He gripped my wrist and pulled me to his chest. His strong arm wrapped around my waist and he shouted, “Mine!” to Savin and Ilya. I saw Savin’s face tighten in alarm. But hearing the protective, possessive word slip from Zaal’s lips had my thighs clenching and my heart soaring.
I wasn’t afraid.
“Miss,” Ilya warned, motioning for me to step away.
I held out my hand to my byki, and ordered, “Leave.” They stared at me like I’d gone insane. “Leave!” I shouted. Zaal’s grasp on me became too tight. He was losing it. I could feel it in his shaking limbs and erratic breathing.
“What?” Ilya exclaimed. “We can’t do that, miss. He could kill you!”
“You can. He’s safe, but he thinks you’re guards. The guards Jakhua employs. I’ve let him out because he’s safe.” Ilya glanced back at Savin. “Please, leave…” I begged.
“Fuck!” Ilya snapped. Lowering his gun, he turned to face Savin. “Outside,” Ilya ordered, before looking back at me. “You have five minutes to explain who we are before we come back in. And if he comes at us again, I’ll blow his fucking head clean off.”
When the door slammed shut, Zaal let out a frustrated growl and dragged me across the floor. He slammed me against the wall. His face was contorted in rage, his jade eyes lit with fire. “Guards,” he hissed. “Master’s guards. You lied.…”
“No,” I whispered. His eyebrows twitched. “My guards,” I explained, then pushed, “They’re my guards.”
Zaal stilled. A frown pulled on his red face. “Your guards?”
I nodded. Timidly lifting my hand, I pressed it against his cheek. As soon as my palm met his face, tension left his shoulders. I’d observed that when I did this, it soothed him. “You were freed from your Master weeks ago. You were brought here to safety.”
He blinked and searched my gaze. “To you.” My stomach flipped at the want in his eyes. He thought I was his safety. That he was brought here to me.
“No, Zaal. For you. You’re free. Nobody owns you now.”
Lips parted, Zaal inhaled a shaky breath. “No Master?” he asked in bewilderment. I shook my head for emphasis.
His head lifted to look around the hallway. I could see the confusion racking his brain. “I’m free?” he asked again.
“Yes,” I whispered, my fingers stroking over his cheek. He let out a deep exhale and straightened. I watched with bated breath as he placed his hand on his arm, on the tens of scars, and then slid his fingers to the shackle wounds on his wrists and ankles.I watched as those fingers traced the permanent red circular marks, and I watched as he lifted his head. Zaal met my eyes with unshed tears in his. “I am free.”
The sight of those tears dropping over his dark stubbled cheeks was my undoing. “Zaal,” I croaked through a thick throat.
I wanted to tell him who he was. Where he’d come from. I wanted him to tell me what had been done to him for years, for decades. I wanted to tell him what Jakhua did to his family. But he was, in many ways, just a child.
He couldn’t understand. He was like a caveman, seeing the world for the first time.
I took his hand and, meeting his eyes, said, “Come with me.”
Zaal tightened his hand on mine. I led him from the hallway into the large living room. He stopped at the doorway. Zaal drank in the large area filled with plush furnishings, the large feature windows overlooking our beach.
He swallowed hard.
I began pulling him toward the kitchen. Zaal stopped dead as he looked at the appliances, the countertops. I watched him and tried to imagine what this was like—seeing everything for the first time.
I couldn’t. I couldn’t even begin to comprehend.
“This is where the food is prepared,” I said. I moved to the fridge. “Are you hungry?”
Zaal pressed his hand against his stomach. “I am always hungry,” he replied. “Master feeds me very little. I have to earn my food.”
I stared at him in silence. “How?” I whispered, unsure whether I really wanted to know the answer.
“Killing,” he said, as if it was an ordinary everyday activity.
I swallowed and stepped forward. “Do you kill a lot?”
Emphatically, he nodded his head. “It is all that I do.”
Blowing out through my mouth, I pointed to the fridge. But Zaal’s attention kept drifting to the windows overlooking the beach. I leaned back against the fridge and watched his eyes try to interpret the scene.