Taken by Lane L.V. (top young adult novels txt) 📕

and waist presents the heavy globes like an offering, while the length does not reach my knees. My hair is braided, and paints are applied to my face. All the while, my Orc mistress supervises the maid in the exactitude of her work.

I wonder what is happening to my mates and Raglan. Beyond the door of the cabin, I can hear raucous noise and cheering. It unsettles me more than this preening I endure. Finally satisfied, Edil instructs the maid to fetch a hand mirror.

The devilment taking place beyond the door has risen to a wild roar. Inside, I am trembling and sick.

When the maid returns, a small, gilded hand mirror is presented to me.

I’m encouraged to look.

I don’t wish to look, but I’m already sinking into this role I need to play until I can be reunited with my mates. The face staring back at me is both exotic and foreign. My hair, such a dominant feature, is braided, revealing my heart-shaped face. Dark kohl surrounds my eyes, making them appear magically darker and larger. With red lips and blushed cheeks, I look like a little painted doll.

The maid is instructed to, “Fetch the collar.”

My chest freezes at this news. The maid goes to the tall dresser along the far wall, returning with a thin strip of leather. My Orc mistress secures the collar at my throat. This is not the collar that Caden sometimes uses when he ruts or disciplines me. The black, ugly band is not loving ownership, but its unwholesome rival. In place of the pretty silver bell is a clasp for a leash.

I turn the mirror over as I silently hand it back to the waiting maid. I do not like the image of the stranger there, for that person is not me. The young woman in the mirror is a pet, a living toy owned by Orcs. That the one who owns me chooses to clean me and dress me in silk is something I should be grateful for. “Thank you, mistress,” I say, although I feel none of the gratitude to which I speak.

A great cheer goes up beyond the sturdy cabin door, and all our faces turn that way.

“There,” Edil says. “It looks like my mate’s sport is over.” Clawed fingers catch the underside of my chin. She smiles, although I’m sure she can sense my defiance. “Come, let us get some air, and you can tell me about your homelands.”

Silken slippers are placed upon the floor for my feet, and a thick woolen cloak placed upon my shoulders. The cloak is not sized for an Omega and falls all the way to the floor, creating a small train behind me. She leashes Zeta, but not me, and leaving the maid to tidy up the room, we head out onto the deck.

The crowd that once gathered has dispersed. A deckhand is dousing the deck with a bucket of water. It runs swiftly on the sloping wooden surface, racing under the sway of the boat directly toward us. Zeta nimbly steps aside, but it splashes the bottom of my cloak. The man who tossed the water gets a cuff for his carelessness, but I hardly notice.

There, on the bottom of my cloak, is the unmistakable tinge of blood.

Brook

Somehow I walk back to the hold without falling on my ass. I have hit the unforgiving wooden deck enough times since Priya was escorted into the cabin, I don’t need to smear more of my blood over it.

Derick orders a man to chain Raglan up. Food and water are dumped before they turn and leave, bolting the door again.

I stand swaying as this happens.

“Sit down, lad, before you fall,” Raglan says gruffly.

“Fuck off,” I say. I thought cussing him out would make me feel better, but it doesn’t.

“Sit down, Brook,” Caden says. He is standing before me, swaying in and out of view.

I go to sit. It is more of a fall-collapse, but the end result is the same. A rough grunt escapes my lips that turns to a wheeze of pain.

Caden presses a ladle of water into my hands. I gulp greedily; it gives me something to do other than wallow in my misery.

“All due credit, Brook,” Raglan says dryly. “You can take a punch.”

“That is Caden’s fault,” I say, shoving the empty ladle back into Caden’s waiting hands. “He has dedicated many an hour to pummeling me in the practice pit.” My brother is scowling, but it’s his concerned sort of scowl. I’m glad I cannot see my face, for it feels twice the normal size. “My face feels twice the normal size,” I say.

Raglan huffs out a laugh. “Lad, it looks much as it feels.”

I wish he’d lied to me, the bastard. I swallow. “I’m going to be sick,” I say. I do . . . all over the floor. Caden doesn’t even complain. He just scrapes it up off the floor with some loose straw and tosses it out the window. Then he fetches me another ladle of water.

“Sip it this time,” he says.

I shuffle on the floor until I can prop my back against the wooden wall. Caden passes some food and water to the shifter. A job that was usually Priya’s for neither of us like him well. He comes and sits beside me. Passing me dry jerky that I don’t want. I chew on it without enthusiasm. I’ve not felt this bad for a good while.

“I’d not care about it so much,” I say. “If Priya were here.”

“It will get worse before it gets better,” Raglan predicts ominously, only I cannot see the point where any of this might get better. I know Hawthorn will not give up, but I’m struggling not to succumb to the growing sense of doom. When Priya was here, I could lose myself in her body and scent and forget for brief moments how desperate the situation is.

“You three are like the forces of fucking chaos blundering into my life,” Raglan says