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"You’ve turned pensive," he h, she nodded "More than you can i? Were you in love with Castin?"

"No But I thought ere friends We’d been lovers for nearly a year He was one of the cheetah clan chieftain’s lieutenants I s with my queen, Rayas"

He stilled beneath her, his breath catching, his palo was this?"

She lifted up, peering down into his shocked face "Five thousand years In the weeks after the Sacrifice"

He stared at her as if she’d grown a second head

Melisande scowled "Are you horrified that you just made love to an ancient?"

Slowly, he shook his head "Awed You were there at the time of the Sacrifice, in the time of the Daemons"

"I was And for almost a thousand years before I’m quite old, Feral" She started to push off hiether, they rose and donned their clothing, boots, and weapons

As she began to plait her hair, Fox strolled to the cave’sto have trouble getting out"

"They have no intention of letting us out And where e go if they do?"

Fox turned back and placed another couple of logs on the fire The s her therethey couldn’t see

As Fox knelt to stoke the fire, he glanced at her, his eyes deep wells of compassion and curiosity "Will you tell me more? About the past? About you?"

The barriers she’d erected were all gone now, burned away in the warer did she feel the need to hide the past Instead, with this oing to like what Melisande had to say The thought of anyone hurting her had his hands shaking with the need to rip off heads But there was so much turmoil inside her, soon if he ever wished to help her And he wanted to help her, desperately

As he stoked the fire, Melisande took a long, shuddering breath, her fingers plaiting her hair with quick, tense efficiency "The Daemons were newly defeated, the Sacrifice but weeks old"

Everyone knew the story, that both the Therians--all of ere shape-shifters back in that tireat power to defeat the Daemons and lock them in the enchanted Daemon Blade They didn’t call it the Sacrifice until years later, once they’d realized the horrible truth--that little of that poould ever return

"I knew that the shifters were having trouble accessing their animals, but I didn’t know the extent of it," she told him "None of us did When Castin extended an invitation to the cheetah clan’s celebration at the end of the war, I gladly accepted He asked ht Ilinas to attend their event, and only eight, was odd, I didn’t question it Most Ilinas can sing quite well and are born dancers and courtesans We were highly sought out at such gatherings, as you can probably i all that wished to attend, I would have understood But he asked for eight"

She looked away, a ripping sadness in her eyes that htto die ten thousand deaths Fox joined her, sitting beside her on the hard-packed dirt, where he could at once see her face and the cave’s entrance beyond the fire He gave her knee a gentle squeeze

Melisande continued "At the end of one of our dances, the chieftain ordered his guards to bestow a gift upon each of us, a silver bracelet set hat appeared to be lumps of tar He claiuests with such, and he stood beside me as his warriors placed a bracelet around each of our wrists, Castin giving me mine I didn’t realize it at the time, but the tar hid the red moonstones that stole an Ilina’s ability to ot theus out They moved us miles from their caves and warded the new caves so that our sisters and queen would never find us And they never did"

"Why?" He’d tried to remain quiet while she spoke, but he couldn’t "Why would they do such a thing?"

Melisande turned her delicate face to hi hiht be able to restore their aniht way to access it" Her braid complete, she tossed it over her shoulder and looked down, drawing a thin line in the dirt with her fingernail "And because I was a Ceraph"

Fox frowned "A Ceraph?"

She looked up "It’s hard to explain Most Ilinas are born through ic and ritual, as I was But every dozenoddess herself And they call Ilinas like els"

He stared at her

A smile pulled at her mouth, but her eyes were sad "Most of the Feral Warriors would have a laugh at that, wouldn’t they?" She shrugged "My giftto ease the torrace frooddess herself It was that power the cheetah chieftain believed ht heal his clan and restore their anirowled "Why hurt you?"

She sighed "You have to understand, we’d all endured over a century of ith the Daemons--a war in which our enemy, over and over, had demonstrated the ability of torture to access deep power I believe it’s part of the Daemon nature, or the way they access their oer Castin and I had been lovers for months, and in those weeks after the Sacrifice, I’d been trying and trying to heal his animal To no avail They decided to find out if torture would access the power they needed And death"

Fox’s heart clenched

Melisande resu in the dirt "Castin handed hter And with me, the women closest to my heart" Her voice turned bitter "I was so naive I could not conceive of anyone’s intentionally trying to harhter, sothe fury, even as he ached to pull her into his aret this out, and he needed to hear it Instead, he clasped her knee and held on, hoping his touch ht ease the awful truth of her words

"When I awoke" She pressed her lips together, digging deeper with her finger as if she would dig herself a hole in which to escape the past "I found ht His chest ached "The chieftain was the first to rapeme as he did so, but he was far from the last I lost count and lost track, but the brutality went on hour after hour, day after day, for weeks Perhaps months"