"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.
Had Zarek loved her?
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"Who was she?" she asked.
"Just another noblewoman, wanting a slave.
"
Zarek's breath fell against her neck as he toyed with a strand of her hair between his callused fingers.
The tenderness of that gesture wasn't lost on her.
"She neared the cell where I was cleaning out the chamber pots," he said. "I dared not look at her and then I heard her say, 'I want that one.' I assumed she meant one of the other men. But when they came for me, I was dumbstruck.
"
Astrid smiled sadly. "She recognized a good thing when she saw it.
"
"No," he said sharply. "She wanted a servant to warn her and her lover whenever her husband came home unexpectedly. She wanted a slave who would be loyal to her. One who would owe her everything.
I was the most wretched creature there and she never failed to remind me of that. One word and she would have sent me right back to my hell."
He pulled away from her then.
She reached out to find him sitting just beside her. "Did she?
"
"No. She kept me even though her husband was livid at my presence. He couldn't stand the sight of me.
I was so repugnant. Crippled. Half-blind. I was scarred so badly that children used to cry whenever they saw me. Women would gasp and avert their eyes, then shuffle out of my way as if afraid my condition might rub off on them."
Astrid winced at what he described. "How long did you serve her?"
"Six years. I was completely loyal to her. I would have done anything she asked of me."
"She was kind to you?"
"No. Not really. She was merelykinder to me. She didn't want to look at me any more than anyone else did. So she kept me hidden in a small cell, and only brought me out whenever her lover came to visit. I would stand by the gate and listen for the guards to greet her lord. Whenever he returned while they were together, I would run to her room and rap on the door to warn them."
That explained a lot to her about his death. "Is that how you died? Did her lord catch you warning them?"
"No. On that day, I went to the door to warn her, but when I got there I heard her crying out in pain, telling her lover to stop hurting her. I rushed inside to find him beating her. I tried to pull him off. But he turned on me. He finally heard her husband outside and he left. She told me to leave too and I did."