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of old blankets and a crude toilet.
    His   gamata   had been kept   here ? Koios had given specific orders that she was to be well cared for, had told Ramorakin specifically that the girl was worth a fair amount of coin, even if she hadn’t been taken directly from the High King. Yet Ramorakin had treated her thusly?
    He’d known she had been misused in Ramorakin’s keeping; that had been evident by her condition when she had been found. But that she had been abused from nearly the moment he had given her into the other male’s keeping surprised him.
    Koios had thought much of her injury had been due to her being an obviously fragile example of her Kind.
    Perhaps he had been wrong? Perhaps…she had been extremely ill-treated while in his care? Perhaps   he   had more than just wronged her?
    Was that the reason for her great sense of betrayal?
    He   had promised her the night he had taken her that she would be safe while in his keeping, and she had seemed to trust that. Had been so meek with him. It had surprised him, but after he’d turned her over to Ramorakin he’d damned near forgotten her as he’d dealt with other pressing matters in his kingdom. But he had vowed safety to her…
    Koios had never been proven a liar before, especially by one of his own people. He had   trusted   Ramorakin with the girl’s keeping. And that betrayal of trust would be harshly dealt with.
    He was pushed inside the room and his head—his   gamata’s   head—banged into the floor. Hard hands pulled the girl to her feet, then up until she could see the warrior more fully. Until Ramorakin’s face was right next to hers.
    Not that she saw that well to begin with. What was it like, to never know where a threat was coming from?
    “Please…” She could barely speak, the pain in her ribs preventing it. Ramorakin showed no compassion for one so weak compared to him.
    “I shall   please   myself with you, once the king is done with you.” Ramorakin—strong and an experienced fighter—had little difficulty tossing the healer girl to the blankets. Koios felt the impact as it jarred her, as an already broken rib punctured her lung. “This is your bed. Best not get used to it. Soon it’s my blankets you will warm.”
    The girl shook her head. “No…Auri will come for me. They’ll come for me.”
    “Won’t matter if you’re dead before they get here.” Ramorakin leaned over her and pushed her onto the blankets.
    The girl tried to fight, but Ramorakin was far too big.
    Koios had never felt so much pain in his soul as he did in that instant, trapped within his female, trapped beneath a male who’d just threatened to rape and kill her. Who was already trying.
    Koios couldn’t help himself—and he couldn’t help   her.   He tried to lend her small body what strength his warrior soul possessed, but it did little good.
    So damned little good.

Chapter 8
     
     
    HER knife, the special tool given her by Kindara at the end of her apprenticeship, would be permanently stained from the blood of those she had helped—and of those she had lost.
    She had never been in anything as terrifying as this, except for the attack on Relaklonos months ago. When Auri had died and been changed.
    Eaudne stayed close to her and Nalik was there somewhere. Cass, and others she cared about.
    But she couldn’t worry about them. There were too many falling around her.
    The Rhacshas—and she recognized them from the sounds they made—were vicious. One scratched her as she tried to heal a fallen Dardaptoan.
    She didn’t know who the Dardaptoan was, but she knew when she touched him that it was almost too late for him.
    There was shouting all around her and the sounds of people screaming, dying. The sounds of swords clashing. She’d heard it all before, hadn’t she?
    The day Phaenna turned Aureliana into a Laquazzeana. It had been Rhacshas then, too.
    And Bronwen had healed on that battlefield. Even healed Ren and Rathan’s brother Shaw