Chapter 2

I followed my new master from the palace throne room into a gloomy, dank tunnel lit by an occasional torch—just the place I wanted to be while alone with a blood-draining, flesh-eating killer. And who still used torches? What was wrong with oil lamps? If the archaic torches weren’t bad enough, the tunnel looked like some kind of ancient dungeon.

Being so fixated on those elements and the monster in front of me, I quickly lost my sense of direction and didn’t even see how we got from one place to the other. The monster carried a torch, too, but I hadn’t seen where that came from either. I could scarcely focus through my terror.

After some distance, he led me through a locked door with a sign I couldn’t read—slaves were never taught how—then past some barrels to a small space with iron bars. A jail cell? The monster had a jail cell? Why was I surprised? And who’d been kept in it before me? Did they live to tell about it?

He addressed me for the first time. “This is where you’ll sleep and where I’ll keep you when I don’t need you.”

“Ye–yes, Master,” I said softly, keeping my eyes fixed on the cell’s interior, with its single cot, rickety side table, and three-legged stool. At least it was indoors and had basic accommodations, unlike at the Saggarts’, where the lord often chained me outside to sleep in the animal pens, even in the cold.

But from inside that cell, I’d have no chance of escape. Then again, would I even attempt to escape the Hand of Death? Probably not. I’d be too likely to end up dead for trying.

“I’ll get you a pillow and blankets,” he said, “along with an oil lamp and bucket to relieve yourself.”

He was going to get things for me? Did I hear that right? “Th–thank you, Master,” I said, still unable to look at him, still unable to stop fidgeting. I thought I might rub my hands raw.

When he asked my age, I tried to look at him, but my eyes shifted everywhere else. Any attempt to look at him increased my terror to near overwhelming proportions. “Twe–twenty-two, Master,” I managed, my voice quavering.

“Do you stutter all the time, or is it just your fear of me?”

He didn’t seem offended by my reaction to him, so I answered honestly—while continuing to stammer. “I–I’m sorry, Master,” I said. “I’m just–just—you’re the Hand of Death.” What else could I say?

“I am, and fear entices me,” he replied in his deep bass, his voice sending confusing chills up my spine. How could the sexiest voice I’d ever heard come from the most frightening man in the kingdom? “You’re going to have to learn to control it,” he said.

Control my fear? Around him? That was the same thing the king had told me. But how? I couldn’t look at him without terror flooding me.

Thankfully, he turned away, directing me to follow him upstairs. We emerged from his basement into an enormous room with white marble floors similar to those in King Yanthos’ throne room.

I followed him around the corner to the front of the room, noticing a dust-covered grand piano in the space near a wide set of stairs that led to an upper floor. I hadn’t seen a piano in years, since I was owned by Lord Merris, my master before Lord Saggart.

We walked past the entryway and into a hallway that led to the largest kitchen I’d ever seen. It contained not one, but two stoves the likes of which I’d never seen, along with an icebox twice the size of the one in my previous owner’s home—and he was a nobleman with the largest homestead in the village. There were more cupboards than I could count, and every size and type of copper pot imaginable hung over a massive worktable in the kitchen’s center.  

“Do you know how to cook?” he asked, drawing my attention.

“Only a little, Master.” Finally, I’d managed a response without stammering.

He asked if I’d eaten that day, too, an odd question from a slave master. When I told him I hadn’t, he pointed to a large bowl on the worktable and said, “You can help yourself to that fruit. Eat as much as you like.”

My eyes grew wide as I acknowledged his words. Lord Saggart never allowed me such liberties.

The monster also pointed out a small table off to the side and said, “You’ll have your meals there.” I doubted my attempt to keep the astonishment from my face was successful, but he barely glanced my way, and I certainly had no desire to look at him.

Still. A table with chairs?

Lord Saggart and his family fed me by tossing scraps of food they didn’t want from their dinner table onto the floor: half-chewed pieces of meat, the gristle or fatty portions that weren’t to their liking, maybe some potatoes that had grown cold on their plates. They’d make me crawl to the bits, telling to me to eat like a dog, using only my mouth. They never granted me the benefit of a plate or silverware, let alone a table. Yet, the monster was allowing me as much fresh fruit as I wanted and a table to sit and eat at like a regular person?

Starving, I wished I could devour the fruit right then, but he said something about where I was to get meats and vegetables, then continued touring me through his mansion.

He referred to the next room as his dining room. To me, it looked more like a banquet hall. Not that I’d ever seen one. But it was what I imagined a banquet hall would look like. My eyes passed over the longest, fanciest table I’d ever seen, with more chairs than I could count without additional time. He gestured toward a cabinet filled with bottles behind etched glass. “Are you familiar with bars and alcohol?” he asked.

“N–no, Master,” I answered, worried because I didn’t know how to cook, or make drinks, or do anything he asked about. I’d been used for sex, mostly, and doing jobs no one else wanted, like cleaning animal pens and pig shit. I knew little about taking care of a home.

“Your fear, Zayne. I can still smell it,” he said in that menacing, sexy voice that made my head spin. “And you’ll learn how to make my drinks as well,” he continued, then glanced at the massive smooth-stoned fireplace to our right. “Do you know how to light and tend fires?”

“I do, Master,” I said, thankful there was finally something he asked about that I knew how to do. My life now depended upon pleasing this man, after all.

From his dining room, we ended up back in the foyer, then crossed to two huge double doors. They opened to a room with a heavy wooden desk and books covering shelves from floor to ceiling. My feet sank into burgundy carpet softer than rich freshly tilled soil. A rainbow of light streamed in through three huge arched windows with panes of different colors, like those in my former village’s church. He led me past two burgundy wingback chairs that sat before another stone fireplace and said, “This is where I spend a good deal of my time.”

We continued past a large empty table, then through an archway into a room with a partially carved block of wood in its center and smaller pieces of wood and shavings covering the floor. I stared at what looked like part of a head. “It’s going to be an owl when I’m done with it,” he said. My eyes widened. The monster was an artist?

I continued scanning the room, first gazing at the floor to ceiling windows adorned in heavy burgundy drapery with gold tassels, then moving to some kind of odd workstation with multiple vats. On the shelves behind it were gorgeous candles with colorful swirling designs so pretty I thought I’d be hesitant to light one and watch the beauty melt away. Did the monster make those, too?

He bid me to “come” and led me back into the foyer to the foot of the grand staircase that led upstairs.

“Those are the rooms I use on this floor,” he said. “You’re not to go into any of the others.” He turned and climbed the stairs with me trailing behind. At the top, he pointed out the doors to several guest bedrooms, then led me into his chambers.

As we approached his beautifully carved canopied bed, my heart raced in dreaded expectation. Surely, he brought me there to bend me over, to make use of me as both my previous owners had so many times before. But he didn’t stop. He didn’t bend me over. We continued across the plush cream carpet, past his bed covered in a luxurious silk comforter and into his lavatory—if one could call it a lavatory. The space was as large as my former master’s grand salon, and the fixtures gleamed white and gold.

He gestured to the gold-accented porcelain tub set into a marble surround. “You’ll bathe here,” he said, “and launder your clothes in the washtub out back.”

My mouth gaped. “Bathe? Here? B–but…”

“What is it?” he asked, his deep voice taking on a gruffness of impatience.

“N–nothing, Master.” Best to keep my mouth shut.

“Then get to it,” he said. “I’ll see if I can find you some other clothes in the meantime. You can eat after you wash.”

I couldn’t believe my ears. He was going to get me clothes and allow me to eat?

He turned and left the room, closing the door behind him. A slave alone, in a mansion? I stood frozen and perplexed. Nothing there made sense. I’d never been permitted to bathe in such a tub. Could one even call the enormous gleaming basin before me a tub? The word seemed so simple. There must be a grander word to describe it.

But I was alone, and the front door was so near, just down the stairs. Could I escape? Should I try? No, no. I was on palace grounds and wearing slave’s rags. I’d be spotted and captured. I was sure of it. Then what would happen? I’d be thrown in a dungeon, or worse, sentenced to death, likely to be killed by him. Better to do what I was told than attempt to escape the king’s assassin.

The king’s assassin. My new owner. I shook my head as I peeled the rags off my scarred body, scowling at the sight of it in the full-length mirror next to the door.

Despite my growling belly, I spent quite a while in the bath, his bath, enjoying the steamy water—as much as I could anyway. Even in the relaxing comfort of the tub, dread filled me, and my mind whirred with thoughts of what was to come.

Though he hadn’t bent me over the bed. Why? Maybe he wanted to wait until I was clean? But he told me I could eat after my bath and that I was to familiarize myself with the kitchen and its many cupboards. Maybe he planned to wait until later to use me?

I tried to imagine it. Considering I couldn’t look at his face without feeling so much terror it made my entire body quake, I hoped he’d take me from behind like all the others who’d used me before. At least then, I wouldn’t have to look at him. More than anything, I hoped he wouldn’t be too rough. With his size, he could probably crush me with his bare hands.

While drying off with the fluffiest towel I’d ever used, I heard the door to his bedchamber. I froze, and my heart rate increased as his footsteps grew closer. Would he take me now? Bend me over the bed? My blood raced, throbbing throughout my body as my fear mounted.

But then his footsteps faded, and the door to his bedchamber opened and closed once more. My heart settled, at least a little. A part of me felt relieved that he’d left. Another part wished he’d take me and have his way with me, get it over with, so I’d stop dreading what was to come.

I finished drying and wrapped the towel around my waist before slowly cracking the bathroom door and peering into his chambers. Silence. I entered, then stood there awkwardly, not knowing what to do. For a moment, I stared at his intricately carved bed, the most stunning bed I’d ever seen. If he carved owl heads, did he carve beds too?

I walked to it and ran my hand across the columnar foot post, its wood carved into vines twined together. It reminded me of his braided hair with the leather strip in between. Only the strip between these vines had swirl designs similar to those I’d seen on the candles downstairs.

My eyes shifted to his comforter, and my hand followed, my fingers running along the smooth, soft golden silk. It felt like liquid cream, even when I passed over the interwoven pattern in a contrasting deep violet. It looked like a king’s bed, or what I thought a king’s bed should look like. Did King Yanthos have a bed like this?

I looked around the rest of the room, ensuring my footfalls were quiet as I moved about. The drapery matched the bed’s comforter, and several heavy pieces of walnut furniture adorned the perimeter, all covered in a thick layer of dust.

A piece of artwork over one of the dressers caught my eye. I walked toward it. A bear’s face stared down at me, carved into a wood canvas about as thick as two of my fingers pressed together. I shook my head. How could someone create something so detailed? The bear’s fur looked textured, the eyes incredibly realistic. Did he carve this? Could a man who was part beast, who served as the king’s assassin, create such art, such beauty?

A noise downstairs met my ears, something that sounded like the closing of a door. I’d pay close attention to the household noises. At the Saggarts’, the easiest way to avoid abuse was to keep clear of them. I expected the same to hold true in my current situation, though my new master didn’t carry a whip… yet. Maybe he didn’t carry one because he hadn’t previously owned a slave?

Or because he could crush me with his bare hands.

He’d mentioned getting me new clothes, so I scanned the room for them. A small pile of dark brown folded material rested on one of two chairs in front of his fireplace. I ran my hand along the smooth silk of the chair’s upholstery before picking up the plain brown unhemmed pants. The rough texture of the hemp and nettles fabric met my fingers, the material more thickly woven and of higher quality than my old set of slave’s rags, though not too thick for the summer months. 

I donned the clothes and my tattered, nearly soleless shoes, then padded downstairs, my heart rate increasing with every step. My eyes darted around the foyer, looking for him, and I wiped my sweaty palms on my pants. An empty silence filled the room. I slipped into the hall, making my way to the kitchen.

For the first time in more years than I could count, I sat at a table and ate to my heart’s content. Cherries, plumbs, raspberries, blueberries, and my favorite, strawberries, all melted in my mouth. I tried a couple of each, but my belly grew full with half the bowl still left. Probably for the best, in case I wasn’t given any more for some time. I considered stashing some of what remained to be sure I’d have food later and began checking the cupboards for a suitable hiding spot.

Footsteps came from behind me and I shot up, turning toward the archway with a jolt. He stood within the frame, taking up half the space. Holy moly, he was huge. Though the rest of me remained frozen, I brought my hands together, fidgeting my fingers.

“You’ve eaten?” His deep bass washed over me, sending chills through my body.

“Y–yes, Master.” My voice quivered and my body trembled.

“Good. Follow me. And control your fear.” He didn’t wait for a reply before pivoting and disappearing into the hallway. I scrambled to catch up. As we strode down the hallway, he said, “We’re going to the palace kitchen. The cooks will show you where to get food and can teach you how to prepare it as well.”

I tried to pay attention to his instructions through my nerves.

We descended into the basement, where he stopped and pulled a key off a hook on the wall. “This is the key for this door,” he said, gesturing toward the basement door that led to the gloomy passage. “You’re free to use it to travel back and forth to the palace as necessary.”

My face twisted in confusion. He was giving me a key to an exit? And permitting me to move about freely between his residence and the palace?

He didn’t allow me further time to contemplate before he slipped out the door. I had to hurry to keep up with his long strides through the dank stone passage. This time, I paid attention to how many alcoves we passed and which one led to the palace. Once inside the main building, we walked two empty hallways before reaching a final black and white checkered hallway and a set of cornflower blue doors where he stopped. Still unable to look at him without being filled with terror, I kept my eyes lowered as he spoke.

“Through these doors is the kitchen. Familiarize yourself with everything and everyone. I’d like my dinner in two hours’ time. It can be simple to start, but ensure it includes a nice hunk of meat. You’ll eat your meals after serving me, so prepare enough for both of us.” He turned on his heel and left.

Chapter 3

Stunned, I stood outside the kitchen doors for a minute, contemplating what my new master had said. I’d be permitted to eat after serving him, and I should get enough food for both of us? Could this be real? He intended to keep me well-fed?

Voices came from beyond the doors, drawing me from my thoughts, though I couldn’t hear them well enough to understand their conversation. What was I to do? Simply walk in and introduce myself to strangers? I’d spent most of my life trying to be quiet, trying to go unnoticed, not introducing myself to people.

But what choice did I have? I couldn’t stand there forever. Still, it was another couple of minutes before I worked up the nerve to enter.

The space was even larger than my master’s kitchen, separated by two immense stone columns with massive worktables on either side. Four of those strange stoves stood next to hot cupboards on the perimeter, and the back wall housed two huge ice boxes and wooden shelves filled with jars, canisters, plates, pots, spices, and everything else one could imagine finding in a kitchen.

An attractive dark-skinned man with black hair and stubble dusting his face stood at one of the worktables cutting meat. He wore a clean white apron and looked to be only a handful of years older than me. At the table across from him stood a heavy-set, middle-aged, aproned woman, stirring something in a large bowl.

They stopped talking and turned my way at the creak of the door.

“Who are you?” the woman asked, scowling at me.

“Zayne, ma’am,” I said, then jumped a little when the door clicked closed behind me. “I’m supposed to get food. Meat.”

“Meat? This is the king’s private kitchen. We don’t give the king’s food away, especially his meats. Go to the general kitchens if you want to beg for food.”

“I–I was told to come here, ma’am,” I said, fidgeting my fingers, wishing I could leave. But I couldn’t disobey my new master, couldn’t return without food for him.

“I don’t care what you were told.” She picked up a wooden spoon and pointed it toward the door. “Get out.”

I shuddered, remembering Lady Saggart in the same position and how hard her wooden spoons had been when they’d met my flesh. “I–I need meat. I–I—”

“I said, Get. Out!” she yelled, moving toward me. I retreated until my back pressed against the door, trying to melt into it.

The man set his knife down and moved toward her with a slight flourish. He put a hand on her arm, imploring her to lower the spoon. “Wait a second, Maddie,” he said, then shifted his eyes to me. “Who told you to come to this kitchen?”

“M–my master, sir. Garret, the king’s Hand of Death.”

His eyes widened, and Maddie blanched.

The man regained his composure quickly, then smiled and walked toward me with open arms and a more pronounced flourish. “Why didn’t you say so?” he said in a high sing-song voice, one even higher than my own. “Come. Come.” He lowered his hand near me, and I cowered. He retracted it and gestured me further into the room instead. “The Hand of Death gets anything he wants,” he said, still smiling at me. He turned toward Maddie and shot her an angry look. “Anything he wants,” he repeated through clenched teeth while staring at her. His hips swayed as he led me into the room.

“I’m supposed to learn how to cook,” I said. “He told me you’d teach me.”

“Did he? How lovely,” he said in a tone that told me he didn’t think it lovely at all.

“Why is it we have to cater to that–that… monster?” Maddie said, her face twisting in anger. “I will have no part of this.” She threw the spoon on the table, then stormed out of the room.

The man scowled at the door as it closed, then looked at me, this time wearing a forced smile. “Don’t let her get to you,” he said with a wave. “And, please, don’t tell your master.”

“I won’t,” I promised. And I wouldn’t. Even if Maddie wasn’t nice to me, she was still of lower class, and it was an unspoken agreement that those in lower stations protected each other from those above us, at least as much as we could. Besides, I understood her feelings about my master. I just hoped she’d never hit me with that spoon of hers.

“My name’s Herbirro,” the man said, his face softening. “But most people here call me Herbie. And that was Maddelise. Everyone here calls her Maddie.” He leaned toward me. “And I swear it has more to do with her anger issues than her name,” he whispered, then put a finger to his lips in a shushing motion.

I smiled shyly.

“So… slave to the king’s pet, eh?”

“The king’s pet?”

“His Hand of Death. King Yanthos caters to him and, because he does, so do the rest of us,” he said, pulling an apron off a hook on the wall. “Thankfully, we here in the kitchens rarely have to deal with him. Francis usually picks up a plate for him after every meal and delivers it to his back door.” He handed me the apron. “Seems you’re going to be cooking for him from now on though, sweets. Tough break.”

“Yeah.” I took the apron from him. “And I have no experience,” I said, donning the apron and feeling nervous about getting anything wrong.

“Don’t you worry none. I’m the king’s personal chef. I’ll teach you everything you need to know.”

Relief washed over me, though I felt guilty for inconveniencing him.

A servant walked in, the same one who had delivered wine to King Yanthos in the throne room.

Herbie’s face broke into a wide smile. “Nadya! Dearest, what can I do for you?”

“Oh, I’m afraid I’m not going to be your dearest once I tell you,” she said with a worried look as she approached the worktable.

Herbie’s smile disappeared. “What is it, love? No bad news, please.”

“Four more guests for tonight’s dinner.” She pushed loose strands of her chestnut hair back toward the tussled bun at her crown.

Herbie rolled his eyes. “Seriously? Why is it the man can’t get a guest list straight the day prior? Why does it always have to be mere hours before dinner?”

Nadya shrugged. “Don’t kill the messenger.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it. And you’ll always be my dearest.” He patted her arm.

“Can you handle it?”

“Am I the best chef in Oxwick, or am I the best chef in Oxwick?”

Nadya showed off a beautiful smile that reached her eyes before she leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you for always making my life so much easier.”

He waved his hand with a flourish. “Don’t mention it, darling.” Nadya’s gaze shifted to me, and he gestured in my direction. “This is Zayne, Garret’s new slave.” He looked from me to her. “Zayne, this is Nadya, one of King Yanthos’ favorite servant girls.”

“Lucky me.” She rolled her eyes. Then she looked at me, and her face turned serious. “But you… so sorry,” she said as though someone died and she was offering her condolences.

I nodded. “It’s okay.”

She nodded back, her eyes conveying sympathy and knowledge, like she understood my plight in a way no one else could. Then she turned to Herbie, and her smile returned. “I’d better get going. Lots of work to do before tonight.”

“Of course, sweets. Don’t you worry about the food, though. I’ve got it.”

“You always do, Herbie.” He leaned his face toward her, and she kissed him on the cheek once more.

He put the back of his hand to his forehead and feigned a swoon. “Oh, what you do for me, you vixen,” he said, then fanned himself in an exaggerated motion.

“If only.” She giggled as she walked out the door.

Herbie pivoted, the motion an elegant partial twirl. “That’s your master’s girlfriend,” he said as he picked up a knife with a flair before he resumed cutting the meat he’d been slicing when I walked in.

My face twisted. “Girlfriend?” I said with my voice pitching up. “He has a girlfriend?”

“In a manner of speaking.” He shot me a knowing look. “Like I said, the Hand of Death gets anything he wants.”

“So he forces her?”

“More like the king does… well, not forces. She’s well compensated—four times the typical earnings for a servant in her position.”

My brows drew together, and my confusion must have registered because he answered my unasked question.

“Sex helps control your master’s… urges. So King Yanthos always ensures it’s readily available for him. And Nadya has been his ‘girlfriend’ for years now. But truth be told, I don’t think he even realizes she doesn’t want to. Heck, Nadya doesn’t think he realizes it.”

“How can he not?”

“She has to act interested, and your master is… different. You know it’s said Wyra can’t experience human emotions? At least not the good ones. Like caring for others. Love. Sympathy. That sort of thing. From my talks with Nadya, I don’t think he even understands most emotions, let alone feels them.”

“Does he hurt her?”

“She says he never has. Still, she dreads their time together because she’s not interested, and she says he’s very… detached is the word I think she used. Apparently, there’s no passion in him. Well, except for one thing.”

“Killing?”

He nodded, his expression grave.

Right. Of course. My insides became jittery. I looked at my hands. The trembling had reached my fingers.

The shift in my gaze drew Herbie’s attention. “Oh, no. I didn’t mean to scare you.” He went to put a hand over mine, and I flinched. “Sorry,” he said, pulling back. “I tend to be the touchy sort. I mean to comfort, not harm.”

“I know,” I said. “I’m just—it’s just that… I’m not used to—”

He put a hand up. “Say no more. I can refrain.”

I nodded. “Thanks.”

“But just so we’re clear, I wasn’t trying to—well, we’re not really each other’s type, are we?” he said with a wink.

I couldn’t help the smile that formed on my face. Herbie was attractive with his triangular jawline, golden amber eyes, and a striking widow’s peak between scattered hair that perfectly framed his face. But he was right. If I were to choose a man to be with—not that I ever had a choice—he wouldn’t be my type. The men who drew my eye in the village were the farmhands, all rugged and well-built.

“I don’t know about you,” he said, “but I like ‘em big and burly.” He wiggled his brows, and my smile grew wider. Seemed we had something in common.

He gestured with his chin toward his knife block. “Grab one of those. You can help me work. We’ll prepare tonight’s meal together, and I’ll give you plenty to take back to your master before you leave.”

#

A couple of hours later, I carried a tray with two dinners back to my master’s manor. In one lesson, I had learned how to properly cut meat and how to use those stoves I’d never seen before. They were gas, not wood or coal like everyone who lived in villages used for cooking. But Herbie had told me gas stoves were invented a while back and were all the rage for rich people in the city now. With no need to lug wood in from outside, they were much easier to use, too.

When I opened the basement door, the one that led to the rear of the foyer, Master’s frightening face greeted me. I startled, almost dropping the tray.

“I’ll wait in the dining room,” he said, scowling. “And control your fear.”

“Y-yes, Master.” Like there was any chance of that happening.

I raced to the kitchen just to get away from him. After leaving my dinner there, I served him at his dining table, focusing on the food and not him. Sweat beaded on my brow as I poured his wine with a shaky hand. He hardly acknowledged me before telling me to go eat in the kitchen. Happy to comply, I darted out of the dining room without looking back.

After devouring the most delectable meal I’d ever eaten—a huge slab of succulent beef with creamy potatoes cooked to perfection—I returned to find the dining room and his plate empty. I brought everything into the kitchen and cleaned up, learning where things belonged as I went.

As I finished, the hairs on the back of my neck rose. When I looked toward the kitchen entrance, he stood in the archway. My knees grew weak. He would take me now and have his way with me. I just knew it.

My legs wobbled as he led me to the basement door. I’d expected him to take me in his chambers, but maybe he thought it better to mess up my cell’s cot than his beautiful bed? My heart pounded and my stomach threatened to lose the food I’d eaten as we descended the stairs.

Please don’t be too rough. Please don’t be too rough, I chanted silently during our walk to the iron bars.

He opened the cell door and gestured for me to enter, then grabbed a key off a hook nearby. “You have to learn to control your fear,” he said as he locked me inside.

He didn’t wait for me to acknowledge his order before he turned and left me standing there, dumbfounded once again. A few moments later, the door at the top of the basement stairs closed. I stood for a minute staring at the bottom steps, the only ones visible to me, waiting for him to return.

When he didn’t, I didn’t know what to think. Maybe he was giving me a reprieve since it was my first full day with him? Whatever the reason for him not using me that night, mixed emotions filled me again—a sense of relief coupled with dread and worry about what it would be like when he did finally take me, along with the wish that he’d do it just to get it over with.

I sat on the bed and waited a while longer, my body buzzing with nervousness. Eventually, I became convinced he wasn’t coming back, and my anxiety subsided.

It was early, but I’d had a long day and welcomed the rest. So I settled into the dip in the middle of the worn mattress, fluffed the flat pillow he must have dropped off sometime earlier, and made myself as comfortable as I could. The mattress smelled musty, but far better than pig shit, and the lousy cot was a vast improvement over sleeping in animal pens.

With the covers keeping me warm, I drifted off.

A nightmare about the Saggarts disturbed my slumber, waking me with a cry. My body shook and tears covered my face. In the nightmare, Lord Saggart had found me. His lecherous eyes peered at me from the other side of my cell’s bars, and I watched in fear as he unlocked the cell door. He stripped me of my rags, ripping them from my body. Then he used me roughly, mercilessly. When he finished with me, he and his sons pulled me from the cot, chained me to the wall, and whipped me.

The nightmare felt so real that I rolled on my back to be sure I couldn’t feel the pain of a recent whipping. Though I couldn’t, it still took some time to stop shaking. All the while, I worried my current master may have heard me and might come downstairs.

After I calmed, I lay there awake, not knowing whether it was day or night or how long I might be stuck in the cage. What if he left me in there? Then again, what if he came back? He still hadn’t used me, and it was bound to happen sooner or later. Dread filled me while I waited for the door to open. Once it did, my heart became a lump in my throat. I rose from the bed and stood on unsteady legs as he descended the steps.

When he arrived at the cell, he let out a frustrated sigh. “Your fear, Zayne. You must learn to control it.”

I tried to calm my nerves as he pulled the key from the wall. But with the knowledge of what was to come, how could I?

“You can use my lavatory to get cleaned up,” he said as he opened the lock with a clunk. “Then go to the kitchens and see about breakfast. I’d like to eat within the hour.”

My mouth gaped, then I swallowed. He was letting me out without using me? “Y–yes, Master,” I said, acknowledging the order with my eyes averted. I glanced up for a second, long enough to see him shake his head in frustration as even more terror filled me.

“Your fear is going to be the death of us both,” he said, his deep voice taking on a gruff, almost inhuman tone that terrified me even more, “or at least the death of you, if you can’t figure out how to control it.” He turned and ascended the stairs, leaving the cell door ajar with the key in the lock.

The death of me? My death—if I didn’t learn how to control my fear. Shit.

Herbie had told me Wyra couldn’t experience most human emotions and said my master felt only one thing. My master and I weren’t much different in that respect. Only the one thing I felt was the one thing he kept telling me not to feel: fear. I’d lived with fear for nine years with the Saggarts. Now, while being a slave to an assassin who turned into a flesh-eating monster, I was supposed to have none? I shook my head and hugged myself, rubbing my arms. I was as good as dead.

After a few minutes of breathing deeply in an effort to calm my nerves, I exited the cell, not bothering to remove the key. A rhythmic hammering came from his front room as I entered the foyer. Maybe he was working on that owl’s head?

I followed his instructions, cleaning up in his lavatory, then going to the palace kitchens. I worked with Herbie to make breakfast, enjoying both his company and the education.

When it came time to serve my master, I desperately tried to control my fear, but without any success. After I poured his drink, he said, “Get away from me,” in the most inhuman growl I’d heard come from him yet. Terror engulfed me as I fled into the kitchen.

Some time passed before my stomach calmed enough to tolerate food. Once it could, I ate at the kitchen table and, same as the night prior, found his dining room and plate empty after I was done.

If this was to be the routine, it wasn’t bad, and he still hadn’t used me for sex. Maybe he wouldn’t? Could that be possible? So far, he’d been less abusive than the Saggarts.

Less abusive?

He hadn’t been abusive at all. Despite that he hadn’t hurt me, though, I still couldn’t look at him without quaking in my shoes. It proved even more impossible to do so when, a few hours later, he called me into the foyer. As I stepped out from the hallway, my mouth fell open, and I froze, staring wide-eyed at his shirt, hands, and face covered in blood.

“I need you to launder my clothes and yours from yesterday as well.”

My clothes from yesterday? With all that had happened, I’d forgotten them. I tensed, waiting for him to strike me, or maybe even kill me. Considering the blood all over him, anything was possible.

Instead, he turned and climbed the stairs to the upper level. No punishment? A moment passed where I stood, wondering what to do. Finally, I followed him, entering his chambers with trepidation. His bloody clothes, along with my slave’s rags from the day prior, lay strewn on the bedroom floor outside the door to his lavatory. I heard the water turn on as I collected them.

For the next two weeks, the pattern remained. Herbie continued teaching me how to cook. I served my master meals and laundered his clothes. Terror kept flooding me every time I looked at him, and even more so each time he returned to the manor soaked in blood, which seemed to be every other day. But he didn’t beat or abuse me, not one strike. And he still hadn’t used me for sex.

If only I could control my fear of him.

#

One day, when returning from the kitchens, a man’s deep voice said “Hey” from one of the blackened alcoves in the tunnels between the palace and manor. I jumped. Then he grabbed my arm and pulled me into the alcove with him.