my thigh, making it impossible to think straight. My head rolled forward and stayed there as the boots of Director’s companions moved past me. I faded in and out of consciousness. The next thing I registered was another set of shoes approaching. Shoes. Not combat boots. The healer.

It wasn’t a doctor. Not a real one, anyway. The person wore a mask, no doubt another mystic the Ministry had forced into servitude.

They didn’t want me to die? How kind of them to care so much.

When the healer touched my face, I reared back and threw my hands out to fight them off, but my vision blurred further and the world faded in and out. A moment later, warmth radiated down my thigh, making me even angrier.

“Stop,” I mumbled. “Don’t bother fixing me up just so they can stab me again tomorrow.”

The healer stopped for a moment, and for a sick, twisted second, I thought I recognized the dark, blurry figure in front of me.

But then my vision tunneled again. Yeah, I was definitely losing my mind.

More warmth radiated down my thigh, then eventually faded. A few other figures appeared, all of them blurry, and within minutes, they stepped back and were gone.

The sound of that massive lock clicking shut shook my bones.

For the space of several breaths, nobody spoke. Nobody moved.

Not until Margaret darted forward and dropped to her knees in front of me, applying pressure to the mostly healed wound on my thigh. “Why would you do that!” she yelled to Sinner over her shoulder. “Athena doesn’t want to do the claiming!”

“You think I give a fuck about what your friend wants?” His harsh tone made me flinch. “This is our way out, Mags. I’m not staying down here to rot and die.”

Margaret sobbed, tears spilling down her cheeks as she frantically looked over my beaten body.

I, thankfully, was past the point of feeling pain—my legs were numb, and so was my back. The bruises I was certain were blooming all over me didn’t register. Neither did the absolute dread that should have plagued me.

A familiar voice snickered to my right. Carter. “Nice work, man. I was wondering who would get the chance to have a piece of that. You’re open to sharing, right?”

I lifted my head to shoot him a glare, and as I did, I caught a glimpse of Sinner, his jaw clenched, his arms crossed over his chest. His biceps bulged while his fists tightened. “Say that dumb shit one more time and I’ll kick your teeth in.”

The chattering and laughter in the room ceased immediately. It was impossible to deny that everyone here respected Sinner. No, they feared him. I didn’t blame them. He could have looked like a frail, helpless boy with zero strength at all and he would still be intimidating. As a tier three, he likely had the power to kill using only his mind.

It wasn’t wise to piss off tier threes. They were the worst sort of enemies. These men seemed smart enough to know that.

As Sinner assessed me, a chill rolled down my spine.

Margaret scrambled to help me stand, ignoring my grunts of pain. She dragged me closer to her brother, though I wanted to be literally anywhere else in this damn dungeon. “Are you going to tell me why you did that?” she said, her tone hushed.

The men around us averted their gazes, clearly pretending like they weren’t eavesdropping.

“You said you wouldn’t perform the claiming.”

His focus drifted over me for one agonizing second before he homed in on his sister. “Plan’s changed.”

“I won’t do it,” I mumbled, voice weak. “I won’t claim with you.”

Margaret stiffened under me, her grip tightening to the point of pain as she fought to keep holding me up.

“The fuck did you say, New Girl?” Sinner stepped closer, now only a few inches from me.

God, everything was fading in and out. “I’d die before I let you touch me.”

He laughed slowly, his tone a strange mix of amusement and fury. “You better think long and hard about that before you commit to it because there’s only one way you walk out of hell alive, and that’s with me. We’re getting out of here.” He looked back at Margaret. “We all are.”

With a low snarl, he spun. He stalked to his cot and picked up his book, and when he sat again, his expression went blank, as if nothing had happened.

Okay, so maybe I did feel something. I felt a never-ending, burning hatred for that man.

He thought he could do whatever he wanted, treat me as if I were an enemy, and then convince me to perform the claiming with him so he could escape?

The joke was on him. I hadn’t survived this freaking long just to allow a man to determine my fate. I had three weeks to come up with a new plan. Three weeks to get out of this place.

And I’d do whatever it took. Even if it meant killing him.