“Yes.” Her captor trapped her to his chest, the slam of his heartbeat doing nothing to calm her own.

Twisting in his grasp, she fought harder. Desperate to bolt. But it was too late.

His hold secure, he threw back his head and roared toward the ceiling. “You want more entertainment? You want more blood and violence? Well, look at what I’ve got.”

The big black screens on these drones—a subtle difference from the ones that had chased her before—swiveled until she and her captor were reflected in their glossy blackness. Cameras. Beaming back every image to New Earth.

Ice slid through her veins.

“That’s right,” he growled up at them. “Take a nice, good look. Not just a magnificent female, but the magnificent female.”

Her knees wobbled, the urge to crumple hitting in wave after wave as her worst nightmare became a reality.

“Recognize her?” he shouted once more, every word a lash she pretended not to feel. “Councilman Gregor Hollisworth, definitely will. Send him the image. Do it without delay. Tell him I’ll be waiting.” His voice sharpened. “And tell him I’ll take good care of her until he arrives.”

Betrayal tasted bitter on her tongue.

He’d done it all with a purpose.

Every bit of savagery.

Here, the droids had cameras. Here, their jailers paid attention, relishing a bloody show.

So he’d given them one and destroyed her in the process.

Fucked her good and then fucked her over even better.

Nothing more than he’d promised her from the start—and yet the knowledge that she’d prayed for him to win, that she’d cringed over every strike against his flesh, that her body throbbed for his touch even now, cut like a laser-strike deep into her chest.

No wonder even Ryker had looked at her with pity.

How pathetic she must have seemed. Flinching over the fate of the man orchestrating her doom.

“Ava?” Her head rattled as her body shook. “Are you hearing me?”

Her latest betrayer’s voice, a rush of warm air against her ear, ripped her from her thoughts. “You need to get behind me. Now.”

She crash-landed back in the mess hall, the drones clicking away, their whirring barely audible over the shrieking and screaming that had somehow grown louder and more feral.

A body hurled toward her, only to bounce off the wall of men now standing between her and the hordes, weapons raised.

It dawned on her then that circumstances had changed. That the inmates in the cavern were no longer focused on the fighting or diverted by her captor’s show for the droids.

Now, they had a new single focus: getting to her.

Two more blurred bodies tried to rush the barricade of Valdus’s men.

“You bastard.” Fury propelled her fist toward her captor’s chin, the need to lash out, to make someone else bleed, driving her on without thought to consequences. The rising heat only stoking her fury higher.

Dodging her attack, her captor caught her wrists and yanked them behind her back, dragging her close. Anger, and something that looked a lot like guilt, darkened his gaze. “It had to be done.”

“I hope you and your men rot. I hope Hollisworth—”

He shook her. “You think you’ll survive down here more than a few rotations even if my men and I do every damn thing possible to keep you alive? Look around. There are vicious animals that have developed a taste for human meat. Toxic clay that gets into the smallest cuts. Thousands of inmates who will do anything to have you.” The grim weight of responsibility etched deep into the lines at the corners of his eyes. “We can stave off the dangers for a while, but not forever. There was no other way. Not for my men. Not for you, either. You need Hollisworth to come as badly as I do.”

She sucked down a breath.

She didn’t want to understand his side.

“It had to be done,” he repeated, even as more bodies rushed his line of men, their screams echoing through the cavern as they were repulsed, their bodies flying backward.

“And what about them?” She gestured toward the frenzied mob. “You’ve put a target on all our backs, especially mine.”

“My men and I can handle them. We’ve been holding them off for two long years.”

“And once Hollisworth comes?” She raised her voice to be heard over the madness. “You really think you can stop him?”

“I do.” Absolute certainty roughened every word.

She almost felt sorry for him. “Then you don’t know him like I do.”

“Bride?” An all too familiar voice cut off the rest of her warning. “Is that really you?”

Her blood ran cold.