She wanted to see Tristan, not just see him, but wrap her arms around him, inviting him in for a kiss. She wanted to wrap her legs around him, inviting him in for more.
She wanted to know if Dixon had been right about them.
She wanted to finish her dream.
She wanted Tristan to say that he wanted her. Just once.
The sight of the gun brought her out of her stupor, out of her futile wanting and wishing. It was too late for all of that now. She’d spent all her time like bags of coins wasted and tossed away in a wishing well, all for the purchase of leather blackcoat and an empty bed.
She’d become an empty shell soon.
Switched off and gone forever.
Soon after, she’d become chunks of meat served up for Chairwoman Wilson’s pleasure.
The gun hovered in front of her face, but her arms were too heavy to bat it away. Her tongue was too thick to call for mercy.
She couldn’t even cry.
As the sedative coursed through her, warming her blood, numbing the force of her impending death, Lila found that she didn’t even care anymore. Not about any of it. Her family would get along without her. Tristan and Dixon would get along without her. The season would start without her.
She remembered caring only seconds before, but it seemed so hard to remember why.
Lila took the easy path and let the drugs take her.
Chapter 20
“Wake, Lila of New Bristol. We do not have much time.”
Lila’s eyes fluttered. She opened them with effort, finding herself on the morning room floor. Dishes peeked over the table, witnessing her yawn: a half-filled glass pitcher of orange juice, pulp glued to the side; a plate covered by a half-eaten pancake, drowning in maple syrup; eggs and bacon, piled near an abandoned fork; and two glasses of wine, standing watch over an empty bottle of Gregorie. Breakfast with her mother. She’d walked out for some reason, but she couldn’t remember what they’d argued about.
Apparently her mother had walked out, too.
“Wake, Lila of New Bristol,” came the voice again. Lila chased it, turning her head at the dispassionate tone. A blue-eyed blonde stood over her and nudged her shoulder with a boot.
A boot lined in fur.
Lila sat up and scooted away from the odd figure. The woman might have come from a movie, with her worn and dented leather armor. The well-used hilt of a sword peered over her shoulder, the grip fashioned to its owner hand, not by crafting, but by years of battle. A handmade bow had received the same treatment, a companion in war and travel. Taller than Lila, the woman had muscles that might have been sculpted by artist, if his muse had carved them by hard and bloody practice. She wore two large pearls around her neck, speared by leather.
Lila knew the woman at once: an oracle of old, a battle queen, both blessed and cursed by visions from the gods.
“Rise,” the oracle commanded.
It was the voice of a woman used to being followed, not in life but in battle.
Lila licked her lips and obeyed, nearly tripping over the hem of her blackcoat. She rested her fingertips on her Colt, brushing the grip. The woman’s eyes tracked the movement.
Lila did not remove her fingertips, but she didn’t draw her gun, either.
The pair stared at one another for several moments.
“I was…” Lila paused, unsure of where she had just been and what she had been doing.
“You were about to die. Poison runs through your blood.”
“Poison?”
“The kind your people carry in their weapons. The man who came for you weakened you before striking. He is a coward, too afraid to test his mig