32. Athena
Athena
The oblek was exactly what I might have imagined a Vandar torture chamber would look like, although I’d never expected it to be attached to the command deck. The Zagrath famously kept their torture rooms in dark basements, but apparently the Vandar liked everyone to hear their prisoners scream.
The room had a single wall of glass that looked out into the endless dark of space, which was beautiful, especially compared to the other sides lined with weapons.
Blades of every length were strapped to the black walls.
Some were curved, some straight, some serrated in ways that made my stomach clench just looking at them, but all glinted under the room's ambient blue light.
Chains hung from the ceiling at intervals, some short enough that I would have to stand on tiptoes to reach them and others long enough to pool on the floor.
The floor itself was the same glossy black as Lorken's quarters, but here it didn't shine the same way.
There were dull, scuffed patches, as if something had been scrubbed at over and over until the surface itself had worn thin.
I didn't want to think about what had left those marks. I didn't want to think about how much blood had dripped onto the floor or how many people had stood exactly where I was standing now, feeling just as petrified.
The air smelled faintly of copper and sweat, and I could almost taste the fear that had soaked into the room, layer after layer of it. My own fear clenched my throat and made my knees watery.
"Have a look around," Zarn drawled as he circled me slowly. "This is where I do my best work."
I made myself walk, if only because standing still felt like waiting for something to happen to me, and moving felt like I still had some measure of control. I circled the edge of the room, keeping my eyes on the weapons rather than on him, though I could feel his gaze tracking me with every step.
"I told your brother the truth," I said, telling myself to stay calm even as my voice fractured at the edges. "I didn't know about my father. I don't remember him. I was a child when he left."
"You didn't have to grow up with him to be loyal to his blood.
" Zarn's boots echoed as he began to circle opposite me, always keeping the distance between us the same, like we were dancing some twisted version of a partnered step.
"Perhaps you discovered what you truly were somewhere along the way.
Perhaps you thought some grand gesture might draw your missing father's attention back to you.
Prove yourself worthy of the Hommler name. "
"That's insane." My voice cracked. “I hate the Empire. I’ve always hated the Empire.”
"Or perhaps," he continued, as though I hadn't spoken, "it was never about your father at all. Maybe this is all about my brother. It didn’t take you long to worm your way into his bed.”
"I never asked to be brought onto this ship." Anger burned through the fear now, hot and sudden. "I never asked for any of this. I was dragged from Kashara—”
"You bargained for your friends to come with you." His eyes narrowed. "That was your condition, was it not? Your price for cooperation?"
"Because they would have died if they'd stayed behind!" I shouted, my voice bouncing off the glass.
He moved faster than I could track, closing the distance between us in a single cat-like leap and catching my wrists before I could react, backing me up and pinning them over my head. My back hit the wall hard enough to knock the breath from me.
"All part of the plan," he murmured, his face close to mine and his dark eyes searching my face with an intensity that made my skin crawl. "Trick your way onto our ship. Trick your way into my brother's bed. Manipulate a Raas into believing you, into trusting you.”
"I never tricked him,” I gasped, straining against his grip, my wrists screaming under the pressure of his grip.
Zarn's gaze slid over my face, slow and assessing, and something in his expression shifted and went darker. "I can see why he finds you so appealing."
Bile teased the back of my throat as he pressed his hard body flush to mine. "Lorken!"
"He can't hear you." Zarn's voice had an almost tender caress, which somehow made it more terrifying. "This room was built to keep sound in, little Zagrath. I have complete control over what happens to my prisoners inside it."
I bucked against him, twisting my wrists and trying to wrench free, but his grasp didn't budge. His weight pressed me flat against the unforgiving wall, and my heart hammered so violently against my ribs I thought it might break through them.
"Perhaps," he said, tilting his head and watching me struggle with amusement, "you require more forceful convincing to tell me the truth."
My breath came in ragged gasps, my mind scrambling uselessly for some way out or some words to convince him that he was wrong about me. I knew in my gut that tears would not move him, and a stubborn part of me refused to let him see me cry.
As I clenched my jaw and met his gaze with defiance, unbidden thoughts of Lorken filled my mind.
For the first time since I'd held a blade to his throat in the theatre, I let myself feel the ache of wanting him near me and of wishing for his touch.
Somewhere in the chaos of the last two days, whatever I felt for Raas Lorken was no longer annoyance or gratitude or the strange pull of circumstance.
It was something far more dangerous than that.