Viola’s eyes opened and she looked into mine, her expression unreadable.
“I did this to you, Sara,” she said. “It was you or me.”
CHAPTER8
Sara
For a long moment, I stood blinking at my boss, my chief executive—the woman I would have done anything for, yesterday. I simply didn’t understand. I shook my head.
“What?” I asked.
The prince smiled. “She doesn’t get it, Viola. Spell it out for her.”
He seemed amused with the scene that held such shame and terror for me and clearly for Viola. I could also see in his icy blue eyes something that sent an unwelcome thrill through me: the prince enjoyed doing this to us—not in a sadistic way, but definitely in… what?
A dominant way. He’s a dominant, firm-handed man, just like Major Harrow.
I felt my brow furrow hard and my chin jerked to the right, as my rebellious body tried to look at the officer who had spanked me and exhibited me naked—who had said he would ‘request’ the duty of serving as my ‘guardian.’
Concubine. You belong to the Magisterians. Concubine. For the pleasure of your guardian.
I moved my eyes back to Viola’s face, and then I realized that back in my apartment building, when I had speculated—wildly, I had supposed—that Viola had betrayed me into the Magisterians’ hands to avoid having every on Artemisia learn that she, too, was ‘complicated,’ I had hit on nothing more or less than the truth.
Complicated. Wanton. Needy.
I closed my eyes and lowered my head as the deposed president—the traitor, my mind shouted—continued, her voice choked with tears.
“I’m sorry… they… they told me it would be me, or you, and I… I mean…”
At least Viola had the decency to whisper the next part, as if to show me that she knew how terribly cowardly the idea actually was.
“I mean, I’m thepresident.”
“Werethe president,” said the prince, the dominant amusement in his voice clearly audible.
He went on, addressing me now.
“Sara, Viola here has signed you over into the care of the Magisterian Federation. She’s going to stay here, too, as a gesture of compliance with the treaty, and she’s going to be front and center as what you might call a studio audience of one, for the broadcasts that will begin tonight. First you, and then other women chosen along similar lines.”
I shook my head, frowning deeply. I raised my eyes to meet his. Major Harrow—or maybe Lieutenant Withers?—had said something about my neighbors watching, I remembered now.
“Broadcasts?” I whispered.
The prince nodded. “Adults only,” he said slowly and very pointedly. “One girl a night, trained for by her guardian for the bed of the master who will buy her.”
Heat rushed into my cheeks. My jaw had gone slack. My hands’ position atop my head ensured that my rough breathing displayed my horribly ambiguous reaction much too clearly.
“I don’t know what you mean,” I said, the words sounding so weak I wished I hadn’t spoken them.
“Oh, I think you have a fairly good idea, Sara,” the prince said. “But it’s also important that you not know how your training is going to unfold. That will be up to your guardian—and I’ll just go ahead and declare right now that Major Harrow here will have his application accepted.”
A wave of cold and then another of burning heat made me shrink back, close my eyes again and nearly sink to the floor. I had ceased to notice his hand on my bottom at some point over the last few minutes. My awareness of the dismayingly intimate touch of his firm hand came surging back, as he gave another gentle squeeze. I sobbed deep in my chest.
“Thank you, Your Highness,” I heard him say from beside me. “I’ll undertake to care for her as she deserves.”
I remembered how a few moments before, when I had strangely turned toward him at the sight of Viola standing there in the entry hall, I had even more bizarrely nearly tried to embrace him. My brain wanted to reject utterly the idea that this man couldcarefor me in any way at all—let alone as I deserved. I deserved… well, I deserved so much more than betrayal at the hands of my president.
Something inside, though—something in my body but also in my heart—responded differently. The idea of it made my punished backside seem to tingle under the major’s hand. It sent unwelcome, treasonous heat forward from there, too, to the place I wanted to cover more urgently the more he forbid me to cover myself there.