The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume I: Volume I

and regretted the movement. As a magician he needed no other explanation for the bond that now existed between himself and the bird. “How’d you get those bruises?”
    “Brunix. He slapped me for speaking to you last night.” She paused a moment, rubbing her jaw. “Is he really dead?”
    “Yes.”
    “Did you kill him?”
    “No. Did you care so much for him?”
    “I hated him. But life with him was better than death during one of Simeon’s rituals. I don’t care that I have a power the king wanted to release. If having power means being like him or Brunix, I don’t want it.”
    “I’ve been a slave, too, Katrina. I know the limited choices you’ve had. But if Brunix left you a virgin, then he was a better man than I hoped.”
    She bit her lip and turned her head away in embarrassment. “What will Simeon do to me when he finds out I’m not?”
    A new pain awakened in Jack. Brunix had raped her. Like all Rovers, the factory owner had no respect for anyone not of his race and clan.
    “Brunix only took me once. Mostly to prove he could after Simeon violated some private agreement between them. But Brunix grew tired of waiting for me to come to him willingly. He promised to rape me tonight, after he finished his business. I wasn’t as important to him as his business and his money.”
    “The business had something to do with the runes in the temple. They cost him his life. The coven murdered him in the temple square. I wonder if they knew what he’d done to you, and death was his punishment?”
    Further conversation ended with the rattle of the door again. The gap-toothed guard with the iron bar entered with a bowl of gruel and a cup of steaming liquid. Light from the corridor chased away some of the shadows.
    “Dinner time, sweetheart.” He bent and placed the meal at Katrina’s feet. “Ain’t ye gonna thank me?” He reached out and pinched Katrina’s breast hard.
    She winced and closed her eyes but said nothing. Then a mask of total blankness descended upon her. No emotion betrayed the pain and humiliation she must be feeling.
    “Frigid bitch,” the guard spat and left. He made a great show of locking the door behind him, making certain the prisoners knew he was free and they were not.
     
    “You need this more than me.” Katrina shoved the bowl and cup as far as she could reach. By pushing gently with her toes, the food inched to within reach of Jack’s fingernails.
    “Just a sip of the broth.” He grimaced and held his stomach. “Take the rest, you’ve got to keep up your strength to survive whatever Simeon plans for you.”
    “If I don’t escape, I’ll make sure I don’t live long enough to face his rituals!” Hesitantly she fished the long divider pin from her tousled plaits. The thick portion, gathered close to her scalp from temple to nape, had hidden the tool during the guard’s earlier search for weapons. Even when they knew her to be free of anything dangerous, her captors had continued to paw her breasts and between her legs.
    How would she do it? A slash across the wrist and slow bleeding to death? No, the guards would find her and stop her. A stab to the heart? Her hand shook as she held the sharp pin up for inspection.
    “We’ll get out of this, Katrina. I don’t know how yet. Simeon’s insanity and Rejiia’s arrogance can be turned against them. If I push Simeon hard enough, maybe he’ll admit that he’s a bastard and not descended from Jaylene of Rossemeyer. That will end his influence in SeLenicca and in the coven. They need his claim to Rossemeyer. But we have to stay alive to escape.” He stared at her pin with eyes that speculated and evaluated even as he pleaded with her. “I don’t think I told her everything.”
    “We’ll share the food.” Determination to survive replaced her earlier despair. “You’ve got to eat, Jack. I don’t know how long this will take, and that bitch may return at any moment. They got the wrong shawl. If we can get out of here I think I have proof that Simeon is a bastard, with no royal blood and has no right to rule. M’ma coded a message to the queen into the shawl three years ago. Queen Miranda and her councillors would have annulled the marriage, and set Jaranda aside as heir, if they thought Simeon a bastard. I know where the shawl is hidden and I intend to use it.”
    She’d picked one lock today with this pin. The manacles shouldn’t be that much more difficult.
    “Rejiia is probably hoping that watching