up; she just had to get out and walk off some of this heat.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Zsadist stopped in the underground tunnel, halfway between the main house and Vishous and Butch's place.
When he looked behind himself there was nothing but a row of ceiling lights. In front of him there was more of the same, a strip of glowing patches that went on and on. The door he'd entered from and the door he would exit out of were both unseen to him.
Well, wasn't this a perfect fucking metaphor for life.
He settled against the steel wall of the tunnel, feeling trapped in spite of the fact that he was held by nothing and no one.
Oh, but that was bullshit. Bella was trapping him. Chaining him. Tying him up with her beautiful body and her kind heart and that misplaced chimera of love that glowed in her sapphire eyes. Trapped... He was so trapped.
With a sudden shift, his mind latched onto the night Phury finally got him away from the slavery.
When the Mistress had shown up with yet another male, the slave had been disinterested. After ten decades the eyes of other males no longer bothered him, and the rapes and the invasions had no new horrors to teach him. His existence was an even-keeled stretch of hell, the only real torture resting in the infinite nature of his captivity.
But then he'd sensed something odd. Something... different. He'd turned his head and looked at the stranger. His first thought was that the male was huge and dressed with expense, so he had to be a warrior. His next was that the yellow eyes staring at him held a shocking misery. Verily, the stranger standing in the doorway had paled until his skin was waxy.
When the smell of the salve assaulted the slave's nose, he went back to looking at the ceiling, uninterested in what would happen next. Yet as his manhood was manipulated, a wave of emotion surged in the room. He looked back to the male who was standing just inside the cell. The slave frowned. The warrior was reaching for a dagger and looking at the Mistress as if he were going to kill -
The other door burst open and one of the courtmen spoke with panic. Suddenly the cell was filled with guards and weapons and anger. The Mistress was grabbed roughly by the male at the front of the group and slapped so hard she hit the stone wall. Then the male went for the slave, unsheathing a knife. The slave screamed as he saw the blade come at his face. A searing pain cut through his forehead and nose and cheek; then blackness claimed him.
When the slave came to consciousness, he was hanging by his neck, the weight of his arms and legs and torso choking the life right out of him. His mental reappearance was as if his body knew his last breath was coming and had awoken him on the off chance his brain could help. A sorry attempt at rescue, he thought.
Dear Virgin, shouldn't he feel pain? And he wondered if he had been splashed with water, for his skin was wet. Then he realized something thick was dripping into his eyes. His blood. He was covered in his own blood.
And what was all that noise around him? Swords? Fighting?
While choking he lifted his eyes, and for a split second all manner of suffocation left him. The sea. He was looking out at the vast sea. Joy soared for a moment... and then his vision swam from lack of air. His lids flickered and he sagged, though he was grateful that he'd seen the ocean once more before he died. He pondered vaguely whether the Fade would be anything like that vast horizon, an infinite expanse that was both unknowable and a home.
Just as he saw a shining white light before him, the pressure at his throat ceased and his body was handled roughly. There were shouts and jerky movements, then a jarring, bouncing ride that ended abruptly. Along the way, agony bloomed all over him, rushing into his bones, beating at him with dull, pounding fists.
Two shots from a gun. Grunts of pain that were not his own. And then a scream and a blast of wind on his back. Falling... he was in the air, falling...
Oh, God, the ocean. Panic spread through him. The salt -
He felt the hard cushion of the water for only a moment before the sensation of the sea