Bonded to the Rakian Berserker (Rakian Warrior Mates #3) - Elin Wyn Page 0,55
that does us. They left me to take care of the little ones. That b– person,” she quickly corrected herself. “Apparently, he can’t do anything before they can talk.”
“What do you mean?” Esme asked, bewildered.
A stranger’s voice from across the aisle answered her.
“He asks questions while he’s running the tests,” a young woman answered wearily. “They usually don’t bring children so young, but I guess his raiders couldn’t resist the possibility of a prize and swept them all up.”
Everyone’s here, Esme said to herself.
Including myself.
She rubbed her chest, where she could feel the connection to Gavin.
He’d come for her.
There wasn’t any doubt about it.
But she couldn’t sit here, be idle and wait for a rescue.
She pushed her fingers through the bars to lace them with Roddy’s.
Not when at any moment that maniac could come back, hurt any of the children again.
More out of habit than any real hope, Esme checked the sheaths on her forearms.
No blades.
What else did she have?
What else did she know?
Thought about the man who tried to take Brynlee’s daughter, how interested he’d been in the child’s Gift.
“Not just our minds, our Gifts,” she murmured. “Are they trying to take them from us?
The woman across the aisle made a harsh sound. “In a manner of speaking. They want to know how they work, see if they can give them to themselves.”
Shock ran through Esme. “That’s impossible! Isn’t it?”
“I’ve been here too long to know what is or isn’t impossible,” the woman shrugged. “And it sounds like you’ve learned things we believed aren’t always true.”
Roddy nodded. “Sasha would know, I think.” The young woman gave him a tired smile, but the warmth behind it was real. “She’s told us how things are here, helped us.”
Esme bit her lip, considering.
The air sleds, the wonders of the Ship.
Nothing had prepared her for that.
Gavin himself, his very existence on this world, impossible. How he and his brothers had come from the stars like the travelers of old.
His changing forms, like a Gift of his own.
“If the Gifts are the key,” Esme said slowly, “Then all of us here must be able to do something special, something that man wants. Are we strong enough to fight them?”
A soft popping sound crackled through the air as a warm glow filled the cage before her.
Fire, Esme realized. The woman held a small flame nestled in her palm. Seeing her clearly for the first time by its light, Esme realized how young she was despite the hoarseness of her voice.
With a flick of her wrist, the flame winked out. “Do you think we haven’t tried? There’s too many of them. Besides, they have our children.”
“What? Esme said.
Surely, she’d misunderstood.
“Braydon is impatient.” The woman moved back into the far corner of her cell, tone worn and tired. “While he’s trying to discover how to spark the gifts in his own people, they know if they simply breed enough children on us, eventually they’ll get a child blessed by the Lady. Even if not, they take the children away to be raised into their own families.”
Nausea swept over Esme.
“Have they…” she croaked, then the words refused to come out.
“They’ve taken two babies from me,” the woman said flatly. “There’s no point in getting upset. This is how things are here.”
She pointed to Nettie.
“I wasn’t here when you left, but I believe Nettie. She used to talk about you, all the time. That you had true dreams like her, but not as often. That you left and would come back. It’s what kept her going, but when they took her last baby it was finally too much.”
Esme wanted to hide, but there was nowhere to go. Wanted to scream, but no one would hear her.
And it wouldn’t fix anything anyway.
But one final question fell from her lips.
“What happened to her face?”
“They wanted to know if she needed both eyes to see the future.” The woman looked away. “Apparently she doesn’t. I heard her tell Braydon how to find you, before he took the recording of the boy’s song. And here you are.”
A crackle like lightning came from the room past the doorway and a long anguished wail of pain echoed off the walls.
“He’ll be done with that one soon,” Layla said sharply. “Dwelling about how horrible things are here isn’t going to get us out any faster.”