The thought of the Magistrate living happily while the rest of us suffer fills me with anger. I turn back to Vexar, ready to face his judgment. Even if he doesn’t understand, I know I made the right call. “I can’t just look the other way,” I say. “I can’t continue on like this. And right now, I have an advantage. He doesn’t see me as a threat, and I’m not going to throw that away, I’m gonna to use it.”
“You don’t have to do this,” he whispers.
I shake my head, feeling the cold burn of my rage grow. “You don’t get it. Iwantto kill him. I want it to bemyface he sees as he’s gasping for breath at the end.Myface he sees before he’s dragged to the deepest pits of hell. I want him to know that a human slave he thought was nothing more than property is the reason his life is ending, and if I need to follow him into death to do that, then I’ll go with a fucking smile.”
Vexar drops his face into his hands.
My nostrils flare. “I get it. You don’t understand.” And how could he? He’s the heir to an empire. A prince who’s never experienced true desperation. “But at a certain point, when you have nothing left to lose?—”
“You have everything to lose,” he interrupts, raising his face out of his hands.
I laugh, and it sounds hollow and sick. “Like what? Another 50 years of setting bones and wrapping wounds in a dungeon? Another 50 years of being at the mercy of a bunch of psychopathic guards? Another 50 years of traumatic flashbacks and watching young women get trapped in this hell with me? That’s not a life, Vexar. That’s a drawn-out death sentence.”
He extends an arm towards me, and for some reason, I don’t pull back. The pads of his fingers trace over the back of my hand, and the sensation pulls me from my rage so fast I don’t know how to process it.
“Please,” he whispers as he gently grips my wrist and draws me towards him. His calloused palm dwarfs my hand as he carefully unfurls my fingers. “You have your life, your future, your … heart,” he whispers, as he picks up the damp square of cloth and resumes dragging it over my blood-stained hand. “That is enough to lose.”
“None of those things aremineanymore, Vexar.”
He makes another pained sound. “This should not havebeen your path. You are—” His hand stills, and he shakes his head. “My blood should not stain your hands.”
“I didn’t do this for you,” I whisper, knowing it’s a lie.
“When the guards come,I will not let them take you,” Vexar says, breaking the silence.
I glance up from the side of the bed, feeling a new weight settle between my shoulders. He can’t save me from this, and I get the feeling that when he figures that out, it’s going to break him.
With a sigh, I ask, “And how are you going to do that?”
“When they come, I will demand you stay here, with me, until I finish my fights.”
I drop my gaze back to his side and finish throwing the knot I was working on. “I don’t think they’re gonna go for that. I’m acriminal, remember? Besides, staying here with you won’t get me any closer to where I need to be.”
He grunts a sound of disapproval. “What if I ensure Gaius is brought to justice through the proper channels? Would that change your mind?”
Would that change my mind? I don’t know. If I thought he could actually follow through, maybe, but he’s injured, and he still has more fights. And if that sinking feeling in my spine is correct, surviving this place won’t be as easy as he thinks.
With a sigh, I ask, “Why didn’t you hire a male nurse to be on standby for you?”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“I know. Just … humor me, please.”
“Because I should not have needed medical care at all,”
“Sure. Ok,” I agree. “But in the event that you were injured, what was the plan?”
“I should not have been?—”
“Jesus! Ok. I get it. You’re a really great fighter, and you weren’t supposed to get hurt.”
He looks at me like I’ve slapped him in the face, but there’s a flicker of something else there too. Interest? Curiosity? I look away when I finally recognize it.Lust.
Fucking hell.Is that why he wants to keep me alive?
I shake off the fluttering in my stomach and press onward. “What I’m trying to say is that you’re next in line for the throne of an empire. Don’t you think it’s a little risky to not have a backup plan?”
He scoffs as if it’s the most absurd thing he’s ever heard. “My people are a people of honor. It would have been dishonorable for me to bend the rules for little more than a safety net.”
