Page 13 of Bought by the Broken Beast
“And you are acting like an arrogant, honor-bound brute who can’t see past his own pride!” I retort, taking a defiant step back.
It’s a mistake. My boot, still damp from the night’s dew, slips on a slick, moss-covered rock at the river’s edge. My arms windmill for a balance that isn’t there. The world tilts, a dizzying swirl of green trees and grey sky, and then I am falling.
The icy shock of the river steals the air from my lungs. The current is a greedy, powerful hand, grabbing me, pulling me under, tumbling me over the smooth, slick stones of the riverbed. Panic explodes in my chest. I can’t breathe. I can’t see. My simple wool dress becomes a leaden shroud, tangling around my legs, dragging me down.
Just as my burning lungs are about to betray me, a force of nature slams into the water beside me. An arm like a tree trunk wraps around my waist, arresting my chaotic tumble. Votoi. He is a terrifying, powerful presence in the murky depths, his anger forgotten, replaced by a singular, focused intensity. He pulls me toward the surface, his strength absolute.
But as he hauls me through the water, my flailing hand brushes against something that is not the smooth, rounded stone of the riverbed. It is cold, hard, and perfectly flat, with a sharp, ninety-degree edge. Dressed stone. An archway.
My mind, even in its oxygen-starved panic, latches onto it.The tunnel.
I fight against his hold, twisting in his grip, trying to point, to communicate. He thinks I’m panicking, that I’m fighting him. His grip tightens, a band of iron around my ribs, and he kicks for the surface with a power that churns the water into a frenzy.
We break the surface, and I take a huge, ragged gasp of air, coughing, sputtering. He drags me toward the bank, his expression a mask of grim fury.
“The tunnel!” I gasp, shoving against his massive chest with all my might. The move is so unexpected he actually loosens his grip. It’s all the chance I need.
Before he can stop me, I take a deep breath and dive back under. The cold is a shock all over again, but this time, I have a purpose. I kick for the bottom, my eyes straining in the murky green light. There it is. A dark, square opening in the riverbank, almost completely obscured by silt and trailing weeds. A dark, watery maw leading into the blackness of the earth.
I don’t hesitate. I swim into the opening, into a darkness so complete it feels solid. The water gives way to air, and my feet find a slimy, sloping floor. I can’t see a thing. The only sound is the frantic beat of my own heart and the drip of water from the stone ceiling.
Seconds later, a huge splash echoes from the entrance, and Votoi is there, his massive form filling the narrow passage, blocking what little light there was. His presence, which should be terrifying in this confined space, is an incredible comfort.
“Are you trying to get yourself killed?” he growls, his voice a low, echoing rumble in the dark.
“I found it,” I whisper, my voice trembling with a mixture of cold, fear, and triumphant adrenaline.
He moves past me, his hand brushing my arm, and the contact is a jolt of warmth in the frigid dark. A faint, ethereal light begins to glow ahead of us. It’s not a natural light. It’s a soft, blue-green luminescence, pulsing gently from veins of some strange, glowing moss that cling to the stone walls. The light is just enough to see the tunnel stretching forward, a perfectly carved, man-made passage. Or rather, a slave-made one.
The tunnel is narrow, and I have to walk close behind him. The air is cold, damp, and smells of wet stone and old secrets. A fat, slick rodan skitters across my boot, and I let out a small,involuntary cry, stumbling forward, my hands pressing into the solid wall of Votoi’s back.
He stops, and I feel the muscles beneath his tunic tense. “Stay close,” he grunts, his voice rough.
I don’t need to be told twice. I walk so close behind him that the fabric of my wet dress brushes against his legs with every step. The faint light from the moss casts strange, dancing shadows on the walls, turning the darkness into a living, breathing thing. Every drip of water sounds like a footstep. My heart is a frantic drum.
We walk for what feels like an eternity, the tunnel sloping gently, steadily upward. Then, Votoi stops. He points to the wall. Caught in a patch of the glowing moss is a small, crudely carved symbol. An axe. A slave’s marker. It points toward a smaller, intersecting passage.
“This is it,” I breathe, the words a cloud of vapor in the cold air.
We follow the new passage. The air grows warmer, drier. The sounds of the river fade, replaced by a low, distant hum that I recognize as the sound of the city. We have found it. We have found the way back into the serpent’s den.
11
BELLA
The passage ends not with a door, but with a heavy, iron-banded trapdoor in the ceiling. Votoi tests it, pushing upward with a single, massive hand. It groans, then gives way with a shower of dust and dried dirt. He hoists himself up into the darkness above, then reaches back down for me. His grip is sure, his strength absolute as he lifts me from the tunnel as if I weigh nothing at all.
We are in a cellar. The air is thick, cloying, heavy with the smell of damp earth, rotting potatoes, and the quiet, lingering despair of the slave quarters. This is a place I know. I’ve been sent down here countless times to fetch root vegetables or barrels of cheap ale. It is the foundation upon which Kairen’s opulent house is built, a place of darkness and servitude that the master of the house pretends does not exist.
Votoi lets the trapdoor slide back into place with a soft thud, plunging us into near-total blackness. The only light is a sliver from beneath a heavy wooden door at the top of a short flight of stone steps.
“Stay behind me,” his voice is a low rumble, a vibration I feel more than hear in the oppressive dark.
“No,” I whisper, my voice sharp. “Here,youstay behindme. I know this place. I know the creaks in the floorboards, the patrol routes of the house guards, the shadows where a person can disappear. You are a bull in a glassmaker’s shop. You will get us caught.”
He is quiet for a moment. I can feel the heat of his indignation, the sting to his Vakkak pride. But I can also feel the cold, hard weight of his logic winning out. He is a warrior of the battlefield. I am a survivor of this specific cage.
“Lead,” he grunts, the single word a massive concession.
