When Roven made to follow her, she shook her head.
“I need to talk to him alone.”
How could I talk about Faren with his warriors listening in?
The warrior seemed reluctant to leave her, but Primen cut in.
“Relax, warrior. We are in the Senators’ Palace. Who could harm her here? There are guards everywhere. She’s safe.”
Roven didn’t seem to listen to him. His eyes remained on Leiya.
“I will be close by,” he said and his voice was dark. “Shout for me.”#p#分页标题#e#
She nodded. Anything to get him to leave. Leiya really needed to sit down and just… make sense of the world.
Senator Primen’s office was in the beautiful side of palace, overlooking a great stone courtyard with fountains and a little decorative bridge. Usually the Brions weren’t very interested in ornaments, and trinkets, and things that didn’t serve a very specific purpose, but the senators were different. It was said they thought better in the midst of things that weren’t practical. It somehow expanded their mind. Leiya didn’t know if that was true or if it was a very good believable lie.
She sat down on one of the couches and accepted a drink.
Oh, yes. I really needed a drink. Thank gods for the classes with perception powers.
“Did he hurt you?” Senator Primen asked.
Leiya nearly choked on her drink.
“No,” she said. “I just… Well, you know me. I mostly avoid warriors, but this one was a bit difficult to ignore.”
“Mm, yes,” Primen said. “I understand. Faren has a… reputation, doesn’t he?”
He sat beside her, smiling at her encouragingly. He was a bit younger than her father, but already gray showed in his hair. She had to wonder if that was Faren’s doing in part. Primen’s eyes were warm and blue, though, with no signs of aging. Leiya nodded, grateful for the compassion.
“I mean, I get that I’m his fated. But he can’t do this to me,” she continued. “And honestly, I want to know more about this rumor of bindings not being certain. What I saw aboard the Unbroken…”
“What did you see?” Primen asked.
Leiya told him, in as much detail as she felt she could go into. With a weird relief, she saw that none of it shocked Primen. What he said after she’d finished shocked her, though.
“Oh, sweet girl, you didn’t see the half of it,” he said. “He wasn’t lying, you know. It really is a common training exercise. But he wouldn’t let you see the really disturbing things.”
For some reason the affirmation that Faren hadn’t lied sent a tinge of excitement down Leiya’s spine.
Senator Primen was no longer smiling.
“They are monsters,” he said. “The generals. Your father has kept all of this from you, I don’t doubt. And of course they don’t let it be known to the public what they really teach the warriors. What you saw was child’s play to them. They don’t want us to know what they are really capable of. Do you think Diego Grothan lets his pretty little gesha see what he can do to a man’s spine? I’ve seen them bend a person backwards and fold them together without killing them. I can’t imagine the pain, can you?”
The smile had died on Leiya’s lips too. Maybe she’d underestimated how much Primen really hated the generals.
“No,” she said quietly. “I don’t want to either.”
She'd let herself be carried away by talk of Faren, but then she remembered.
"Senator," she said, looking him straight in the eye. "Is it true? Am I actually human?"
The way the senator sighed told her everything. It was true. She felt something change within her. A shifting. It wasn't a bad feeling, necessarily. Not for her. It was a horrible truth, but she was grateful for it. At least she finally knew why she always felt so wrong. Now that she knew what she was, Leiya felt complete for the first time in her life.
"So he told you," Primen said. "I figured he would, to turn you against me and your father."
Leiya had many quarrels with Faren, but she didn't think that accusation was correct.
"He told me the truth," she said dryly. "Something that you didn't for all my life."
"It was a part of the test," said the senator. "We wanted to see if someone believing to be a Brion would become more like a Brion."
"A test," Leiya repeated. "You let me live a lie because it served your needs."
Her voice had never sounded like that, cold and terribly hurt and broken.
"It was necessary," Primen said, smiling weirdly.
Necessary. Is that what she was to them, to her father? A necessary test subject to see if their theories held true. Leiya felt sick. Many things about the Brion lifestyle didn't sit well with her, but she'd never been disgusted like that before.
"I doubt it," Leiya snapped. "I'm starting to see why the generals hate senators so much. You sacrifice everything so you could have your way and then you call them evil."#p#分页标题#e#
The curl of the senator’s lips had nothing to do with smiling or humor.
“Oh, but they are. There is little in my life other than them, sweet girl. They’ve made it their purpose to make sure I never get to do anything serious again, but they can’t be everywhere at once.”
Leiya had taken another sip of her drink when the senator’s hand suddenly rested on her thigh. The sip caught in her throat as the look in Primen’s eyes was everything but sane. She couldn’t pull away, she didn’t dare to.
“Just like your gerion isn’t here now,” the senator said.
His touch was repulsive to her. Leiya had never found him attractive and never would, not to mention he was creeping her out. Even more so because he wasn’t Faren. Compared to how the general’s hands had felt around her, this was a twisted mockery of it. Leiya felt sick again. Coming there had been a terrible idea.
“I need to go,” she managed to say, but the hand on her thigh just tightened. Then it moved upwards and if she had eaten anything that day, it would surely have come up then.
“I don’t think so,” the senator said. “You see, I quite like you being here. I’ve had my eye on you for a while now. I thought you were lost to me when that monster dragged you to his ship, but you’ve been so very clever to escape.”
“No…”
“Don’t worry,” the senator said, etching ever closer to her.
His closeness was nauseating. Leiya thought back to Roven’s warning, and then to Faren’s insistence that she was in danger. Suddenly the idea didn’t seem so ridiculous anymore. A thought occurred to her then.
“My father…”
The man who pretended to be my father.
“Your father is an idiot,” Primen snapped. “A softhearted coward who betrayed Rhea the first chance he got.”
His eyes wandered over her body, making her feel dirty simply by being the object of his look. The worse was to come, though, when his hands moved to grope her, pulling her into his embrace. She struggled, her voice lost in her throat, but he held on to her.
“Of course, I can’t blame him really,” he said then. “Men would say many things, betray all their principles not to fall into the hands of monsters like Diego and Faren.”
Monsters, Leiya thought. Faren hadn’t touched her without her permission even when he knew she was his fated. This man…
“I trust you know how they’ve destroyed me,” Primen said.
She did. She suddenly wished they’d killed him, something she'd never wished upon anyone before.
“You’re such a good girl,” he said, slipping his hand under her dress.
Leiya yelped, trying to push him away, but he was much stronger than her. One of his hands closed around her mouth just as she was about to yell for help.
No. No, gods no. I’m not yours. Not yours. Not. Yours.
“Such a good girl indeed,” he whispered into her ear. “Running straight to me. Do you have any idea how long I’ve waited to pay those bastards back for what they did to me?”
His hand moved away from her mouth just long for her to whisper,
“They’ll kill you. If you hurt me, you’re dead.”
Primen merely laughed.
“I’m dead already,” he said, his voice crazed and maniacal. “It is only a matter of time before one of those monsters snaps and kills me just for fun.”
They don’t kill for fun.
The hand under her dress was caressing her, moving upwards to her pussy. The sense of violation was so strong Leiya thought she might vomit.
“I never dreamed…” Primen said into her ear huskily. “Never even dreamed you’d gift me such a chance for revenge before I die. I thought I’d have to wait much longer for an opportunity half as good as this, but you… Oh, you, Leiya…”
He laughed, the sound so grotesque in his maddened voice that Leiya shivered.
“I thought I’d just kill you,” he said, and then she truly struggled with all her might. “But why waste you? I could just ruin you for Faren. It would be impossible for him to touch you if he knew I’d had you. Do you hear? You may not even have to die.”
The prospect of what he promised was too terrible to comprehend for Leiya. Tears rose in her eyes, but that was not how she wanted to go. Like a crying baby. Somewhere outside, a baby really was crying. From the open window, sounds drifted in. Of people walking in the courtyard, not being molested by a lunatic, going on with their merry lives.#p#分页标题#e#