And he was nothing but a pathetic whipping boy for them all.
Astrid sat up and wrapped her arms around his waist. "You're shaking. Are you cold?"
Still he didn't answer. He knew he should shove her away from him, but right then he wanted her comfort. He wanted someone to tell him he wasn't worthless.
Someone to tell him that they weren't ashamed of him.
Closing his eyes, he drew her to him and laid his head on her shoulder.
Astrid was stunned by his uncharacteristic actions. She stroked his hair and rocked him slowly in her arms. Just holding him.
"Will you tell me what's wrong?" she asked quietly.
"Why? It won't change anything."
"Because I care, Zarek. I want to make it better. If you'll let me."
His tone was so low that she had to struggle to hear what he said. "There is some pain that nothing heals."
She laid her hand against his stubbled cheek. "Such as?"
He hesitated for several heartbeats before he spoke again. "Do you know how I died?"
"No."
"On my hands and knees, like an animal on the ground, begging for mercy."
She flinched at his words. She hurt so much for him that she could barely breathe from the tightness in her chest.
"Why?"
He stiffened and swallowed. At first she thought he would pull away, but he didn't move. He remained there, letting her hold him.
"You saw how my father got rid of me? How he paid for the slaver to take me?"
"Yes."
"I lived with that slaver for five years."
His arms tightened around her as if he could barely stand to admit that to her. "You can't imagine how they treated me. What I was forced to clean up.
"Every day when I woke up, I cursed to find myself still alive. Every night I prayed to die while I slept. I never had a single dream of escaping that life. The idea of running away doesn't occur to you when you're born a slave. The thought that I didn't deserve what they did to me never entered my mind. It was what I was. All I knew. And I had no hope of anyone ever buying me to get me away from there. Every time a customer came in and saw me, I heard their sharp intakes of breath. Saw the blurry shadows of their horrified sneers."
Astrid's eyes teared up at his words. He was such a handsome man any woman would kill to have him, and yet his looks had been brutally ruined. For no reason other than cruelty.
No one should be maimed and degraded the way he had been.
No one.
She pressed her lips to his forehead, brushing his hair back from his face as he continued to confide in her what she was sure he had never confided to another living soul.
There was no emotion in his voice. Her only clue to the pain he felt was the tenseness of his body.
The fact that he had yet to let her go.
"One day a beautiful lady came in," he whispered. "She had a Roman soldier as her escort. She stood in the doorway wearing a dark blue peplos. Her hair was as black as the midnight sky, her skin smooth and unblemished. I couldn't see her very clearly, but I heard the other slaves whispering about her and they only did that when a woman was truly exceptional."
A stab of jealousy went through Astrid.