Answering

Lucien leaned forward and removed the pipe from his lips. “Yes. You may.”

He looked at me intensely.

Like someone would when giving a last, dispassionate glance at one who’d betrayed them and now faced the consequence of that action.

Which is exactly what’s happening.

They gleefully shouted and pants rustled, shirts were tossed aside. There were men of every shape and size surrounding me. More than I could count in my haze of fear.

So many hands.

They were pulling. Squeezing. Ready to feast on me.

“One thing though, Brothers.”

They all paused, and all eyes turned to him.

Mine too, filled with some grain of hope.

“That,” He pointed to me with his pipe. “is my little plaything. Part of my spoils.”

They looked at him quizzically.

“If she is rendered useless to me, harmed or killed, the man responsible will have hell to pay.”

“Understood, Cap. We’ll be real gentle like with her.”

“Hold her good and still.” Another man said.