Page 27 of Bought by the Broken Beast
I stop before the main gates of the arena, the place of my greatest shame, the stage for my final act. Two guards, their armor gleaming, block my path, their spears crossed.
“I am Votoi Saru,” I declare, my voice booming across the plaza. “I have come to answer the challenge of Lord Malacc.”
Their shock is a satisfying, fleeting thing. They lead me through the gates, down the winding, torch-lit corridors, the smell of blood and fear a familiar, suffocating perfume. They strip me of my sword, of my cloak, of the last vestiges of my freedom. They throw me into a cell. The cell. The very same one I left what feels like a lifetime ago.
The heavy iron door slams shut, the sound a final, deafening note of doom.
I am alone. Alone with the ghosts of the men who died for me. Grak. Zorn. The hunters. Their faces swim in the darkness, their eyes accusing, questioning. Did I lead them to their deaths for nothing?
I sink to the filthy straw, the cold of the stone seeping into my bones. The shame of this place, of my return, is a physical weight, a crushing despair. I am to die here, a spectacle for the masses, my name forever branded as a traitor.
But then, I think of her.
I think of her fierce, intelligent eyes. I think of her quiet courage in the face of impossible odds. I think of the feel of her small, determined hand in mine, guiding me to claim her. She did not just teach me to hope. She taught me that honor is not a thing to be possessed, but a thing to be fought for, even when the battle is already lost. She is the human who has taught a Minotaur what it truly means to be a Vakkak.
The thought is a fire in the cold, dead ashes of my soul. I am not merely fighting for my name. Not for my family. I am fighting for her. For the future she made me believe in. For the promise of the sea.
The heavy bar on my cell door scrapes back. Two arena guards stand in the opening, their faces impassive. “It is time.”
I rise to my feet. The despair is gone, replaced by a cold, quiet calm. I am Votoi Saru. And I will not die in shame.
I walk the final, long corridor, the fierce roar of the crowd a distant, thunderous wave. The sound grows louder, more intense, a physical pressure against my skin. The guards stop before a massive iron gate. One of them hands me a single, heavy, brutally functional battle-axe. It is not a Vakkak weapon. It is a butcher’s tool. It will have to do.
The gate groans open, and the light of the arena, the roar of ten thousand voices, crashes over me. I step out onto the blood-soaked sand, the sun a blinding, merciless glare.
And across the arena, I see him.
Malacc stands there, clad in a suit of gleaming, black-and-gold Vakkak armor, a magnificent, perfectly balanced war axe in his hand. He is the picture of honor, of power, of everything I once was. A triumphant, arrogant sneer twists his lips. He has already won. He knows it. The crowd knows it.
But he does not know about the human scribe who holds the truth in her hands. He does not know that I am no longer fighting for myself.
And that is why he will lose.
21
BELLA
The Votoi who leaves the crypt is not the man who held me in the forge. The tenderness is gone, burned away and replaced by the cold, hard resolve of a warrior marching to his own execution. He did not touch me. He did not speak of the sea. He simply met my gaze, a silent, grim acknowledgment passing between us, and then he was gone, a ghost returning to his grave.
My heart should be shattering. It should be a screaming, ragged ruin in my chest. But I feel nothing. I have taken the broken pieces of my foolish, hopeful heart and locked them in a box of cold, hard logic. There is no space for grief. For the memory of his touch, of his promises. There is only the mission.
Votoi’s mission is to survive the arena. Mine is to make sure his sacrifice is not in vain.
I meet Lyra in the back room of The Bitter Draught. The air is rich with the smell of stale ale and fear. The few survivors of our failed rebellion are gathered here, a pathetic, broken collection of souls. Kor, the one-eyed gladiator, stands sentinel by the door, his massive form a study in grim loyalty. Two other gladiators, their faces a roadmap of scars and despair, slump at a table, their knuckles white around their mugs of ale. A handful of theFiepakak hunters, their eyes haunted by the memory of their fallen comrades, lean against the far wall. They are an army of ghosts.
And they are all staring at me. The weight of their expectant gazes is a physical pressure. They look at me, a small, human female, and I can see the doubt, the pity, the raw, simmering resentment in their eyes.
“This is what’s left of us?” one of the gladiators, a brute with a flattened nose, scoffs into his mug. “And we’re to be led by a human chit?”
“You will show her respect, Torg,” Kor’s voice is a low, dangerous growl from the doorway. “She has more courage than any Vakkak I have ever known.”
“Courage doesn’t win wars,” Torg spits back. “It gets you killed. It got Grak and Zorn killed.”
The name of the dead hangs in the air, a fresh, open wound. The hunters flinch, their expressions hardening. The doubt in the room solidifies into a wall of hostile grief.
“Torg is right,” Lyra says, her voice cutting through the tension. She stands beside me, a pillar of unexpected support. “Courage alone is not enough. But Votoi trusts her. He chose her. And I trust Votoi.” Her gaze sweeps the room. “We all do. That is why we are here. So you will listen.”
I step forward, unrolling a stolen city schematic on the table, the parchment a familiar, comforting weight beneath my hands. I meet Torg’s hostile gaze, then the gazes of the others, one by one. I don’t try to inspire them. I do not offer words of comfort or hope. I offer them a plan.
