Page 88 of Skin Trade

“Did you …” Payton paused. She blew out a long breath because she needed to know, but she didn’t want to know. “Did you send me away to Creven?”

“No,” Seth said. “No. I would never do that.” It was only a slight flick of his gaze over to her father, but it was enough to give her the answer she needed.

She closed her eyes, took in a long inhale. Tears brimmed at her eyes. Not for them, not for this, but for that girl inside her who’d held on. “They did take me away that night, didn’t they? I wasn’t sick with fever?” She opened her eyes, looked right at Seth.

“You were sick.” He moved again. Aamon stood, making Seth clench his fists. “They made you sick,” he said to her. “They made you sick, so you’d forget me. Forget here. I know you don’t remember that part and what they did to you. Reach up, touch here.” Seth touched his hand to the back of his head at one side. “You’ll find it. It feels like a lump, like a disk in there.”

Eyes on him, she lifted both hands, did the same he was doing, pushed her fingers into her hair. Her insides went cold.

“I ran after you that night they took you away. I never stopped looking.”

“They did this?”

Seth nodded.

“Saved you from the old guy when you were thirteen. Who’d have known what he’d do while you two were alone down here. It wasn’t right,” Alexander said.

“No. I did nothing. I would never have touched her like that. I never touched her like that. Never wanted--”

Maybe he was going to say wanted to, but he stopped himself. The words catching in his throat as he stared at her. She felt him, inside her head, she felt him in there the way she had so many times now. But this was different. He wasn’t speaking to her. Wasn’t teasing her. His presence in her mind was a comforting touch, a loving touch and one that she knew with the absolute truth, would never hurt her in the ways Alexander was trying to insinuate. She might not have been able to remember it all just then. Only fragmented pieces of a life she couldn’t understand, but it was there … he was there. Protecting her, always.

“They gave you to Creven so I couldn’t come after you.”

“Did Seth ever show you what Creven did to him? The marks on his back? Have you seen those?”

She had. The criss-crossed lines that marred his otherwise flawless skin.

“Best place we could have ever put you. After you’d gone, Seth had no one, was no one. So, he comes to me, back to me. They always do. Asking for my forgiveness. I give it to him. He builds his empire and then, as we planned, Creven sticks you up for sale. No questions, no problem. Just you in the auctions. His compensation for having to house you for all those years. But it was the ultimate test of alliance. A test of his loyalty to me.” He pointed at Seth. “So, I sent him to bring you back to me. To bring you here so we can do what we’ve always planned. Do you know what he did instead?”

Payton said nothing.

“He bought you for himself. Marked you in a way that means he owns you and tried to hide you away. I have it on good authority, that if you hadn’t planned such a great escape, you and he would be off somewhere far away from here. Isn’t that right, Seth?”

“I was protecting her.”

“He marked me? He never marked me,” Payton said.

“You ever ask yourself why he insisted on being the one to take you to the cleansing room alone? Why he sent everyone else away? Why he was the one to drive you?”

Payton touched her chest where he had touched her that very first moment.

“Now,” Alexander said and at the same time, Aamon put himself right behind Payton, positioning the blade in front of her heart. “We need to undo that mark.”

“What? No.” She went to push herself away from Aamon’s grasp, but he was bigger than her, stronger.

“Don’t touch her,” Seth said. A low warning.

“Oh, we won’t. Not if you do what I say.” He nodded to the large cube behind Seth. “If you get in that and turn it on, no harm will come to her at all.”

Payton didn’t miss the expression that went across Seth’s face as he looked back at it.

“What does it do?”

“It’s a crepuscular ray chamber,” Seth said. He turned to look at her. “Artificial sunlight designed to test cells that have been manufactured to withstand true death.”

“No,” Payton said. She understood right then what Alexander was telling Seth to do. To choose. His life or hers. His true death, or her life at the hand of Aamon.

Seth stared at her, eyes full, his expression the one of a man she’d known so long ago. One who would have done anything for her. Would do anything for her.

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