Page 5 of Revenge (Warriors of the Drexian Academy #6)

Chapter

Five

Sasha

T he cold stone beneath my body was unforgiving, each ridge and imperfection digging into my back and hip as I tried to find a position that didn’t hurt. The bench was too narrow and mercilessly hard, but it was all I had.

Water dripped somewhere in the darkness beyond my cell, each drop echoing off unseen walls with the rhythm of a broken clock.

Drip. Drip. Drip. The sound had driven me half-mad in the early days, but now it was just another part of the soundtrack of my captivity.

That and the skittering of things I preferred not to think about, creatures that scurried through the shadows just beyond the weak light that crept toward me from a distant doorway.

My stomach cramped with a hunger that had become so constant I barely noticed it anymore. When had I last eaten? Yesterday? The day before? Time moved differently in this place, marked not by sun and moon but by the irregular visits of my captors.

The metal door at the end of the corridor creaked open, its hinges protesting. My body went rigid, every muscle tensing as footsteps echoed against the stone floor followed by the dragging of a tail. Slow. Deliberate. Coming closer.

The footsteps stopped outside my cell, and I squeezed my eyes shut, bracing myself for whatever fresh torment they had planned.

“Hey there, sweetheart.”

The voice was all wrong. Too warm, too gentle, completely lacking the sharp clicks and reptilian hiss of my captors. My heart lurched in my chest, recognition flooding through me even as my mind struggled to make sense of it.

“Everything’s going to be all right.”

Strong hands touched my face, fingers trailing along my cheek with impossible tenderness. I should have flinched away, should have fought, but I leaned into the touch. The fear that had become my constant companion evaporated, replaced by something else entirely.

Heat. Want. A flutter of desire I hadn’t felt in so long I’d almost forgotten what it was like.

A hand slipped into my hair, fingers tangling in the strands as they tilted my head up. Golden eyes looked down at me, full of promise and protection and something darker that made my pulse race.

“Dek,” I whispered, and then his mouth was on mine, warm and demanding and?—

I jolted awake with a gasp, my heart hammering against my ribs as reality crashed over me. Pale morning light streamed through the narrow window in the stone wall, illuminating the unfamiliar but comfortable surroundings of Ariana’s room in the female tower.

Not a cell. Not a prison. Safety.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I groaned, pressing the heels of my palms against my eyes. The dream had been so vivid I could still feel the phantom touch of his hands on my skin, still taste the promise of that kiss that had never quite happened.

The worst part? I felt disappointed because it wasn’t real.

Rolling over with a disgusted grunt, I buried my face in the pillow that smelled like my sister’s vanilla lotion instead of fetid alien guards and despair.

This was exactly what I didn’t need—romantic fantasies about the one man I had to work with to get my revenge.

Deklyn was cocky and infuriating and entirely too attractive for his own good, and the last thing I could afford was to be distracted by whatever weird prison bonding had happened between us.

I forced myself to sit up, my gaze falling on the small silver frame on the nightstand.

The photo inside showed Ariana and me from years earlier, our arms around each other’s shoulders, both of us grinning at the camera.

We’d been at some military function for me, but for once, we looked genuinely happy together instead of locked in our usual competition.

My heart squeezed as I remembered what my sister had risked to save me.

How she’d forced the admiral to approve a rescue and how all her friends had joined her without question.

And I loved her for it. I wanted nothing more than to stay here, to build the relationship we should have had all along, to be the sister she deserved.

But I couldn’t. Not yet.

The betrayal I felt at my captivity was too deep, too raw.

Someone in Earth’s command structure had decided to abandon me, to write me off as an acceptable loss.

They’d condemned me to months of torture and interrogation, had left me to rot in an alien prison while they played their political games.

I’d devoted my life to protecting Earth, to serving something greater than myself. And they’d thrown me away like I was nothing.

Swinging my feet over the edge of the bed, I stood carefully, my body protesting the movement. Months of sleeping on stone had left me with aches and stiffness that might never fully go away. My left shoulder sent a sharp spike of pain down my arm that I attempted to massage away.

The attached bathroom was small but functional, all clean lines, more black stone, and modern fixtures that felt impossibly luxurious after my captivity. I turned on the shower without bothering to wait for the water to warm, stepping under the spray as it was still running cold.

The temperature didn’t bother me. After months of bathing with ice-cold water when they’d even bothered to let me bathe at all, tepid water felt warm by comparison.

I let it gradually heat as I stood there, my face turned up to the spray, letting it wash away the lingering remnants of the dream and the sweat it had left behind.

As the water grew hotter, pounding against my shoulders and working at the knots of tension that lived there permanently now, I forced myself to focus.

Deklyn or his sexy scruff, or the way he’d looked at me in that shipyard like I was something precious and dangerous all at once couldn’t distract me.

I couldn’t even be distracted by Ariana, as much as I wanted to stay here forever and pretend that bonding with my sister was enough to heal the wounds carved into my soul.

It wasn’t enough. Not yet. Not if I were being honest with myself.

I needed to know who had betrayed me. Who had decided my life was expendable. Who had stolen months of my existence and left me to suffer in ways that would probably haunt my dreams for the rest of my life.

More than that, I needed them to pay.

I knew myself well enough to understand that I wouldn’t be able to move forward, wouldn’t be able to build any kind of future, until I had answers. Until justice had been served. The hunger for it burned in my chest like acid, consuming everything else.

The soap I slid from the groove in the shower wall smelled like lavender and something fresh that made me want to weep with relief.

Even now, months later, I sometimes caught a whiff of the fetid, reptilian scent of the Kronock guards and had to fight not to gag.

Would I ever be able to forget that smell?

Or the sound of their claws clicking against stone as they approached my cell?

I scrubbed my skin until it was pink and raw, as if I could wash away the memories along with the grime. The shampoo felt like silk between my fingers, and I worked it through my hair until every strand was coated, until the scent of it overwhelmed everything else.

When I finally turned off the water, my skin was flushed, and the bathroom was thick with steam. But my resolve was clearer than ever.

I needed information. Real intelligence about who had decided to abandon me and why. And there was only one place at the academy where I would be sure to find it.

Admiral Zoran’s office.

The problem was figuring out how to get inside. The admiral’s office was in the most secure section of the academy. I’d need a plan, resources, and probably some inside help.

I’d also need to be very careful. If I were caught breaking into the admiral’s office, no amount of sympathy for my situation would save me from charges.

But as I toweled myself dry and stared at my reflection in the steamed mirror, I felt no hesitation. Only cold, calculating determination.

Whoever had betrayed me was going to learn that writing off Sasha Bowman had been the biggest mistake of their lives.

I just had to figure out how to prove it.

The reflection staring back at me was leaner than it had been before my capture, my cheekbones sharper, my eyes holding shadows that hadn’t been there before. But there was steel there too, forged in the fires of betrayal and pain.

Let them try to stop me. Let them try to hide. I was coming for them.