Page 29 of Her Manticore Master
"He's... manageable."
"Manageable?" Valdris's laugh is silk over steel. "How disappointing. I had hoped for more... passion."
Heat spreads across my cheeks, but I maintain my composure. "If you expected immediate results, perhaps your expectations were unrealistic."
"Perhaps. Though I confess, watching him fight with such fury each day suggests considerable... pent-up energy."
The implication makes my skin crawl, but I take another bite of honeyed fruit. "Men often express frustration through violence."
"Indeed they do. How fortunate that we provide such excellent outlets."
After breakfast comes the arena. Front row seats in Valdris's viewing box, silk cushions and crystal wine goblets while men die for sport below. I've learned to school my expression into polite interest, to hide the way my heart hammers each time Ronan enters those blood-soaked sands.
Today it's a massive stone troll, its hide thick as armor. Tomorrow it might be blade dancers or venomous serpents. The variety is endless, but the outcome remains constant—Ronan survives through skill and stubborn refusal to die.
Each victory costs him, though. I see it in the growing collection of scars, the way exhaustion shadows his steel-blue eyes.
"You're getting sloppy," I inform him as I press torn silk against a fresh gash along his shoulder.
"Good morning to you too."
"It's afternoon. And that troll nearly took your head off."
"Nearly doesn't count."
"It will when 'nearly' becomes 'successfully.'" I tie the makeshift bandage with perhaps more force than necessary. "There. Try not to bleed through it before evening."
"Your concern is touching."
"It's not concern. It's practicality. I refuse to share a cell with a corpse."
But my hands are gentle despite my words, careful as they clean and bind each wound. It's become routine over the past week—this strange dance of care wrapped in insults.
"You missed a spot," he observes, nodding at a shallow cut near his collarbone.
"I'm not your personal healer."
"No, just my unwilling nursemaid."
I reach for the cut, but the angle is awkward. To treat it properly, I need to lean closer, close enough that I catch his scent—sweat and sand and something indefinably male that makes my pulse dance.
"Hold still," I mutter, trying to ignore the way his breathing changes when my fingers brush his skin.
"I am still."
"No, you're..." I look up to tell him to stop whatever he's doing, and find myself trapped in his gaze. Those steel-blue eyes study my face with an unsettling intensity, lingering on my mouth in a way that sends heat spiraling through my belly.
"I'm what?" His voice is rough, lower than usual.
"Nothing." I finish the bandage quickly and pull back, but not before I see something flicker in his expression. Hunger, maybe. Or simple male appreciation.
Either way, it's dangerous.
"You fight differently when you're angry," I observe the next evening as I tend a collection of minor wounds from his latest match.
"Angry?"
"Yesterday's opponent. The one who made comments about your... accommodations." Heat rises across my cheeks at the memory of what that crude gladiator had suggested about our sleeping arrangements. "You nearly tore him apart."
