Willing Sacrifice by Shannon K. Butcher Read Free Book Online

spine. It was gone so fast she questioned if it had ever happened.
    “Where did you get this?” she asked.
    He was silent for so long she wasn’t sure he was going to answer. Then, in a low voice filled with sadness, he said, “It was a gift from a woman I loved.”
    A tiny spurt of jealousy flashed through her, leaving behind a greasy film of shame. She had no business feeling envy over women Torr had known. Not only that, but it was clear from his tone that the woman had caused him some kind of pain. Maybe she’d betrayed him, maybe she’d left him. Whatever the case, she’d hurt him, and here Grace was thinking only of herself.
    “I have one just like it,” she said. “But I’ve never seen it up close before. It really is pretty.”
    “Where did you get yours?” he asked. There was something strange about his inflection, but she couldn’t figure out what.
    “I don’t know.”
    “Really? Seems like the kind of thing you’d remember.”
    “I don’t really remember much of anything before Brenya brought me back to life.”
    “Have you tried?”
    “Of course. I spent months working to regain my memory, but whatever bits are left, they’re more like echoes.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “It’s hard to explain. It’s almost like all those things were scooped out of me and all that’s left is a kind of emotional residue that couldn’t be completely removed. Sometimes I see tiny glimpses, but there’s no context. I feel things, but have no idea why.”
    “Do you remember any people?”
    “No, but I remember loving them, laughing with them.”
Hiding from them, cowering in fear.
    She didn’t want to think about that, so she turned her attention from the disk to the surrounding male flesh. Slight bruises lingered along his back, maybe where he’d fallen or been hit. Trails of dried blood and caked dirt led from the lower edge of the disk toward his singed blue pants.
    She picked up the cloth and wiped away the mess, revealing puckered scars where the prongs of the disk entered his skin. She traced the marks with her fingertip, and his whole body clenched.
    She gave a sympathetic wince. “Sorry. Does it hurt a lot?”
    “No. Does yours?”
    “Not exactly.”
    He turned, putting his chest at a level with her gaze. That magnificent tree clung to his skin, tempting her to spread her fingers over the branches.
    “What do you mean by that?” he asked.
    There was a smudge of dirt along his ribs, and she used the excuse to touch him and wipe it away. He truly was a beautiful creature, and even though the damp cloth muted the feeling of his skin, she could still sense the firm resilience of the flesh below.
    His scent surrounded her, and that nagging feeling of familiarity called to her again. She was certain she would have remembered a man like him. Even if she hadn’t, surely he would have told her if he’d known her. Still, there was something about him that tugged at her senses.
    Then again, she’d heard some of the visitors talk about the men they’d met, how handsome or charming they were. How they’d been chosen as mates for their strength or intelligence. Maybe all men had this kind of effect on women, and she was just experiencing it firsthand.
    “I feel things sometimes,” she admitted. “I’m sure they’re coming from the disk.”
    “What kind of things?”
    “It’s personal.” Sometimes, when she was lonely, she imagined those feelings coming from a friend—someone like her, not like everyone else here. She wasn’t beautiful like the Athanasian women and their children. She didn’t have magical powers. She was physically weak. She wasn’t even in training the way the little girls were. She wasn’t strong enough to survive their fierce mock battles.
    She was different from everyone here, and while they all treated her well, she knew she wasn’t one of them. There were no talks of her going on an exciting trip to fulfill her destiny. As far as she could tell, no one here even