Page 48 of Her Manticore Master

"Stand up there and talk about me like I'm some prize you've won! Like I'm a horse you've broken to saddle!"

Other gladiators turn to watch our confrontation with interest, but I barely notice them. All my attention is focused on the woman before me, trembling with righteous fury.

"I was protecting you."

"By humiliating me? By implying to thousands of people that you've... that we..." She can't even finish the sentence, too furious for coherent speech.

"By giving Valdris what he wanted to hear."

"What he wanted to hear?" Her laugh is sharp as broken glass. "You sounded just like him! Just like every other male who thinks women exist for their entertainment!"

The comparison hits like a slap. "I am nothing like him."

"Aren't you? Standing there with your chest puffed out, bragging about taming the wild harem girl?"

"I never said that."

"You didn't need to! 'She's quite the fighter' with that smug male satisfaction? What was I supposed to think?"

Heat flares in my chest—part guilt, part defensive anger. Because she's right. In trying to protect her, I reduced her to a conquest, a prize to be claimed.

But I'll be damned if I admit that now.

"Maybe if you weren't so quick to assume the worst, you'd understand what I was trying to do," I snarl.

"Oh, I understand perfectly. You were marking your territory like any other beast."

"I was keeping you alive!"

"By treating me like property? By confirming every crude assumption those animals have about me?"

"What would you have preferred? That I let them think you're available? Let them know exactly how much you mean to—" I cut myself off before I can finish that dangerous sentence.

"How much I mean to what?" she demands.

"Nothing. You mean nothing."

The lie tastes like ash, but it's safer than the truth. Safer than admitting that watching other males eye her with hunger makes me want to paint these walls with their blood.

"Good," she snaps. "Because you mean nothing to me either. I never should have let you touch me."

"No one forced you."

"Didn't they? Locked in that cell with a rutting beast, what choice did I have?"

The words cut deeper than any blade. Because part of me wonders if she's right—if our proximity and circumstances coerced her into something she didn't truly want.

"You seemed willing enough at the time."

"I was desperate. Lonely. Stupid enough to think you might be different from every other male who's used me."

"I didn't use you."

"Didn't you? Then what do you call what just happened up there?"

"Survival."

"Whose? Yours or mine?"