Page 25 of Bought by the Broken Beast

VOTOI

I wake to the scent of dried herb and clean linen, a scent so alien it is a violation.

The world is a soft, hazy blur. I am not in the arena.

I am not in a cell. I am in a bed, a real bed, with sheets of a softness I have not felt since I was a child.

A dull, throbbing fire burns in my left leg, a pain so deep it feels rooted in my very soul.

The memories crash over me in a brutal, chaotic wave. The violent roar of the crowd. The clang of steel. Malacc’s triumphant sneer. The impossible, beautiful snowstorm of parchment. The look on Zusvak's face. Victory.

But the victory is a hollow, meaningless thing. It is a ghost, a phantom. There is only one thing that is real. One thing that matters.

The kiss.

Bella.

The name is a raw, desperate prayer on my lips. My eyes fly open, scanning the opulent room. Gilded furniture. Silk tapestries. A window overlooking the sea. This is a chamber in the royal palace. But she is not here.

Panic, cold and absolute, seizes me. It is a terror more profound than any I felt on the arena floor. The betrayal. Lyra’s face, twisted with hate. Kor, his one eye blazing with righteous fury. The commotion in the stands. Was she hurt? Was she taken from me?

“Bella!” The name is a roar, a guttural, wounded sound torn from the very depths of my being. I try to rise, but the fire in my leg explodes into a white-hot agony, and I collapse back onto the pillows, a caged, powerless beast.

The door to the chamber bursts open, and two Minotaurs in the pristine white robes of the royal physicians rush in, their faces masks of alarm.

“My lord, you must rest,” one of them says, his voice a soothing, condescending drone. “Your leg… the bone was nearly severed. You have lost a great deal of blood.”

“Where is she?” I snarl, my voice a low, dangerous growl that makes them both flinch. “The human. Where is she?”

“The human hero is safe, my lord,” the other physician says, his hands held up in a placating gesture. “She is in the adjoining chamber, being tended to. She is unhurt, merely exhausted.”

The relief is so potent, so overwhelming, it leaves me breathless. She is safe. She is here.

“Take me to her,” I command.

“But my lord, your leg…”

“Now,” I roar, and this time, there is no room for argument. I am more than a disgraced gladiator. I am Votoi Saru, the Son of Saru, the hero of Milthar. And I will be obeyed.

They help me from the bed, my entire body a symphony of pain. They support my weight as I hobble, one agonizing step at a time, to the adjoining door. I shove it open.

She is there.

She sits in a large, cushioned chair, a thick blanket wrapped around her small shoulders.

Two human servant girls are fussing over her, one trying to brush the tangles from her dark hair, the other offering her a cup of steaming broth.

Bella looks small, pale, and utterly lost in the opulent surroundings, her eyes wide and haunted.

A wave of pure, possessive fury washes over me. They are touching her. They are crowding her. They are treating her like a doll, a curiosity.

“Out,” my voice is a low, guttural rumble that makes the very air in the room tremble.

The servant girls freeze, their eyes wide with terror. They look from me to Bella, then back again, their faces pale.

“I said, out,” I repeat, my voice dropping to a low, dangerous whisper that is far more terrifying than any roar. “Do not touch her again.”

They scramble from the room, their fear a palpable scent in the air. The door clicks shut behind them, leaving us in a sudden, profound silence.

We are alone.

I hobble toward her, my gaze never leaving her face. She looks at me, her dark eyes a mixture of relief, exhaustion, and a deep, aching sorrow that mirrors my own. The ghosts of the men we lost, of the betrayal we suffered, hang in the air between us.

I stop before her, my body a landscape of fresh wounds and old scars. I am a broken, battered thing. But in her eyes, I see not a monster, but a man.

I lower myself to my knees before her, an act of supplication, of worship. The pain in my leg is a cleansing fire, a necessary penance. I am at her feet, where I belong.

Her hands, small and trembling, come up to cup my face. Her touch is a benediction, a balm on my wounded soul. “You are alive,” she whispers, her voice becoming a raw, broken thing.

“You saved me,” I reply, my own voice rough with an emotion I cannot name. “Your courage… it saved us all.”

I see the grime on her face, the faint, dark bruise on her cheek where Lyra must have struck her.

I see the small, bloody scratches on her hands from her desperate fight for survival.

And the rage, the protective fury, it returns, a white-hot inferno in my chest. But this time, I control it.

I channel it into something else. Into care.

I reach for the basin of warm water the servants left behind. I take a soft linen cloth and dip it in the water. My hands, which have only ever known the haft of an axe, the grip of a sword, the brutal finality of breaking bone, are clumsy, awkward. But I am gentle. Gods, I am so gentle.

I begin to clean the grime from her face, my touch as soft as a whisper.

I clean the dried blood from a small cut on her temple.

I wash the dust of the arena from her hands, my thumb stroking the delicate skin of her palm.

She watches me, her eyes wide, luminous, tracking my every movement.

She does not speak. She does not have to.

The silence between us is filled with a thousand unspoken words.

We are survivors. We are partners. We are… more.

I finish my clumsy ministrations. I am still kneeling before her not caring about my wounds, my hands holding hers.

The chaos of the world, the political turmoil, the weight of our new, unwanted fame—it all fades away.

There is only this. This quiet room. This fragile peace.

This woman, who holds my shattered honor, my very soul, in her small, ink-stained hands.

The exhaustion of the past days, of the past years, crashes over me in a single, overwhelming wave. My body is a spent force, my mind a hollowed-out ruin. I cannot stand. I cannot move.

I lower my head until it rests in her lap, the scent of her, of soap and parchment and pure, unadulterated Bella, filling my senses. Her fingers thread into my hair, her touch a soothing, gentle caress.

“Rest, Votoi,” she whispers, voice a soft, beautiful melody. “You are home.”

I do not have the strength to make it back to my own bed.

I will not leave her side anyway. I pull a heavy, cushioned chair to the side of her own, and I sink into it, my body screaming in protest. I reach for her hand, my fingers lacing through hers, a silent, desperate promise that I will not let her go.

The last thing I see before the darkness claims me is her face, soft and beautiful in the firelight, her eyes finally, finally free of fear.