Page 47 of The Vixen

My brows shoot up as my steps slow to a stop. Liberty walks a few more feet before turning. But she doesn’t look at me. She glares at the Keeper following until I glance behind me to give him thestand backcue.

“Excuse me?” I ask as I face Liberty.

“Sawyer… I don’t know what you want from him. I don’t know what your game is. But I think you should know he’s going to fuck you. And you should kill him before he can.”

I study her, eyes scanning the sharp contour of cheekbones.Bootcamp Barbie.Very serious. Hard to take seriously.

“You don’t believe me?” the hellcat scoffs.

I shrug. “Mr. Hansley is in a compromised position.”

“Yeah.” She nods. “And I left him to die in a burning building, but here I am, less than a year later in…” She splays her hands.

“The Shadow Sanctum.”

“... Still being haunted by a cockroach who won’t stop infesting my life and whowillinfest every part of ‘The Shadow Sanctum.’ I promise you. You should kill him before it’s too late.”

“You seem invested in that decision.”

She stares at me seriously for a few seconds. Not as her ally, but as an executioner. No care for whether I’m hers—just as long as I’m Sawyer’s.

“Obviously.”

I glance at the woman’s trembling fists.

Sawyer chose her…

What did he see?

I meet Liberty’s gaze. “Tell me why.”

Her eyes narrow as she walks the few steps toward me. “You don’t already know?”

I stand silent. She looks like she wants to continue. Or scream.

“Heenslavedme.” Her jaw clenches as she looks around pointedly. When her eyes meet mine, they’re so wide and manic, I’m afraid they may burst. “Twice.”

I shake my head and inject as much soothing calm into my voice as possible. “You aren’t enslaved, Liberty… Just the opposite. You’refree.”

Her narrowed eyes pinch until they’re nearly shut.

“The Shadow Sanctum is not like Sawyer’s Hell. We aren’t trafficking women. We’re a community of people committed to living a simple life of peace. Andprosperity. In our culture, there is no poverty. No burden. No repression. We?—”

“Could you get to the part where you tell me why the fuck I’m here?”

Tactless.

Cupping my hands in front of me, I calm myself with a breath. Images flash through my mind—chains, beatings, wrists cuffed to bedposts.

My voice:Have a bit of compassion.

“We have an issue Sawyer believes you can help us with… Our population’s genetics are too similar. We’re in need of new women to add to our gene pool.”

She continues to glare. Seconds tick by while she crosses her arms, shuffles her feet. Processing. And processing.

Then, as her jaw parts and her glare falls, she gets it.

“You’re breeding us,” she whispers like it’s a horror she’s afraid to speak aloud. Somehowworsethan the sexual slavery she was expecting.