Broken Captive (Wren's Song 3)

That was her pipe. The way she had first breached his kingdom all those weeks ago.

Unable to look at the guard who’d delivered such news, he kept his eyes on the data relay before him, and asked. “Does the intruder look small, like a child?”

“Yes, sir.”

“It’s her!” Toby shot around the table laden with the evil works of evil men, prepared to make a manic run down several floors of rickety rusty steps.

“We don’t know that!” Caspian snarled, grabbing his Third’s shoulder as he passed. But who the fuck else could it be in that pipe? “And if it is her, charging down there will scare her off.”

They both could sense her caution, the flutters of distress and anxiety. And it was that, Caspian suspected which really stayed Toby’s hand. Not his leader’s order to cease.

Things between them had been… tense.

Crossing bulging arms over his chest, as if unsure what to do with the twitching limbs, Toby said, “She has no reason to run from me.”

The Third believed it. Deep down, Toby believed there was no reason in the world the mouse might fear the Syndicate’s infamous killer. And for that, Caspian had a dash of pity for the male. “We wait. If she’s come for the boy, she will be captured. We’ll deal with her afterward, calmly.”

But continuing reports made it clear the mouse was not slinking into shadows heading the direction where the males’ denned. Instead, she was climbing up the stairs, trying to blend in with the slaves.

Heading to him.

“Kieran should be told,” Toby said, eyes darting left and right as if he might see her through the concrete and spy her approach.

“No.” This moment wasn’t for the Second. Let him stay locked in his room fucking his new toy, as he had for the last several days. The last thing Caspian wanted right now was the vitriol that bastard spewed burning the mouse’s ears.

Toby didn’t demand an explanation, he just backed away, as if the stairs leading from their perch were too much of a temptation to bear. Breathing hard from the corner, he snarled at the guards, “Leave.”

When the trio turned toward the stairs, the Third hissed, “Not that way, you idiots!”

There was no other way for them to go. The upper levels at their backs were prohibited. And when the guards seemed confused Toby, in his infinite patience, threatened to behead their mothers if they didn’t walk up, take a right, follow the hall for a hundred paces, and die there of starvation.

Without so much as a look at the madman, and his very real threats, all three obeyed.

Leaving Caspian and Toby alone on the landing overlooking the Waterworks, waiting for the mouse.

Walking to the railing, Caspian palmed bowed metal, and peered down into the deluge. She was there, just as he had seen her that first time. And she was trying her damnedest not to turn her face up to collect some of that precious water on her tongue.

His mouse was thirsty, but would not drink his water.

She was dirty, but had not come to him to bathe.

No doubt she was also starving…

As if she felt the weight of his stare, she glanced up. But when their eyes met, even from the great distance she still needed to climb, she didn’t look desperate or pleading.

She looked resolved.

No smile for him. No wave.

From their link, Caspian felt a wash of determination.

Head turning down, she gripped ancient railings and continued the climb.

“You let me think you were dead,” Caspian said to no one.

It took every ounce of self-control he possessed not to run down those stairs and demand answers. Gripping the railing so hard it whined in protest, he made himself wait. Refused to show weakness before his men.

And then she was there.

Winded from the climb, she pushed back her hood and let all that glorious, mud-caked white hair fall free.

It had not been brushed, most likely in days. It was not braided and wound about her skull like the first time they’d met. It was just caught into some kind of thong, an afterthought. A burden.

Hands that would have been show white if not for the dirt, raised before her. Squaring her shoulders, the little mouse sucked in a breath, and began.

Caspian had never taken the time to learn how to speak to her, and in that moment fucking hated that he had no clue what she said. So he blurted, “Where have you been?”

Had his voice sounded choked, unsure?

Toby, eyes unblinking, marched closer.

And she, she almost flinched.

“He asked you a question, sunshine. Where have you been?”

The confusion on her face was unmistakable. Looking between them she signed, Toby translating, The Warrens.

The non-answer set his blood to boiling, Caspian barking, “Why not walk through the front gates? Why sneak in?”

Fingers moving slowly to spell out her meaning—the action obviously uncomfortable—she signed, There are guards at the door. I knew they wouldn’t let me in.