I force a smile.
Then he ruins it all when he speaks.
“The first click we learn will besit.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake!”
“What? What’s wrong?” Avian’s hand skims my elbow lightly, and it’s hard for me to not take my frustration out on him.
Roman was right: I need to listen more. I need to just listen.
I focus as I exhale ever so slowly. “Nothing.” I calm myself with another breath. “I’m fine. Please continue.”
Somehow I stop myself from flinging my body to the floor and kicking and screaming about the patriarchy and bigots.
I smile.
Avian smiles.
“Today we’ll practice sit and silence.”
My wide eyes widen impossibly more as I literally bite my cheek and smile even harder like a lunatic.
“We’ll do kneel and fetch tonight after the dinner.”
Kneel. Fetch.Kneel. Andfetch.
What. The. Fuck.
“Nope,” I blurt. “Can’t do it.” I’m striding to the door within half a second, and I nearly fall face first when he flashes in front of me with a spark of dark embers.
They’re faster here as well as stronger. Do they even realize it?
“What are you doing?” His hands are around my shoulders, and I can’t even process how powerful this man is. He could snap my bones if he really wanted to. And I don’t give a single damn.
I’m too irate.
“Fetch? Are you fucking serious, Avian?!”
“You’re mad,” says the one man who I thought had some intelligence out of the three.
“Yes! I’m fucking mad!”
He nods like he’s absorbing that info as I spew it.
“Because…” His wide eyes are empty and searching as he tries to piece together this mysterious puzzle. “Because this training is…hard?” He phrases that uncertainty in such a confused way my mouth drops wide open.
“Seriously? I’m mad because it’s belittling, Av! Why the fuck would I fetch something for anyone! I’ve been blessed by the Goddess Moon herself!” Pain shoots through my jaw as I snap my mouth closed with force and determination. “I kneel and fetch for no one.”
His palms slide down my arms so slowly it shivers across my flesh with that single touch. His dark eyebrows pull together with a look of sadness.
When he speaks, it’s a heartbreaking sound. “Your Goddess means nothing in the kingdom of hell. Your ruler and master is one in the same. And if you wish to live, you’ll kneel when you’re told. And you’ll definitely fetch whatever he wants,” he whispers like it’s painful to say, and I notice how slowly he takes another little step closer to me.
We’re so close I have to peer up at him from beneath thick lashes. And it hurts to realize how right he is.
It hurts me. And it’s easy to see that it hurts him just as much.
This powerful man before me is a slave.
