Page 56 of Her Manticore Master
The scraping stops. He doesn’t turn, but I see the muscles in his back tense beneath his tunic. “Tired of what? Your comfortable life? The wine and the soft beds?”
“It’s not comfortable,” I insist, stepping closer until his shadow falls over me, a chilling reminder of his power. “It’s a cage. I’m tired of the silks and the jewels and the pretty words that all feel like chains.” The words spill out of me now, a torrent of truth I’ve held back for years. “I’m tired of being a prize, a pet, a decoration. I don’t want to be a prisoner anymore, Ronan.”
He scoffs at my confession, the sound harsh and dismissive in the relative quiet of our corner. He finally turns to face me, and the look in his eyes is colder than the stone floor beneath my feet. “Everyone’s a prisoner here. The only difference is the shape of the cage.”
“Then I want a different cage,” I retort, my voice trembling but firm. “One with iron bars I can see, not invisible ones made of fear and obligation. At least iron is honest.”
“Honest?” He takes a step toward me, invading my space, his sheer size a physical intimidation. His scent—sweat and steel and something wild—fills my senses. “You want to know what’s honest? Freedom is the taste of your own blood in your mouth and the knowledge that no one is coming to save you.”
His words are not meant to enlighten; they are meant to wound, to send me scurrying back to the familiar comforts of my prison. “You think freedom is some prize you win at the end of a game? It’s not. It’s ugly. It’s sleeping in filth and eating scraps that a dog would turn its nose up at.”
“I’ve slept on the floor of this cell for weeks,” I remind him, my voice sharp. “I’m not as fragile as you think.”
“That’s not the same,” he snarls, voice a low rumble that vibrates through my bones. “That’s a temporary inconvenience. Real freedom is the constant, gnawing fear that you’ll die alone and forgotten before you see another sunrise.” He leans closer, his gaze pinning me to the wall. “It’s knowing that every hand is against you, that trust is a weakness that will get you killed. That’s freedom, Corrina. It’s ugly and it’s hard, and it would break you in a day.”
His words are a brutal dose of reality, a litany of horrors designed to shatter my naive desires. But they don’t. As I listen, a strange sense of recognition dawns within me.
This ugly, difficult thing he describes sounds more real and alive than my entire existence. The blood, the dirt, the fear—it is all preferable to the gilded emptiness I’ve known for years. I meet his harsh gaze without flinching, the fire in my own eyes matching his.
“I want it,” I blurt out, the words raw with a desperate longing that surprises us both. “I want that, too.”
My declaration seems to anger him more than my arguments ever did. His gaze darkens, and for a moment I see the untamed beast he keeps leashed just beneath the surface, the predator who kills in the arena without remorse. He closes the remaining space between us, his voice a low snarl that makes the fine hairs on my arms stand on end. “Then fight for it.”
The words are a challenge, a dismissal, an impossible command. But in them, I hear a sliver of possibility. My pride, already bruised and battered, shatters completely. The desperation I’ve held in check for so long finally breaks free, raw and overwhelming.
“Teach me,” I beg, my voice cracking, the sound of my own pleading a fresh humiliation. “Please, Ronan. You said you could make me a fighter. I don’t want to die in this cage. I don’t want to be left behind when you win your freedom and I’m still here, waiting for the next master, the next cell.”
He laughs, and the sound is bitter as ashes, echoing off the stone walls. It’s a cruel, ugly sound that makes me flinch. His eyes rake over me with open contempt, lingering on my soft hands, my silk dress, my useless, pampered existence. “Teach you? Look at you. You’re soft. You’ve never known a day of real hardship in your life. You flinch when a guard raises his voice.”
“I can learn,” I insist, my voice gaining a desperate edge. “I’m not as weak as I look.”
“Aren’t you?” He smirks, a cruel twist of his lips. “The training alone would kill you. Do you have any idea what it takes? The pain, the exhaustion, the endless repetition until your muscles scream and your bones ache?”
“I don’t care.”
“You will,” he sneers. “The first time you break a nail, you’ll be crying for your silk pillows.” His gaze is merciless. “The arena would eat you alive. What will you do? Bore your opponents to death with that sharp tongue? Seduce them into submission?”
He shakes his head, his expression a mask of scorn. “You are a harem pet, Corrina. Nothing more. You were bred for comfort, not for combat. Go back to your corner and let the warriors handle the fighting.”
His mockery, instead of breaking me, forges my desperation into steel. Every cruel word, every dismissive sneer, becomes fuel for a fire I didn’t know I possessed. I straighten my spine, lifting my chin, and meet his scorn with a blaze of my own.
The fear is still there, a cold knot in my stomach, but resolve burns hotter, brighter, consuming everything else.
“You’re right,” I say, my voice quiet but steady, cutting through his bitter amusement. The admission seems to startle him into silence. “I am soft. I am pampered. I am everything you say I am.” I take a final, deliberate step forward until our bodies are almost touching, forcing him to look down at me, to see the truth in my eyes. “So change me.”
The challenge lingers in the air, stark and absolute. His smirk falters, replaced by a flicker of genuine surprise, his steel-blue eyes widening almost imperceptibly. He expected tears, or perhaps a fresh storm of useless anger. He did not expect this.
“What did you say?” he asks, his voice losing some of its edge.
“You heard me,” I say, my voice gaining strength with every word. “If I am weak, then make me strong. If I am soft, then harden me.” I look him dead in the eye, laying my soul bare and turning its vulnerability into a weapon.
This is my last desperate gambit, my final throw of the dice. I have nothing left to lose. My life as Valdris’s pet is a slow death; a quick one in the arena is a mercy by comparison. But to fight, to truly fight for something… that is a life I have never known. And I will have it.
“Break me, Ronan,” I whisper, my voice a raw promise. “Or make me strong. But don’t you dare leave me as I am.”
23
RONAN
