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her sigh. He wasn’t the queasy type, far from it, except this was different. It was her and he would have given anything not to have to do what he was about to. He looked to Micah as the other man came to stand next to him. As much as he hated the thought of it, Micah was going to have to hold her down.
    “I have some medical training,” Micah offered, his voice pitched low.
    “Define ‘some.’”
    His mouth quirked. “Two years of med school.”
    Seth needed help. There was no question. He just had to decide if he was the one to inflict the pain or the one to hold her down for it. Either way, she was going to be hurt and the knowledge was a twisting burn, deep in his gut.
    He looked over at her. She had her arms wrapped around her body.
    “I’m sorry. If there was any other way…”
    * * *
    Devon wet her lips, no longer able to control the trembling in her legs, her arms, her hands. She’d tried to anticipate everything when she’d planned her escape. As much as she could, anyway. Knowing her every move was monitored, her every action analyzed, her every activity carefully controlled hadn’t given her much room to work with, but she’d done her best. This? All this? She couldn’t have hoped to anticipate in a million years.
    The coldness washed through her when she saw he had the scalpel in his hand. Again.
    “It’s okay. I—I…it’s okay.”
    But it wasn’t. None of this was okay. It pretty much sucked. As much as she tried to tell herself the thing had to come out or all this would be for nothing, it didn’t help. Not with the fear of the pain, or the terror that she was going to get both men hurt or even killed. That was so much worse.
    Devon lay down on the ground when Seth motioned her to. It was hard, cool, the grasses scratchy against her skin. She shivered, but it had nothing to do with cold.
    “Ah…we’ll need you to lift up the shirt,” Micah said.
    She should have been way beyond modesty, but her hand stalled, clenched on the hem at her thighs. She swallowed. They’d already seen—everything—but…
    “Here.” Seth spread one of her discarded shirts across her abdomen. How ironic that it was one of the ones she’d sewn money into, carefully rolled and hidden along each of the seams because there was no way she could have explained her need for it. Not as much as she’d been able to steal from the house staff over the course of several years anyway.
    And then she couldn’t think about anything else but trying to control the sense of panic that threatened to overwhelm her when Micah straddled her legs. He was big, the weight of his body telling her more than words that she wasn’t going to be able to move. She could remember every single time she’d been accidentally touched. Every. Single. One. It was all she could do not to scream at the sense of confinement.
    “Better?” Micah asked.
    No.
    She nodded.
    Micah took the scalpel Seth held out.
    Oh God.
    “I don’t think I can do this. Please…” she whispered. “Let me go.”
    Micah jumped to his feet instantly, lifted his hands, looked at them, frowned and then glanced at Seth.
    “What the—”
    “That wasn’t me, man,” Micah cut him off, his voice thin, unsteady. “It was all her.”
    They looked at her. Seth frowned and she felt a frisson of something course through her.
    When Seth didn’t say anything, Micah added, “I’m going to go out on a limb here and say your Darce is the power of suggestion. Probably when you’re in physical contact.”
    “My…what?”
    “We each have a gift. In the old language it’s called a Darce . You can plant a suggestion. You didn’t know?”
    Everything in her went still, her heartbeat so loud she could barely hear her own thoughts.
    “I— No one is allowed to touch me. Ever. It’s always been forbidden. I—I used to think I had a contagious disease of some kind and they were hiding it from me.”
    Could it be? All this time touch had been denied her because of what she