retreat into himself. In the silence that followed, Phury couldn't even imagine what he was remembering. The pain and the degradation and the rage.
"Remember before we joined the Brotherhood," Z murmured, "when I took off for three weeks? We were still in the Old Country and you had no idea where I'd gone?"
"Yeah."
"I killed her. The Mistress."
Phury blinked, surprised at the admission of what everyone had always guessed at. "So it wasn't her husband."
"Nope. Sure, he was violent, but I was the one who did it. See, she'd taken another blood slave in. Put him down in that cage. I..." Z's voice wobbled, then became rock solid again. "I couldn't let her do that to someone else. I went back there... found him... Shit, he was naked and in the same corner I used to..."
Phury held his breath, thinking this was everything he had wanted and feared knowing. Odd that they were having the conversation now.
"You used to what?"
"Sit. I used to sit in that corner when I wasn't being... Yeah, I sat there, because at least I knew what was coming at me. The kid, he had his back to the wall and his knees up, too. Just exactly how I'd done it. He was young. So young, like just out of his transition. He had pale brown eyes... and they were terrified. He thought I was there for him. You know... like, there for him. As I came in, I couldn't speak, and that scared him even worse. He shivered... he shivered until his teeth rattled, and I still remember what the knuckles of his hands looked like. He was holding on to his skinny calves, and the knuckles were nearly popping out of his skin."
Phury clamped his teeth down, remembering when he'd gotten Zsadist out, recalling the sight of him chained naked to the bedding platform in the middle of that cell. Z hadn't been afraid. He'd been used too much and for too long to be rattled by anything that could be done to him.
Zsadist cleared his throat. "I said to the kid... I told him that I was going to get him out. He didn't believe it at first. Not until I pushed up the sleeves of my coat and showed him my wrists. After he saw my slave bands, I didn't have to say another word. He was with me all the way." Z took a deep breath. "She found us while I was taking him through the castle's lower level. He was having trouble walking, because I guess the day before had been... busy. I had to carry him. Anyway, she came up on us... and before she could call for the guards, I took care of her. That boy...he watched as I snapped her neck and let her fall to the ground. After she was down, I cut off her head because... see, neither of us really believed she was dead. Shit, man, I was in that rabbit warren of tunnels, where anyone could have caught us, and I couldn't move. I just stared down at her. The boy, he asked me whether she was truly dead. I said I didn't know. She wasn't moving, but how could I be sure?
"The boy looked up at me, and I'll never forget the sound of his voice. 'She'll come back. She always comes back.' Way I figured it, he and I were living with enough shit, we didn't need to worry about that. So I cut off her head, and he held it by the hair as I got us the fuck out of there." Zsadist rubbed his face. "I didn't know what to do with the kid when I got him free. That's what those three weeks were about. I took him way down to the tip of Italy, as far away as I could get him. There was a family there, one Vishous knew from his years working for that merchant in Venice. Anyway, that household needed help, and they were good people. They took him in as a paid servant. Last thing I heard, about a decade ago, was that he'd had his second young with his shellan."
"You saved him."
"Getting him out didn't save him." Zsadist's eyes drifted over. "That's the point, Phury. There isn't any saving him. There isn't any saving me. I know that's what you keep waiting for, living for. But... it's never going to happen. Look... I can't thank you, because... as much as I love Bella