checking that I was okay. His eyebrows pulled down slightly, letting me know he didn’t believe me.
Swallowing, I explained, “She drugged me, Valentin. I have been sick for days, but I have no memory. I didn’t even remember you until my mind cleared and your eyes flashed in my mind.” Tears built, but I blinked them away. “I am so sorry that you’re hurt. What Zaal has done to you…,” I trailed off.
My head lowered until I laid my cheek against his chest.
“Was … deserved.”
I stilled when he croaked out his response. I moved to look up but felt his hand gently press my head, and I melted farther into his chest at his touch.
I pressed a kiss to his skin and confessed, “Even though I don’t remember anything, I feel that I have missed you.”
“Zoya,” Valentin rasped, and I heard his heart beat louder in his chest.
Zaal’s warning about my closeness to Valentin sprang to mind. Coldness filled my body at the thought that I wanted Valentin simply because he had been my captor.
“What?” Valentin asked.
Raising my head to look down at him, I hesitated, then eventually admitted, “Zaal doesn’t understand how I can want you. He thinks it’s wrong”—I paused and swallowed—“because you hurt me.”
Valentin closed his eyes. When they reopened, they were radiating regret. “He’s right,” Valentin confirmed after a long silence.
I shook my head. He squeezed my hand. “No,” I argued. “I’m not some victim who has a strange obsession with their abuser. You are not evil. You were doing what you could to save your sister.” I pointed to Valentin’s broken body. “Zaal has just done the same.” I huffed out a single humorless laugh. “It is gallant in a way. It was cruelty born from the duty of love.”
I had run my hand over Valentin’s head when his watery gaze looked up at me. He licked across his spilt lips and whispered, “Mistress sent her away.”
I froze, then blew out a deep exhale. “I know, baby.”
Valentin’s eyes squeezed shut, and I could see him fighting for control of his emotions. His entire life had been about saving his sister—his childhood, his teens, his adult life. And he believed he had failed.
Seeing him so upset provided another facet to this kaleidoscope of a man. I had seen him vicious. I had seen him cruel and cold, and I had seen him loving and kind. Now I was seeing him crushed and broken.
I was witnessing him feeling completely alone.
Gripping him tighter, I promised, “We’ll get her back, Valentin. Somehow, we’ll get her back.”
He watched me and confessed, “I don’t know what to do.”
My heart broke for how lost and young he sounded. “I know,” I rasped. “But there will be a way. We will work something out.”
He deserved to hear it would all work out, even though deep down I wasn’t sure.
Valentin stared after that. He stared at me like I was an angel. Smoothing the back of my hand down his troubled face, I said, “You have me, Valentin. I am not going anywhere. I’m here for you, with you … in love with you.”
“Kotyonok,” he whispered, his sweet name for me warming me to my core. “You’re mine? You belong to me?”
Smiling through the emotions wrapping me in their hold, I nodded my head. “Yes. I am yours.”
Valentin tried to move but winced as a pain shot through him. Leaning away, I rolled up the sleeves of my sweater and said, “I’ll be right back. I’m going to clean you up. I’m going to make the pain go away.”
Valentin gripped my hand, but when I smiled and nodded my head he let me go. I rushed out of the cell and up the stairs. The man Kisa had called Pavel was at the top. Straightening my shoulders, I ordered, “I need the heat turned on downstairs. And I need a list of other things sent down immediately!”
Pavel nodded his head without expression and minutes later brought down what I had asked for. I sat beside Valentin on the floor. “Thank you,” I said to Pavel, taking the supplies and feeling warmth from the heating vent raising the temperature of the cell.
As he was about to leave, I called, “Pavel?” He turned. “Can you bring down one of the gym mats I saw upstairs and some linen?”
He frowned at my request, but as I set to cleaning Valentin he brought them down. He soon left us alone.
I cleaned Valentin until I could see his beautiful