His violet eyes met hers. His fingers were still on her pussy. Still tracing. Still rubbing. The pad of his middle finger found the edge of her inner lip. He pressed. Not entering. Just pressing. Feeling the resistance. Feeling the heat.

His other hand came up.

His fingers went to her cleavage. The space between her breasts—bare, exposed, the skin flushed and hot. His finger traced the line between them. Up. Over the swell of her left breast. Over the collarbone. Up the neck. Over the jaw. To her lips.

His finger touched her lower lip.

It was wet. Not with blood. Not with wine. With her. Her own juice. The slick, clear fluid that the drug had forced from her body. His finger had been on her pussy—rubbing, tracing, pressing—and now it was on her lip. He pushed. Gently. His fingertip slipped between her lips. It rested on her tongue.

She tasted herself.

It was faint. Salty. Musky. The taste of a woman’s arousal—foreign on her own tongue, unknown, unexplored. She had never tasted herself. She had never had reason to. The taste was warm. Slightly sweet. Slightly metallic. The drug made it sharper. More present. More real.

"Are you all right?" he asked again.

His thumb was in her mouth. Resting on her tongue. His violet eyes were on hers. His other hand was still at her waist. His fingers were still wet with her juice. The room was filled with blood and screaming and the sounds of men in agony, and he was kneeling before her with his thumb in her mouth, asking if she was all right.

Sera trembled.

She trembled from head to toe. Her teeth chattered. Her knees shook. Her hands gripped her own shins so hard that her knuckles were white. The drug was in her blood. Her nipples ached. Her pussy throbbed. Her body was betraying her—responding to his touch, to his proximity, to the impossible calm of his violet eyes—while her mind was still reeling from the horror of what had just happened.

"Yes," she whispered. The word came out broken. Fragmented. "Yes— hic— sir— I— sob— I am—"

She could not finish. The sob took her. It wracked her chest. It bent her double. She curled forward. Her forehead hit his chest. His coat was cold against her burning skin. The blood on the fabric smeared on her cheek.

She grabbed him.

Her arms went around him. Her hands found his back. She pulled. She pressed herself against him. Her bare breasts mashed against his chest—the stiff nipples pressing into the fabric of his coat, the sensation sending shocks through her drug-sensitized body. She buried her face in his neck. She sobbed. She cried. She shook.

"Please— hic— please take me away— sob— please— I want to leave— hic— please— please— PLEASE—"

His hand went to her back.

He rubbed. Slow circles. His palm flat against her spine. His fingers spread wide, covering the breadth of her back. He held her the way one holds a frightened animal—firm, steady, unhurried. His chin rested on the top of her head. His violet eyes looked at the room. At the blood. At the screaming men on the floor.

"I will kill them first," he said. His voice was calm. Matter-of-fact. The way one says "I will close the window" or "I will turn off the light."

She shook her head.

Violently. Her face rubbed against his neck. Her tears soaked his collar. Her hands gripped the back of his coat. Her fingers dug into the fabric.

"No—!" she sobbed. "No— hic— please— please take me away— I want to leave— sob— I do not want to be here— hic— please— please— PLEASE—"

"Fine," he said.

His hand rubbed her back. Slow. Steady. His fingers traced her spine. They found the clasp of her bra—it was not on her, it was tangled in the sheets behind her, but his fingers found the strap that had been left on her shoulders, the thin elastic that was all that remained. He hooked his finger under it. He snapped it. The elastic broke. It fell away. She was bare from the waist up, pressed against him, her breasts flattened against his chest, the stiff nipples pressing into the fabric of his coat.

He had done it on purpose.

She did not notice. She was crying. She was shaking. She was pressing herself against him and begging him to take her away, and she did not notice his fingers breaking the last strap of her bra, did not notice that when he pulled her away from this room, she would be bare from the waist up, her breasts exposed, the stiff nipples poking against nothing.

He vanished.

The room disappeared. The blood disappeared. The screaming disappeared. The marble and the silk and the candles and the copper bathtub and the writhing, legless men on the floor—all of it vanished. The world folded. The world unfolded. The air changed. The temperature dropped. The light changed.

They were somewhere else.

The ground was cold.

Not marble. Stone. Rough. Ancient. The kind of stone that has been in the same place for a thousand years, worn smooth by wind and rain, cold even in summer. The air was cool. Damp. The kind of air that precedes rain—heavy, thick, charged with the promise of water that has not yet fallen.

They were in a cave. Not deep—a shallow overhang, really, a natural formation in a cliff face, overlooking a valley. The sky was gray. Heavy clouds rolled above, dark and swollen, moving slowly, blocking the sun. The light was diffuse. Soft. The kind of light that makes everything look like a painting.

Sera was on the ground. Her knees were on the cold stone. Her hands were on his chest. She was pressed against him. Her bare breasts were against his coat. The fabric was rough against her nipples. The blood on the fabric was cold against her skin.

She was crying.

His hand was on her back.

Rubbing. Slow circles. His palm flat against her spine. His fingers spread wide. He held her the way he had held her in the blood-soaked room—firm, steady, unhurried. His chin rested on the top of her head. His violet eyes looked at nothing. At the gray sky. At the coming rain.

"You are fine," he said. His voice was quiet. Close. The words were spoken into her hair. "You are okay. I am with you."

She trembled. She sobbed. She pressed her face into his neck. She could feel his pulse. It was steady. Even. The pulse of a man whose heart rate had not changed—had not changed in the room full of blood, had not changed when he erased a man’s shoulder, had not changed now. As if nothing could make it change. As if nothing ever would.

"Aren’t you a strong girl?" he said. His hand moved to her hair. He rubbed. His fingers traced the tight braid. He found the tie. He pulled it loose. Her dark hair fell. It cascaded over her shoulders. Over her bare back. It was thick. Heavy. Wild. The hair of a woman who had kept it bound for fighting and had never let it down. "I saw you fighting in the competition. You are really a strong woman."