This is not my life.
The words revolved in her head as he pulled her down the dingy corridor. Her peach gown, the one she’d worn to the arena today in the hopes of pleasing him, was now dirty and wet all along the hem from the water that seeped through cracks in the stones. How had this happened? How had she come to be in this wretched place?
After the initial shock of her family releasing her to Zayd, part of her had been excited. It was customary for highborn males to pick and take the females they wanted. The fact he’d chosen her? A commoner? It was practically unheard of. She’d been blinded by his status and wealth and handsome good looks. Had dreamt of marriage, even knowing most Ghul males took multiple wives. But that had been okay with her, so long as he was kind. And if one day he grew to love her…then nothing else would matter.
But that was before he brought her to his harem and she realized he didn’t want her for his wife. There would be no love between them now, no home or family or future. He looked upon her as nothing more than the slaves who battled to the death in the pit of the arena. As entertainment to meet his depraved needs. And he was now handing her over to the worst of those slaves as a test. To be broken in by a monster, so that when she went back to him, he would look like a shining knight.
He tugged her to a stop in front of a heavy steel door. Two guards stood outside, looked from him to Kavin and back again. The one on the right tightened his grip around the spear he held braced against the floor and said, “The sahad has been chained, my lord, per your instructions, but not prepared.”
“This will not take long,” Zayd answered. “My jarriah is not here for a sample but to simply meet the mighty champion and congratulate him on his latest victory.” A wicked grin curled Zayd’s lips. “Sampling will come later.”
A sickening chuckle echoed from both guards, and Kavin’s skin crawled as they both leered in her direction. She brushed her hair over her shoulder and tried not to let her fear show.
The guards stepped aside. The one on the left unlocked the door and pushed it open. “Scream if you need us.”
Scream?
Kavin’s pulse raced as Zayd pulled her into the cell behind him. She felt the guard’s licentious gazes follow as she stepped past them but was more concerned with the monster that lurked in the dark. Zayd’s footsteps echoed across the stone floor, his fingers pressing deeply into her arm as he jerked her along. A chill slid down her spine, and as her eyes tried to adjust to the darkness, she squinted, unable to see anything but Zayd.
For the first time since they’d left the arena, Zayd released his hold on her arm. Silence echoed through the dark chamber, ratcheting Kavin’s anxiety up all over again. Then the heavy cell door clanged shut, causing her to jump and take a step closer to her master.
“Light!” Zayd called.
A scraping sound echoed, then a shaft of light speared into the room from a rectangular hole in the door, illuminating the space enough so she could look around.
There were no windows. Nothing hanging on the walls. Just a single, unmade bed that looked stained with blood and sweat, and a small, wooden table, holding an unlit, dripping candle.
It was a hole. Worse than that, it was a dungeon where hopes and dreams were ground into dust.
“Rise, Marid,” Zayd barked.
Kavin’s heart pounded against her ribs. She stepped behind Zayd as she looked around wildly for the monster she sensed lurking in the shadows. Silence echoed through the darkness like a vast cavern of nothingness, and just when she was sure there was no one there, metal clanged, and a shuffling sounded to her left.
Kavin whipped that way, her eyes wide, her muscles tight and ready to flee. She tried to move farther behind Zayd, but he blocked her, pushing her forward instead. She stumbled. Reached out for Zayd at her back. But he moved out of her reach.
“Come into the light, Marid, so that my jarriah may get a good look at what waits for her.”
Kavin froze. She didn’t know where he was. How close. What he would do to her. She didn’t know anything except terror for the male hidden before her and bitter hatred for the one at her back.
The shuffling echoed again, followed by the clink of chains. And then his big body moved into the light directly in front of her.
Kavin sucked in a breath. Eased back a step until she hit Zayd. He grunted his disgust and moved away once more, making it more than clear she wasn’t finding any safety with him.
But Kavin didn’t try to move again. Fear kept her feet firmly locked in place. The Marid was bigger than he’d seemed in the arena. Still covered in grime, there was a scent about him—sweat, blood, death—one that rolled through her stomach until the desire to gag overwhelmed her.
She held it back, knowing doing so would only enrage him—and her master—and stared at the hulking beast mere feet away.
Chains were cuffed to his wrists. Chains Kavin hoped were locked tight to a wall or bar or something strong enough to restrain him. Dark, stringy hair brushed his bare shoulders. His arms were massive, his naked chest and stomach so hard it looked as if he were carved from stone; his thighs like tree trunks. He wore nothing but filthy, thin black pants that were frayed at the hem, and an opal. A fire opal, strung from a chain around his neck, the stone resting at the hollow of his throat.
It was the fire opal that drew her attention, reflecting an orange-red glow into the room, like flames from a blazing inferno. She’d seen it in the arena. It was all the talk amongst the females who followed the fights. Why did he wear it? Where had it come from? And why had his master not yet removed it?
Questions swirled in her mind as she looked from the opal to the wounds on his flesh, still oozing with blood. Then, finally, to his face.
A square jaw covered in dark stubble, lips set in a hard line, a nose slightly crooked as if it had been broken more than once. With the jagged red scar across his right cheek and the bruises marring his forehead, he looked hulking, feral, menacing. And his eyes… His eyes were dead pools of obsidian staring straight at her.
She stumbled backward, hit Zayd’s chest. But instead of shoving her forward as he’d done before, both of his hands closed around her upper arms, steadying her against him.
“My jarriah does not like what she sees?” A smile wound through Zayd’s words. “That pleases me. Greatly.”
This is not my life. This is not my life! Tremors raced down her spine.
Zayd pushed her forward, this time moving with her. Her shoes scuffed along the floor as he forced her closer to the monster. “Take a good, long look, jarriah. See and smell what will soon be touching you.”
Tears burned Kavin’s eyes. A sob caught in her throat. Though she leaned hard against Zayd, she knew not to fight him or turn her head away. Knew if she did, he’d only lengthen the time she’d be sent to this hell with the monster.
The scent of death wafted in the air around her. That and the bitter bite of blood and sweat. She kept her focus on the opal, tried to breathe through her mouth and not her nose so she wouldn’t get sick, but knew Zayd was waiting. He wanted to feel her fear. Wanted to make her writhe because he was a sick son of a bitch who got off on that kind of thing. Her skin grew tighter, her legs weaker as she fought from giving him what he wanted. But he wasn’t letting go. And knowing it was the only way he’d release her, she finally chanced a look up.
The monster’s gaze was fixed on the wall over her shoulder, not on her. But this close, she could feel the heat rolling off him in waves, see the muscles flex beneath his skin with coiled restraint. He wanted to hurt her. She saw it in the way his jaw clenched, in the way his hands curled into fists at his sides. He hated her simply because she was Ghul and he was Marid. Because her race had enslaved him here in these pits. Before she could stop it, the way he’d beheaded the Shaitan in the arena flashed in her mind. How he’d so easily decapitated the djinni with such violent ferocity.