Page 40 of Fangs
“Can I show you something?”
I glanced at Sable to see him beginning to unbutton his shirt, and fear spiked in me. What the fuck was he doing? My eyes flicked to Kai, and he must have seen my fear because pity filled his face, which immediately infuriated me.
“He’s not gonna hurt you, Ember,” Kai said, and then he scowled. “And seriously? You really think I’d just sit here and watch?”
“It wouldn’t be the first time,” I spit out without thinking.
Both of them went still, eyes fixed on me. Sable had his shirt halfway unbuttoned, but he didn’t continue. I bit the inside of my cheek hard and inwardly cursed.
“What does that mean?” Kai asked.
“Nothin’.”
“Didn’t sound like nothing,” Kai leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, his eyes narrowing.
I didn’t respond, and they shared a loaded glance before Sable resumed unbuttoning his shirt.
“I wanted to show you that you’re not alone,” he said to me as he slid one arm out and twisted, showing me the back of his shoulder.
I sucked in a breath through my nose as my nausea violently surged.
Stamped into his skin was an old brand, much older than mine, but I recognized it immediately. I’d seen that brand in the skin of more people than I could count. It was the mark of a warlord who went by Mad Dog. Juck used to traffick slaves for him,a lotof slaves because Mad Dog went through them quickly. Juck’s business profited from that, but something happened between them when I was around sixteen, and Juck never worked with him again. I wasn’t sorry about it. Last I’d heard, someone had hired assassins to kill Mad Dog, and all his slaves escaped. I wasn’t sad about that, either.
“You know that mark,” Kai said.
I met his gaze, and my stomach twisted. Every bit of amusement and concern had vanished, making his blue eyes as cold as the frozen river. Sable shrugged his shirt back on in a smooth, fluid motion and turned to stare at me as well.
“How do you know that mark, Ember?” Kai asked, and his tone made all the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
“Kai,” Sable warned.
“Did you work for Mad Dog?” Kai demanded, standing in one fluid, aggressive motion that made me flinch.
“No,” I blurted out.
“How do you know it, then?” Kai stalked slowly and deliberately toward me.
“Kai,” Sable said louder.
I started scrambling backward, my eyes on his fists clenched at his sides.
“Kai, stop,” Sable gracefully stood, putting himself between me and Kai.
I watched him gently cup Kai’s freckled face, and Kai finally stopped glaring at me and met Sable’s gaze.
“I don’t think she was there,” Sable murmured, but Ihad been.
I clapped my hand to my mouth and clambered to my feet as nausea surged, and they both whipped toward me. I stared at them, wide-eyed with panic. Kai blinked, his anger swiftly changing to confusion, but Sable must have understood because he immediately seized my elbow and started towing me toward the door. Somehow, I held it in until we got outside, where I heaved up the contents of my stomach into the snow. Sable kept a tight grip on my elbow.
Sable had been one of Mad Dog’s slaves.
Did Juck drag him across the desert? Was he one of the sobbing, terrified people I watched get shoved inside the rusty horse trailers? Juck didn’t even let them out to relieve themselves on the two-day journey. They were forced to stand in puddles of their excrement. And I’d just watched it happen, too terrified of Juck’s wrath even to speak up.
Mad Dog had a harem of female slaves, and his entire garrison was practically a pleasure house. While his lodgings were in the adobe fortress on the surface, the majority of the garrison was underground, and he forced the slaves to dig out more tunnels to expand his hold. I’d never been inside the garrison. Juck always made me stay in his tent under guard when he spent the night inside partaking in whatever Mad Dog offered, but I could guess the darkness underground resembled that awful cell under the watchtower. My stomach heaved again despite being empty now.
“It’s alright, Ember,” Sable said gently, and shame blazed through me like fire.
I tried to jerk my arm away when I caught my breath. “Let go.”
