“Not necessarily. I know you have a deserter in your midst. Two, actually. Any information you have probably came from him. Unlike the Kitari and his human, I will not betray the Authority. They have my loyalty unto death.”
Sithren is not impressed by my loyalty, but he keeps caressing me.
“It's easier not to think, isn't it. Easier to assume there is some greater purpose that excuses all the little travesties you’ve been a part of over the years. All the criminal acts you've undertaken in service to masters who will not risk even a single soldier coming here to rescue you. You know that, don't you? They’re not coming for you.”
He cups my chin and turns my face up toward him in a firm, possessive grip. He’s proving a point. My vulnerability. His power. And the potential pleasure I stand to gain if I just give in. Submitting would be so easy. It would save me so much pain.
“They're going to leave you here in my clutches, hoping you escape, or perhaps not caring if you do. If you go back to them, perhaps they glean some scraps of information from you and if you don’t, they have many dozens of others ready to take your place. People who will put their own lives secondary to the Authority’s murky causes.”
“It’s called loyalty.”
“It's not loyalty. Loyalty is a decision to put one’s faith into something someone believes in. But you are not foolish. You no longer believe in the Authority. There is no way you could, after seeing what you have seen, and doing what you have done. You see, Tess. I know more about you than you imagine. You are not an unknowable mystery to me. When I am done, there will not be a pore of you I am not intimately familiar with.”
“You don’t know what I believe in.”
“I will find out. I’ll find out every single thing about you, Tess. I’ll press every button. I’ll push every limit. I will lay you bare in every possible way.”
He's trying to mindfuck me. If he can convince me I work for evil people, his job will be that much easier. I have no intention of making his life easy.
My greatest secret is that I do not know who I am. I take on many roles, slide into many situations. I am a chameleon, becoming what I need to be. If he scratches the surface too deeply, he will find nothing but a void.
He will fall into that nothingness and be consumed by it. He is in more danger than he knows. He is my captor, but he doesn't know what he has captured.
I lower my lashes and take refuge in the limited privacy of my lids.
“You can evade me as much as you like.”
Thirty-nine minutes.
My time is running low. I have to admit that I am feeling something in the way of fear. It is one thing to resist him now, but once he has me in his clutches, once my captivity is not a matter of minutes, but potentially of years, resistance will be more difficult. I will look for escape avenues, of course, but I have to be honest with myself. Failure is not an option, but it is a possibility.
Thirty-eight minutes.
Thirty-seven minutes.
Many tens of thousands of miles are passed every second. It would be easy to give into despair, but I have to hold out hope.
“Who betrayed me?”
“You wouldn't believe me.”
“Try me.”
“It was one of your Admiralty.”
I don’t believe him. “I don’t believe you.”
“Yes. I imagined as much. You are brainwashed. Slavishly devoted to a system that sees you as disposable. I can tell you the truth and you will reject it even as you see the evidence of it all around you, because you have submitted your better judgement for belief. This, by the way, is how I know you will become perfectly mine. You are wired to believe in someone, and to lay yourself down for them.”
A little growl escapes my throat. I do not like the way he sees me. Most men see me as cold and impossible to control. More than one sexual partner over the years has called me too much work. But Sithren doesn’t seem to think I’ll be any work at all. He has put everything aside, put his very existence on the line, to take me.
He laughs. It is a rough, raspy sound and there is so much triumph in it.
Thirty minutes.
We’re halfway to my doom and I hear no signs of rescue. The soldiers at the controls are not reporting any issues. We are simply coasting along, like any casual cruiser. We should be desperately fleeing. The cabin lights should be low. We should be at red alert. I can’t quite see the controls, but I don't think we’re at full speed. He’s far too comfortable. They’re all far too comfortable.