My thirst increases at the sight of them. I also feel dizzy with the low blood count I’m working with. I ignore my organs’ needs in favor of my desire for her.
I need to get my hands on her. But when I reach for her, the claws come out. She smacks my hand away, leaving four bloody marks.
“You left me,” she says as she stomps inside.
Her muddy feet leave tracks on the floor. I know Gaius will be pissed. But he stays silent behind me. The silence gives me a second to replay Zahara’s words.
“I would never leave you.”
“I woke up. You were gone. Meaning: you left me.”
“I got hungry.” I point to the bag of blood on the counter.
Zahara doesn’t spare my evidence a glance. She jabs the claw of her index finger into my bare chest, drawing out another stream of blood.
“You. Are. My. Captive.” She enunciates every word with a puncturing poke.
I should feel pain. But with each poke, I feel like she’s breaking through a dense fog. Each fissure in my chest feels like a ray of sunlight brightening me from the inside out. Is this love?
“Your captive?” I capture her hand and press it into my bloody chest, right over my heartbeat. “Right. I forgot. I didn’t want to wake you. I thought that last orgasm you had would’ve put you out for longer.”
A flush spreads across Zahara’s cheeks and her eyes dart over my shoulder at the crowd behind us. She stands naked before them, but it’s the mention of her orgasms that makes her blush.
“I figured I’d be back before you woke up,” I say in my defense.
“That’s not how imprisonment works.”
“I’ll tell you the next time before I leave, okay?”
“Fine.” The word is said in exasperation, like there is no fight left in her. She looks exhausted.
I gather her body into my arms. She doesn’t fight me. She rests her head under my chin as I walk her out of the kitchen and head to my bedroom.
“You’re dirty. Let me clean you up.”
Chapter 14
Zahara
The water is cool on my toes. A stream of current rushes towards my ankles, rising up to massage my calf muscles. I sigh as I sink down into the depths, then yelp when I feel the jets.
Back home, I often bathed in the hot springs surrounding an active volcano. But the lava had nothing on the powered steam in this tub. For one, there are no craggy rocks at my back. This tub is cushioned. My feet don’t sink into silt but instead rest on cool porcelain. When I look up, I see another familiar sight: a tall, dark mountain. This peak is capped with sandy blond hair instead of angry red fire.
Virius leans over the tub. His large, thick fingers massage the soap into a cloth. The scent is divine. He bids me lean forward. When I do as he asks, he puts the cloth on my back and begins to scrub.
I only barely stop myself from mewling. A purr escapes my throat. A shudder runs over my shoulder blades. I only just stop myself from arching in the tub and offering him my belly. Because what I truly want to do is go on all fours and lift my tail for him.
How is it that I’ve wound up naked in the bathroom of my prisoner? I’m the one weaponless and at his mercy as he breaks down all my defenses with a bar of exotic smelling soap?
I can’t find it in me to be chagrined. I have absolutely no intention of getting out of this predicament. For so much of my life, I have been revered as someone who would bring about a revolution. But no one has ever tended to me in this manner. No one has ever treated me like I was precious. I may have been tasked by the Fates, but this is the first time I’ve felt worship.
And I like it.
The water sluices down my body. Bubbles form and pop, and run down my skin in rivulets. Virius’s hand follows the downpour, making a waterfall from my shoulder caps. I shiver as the droplets run over the mounds of my breasts.
“Is it too hot?” he asks.
“It’s perfect,” I sigh.
“You’re perfect,” he says.
Taking my hand, he scrubs each of my fingertips. The care and concentration he gives each nail is more attention than anyone has paid me—the actual me and not the me in a prophecy—in my whole life. I want to run out and dig my fingers into the dirt just to have Virius clean them again. Negative attention is still attention, and I want any form of attention this man will give me.
But I don’t have to run out and make a mess to hold Virius’s attention. My hands are only a starting block. He runs the cloth over my face next.
“Close your eyes,” he says.
If he had said these words to me a few hours ago, I would have snorted and palmed my dagger. Now I tilt my head back and do as he commands. My reward is swift. With one hand, Virius cradles my chin in his palm. With the other, he gently wipes away the stress of the night, of the last day, of the last few years of my life.
He wipes each eyelid. The sides of my nose. The space above my upper lip. He scrubs behind my ears. The back of my neck.
By the time he reaches my breasts, I am shivering with need. I know he must feel it too. But when I open my eyes to check, his face is a mask of focus and concentration.
“Get in the tub with me,” I say.
“Is that another order?” He says it with a grin at the corner of his mouth.
He should know better than to play
