Page 37 of Bought by the Broken Beast
We leave the capital not as fugitives in the dead of night, but as heroes in the bright light of day. The journey is a grand procession, a stark, almost surreal contrast to our desperate flight through the city’s shadowed guts. Where once we scrambled through stinking sewers, we now ride in an open carriage, a gift from the Zusvak himself, its wheels rumbling over the clean, wide stones of the main thoroughfare. The people of Milthar, the same souls who once bayed for my blood in the arena, now line the streets, their faces upturned, their voices a roaring wave of cheers.
They chant my name. “Saru! Saru! Saru!” The sound is no longer a hollow echo of a life I once had. It is a restoration. A beginning.
Bella sits beside me, my mate, my wife. She is clad in a simple but elegant traveling dress of deep ocean blue, a gift from my mother. She is a queen in all but name, her posture regal, her expression a mask of calm composure. But I see the slight tremor in her hand where it rests on her lap, the way her gaze darts to the crowd, taking in every detail with thesharp, analytical precision of the scribe she once was. She is overwhelmed. And she is magnificent.
My hand finds hers, my massive, furred fingers lacing through her small, delicate ones. I give her hand a gentle, reassuring squeeze, and she turns to me, a small, grateful smile touching her lips. In her eyes, I see the reflection of my own impossible reality. We are alive. We are together. We are free.
The journey to the western coast takes three days. Three days of rolling green hills, of quaint farming villages where the Fiepakak folk come out to wave and offer us gifts of bread and fruit. Three days of quiet conversation and comfortable silence. Three days of learning the simple, beautiful rhythm of being husband and wife.
But as we travel, the ghosts of the past ride with us. We pass the foothills where we hunted for the slave tunnel, and I remember the desperation, the cold fear of our failure. We cross the river where she almost drowned, and I remember the icy shock of her body, the wild, defiant fire in her eyes. Every landmark is a milestone on the path that led us here, a path paved with the blood of our friends.
On the third day, the air changes. It grows heavy with the scent of salt and sea. And then, I see it.
The Saru estate. My home.
It is a fortress of white stone, built into the very bones of the cliffs, a proud, unyielding bastion against the endless, churning sea. It has stood for a thousand years, a symbol of my family’s honor, of our strength. I thought I would never see it again. The sight of it, proud and steadfast against the blue sky, is a physical blow, a fist of grief and joy that clenches tight in my chest.
This is the home my father died to protect. This is the legacy he left for me. And I am returning to it not as a disgraced son, but as its rightful lord, with my human mate at my side. Theweight of it, the sheer, crushing weight of my new responsibility, is a tangible thing.
As our carriage rumbles through the main gates, the household staff is assembled in the courtyard to greet us. They are old, most of them, their faces a roadmap of loyalty and sorrow. They are the ones who stayed, who endured the years of Malacc’s silent occupation, who kept the heart of this place beating when its soul had been ripped out.
An old, silver-furred Minotaur, his back bent with age but his eyes sharp and clear, steps forward. He was my father’s steward. He is the first to kneel.
“Lord Saru,” he says, his voice thick with an emotion he cannot hide. “Welcome home.”
One by one, the others follow his lead, kneeling before me, before us. I look at Bella, and I see the shock, the awe, in her eyes. She is no longer a slave. She is the lady of this house, and they are showing her the respect she is due.
I help her from the carriage, my hand at her waist. I stand before my people, my mate at my side, and for the first time since I was a boy, I feel the true, unyielding weight of my name.
“Rise,” I say, my voice becoming a low, commanding rumble that echoes across the courtyard. “The House of Saru has returned.”
The days that follow are a blur of activity. I meet with the elders of my lands, with the captains of my small fishing fleet, with the guards who have remained loyal. I begin the long, arduous process of rebuilding, of restoring the honor and prosperity that Malacc’s poison had sought to destroy.
Bella is not a silent consort at my side. She is my partner. My counselor. She sits in on the council meetings, her sharp mind cutting through the dense, traditionalist arguments of the elders with a logic that is as sharp and as deadly as any blade. She reorganizes the household accounts, her quill flying acrossthe parchment, finding efficiencies, eliminating the waste and corruption that had festered in our absence. She is not just my mate. She is the mind of our house, and the people, at first suspicious, are beginning to see the strength in her quiet, unyielding competence.
But it is in the quiet moments, in the dead of night, that the ghosts of the past are most present. I find myself walking the halls of the fortress, my hand trailing along the cool stone walls. I stand in my father’s study, the scent of his books, of his presence, still a faint, lingering perfume in the air. The grief is a raw, open wound. He should be here. He should be here to see his house restored, to meet the incredible woman who has become its new heart.
On the seventh night, I cannot sleep. The weight of it all, the grief and the joy and the overwhelming responsibility, is a suffocating blanket. I leave our bed, careful not to wake Bella, and I walk to the one place I have not yet been.
My old chambers.
The room is as I left it, preserved by my mother as a shrine to a son she thought she had lost forever. And through the tall, arched window, the one my father had built for me when I was just a calf, is the view.
The endless, churning, beautiful expanse of the sea, its surface a shimmering sheet of silver under the light of the full moon. The sound of the waves crashing against the cliffs below is a deep, rhythmic heartbeat, the song of my ancestors, the song of my home.
I stand there for a long time, the cool sea breeze on my face, the ghosts of my past whispering in my ear. I have my name back. I have my home back. But they are just things. Stone and titles and land.
A soft sound from the doorway pulls me from my reverie. Bella stands there, a silk robe wrapped around her small frame,her dark hair a soft, wild cloud around her shoulders. She does not speak. She simply comes to me, her hand finding mine in the darkness, her presence a warm, steady anchor in the storm of my thoughts.
She looks out at the sea, her eyes wide with a quiet, reverent awe. “You promised,” she whispers. “You promised you would show me.”
I turn to her, my hands coming up to cup her face. I look into her eyes, and I see my own reflection. I see a Votoi who is not a disgraced gladiator, not a vengeful beast, not a broken lord. I see a man who is whole. A man who is loved.
“I am home,” I say, my voice coming out like a raw, guttural thing, thick with an emotion so profound it has no name.
But I am not looking at the ocean.
BELLA
