Smiling to herself, she dipped the rag into the water and placed it to his skin. Carefully, she wiped clean the grime and dried blood from his body. Every night she did this, wiped away the evidence of the beatings he received and tended his wounds. She took her time, took her pleasure in the hard satin stretch of his body and the way his skin quivered under her touch. Undoubtedly, he fantasized it was his lover who caressed him. Claire didn’t care so long as she was the one with her hands on him.

Isabelle could have him tomorrow. Until then, he was hers.

Tonight, she did not speak. Normally, in soft, hushed murmurs, she tutored him in ways to use his magick against his captors. Claire had learned a lot in the twenty-five years she’d been trapped on this rock. She’d learned far more than Rue realized.

When she picked up the razor and set it to his face, he jerked away from her. “You’ve never shaved me before,” he rasped.

She smiled and her face hurt from it. Claire couldn’t remember the last time her mouth had moved that way. “For Isabelle,” she admonished him. “You don’t want to go to her looking like…what is that creature? I can hardly remember…a yeti?”

He swallowed hard. “Is it time?” He sounded like a starving man being offered a three-course meal.

Her smile lingered in response to the barely leashed eagerness in his voice. She slid the razor over his face, ridding it of the three week’s worth of hair. “Your magick is curled deeply in you now, trained by me and ready to strike. I believe you’re ready. Have you been acting weak and broken in front of Rue and the others?”

He nodded.

“Have you been casting the glamours I’ve been feeding you to make you appear dirty and injured?”

“Yes.”

She smiled. Smiling felt nice once her muscles grew accustomed to it. “Good.”

After she’d fed him the flatbread and meat she’d tucked into her pockets, let him wash his mouth, and administered the final dose of high-powered medicine she’d had to steal daily from the doctors, Claire stood and backed away from him. “Demonstrate,” she commanded.

Magick prickled along the nape of her neck. Her own earth magick responded to his tap with a low purr in the center of her chest. She closed her eyes and sighed into it. Around her the entire cell pulsed, breathed like a living thing for a moment. The walls expanded outward and then inward. The ceiling cracked. Dust and rock rained down and the floor beneath her feet rumbled.

Claire opened her eyes, shivering a little at the display of power. “Yes, you’re ready to take on the daaemon.”