Page 12 of Bought by the Broken Beast

VOTOI

T here is no choice. No honor. There is only the human trembling behind me and the shadow of the guard falling across the tapestry. There is only the cold, clear certainty of her death if I remain hidden.

Before the guard’s hand can touch the woven threads, I explode from our hiding place.

The world erupts into chaos. The guard, his face a pale mask of shock, has no time to even raise his sword before my fist connects with his jaw. The crack of bone is a sharp, satisfying counterpoint to his strangled cry as he crumples to the floor.

“Treason!” Vorlag roars, his blade flashing in the lamplight.

I do not have a weapon. I am the weapon.

I seize the nearest object—a heavy, ornate oak chair—and hurl it at him.

It is not a warrior’s move; it is the desperate act of a cornered beast. The chair smashes into Vorlag, sending him crashing backward into a towering bookshelf.

Tomes and scrolls rain down around him, a cascade of useless knowledge.

“Bella! Get back!” I roar, my voice a guttural command.

She scrambles away as Kairen, his face pale with a mixture of terror and fury, draws a long, decorative dagger from his desk.

He is a merchant, not a fighter, but a cornered rodan will still bite.

He lunges, the blade a silver streak aimed at my gut.

I pivot, letting the blow glance off my ribs, the sting a familiar fire.

I grab his wrist, twisting until the bone groans in protest. He screams, the dagger clattering to the marble floor.

I shove him away, sending him sprawling over his own desk, a pathetic heap of fine silks and cowardice.

The room is a whirlwind of violence. Vorlag is back on his feet, his sword a blur of silver.

He is Vakkak-trained, his movements economical and deadly.

I am a gladiator, my style brutal, efficient, and forged in the bloody sands of the arena.

We circle each other, two bulls in a pen too small for our rage.

He thrusts, I evade. I lunge, he parries.

He is the better swordsman. I am the stronger beast.

But there are others. Two more guards burst into the room, their swords drawn, their eyes wide. I am outnumbered, unarmed, and the only thing standing between them and the human.

Bella. My gaze darts to her. She is not cowering. She is not screaming. Her eyes, wide with terror, are scanning the room, her sharp mind searching for a weapon, an opening, an advantage.

She finds one.

As Vorlag presses his attack, forcing me back, Bella acts.

With a desperate cry, she kicks the leg of a heavy iron brazier near the hearth.

It topples, sending a shower of glowing, red-hot coals scattering across a priceless rug from the southern isles.

Smoke, thick and acrid, begins to billow instantly, filling the room with a choking haze.

The diversion is the opening I need. While the guards cough and curse, their attention momentarily broken, I charge.

I slam into the nearest guard, my horn connecting with his helmet with a deafening clang.

He goes down. I wrench the sword from his grip.

The weight of the steel in my hand is a homecoming, a piece of my soul returned.

“The window!” Bella screams, her voice cutting through the chaos.

I turn to see her hefting a heavy, ceramic inkwell.

With all her might, she hurls it at the large, leaded-glass window that overlooks the gardens.

It shatters with a crash of breaking glass and splintering wood, letting the cool, rain-scented night air rush into the smoke-filled room.

Our escape.

“To me!” I roar, carving a path toward her.

Vorlag, his face a twisted mask of fury, intercepts me.

Our blades meet in a shower of sparks. He is skilled, but my rage, my desperation, it gives me a strength he cannot match.

I drive him back, step by step, my entire being focused on the small, determined figure by the broken window.

Kairen, his courage bolstered by his guards, makes another desperate lunge, his target not me, but Bella.

I see the movement from the corner of my eye.

I roar, and it sound like pure, possessive fury, and abandon my fight with Vorlag.

I spin, my new sword a blur, and parry the blow that would have pierced her back.

The force of it sends a shockwave up my arm.

I do not give him a second chance. I kick out, my heavy boot connecting with his chest. He flies backward, his head hitting the stone hearth with a sickening crack. He does not move again.

Alarms are blaring now, a cacophony of bells from all over the estate. Vorlag and the remaining guard are regrouping. There is no more time.

I grab Bella’s waist, hauling her against my side. “Jump!”

We leap through the shattered window, landing in a spray of wet leaves and soft earth in the gardens below.

We don’t stop. We run. Through the manicured hedges, across the perfect lawns, the sounds of shouting and the baying of hounds echoing behind us.

We flee the estate, a whirlwind of desperation and survival, and melt back into the labyrinthine alleys of the Fiepakak district as the rain begins to fall in earnest.

I find what we need: an abandoned blacksmith’s forge, its door hanging off a single hinge, its interior a tomb of cold iron and forgotten fire. I shove her inside and slam the heavy wooden door shut, dropping the thick iron bar into place. The sounds of the hunt, of the city, are silenced.

There is only the sound of the rain drumming on the roof and our own ragged, desperate breaths.

We are both wounded, bleeding from a dozen minor cuts. We are soaked to the bone, our clothes plastered to our skin. The small, enclosed space is thick with the smells of rain, old smoke, wet wool, and blood. Our blood.

The adrenaline from the fight, the terror of the chase, the raw, possessive fury of my protection—it all crashes over me in a single, overwhelming wave. My control, the iron discipline that has been my shield for years, shatters.

I turn on her. I stalk toward her until her back is pressed against the cold, unyielding stone of the forge.

I cage her in, my hands slamming against the wall on either side of her head.

My shadow swallows her. Her eyes are wide, her chest rising and falling in frantic, shallow breaths.

The scent of her fear is a heady, intoxicating perfume.

“You,” I growl, the word a guttural thing, torn from the very depths of my soul. My voice is thick with an emotion I no longer recognize as rage. It is something darker, deeper, more possessive. “You are mine to protect.”

It is not a promise. It is a declaration. A claiming.

My head descends, and I crush my mouth to hers.

The kiss is not gentle. It is a collision, a brutal, desperate claiming.

It is all the rage and fear and violence of the past hour, of the past three years, distilled into a single, desperate act.

I taste the rain on her lips, the fear in her sharp, indrawn breath.

For a moment, she is frozen, a small, terrified bird in the claws of a predator.

Then, a small, broken sound escapes her throat, a sob, a moan, and she is kissing me back.

Her hands, small and trembling, come up to fist in the wet fabric of my tunic, pulling me closer.

Her response is a fire, a fuel, and the last of my restraint burns away to ash.

My hands are on her, tearing at the wet, practical clothes that hide her from me. The sound of ripping fabric is a counterpoint to our harsh, ragged breaths. I need to see her. I need to feel her.

I push her back against the wall, my mouth never leaving hers, and my hands find the soft, pale skin of her stomach, her waist, her hips. She is small, so fragile beneath my hands. A wave of something akin to fear washes over me. I am a monster of muscle and bone. I will break her.

“Votoi,” she gasps, her voice a raw, fragmented thing, as if she can feel my hesitation. She pulls back, her dark eyes blazing with a desperate, wild light that mirrors the storm in my own soul. Her hands find the waistband of my breeches. “Please.”

That single word is my undoing.

My hands are on her, everywhere, learning the shape of her, the feel of her.

Her skin is like silk, her body a landscape of soft curves and hidden hollows.

She is nothing like the Minotaur females I have known.

She is a creature of breathtaking delicacy.

I find the wet, hot heart of her, and she cries out, her hips bucking against my hand.

She is ready. She is more than ready. She is unraveling.

“Please, Votoi, please, fuck me,” she begs, her voice a raw, desperate prayer. “Fuck me until I can’t remember my own name. Fuck the fear away.”

A guttural roar rips from my chest. I free myself from my breeches, my erection thick, heavy, and aching with a need so profound it is a physical pain. I am massive, a beast, and she is so, so small.

“I will break you,” I rasp, the words a warning, a plea.

“Then break me,” she sobs, her fingers digging into my shoulders.

She reaches down, her small, clever hand wrapping around my length, and a shock of pure, unadulterated pleasure jolts through me.

She guides me to her entrance, her wet heat a brand against the tip of my cock. “I need you inside me. Now.”

I push. Just the tip of my cock. The sensation is a lightning strike, a fire that threatens to consume me whole.

She is so impossibly snug, so hot, a velvet trap that promises oblivion.

Her body is trying to accommodate me, to take me, but it’s not enough.

I am too large. I feel her flesh resisting, the delicate barrier of her maidenhead a fragile gate against a siege engine.

She lets out a sharp, pained gasp, her eyes squeezing shut. “It hurts,” she whispers, a tear tracing a path through the grime on her cheek.

A cold dread washes over me, dousing the flames of my lust. “I am stopping.”

“No,” she says, her voice fierce, her eyes flying open to lock with mine.

They are blazing with defiance. “Don’t you dare stop.

Don’t you dare treat me like I am made of glass.

” Her hips tilt, a small, desperate movement, trying to take more of me.

“It hurts because I have never… because I need you to… to push. I need you to take me!”

Her courage is a thing of savage beauty.

It reignites the fire, hotter this time, purer.

I lean down, my lips brushing her ear. “Breathe with me, Bella,” I murmur, my voice rough.

I push again, slowly, my muscles screaming with the effort of control.

I feel the delicate tearing, and she cries out, a sharp, wounded sound that is immediately followed by a low, shuddering moan as I slide deeper and I brush against her sensitive clit.

“Votoi,” she breathes, her voice a prayer as every bit of her body shudders.

I am buried inside her, to the hilt. The feeling of her, surrounding me, clenching around me, is the most exquisite torture I have ever known. For a moment, we are both still, our bodies trembling, our breaths mingling in the cold air.

Then she moves. Her hips tilt, taking me deeper, and a low, keening moan escapes her lips. “Don’t stop,” she whispers, voice a raw, desperate thing. “Please, don’t stop.”

I don’t. I begin to move, my thrusts slow, deep, deliberate at first. I watch her face, watch the pain in her eyes dissolve, replaced by a dark, consuming pleasure. Her head thrashes against the stone, her moans growing louder, more frantic.

“Votoi! Oh, gods, Votoi!” she cries, her voice echoing in the small, dark space.

“You feel so good,” I growl, the words a guttural litany. “Fit me so good. So wet. Mine.”

My control shatters. The rhythm becomes frantic, brutal, a desperate, punishing pace that is more battle than embrace.

It is the only language I know. I am trying to fuck the fear out of her, out of myself.

I am trying to brand myself on her, to claim her so completely that no one, not Malacc, not the gods themselves, can ever take her from me.

Her body tenses, her inner muscles clenching around me like a fist. “I’m going to… I’m coming!” she screams, her voice breaking.

“Come for me, Bella,” I roar, my own release a gathering storm.

She shatters, her body convulsing around me, her scream a high, pure sound of absolute pleasure.

Her climax is a tidal wave, a torrent that rips through me, and my own control breaks.

I drive into her one last time, a deep, guttural roar tearing from my throat as I empty myself into her, a final, desperate act of possession.

“Bella!” I roar as a Protheka-shattering orgasm slams into me.

My body is heavy, spent. I slump against her, my forehead resting on her shoulder, my entire weight supported by the wall and her small, trembling frame.

The silence that descends is broken only by the drumming of the rain and our harsh, ragged breaths.

The adrenaline is gone, leaving behind a raw, aching tenderness.

I pull back slowly, my eyes meeting hers in the gloom. The wildness is gone from her gaze, replaced by a dazed, luminous exhaustion. There are no words. There is nothing to say that our bodies have not already screamed into the darkness.

I lower my head and kiss her.

It is not like the first kiss. There is no violence in it, no desperation.

It is a slow, deep press of lips, a taste of salt and rain and sweat and her.

It is a sealing. A branding of a different kind.

It is a promise, made in the language of silence and touch, that what just happened was not an ending. It was a beginning.