“Better?” Selma bit, finding enough strength in her anger to push up into a half-seated position as she stared at the other woman. “They’re… They’re going to rape me. Hurt me. Sell me. You, of all people…”

She drew in a deep breath, gritting her teeth through the throbbing pain between her thighs as she moved. “How can you say it’s better?”

Valarina grimaced, but stroked her forehead with a blessedly cool hand. “He hasn’t broken you, has he? When I was in your place, I was willing to do anything to make the pain stop. I begged for it when he finally mounted me in that arena. But you’re still fighting. I’m sorry. It would have been so much easier for you, but it doesn’t change what lies ahead.”

She was right. If there was one thing Governor Maell’s torture had accomplished, it was to drive home the inescapable fact that there was nothing more she could do to escape the fate that had awaited her since birth. She didn’t have the strength left to fight anymore, and no one was coming to save her.

The painful memory of Kain’s stern face and black eyes made her heart spasm. Ruthlessly, she pushed it away. The time for fanciful dreaming had passed. Only stark reality lay ahead.

“I don’t want this,” she whispered as Valarina helped her to her feet.

“None of us do,” the other Breeder offered gently. “But we all find a way to live with it, and so will you.”

She was naked during her escort through the old mansion, save for a few chains decorated with precious stones wrapped around her body. Valarina guided her down creaking staircases and into a subterranean level deep in the bowels of the earth. The concrete underneath her bare feet spoke of the basement being from a more modern time than the rest of the house, as did the depth.

Valarina stopped in front of a pair of massive metal doors at the end of the wide hallway. Here she turned to grasp Selma’s shoulder with surprising strength.

“You can get through this. Just submit. It will make it easier.”

Submit. The echo of Marathin’s demand shivered up Selma’s spine and she clenched her hands against the ensuing nausea. These beasts—these monsters—all wanted the same thing. But the price…

Despite the all-consuming pain rendering her weak and hopeless, she understood what the price of submission was. Marathin had taught her that.

“I can’t,” she whispered. “I… I’d rather die.”

Valarina smiled, but only sadness radiated from her eyes. “They won’t let you die. You’re too valuable. Submit to them, little sister. There are other ways to fight. But first, you must make it through today with your sanity—”

The striking of a gong resonated through the hallway from beyond the metal doors, silencing her.