Free LustingtheEnemy by Mel Teshco

the secret room behind the thick stone walls, built long ago to hide
classified documents and such. When Sienna was gone and safely hidden, she’d
push on the tiny niche inside the wall that’d spring open the hidden door.
    She would fight beside her people.
    Sienna hustled her inside. It was dank and dark. But when
the handmaiden shut the heavy door, the pitch-black silence was absolute.
Akeisha had only ever been in the room once, a few years before. She’d sneaked
inside, a candle in hand to break the bleak darkness.
    She hadn’t stayed longer than a minute.
    She swallowed. Hard. Then a loud snick rang out. She froze,
disbelieving. A lock had been turned!
    Akeisha fumbled for the niche, found it and pressed. The
lock didn’t budge. “Sienna, no!”
    The handmaiden’s voice was muffled from the other side of
the closed door. “Sorry, child, but it’s for your own good. Plans are already
in place to escape to the forest. Any survivors will come back for you. But for
now I beg of you. No matter what you hear, stay quiet. If you love your people,
remember your being alive might well be the larakytes only hope.”
    Akeisha didn’t have any more time to plead or beg to be let
out. A loud bang ricocheted the entire library. And then another. She bit into
her bottom lip, tasting blood. The humans were breaking down the library door.
    She put a hand over her mouth, stifling an urge to yell at
her handmaiden and tell her to escape, to run for her life.
    One more terrifying bang was followed by something skidding
across the floor. Akeisha bit back a sob, certain it was a large chunk of the
thick door. She could only hope and pray Sienna had already escaped.
    A man’s coarse, leering laugh seemed all too close. Then she
heard it. A scream. High pitched and terrified.
    Sienna’s.
    Akeisha slid to the floor, pushing her fingers into her
mouth. She bit hard, stopping her own screams from tearing free and giving away
her hiding place as more sounds, horrible sounds, infiltrated the walls. Sounds
she never wanted to hear again.
    Quiet sobs racked her body, tears cascading down her face.
She’d effectively killed Sienna by being obstinate and refusing to hide, time
in which the handmaiden could have escaped.
    Time held no meaning. A doomed silence had long since taken
over in the library, Akeisha’s sobs becoming strangled breaths as darkness
pressed in at her on all sides.
    Seemed only fair that the room that had spared her would
soon become her tomb, a place to die. Her people weren’t coming for her, they
were likely all dead, killed by the same humans who’d murdered Sienna.
    Who’d undoubtedly murdered her father.

Chapter Five
     
    Akeisha’s breath caught in her throat as she slowly came to,
taking a moment to realize she was no longer the little girl left alone in the
secret room for two-and-a-half long, terrifying days.
    Two-and-a-half days before her father and what was left of
the larakyte people had risked returning for her, hoping against hope
she was still alive.
    Voices murmured nearby and she struggled to make sense of
her whereabouts. Damp and mildew hung heavy in the sluggish air, along with an
undertone of decay.
    “I think she’s going to make it, Sire.”
    Someone peeled a hot, wet cloth from her brow and replaced
it with another that was blessedly cool.
    She cracked her eyelids open.
    A cave. She was in a cave. A dank, dark place just like the
small room.
    She swallowed, instantly alarmed as claustrophobia
threatened. But as Judas leaned down, one hand clasping hers, the other gently
holding the cloth in place, she sucked in a steadying breath, reassured by his
touch, his presence.
    She blinked, trying to focus. Trying to get things straight
in her mind. And failing. “We…we made it,” she whispered.
    His smile was full of relief, full of…love? “We did, angel.”
    But how? Somehow the question seemed too much effort, too
much to take in.
    She licked her dry, cracked lips and he leaned