Page 92 of Devotion

Not guards.

There are only two of them, both dressed in the rugged outdoorsy clothes rarely seen in the Capital. They’re garments outsiders often wear—made of pre-Fall fabrics like denim and leather. The man is big and dark-haired and intimidating and holding a very large gun, but the woman is small and very pretty with pale blond hair and delicate features. She has a gun in a holster at her hip but hasn’t pulled it out.

She’s giving us a sharp, dismissive scan. “Get out. We’ve got business here.”

“We have business here too.” Gabriel sounds normal—composed and intelligent and matter-of-fact. But I know he’s nervous. Urgency is shuddering through his body.

“We saw your business.” Her tone conveys the slightest hint of disdain. “You can fuck elsewhere.”

Gabriel is still on guard, but he’s also getting frustrated. He’s not used to strangers treating him like a horny adolescent.“We’ve arranged to meet someone here. At midnight. I’m assuming that’s you, although you’re hours early.”

The woman’s eyes narrow. “In that case, you’re hours early too.” Her expression changes. She shoots a quick glance at the man beside her, who still has his weapon aimed at us. I don’t know anything about guns, so I have no idea what kind it is. But it’s huge and can no doubt do major damage. “Stop hiding the girl. Let me see her.”

“No.” Gabriel’s stretching both arms behind him, trying to keep me in place. Shielded between his body and the bed. He adds in a brusque murmur, “Baby, don’t move.”

I stay still because he said so and because it feels safer to me.

“If Ben shoots you, the bullet will go straight through you and into her. She’s no safer there than out in the open.”

It’s such a jarring incongruity. The woman sounds like a military general and looks like a fairy princess from an old story.

Gabriel still wants to keep me behind him. His posture is deeply protective. But I pull away from him and step out anyway.

The woman is right. No matter where I stand, I’m not safe in this room when only two of the four of us have weapons.

She eyes me from top to bottom, and I’ve never felt so exposed—not even when I was naked in a room for three strangers to examine when I was applying for the partner selection process.

Then she gives Ben another quick look and a discreet shake of her head. He moves to stand beside the entrance.

“We were willing to help a government official who saw the light and wants to do the right thing. We’re not going to help a man who dragged his palace pet along to service him.” She turns to leave the cabin.

“I’m not a pet!”

“She’s not a pet,” Gabriel says at exactly the same time.

Our mutual indignation must give her pause. She aims another sharp look over her shoulder.

A wave of panic pushes me into a rushed exclamation. “I was his partner at the palace, but I’m not a pet. I was there by choice, and I’m here by choice, and he’s never once dehumanized me the way you just did.”

The woman turns back around, her expression startled but not as hard as it was the moment before. “I apologize. My intention was to express the way those at the palace view you. Not the way I view you myself.”

“I understand that, but you’re not seeing our situation correctly. You’re assuming I’m a victim and he’s an abuser, and that’s not what’s going on here. I wanted to be a partner in the palace. I’ve wanted it all my life.”

Her mouth softens. Her lips are full and expressive. She’s genuinely beautiful beneath the brusque manner she wears like armor. “I believe you. But you wanted a position that wasn’t good for you because all your other options were worse. That’s not a freely chosen life.”

“No one’s choices are entirely free.” I’m getting slightly shrill because I’m so scared. It looks like she and Ben are going to walk out of this cabin at any moment and take with them any hope for our escape. “But I don’t regret any of mine. Gabriel is a good man, and he made an agonizingly hard choice to defy the president rather than support his plans to further an oppressive regime. He wouldn’t have even brought me with him if I wasn’t in more danger staying at the palace.”

“I’m not keeping her with me,” Gabriel adds softly. “I’m taking her to her family in Saint Louis.”

The woman glances back at Ben, who is still lurking by the door. They share a look that I can’t read. I still haven’t heard the man speak.

Gabriel reaches out to take my hand. I don’t know why he does so, but I cling to it. I need it.

When the woman meets my eyes again, she says, “Even a man who makes the occasional right choice can still be taking advantage of you. He made you give him a blow job just now when your life was in real danger.”

“No! He didn’t make me do anything. He never has. I do understand what you’re thinking and why you think it. But you’re wrong about us. You don’t know me, and you don’t know him, and you don’t know our history or how we are together. He’s not taking advantage of me.” I can feel our chances of survival slipping away, and it terrifies me so much I burst out with something I might never have admitted otherwise. “I love him!”

Because I’m holding Gabriel’s hand, I feel his dramatic twitch of response.

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