Page 10 of Bought by the Broken Beast

BELLA

I wake to the chilling embrace of a cold dawn and an even colder silence. The fire is a pile of grey ash. The space beside it, where the massive, solid presence of Votoi had been a bulwark against the night, is empty.

He’s gone. I took a bath last night, and he was still here when I came back. He left me.

The thought is a block of ice in my gut.

Panic, raw and absolute, claws its way up my throat.

My eyes dart around the small clearing, searching the deep shadows of the woods, the misty surface of the river.

Nothing. The only sounds are the whisper of the water and the frantic, terrified drumming of my own heart.

This isn't the calculated fear of a scribe who has uncovered a conspiracy. This is something else entirely. Something illogical and primal. It’s the sharp, aching terror of being utterly, completely alone.

I spent the night watching the steady rise and fall of his chest, listening to the low rumble of his breathing, and somewhere in those dark, quiet hours, a dangerous and foolish thing happened.

I began to feel safe. I began to trust him.

And he left me.

A strangled sob escapes my lips, a sound of pure, childish despair. I am a fool. A fool to think a blood oath meant anything to a creature of such brutal pride. A fool to think I was anything more than a temporary inconvenience, a means to an end he has now abandoned.

Just as the first tears of rage and self-pity begin to burn my eyes, a shadow detaches itself from the trees. Votoi emerges into the clearing, his movements silent, fluid. He carries two suru, their limp bodies dangling from his massive fist.

The relief that floods through me is so potent, so overwhelming, it leaves me breathless. It’s a tidal wave of emotion that is immediately followed by a hot, furious undertow of anger. How dare he frighten me like this? How dare he make me feel that… that desperate, aching loss?

“Where were you?” The words fly from my mouth, sharp and accusatory, before I can stop them.

He stops, his amber eyes narrowing at my tone. He holds up the suru as if the answer is obvious. “Hunting. We need to eat.”

“You could have woken me,” I snap, scrambling to my feet, my voice trembling with the force of my suppressed panic. “You could have said something. I thought…” I trail off, unwilling to admit the truth. I thought you had left me to die.

A low growl rumbles in his chest. “I do not need your permission to hunt, human. I am your protector, not your pet. It is my duty to provide, to scout, to ensure the perimeter is secure. A duty I performed while you slept.”

His words are logical. Practical. And they feel like a slap. He sees this as a transaction, a fulfillment of his contract. He cannot possibly understand the raw, human terror of abandonment.

“I am not a liability to be managed,” I say, my voice rising. “I am your partner in this. You will not treat me like a piece of cargo to be guarded!”

“You are acting like a frightened child,” he snarls, taking a step toward me, his patience clearly gone.

“And you are acting like an arrogant, honor-bound brute who can’t see past his own pride!” I retort, taking a defiant step back.

It’s a mistake. My boot, still damp from the night’s dew, slips on a slick, moss-covered rock at the river’s edge. My arms windmill for a balance that isn’t there. The world tilts, a dizzying swirl of green trees and grey sky, and then I am falling.

The icy shock of the river steals the air from my lungs.

The current is a greedy, powerful hand, grabbing me, pulling me under, tumbling me over the smooth, slick stones of the riverbed.

Panic explodes in my chest. I can’t breathe.

I can’t see. My simple wool dress becomes a leaden shroud, tangling around my legs, dragging me down.

Just as my burning lungs are about to betray me, a force of nature slams into the water beside me.

An arm like a tree trunk wraps around my waist, arresting my chaotic tumble.

Votoi. He is a terrifying, powerful presence in the murky depths, his anger forgotten, replaced by a singular, focused intensity.

He pulls me toward the surface, his strength absolute.

But as he hauls me through the water, my flailing hand brushes against something that is not the smooth, rounded stone of the riverbed. It is cold, hard, and perfectly flat, with a sharp, ninety-degree edge. Dressed stone. An archway.

My mind, even in its oxygen-starved panic, latches onto it. The tunnel.

I fight against his hold, twisting in his grip, trying to point, to communicate. He thinks I’m panicking, that I’m fighting him. His grip tightens, a band of iron around my ribs, and he kicks for the surface with a power that churns the water into a frenzy.

We break the surface, and I take a huge, ragged gasp of air, coughing, sputtering. He drags me toward the bank, his expression a mask of grim fury.

“The tunnel!” I gasp, shoving against his massive chest with all my might. The move is so unexpected he actually loosens his grip. It’s all the chance I need.

Before he can stop me, I take a deep breath and dive back under.

The cold is a shock all over again, but this time, I have a purpose.

I kick for the bottom, my eyes straining in the murky green light.

There it is. A dark, square opening in the riverbank, almost completely obscured by silt and trailing weeds.

A dark, watery maw leading into the blackness of the earth.

I don’t hesitate. I swim into the opening, into a darkness so complete it feels solid. The water gives way to air, and my feet find a slimy, sloping floor. I can’t see a thing. The only sound is the frantic beat of my own heart and the drip of water from the stone ceiling.

Seconds later, a huge splash echoes from the entrance, and Votoi is there, his massive form filling the narrow passage, blocking what little light there was. His presence, which should be terrifying in this confined space, is an incredible comfort.

“Are you trying to get yourself killed?” he growls, his voice a low, echoing rumble in the dark.

“I found it,” I whisper, my voice trembling with a mixture of cold, fear, and triumphant adrenaline.

He moves past me, his hand brushing my arm, and the contact is a jolt of warmth in the frigid dark.

A faint, ethereal light begins to glow ahead of us.

It’s not a natural light. It’s a soft, blue-green luminescence, pulsing gently from veins of some strange, glowing moss that cling to the stone walls.

The light is just enough to see the tunnel stretching forward, a perfectly carved, man-made passage. Or rather, a slave-made one.

The tunnel is narrow, and I have to walk close behind him. The air is cold, damp, and smells of wet stone and old secrets. A fat, slick rodan skitters across my boot, and I let out a small, involuntary cry, stumbling forward, my hands pressing into the solid wall of Votoi’s back.

He stops, and I feel the muscles beneath his tunic tense. “Stay close,” he grunts, his voice rough.

I don’t need to be told twice. I walk so close behind him that the fabric of my wet dress brushes against his legs with every step.

The faint light from the moss casts strange, dancing shadows on the walls, turning the darkness into a living, breathing thing.

Every drip of water sounds like a footstep. My heart is a frantic drum.

We walk for what feels like an eternity, the tunnel sloping gently, steadily upward. Then, Votoi stops. He points to the wall. Caught in a patch of the glowing moss is a small, crudely carved symbol. An axe. A slave’s marker. It points toward a smaller, intersecting passage.

“This is it,” I breathe, the words a cloud of vapor in the cold air.

We follow the new passage. The air grows warmer, drier. The sounds of the river fade, replaced by a low, distant hum that I recognize as the sound of the city. We have found it. We have found the way back into the serpent’s den.