Page 4 of Bought by the Broken Beast
My heart hammers against my ribs, a frantic prisoner. I force my hand to be steady as I hold out the contract. “The terms are simple,” I begin, my voice sounding small and thin in the oppressive quiet. “You will be my guard. You will protect me from those who hunt me.”
A low sound rumbles in his chest, less a laugh and more the grating of stone on stone. “Protect you.” His voice is a deep baritone, rough with disuse and laced with a contempt so profound it’s almost a physical force. “A human commands a Vakkak to be her shield. The world has gone mad.”
“The world is what it is,” I counter, my voice gaining a sliver of strength. “And in this world, I hold your contract. I own you.”
The words are a mistake. I know it the instant they leave my lips.
He moves faster than anything that large should be able to move. One moment he is ten feet away, the next he is on me, his shadow swallowing me whole. A massive hand, bigger than my head, wraps around my throat. He lifts me effortlessly, my feet dangling inches above the grimy cobblestones, my back slamming against the brick.
Panic, cold and absolute, floods my senses. The world dissolves into the pressure at my neck and the sight of his face, inches from mine. His eyes are pools of molten amber, blazing with centuries of pride and a fresh, raw fury. I can’t breathe. I can’t scream. My fingers scrabble uselessly at the thick, furred wrist of the hand that is crushing the life from me.
“Let me be clear,human,” he snarls, the words vibrating through my skull. “You own nothing. This parchment you clutch is a legal fiction, a piece of paper that says you paid coin for my time. It does not give you power over my life. My life is my own. I could snap your fragile neck right now, take your coin, and disappear into the underbelly of this city before your body was cold.”
Black spots dance at the edges of my vision. My lungs burn, desperate for air. This is it. This is how I die. Killed not by a conspirator’s blade, but by the very weapon I chose for my salvation.
But even as the darkness closes in, a different kind of fire ignites in my gut. Rage. Defiance. I will not die like this. I stop clawing at his hand and instead force my own to go limp. I meet his furious gaze, and with the last of my strength, I give him the slightest, most infuriating shake of my head.No.
Something flickers in those amber depths. Surprise? Annoyance? He sees my surrender for what it is: a final act of defiance.
He loosens his grip just enough for me to drag in a ragged, desperate gasp of air. He doesn't release me, holding me pinned against the wall, a predator toying with its prey.
“You paid two thousand gold for a bodyguard,” he growls, his voice lower now, more dangerous. “You are a slave. Where did you get that kind of coin?”
I find my voice, a raw, rasping thing. “I stole it.”
“And the name you whispered? Malacc. Why does a scribe-slave know the name of a Vakkak Lord?”
“Because he is the one who wants me dead.” The words come out in a rush, a torrent of truth held back by terror. “I found evidence. A payment from my master, Kairen, to a shell company. A secret shipment authorized by Malacc himself. It’s a conspiracy. He means to kill the Zusvak.”
I pull the folded ledger page from my bodice, my fingers fumbling. “Here. This is the proof.”
He finally releases me. I collapse to my knees, coughing, my throat raw and bruised, dragging in the foul alley air as if it were the sweetest perfume. He takes the parchment from my trembling hand. His massive head bends over the delicate script,his brow furrowed in concentration. The silence returns, but this time it is filled with a tense, crackling energy.
He is quiet for a long time, his gaze fixed on the page. When he finally looks up, the raw fury in his eyes has been replaced by something colder, sharper. A calculating intelligence.
“This is a start,” he says, his voice devoid of its earlier contempt. “But it is not enough.”
I stare at him, confused. “It’s a direct link. A signed authorization.”
He gives a short, derisive snort. “You think like a human, with your rules of evidence and your belief in the integrity of paper. Malacc is Vakkak. I know his kind because Iwashis kind. He will deny it. He will say the document is a forgery, a lie crafted by a disgraced gladiator and a thieving slave. Who do you think the Zu Kus will believe? An honored lord, or us?”
The cold truth of his words washes over me, extinguishing my small spark of hope. He’s right. We have nothing but a single piece of paper against a mountain of influence and power.
“What he did to me,” Votoi continues, his voice a low rumble of contained thunder, “the frame-up, the lies… it was done with a dozen such documents, all perfectly forged, all pointing to my guilt. Malacc is a serpent. He does not leave a single, clumsy trail. He weaves a web.” He taps the ledger page with a thick finger. “This is but one thread. To kill a man like Malacc, you must burn his entire web to the ground. There will be more evidence. Back at your master’s house. We must go back, and you will lead the way.”
My blood transforms to ice. “Go back? We can’t. They’ll be looking for me. Kairen will have guards everywhere.”
“They will be looking for a frightened slave girl fleeing for her life,” he counters, his amber eyes locking onto mine. “They will not be looking for her to return with a disgraced Vakkak at her back. They will be watching the gates, the docks, the roads out ofthe city. They will not be watching the front door of the man who thinks you are already as good as dead.”
He is right. The sheer audacity of it is its greatest strength. It’s a move of logic and calculation, the kind of move I would have made if my mind wasn’t clouded by fear.
“We go back,” he declares, not a suggestion but a command. “We find the rest of his web. And we find the blade sharp enough to cut his throat with it.”
I look at him, truly look at him, for the first time. Not as a monster, not as a tool, but as an ally. A terrifying, brutal, and dangerously intelligent ally. The fear is still there, a cold rock in my gut, but now it’s mingled with something else. A sliver of hope.
I push myself to my feet, my legs still shaking, and nod. “I agree.”
He gives a slow, deliberate nod in return. He unrolls the contract, the flimsy parchment that supposedly binds him to me.
