Free Seduce Me in Flames by Jacquelyn Frank

down a right-hand branch of the tunnel.
    “This way,” he said.
    “How are you so sure?” Suna demanded suddenly as she gripped the skirt of her sodden day dress. “It’s only going to get deeper, and I hate to break it to you, but I can’t swim. This is a bad idea. A bad idea all around. You should never have let him lead you away like this, Ambrea!”
    “Hush, Suna,” Ambrea scolded, in spite of being riddled with doubts herself. The fact was, she had thrown all-in with this man, and she had no choice now but to play the hand she had through to the end. Griping about doubting her choices wouldn’t help any of them now.
    “Look at it this way,” the Tarian said with a smile that touched coldly in his eyes. “No one else is going to think you’ve survived this any more than you think you’re going to survive it.”
    He had a chilling point.
    The right-hand tunnel was also so full of water that the lighting had long since shorted out. Debris floated darkly on the surface. Ambrea knew it would be impossible to see. Tarians were reputed to have keen eyesight, but she imagined he would be unable to make out anything any better than she could.
    He moved forward, reaching to grasp Suna by her upper arm, effectively controlling the only factor he must feel he had unsatisfactory control over. Ambrea didn’t know if she should be insulted or not by the idea that hewas confident she would follow him like a meek little sheep. In any event, what choice did she have? He was the one in control of all this. The one with a plan. A plan he didn’t think was necessary to share with the two of them.
    But she wasn’t a meek little sheep.
    Was she? That she had spent an entire lifetime obeying all the rules that her father had imposed on her did not make her meek. She’d truly had no choice. She would have been long dead if she’d done anything else.
    But now was not the time for her to inspect her possible shortcomings. The water was quickly becoming breast high and was bitterly cold. Her teeth began to chatter. She would have wrapped her arms around herself to conserve her body warmth, but there was so much debris in the water that she had to constantly push her way through and around it. As it was, it was banging into her the moment she released one piece to grab for another. She would be pretty bruised come the morrow.
    Provided there even was a tomorrow.
    She didn’t want to think so fatalistically. At least now the water was cool and clean. It was washing away a world of sins and stink from her body. After appeasing herself with that silver lining, she tried to play a game with herself in the darkness, attempting to identify what each item in her way was or once had been. Most of it was furniture or bundles of wiring, its insulation making the metal float.
    “Stop.”
    His command was so sudden—disturbing the almost rhythmic quiet of moving through water and the sound of their own breathing that had descended on them, that she startled and lost her footing on the slick floor under her feet. She went completely under. The moment she did so the panic she had been pushing aside all this timecame bubbling to the surface. She became completely disoriented, unable to figure out which way was upward because the water was too dark to see even an air bubble rise. She thrust out both hands, forcing herself not to open her mouth and scream again as she had when she’d first gone under. The water was only a few feet deep. How could she feel so lost?
    Suddenly a bright orange light streaked through the dark water. The brilliance of it was fast and fierce, blinding in its intensity. Then she felt a strong hand locking onto her arm, dragging her sharply to the surface, where everything was just as dark as ever. Still there was nowhere to put her feet down. Through water-filled ears she heard Suna crying out for her, understanding that she and the Tarian had traveled quite a distance from her companion. That was when Ambrea realized