Chapter 13 Make Him Bleed
MAKE HIM BLEED
VEXAR
ISIT UP, gritting my teeth against the pain as I try to remain calm, but the rapid hammering of Amara’s heart has me on edge. Wide brown eyes lock on mine. Fear pulses in the air between us. But she is not afraid of me.
“Who wants to execute you?” I ask.
She doesn’t answer, but I need to know. I need to know who.
I feel like little more than an arrow, waiting to be aimed.
I feel dangerous. Deadly. Entirely out of control and very unlike myself.
When I learned about the Zhyrrak, a loss of control was never mentioned.
It was always said to be the opposite. And yet I feel less in control now than I ever have before.
Realizing I may be overwhelming her, I adjust my tone and say gently, “I am sorry. Please, tell me what you meant.”
She takes a deep breath and shifts slightly, gripping her hands together and resting them on the edge of the bed.
“I never told you how I got here,” she whispers.
Her eyes are glassy and distant, and her anxiety is palpable.
It lingers in the air like electricity, tingling across my tongue and drying my mouth.
“How did you get here?” I ask.
She swallows. “I was on Earth, staying in a little apartment while I figured out what to do after leaving the military, and one night, I went to bed and woke up … on a ship. A spaceship.”
My blood chills as her words sink in.
“The ship was full of people—or aliens? No one was there because they wanted to be.”
My claws bite into my palms, but the pain is so distant I hardly notice.
“They took them … uh, us. And sold—” She chokes on the words as her eyes well with tears. “We were…”
She cannot say it, but she does not have to. My mind spins, thoughts colliding and clashing in a swirl of utter chaos.
They took her.
“Vok, Amara,” I say, sliding a hand over my mouth. “You are not here by choice?”
“No.” Her eyes drift over my face, and I can feel her gauging my response. “I was sold to the Coliseum and I can’t leave.”
The metallic taste of blood coats my tongue. I must have bitten it. Both my hearts pound violently, twin hammers against an anvil. How could this have happened? There are laws to prevent this; laws that should have protected her. But they took her. Sold her. How? Who?
“What did they look like?” I ask, fearing her answer. “The people who took you.”
Her eyes drop to the edge of the mattress as her hands squeeze together. “They were humanoid. Grayish skin.”
No.
“Slim bodies, and big, dark eyes.”
No.
“That’s all I really remember.”
I want to scream. To rage. To tear something apart.
The Senate promised the rumors were unfounded, but they were wrong. They missed something.
It takes all of my willpower to tamp down the rage that threatens to split me in two as I look at the pain etched on Amara’s face. An all-consuming need to hunt the Tusku traders responsible for this roars to life. Dark thoughts follow. Violent thoughts.
Is Gaius keeping her as a slave? He must be.
I lean forward and grip my thighs, resisting the urge to reach for her hands.
“And you believe you will be executed for helping me? Is that what you meant?” I ask, working to keep my tone even and controlled despite the fire burning beneath my skin.
She has done nothing wrong, and yet she faces death?
My rage continues to build despite my attempts to calm it.
It is out of control. A creature of its own making. Violent and limitless.
End them, something whispers in the back of my mind.
“I broke the Magistrate’s laws by helping you, and I didn’t do it quietly,” she says, picking at the dried blood on her hands.
I need to do something. Anything. I swing my legs over the edge of the bed.
Amara stares up at me from where she’s knelt on the floor.
A tearing sound rends the air as I remove the corner of the bedsheet.
I hardly register the pain as I reach for the cup of water on the table.
My entire being is focused on her. On her pain. Her fear.
“Give me your hands,” I say gently as I wet the fabric.
“Why?” she asks, even as she offers them.
I place her right hand on my thigh and cradle her left in my palm.
“You were picking at the dried blood. It looks uncomfortable.” I begin to wipe her hands, and somehow, the simple act seems to calm some of my rage.
“Why did you not correct me when I said I thought you would lose your job?” The fabric turns a light pink that deepens with each stroke.
“I don’t know.”
“Were you going to let me think you were here by choice?”
Her hand tightens on my thigh, and I force my breathing to remain steady.
“I didn’t know if I could trust you,” she says.
“I was told everyone knows we’re slaves, and that if I escaped, the people who live here would skin me alive for sport.
” She speaks almost casually, but a muscle in her jaw tenses with every pause.
“I thought all of the gladiators were in the same position as the nurses: slaves. But then you told me who you were, and I … well, I don’t know.
I thought you had to know I was a slave. ”
“And you still chose to save my life?”
“That was before I knew who you were,” she says in a small voice. She is uncomfortable with that truth, but she told me anyway. This is good.
“Who told you everyone knows?” I ask, dragging the scrap of cloth between her soft fingers.
“The Magistrate. But I didn’t just take his word for it.
All the guards know. Solta knows. The people who come through here to bet on the gladiators know.
None of them care. And a while back, the Magistrate brought someone here on a tour or something.
” She pauses and takes a deep breath. “He kept calling her ‘my Queen’ and made us bow to her. She knew, so I thought everyone must know.”
Queen. It takes everything in me to keep my face neutral and unaffected by that sickening detail. She can’t possibly mean my mother.
Amara’s eyes flick up to mine, searching for a reaction.
Who else would Gaius call ‘my Queen’?
No. It is a ridiculous accusation. Impossible. My mother may not have been a kind ruler, but she was an honorable one. She only visited this place once. For her own Obligation.
“You must have misunderstood,” I say.
Amara looks at me long and hard, her lips downturned in an apologetic frown as if she knows what I am thinking. “I don’t think I did,” she says.
“Well, you must have, because no one who carries the title of ‘Queen’ would know anything about this … this slave trade.” She may think she knows what is going on here, but her claims are wrong. She is wrong.
“Vexar, the slave trade is real,” she says, as if that is what I am disagreeing with.
“The other people on that ship didn’t end up here, so they had to have gone somewhere.
I … I don’t know how long I was on the ship, but I think I was one of the last people released.
I don’t know where everyone else was taken, but it wasn’t here. ”
I feel sick.
“Well,” I say, “if they are not here, I am certain they were taken outside the bounds of the empire.” I take a deep breath and start to clean her other hand. “Why were you so eager to risk your life to save mine? Was it because of what the Magistrate told you? Because you had no hope?”
“In part.”
She is still holding back her true reasoning, but she has already told me what I need to know. Gaius backed her into a corner and used her desperation against her. He knew she would enter my cell. He manipulated her to get to me. He used her.
Another wave of rage begins to crest. Gaius will burn for this.
End him.
“Did you know?” I ask. “Before you entered my cell, did you know your actions would result in your death?”
“Yeah,” she says plainly, as if her life is worth nothing.
I release her hand, not trusting myself to be gentle anymore. My gaze drops to the bandage on her knee, and my voice comes out deep and deadly. “Why would you do that?”
She gets to her feet and wipes her damp hand on the skirt of her dress.
“Why?” I repeat.
An angry flush creeps over her cheeks as she glares at me, displeased with my tone. “I did what I had to do.”
I shake my head. “No more half-truths,” I growl. “Tell me why.”
She leans forward aggressively and shouts, “Because it was the only choice I could make that was mine!” Her chest heaves before she points at the door and adds, “And because that fucker needs to pay for what he’s done.”
The air between us stills. Sand whispers over the dunes outside. Amara’s sweat-damp skin glistens in the low light.
She didn’t choose death; she chose revenge and an end to her imprisonment.
It is a choice I would expect from any warrior, so I do not know why I am so shocked. Amara is a warrior. A fully blooded warrior. It would be wise for me to remember that. She might look harmless, but that is far from the truth.
“So you entered my cell to take back your control?” I ask.
Her nostrils flare. “And to make that bastard bleed.”