I shared a certain bond with those unfortunate souls.

No one would look at me and think I was slave. But I had been. I still was. I probably would be forever.

I didn’t say a word as she pushed off from the balcony and moved toward a statue of a twisted and gnarly tree.

The sculpture took me eighteen days with barely any sleep to finish. I’d warmed the metal just enough to twist and distort. I turned a pristine lump of bronze into a tortured piece of art. The tree looked like it was heralded by demons and designed by masochists. Its branches only suitable for carcass-eating vultures to perch.

But I liked it. In fact, it was one of my favourite pieces. It represented nothing, but at the same time, everything.

It was me. Bared raw.

Slowly, almost hesitantly, she ran her fingertips over the cold metal. The instant she touched it, my cock lurched. It fucking lurched for the second time in my sorry existence.

Heat. Delicious wanting heat blazed in my blood. Lust. So unknown and almost unrecognisable. It grabbed me around the balls, making me hard, filling my cock with new life.

My dick knew better than to act on its own. It’d been taught to never react. Thoughts of release and sex were beaten out of us at a very early age. And if we disobeyed—well…

The fear had kept me impotent, but this woman—this magical infuriating woman—had graced me with a fucking hard-on. I gritted my teeth, revelling in the sensitivity as I swelled, thickened, and ached with unfamiliar need. The flush of heat boiled the ice in my blood, leaving me steaming, angry, and on the cusp of something entirely alien.

Two years I’d waited for the thawing, and for two years it never happened. But tonight. Tonight, all thanks to one woman, I might’ve found the chink—the weakness—in my brainwashing.

She bent her spine, investigating the artwork closely. My balls drew tighter, throbbing.

Her body beckoned me. She was different, elusive, unobtainable. And my cock wanted unobtainable. For the first time since my life of slavery began, it came alive between my legs.

I didn’t think I could stand the craving. It was too strong—too demanding.

I trembled for an entirely different reason. I wanted to scream at her for having such power over me while at the same time bow at her feet for freeing me from the cage I existed in.

Then came the fear.

The anxious sweats at misbehaving, the knowledge I’d disobeyed a direct order. Punishment would be horrific.

They’re not here.

I closed my eyes, trying to get a grip—re-centring myself.

“Hey. Umm, are you okay?”

My eyes flew wide only to be trapped by her half-angry, half-concerned gaze. Her scrumptious body wrapped in gold and silver chased away my fear and my mouth watered at the thought of taking her.

Pity filled me. Pity for her because now that I’d tasted what she could do for me, I wasn’t letting her go. She wouldn’t be going home tonight. Or the next or the next or the next. She’d be in my bed. She’d open her legs and I’d—

Goddammit, I’m acting as if I’m fucking fifteen.

Trouble was I had a lifetime of lust fizzing and bursting inside. Two orgasms I’d enjoyed since I hit puberty. Only two. I was fucking desperate for a third.

“I’m fine. Why?” I eyed her provocative dress, drinking in her gentle curves; filling my mind with images that any man starved of sex would imagine. I wanted to run a tongue down her cleavage. I wanted to taste her skin before sinking deep, deep inside her.

I’d never felt this way. Never.

She stood taller, baring her shoulders with fearlessness and a fine edge of resentment. “You’re shivering. And frankly you look sick.” Waving her hand, she scowled. “Not that I care if you’re sick, of course. Look, I’m done with all of this. Give me back my knife and let me go.” One hand went to her side, rubbing where I’d placed the blade. “You’re a bastard for forcing me against my will. If Clue hadn’t been there, such a tiny weapon wouldn’t have stopped me from ripping off your balls.”

First image into my head was her tiny hands cupping my aching balls.

Second image was the ludicrous suggestion she could even touch me without my permission.

I couldn’t stop it. Cold laughter erupted from my mouth. I froze, cursing this woman. Cursing myself for these new, strange feelings. I never laughed. I never touched. I never got hard. I never wanted to fuck.

She was a witch. She was magical. She would fix me.

“How much was Corkscrew going to pay you for tonight?”

Her nostrils flared. “Excuse me?”

“How much? To fuck you?”

She shuddered. “That’s what you think I am? I thought you were joking before.” She shook her head, a low noise coming from her throat. “Unbelievable. You’re a bastard and an asshole. For your information, he’s my best-friend’s boyfriend. He’s a nice guy—unlike you.” She paced on the landing, her dress whispering around her legs with every step. “Fucking unbelievable. I want to leave. I’m done talking to you.”

My muscles shivered, feeding off her temper, letting her spirit clash with mine. Another lesson I’d been taught: leech the feelings off another before stealing everything. It allowed me to feel their fear, live their terror—the only thing I could get in those days.

Dragging my eyes over her body, my fucking cock hardened to a rock. Her breasts were squished inside the lace of the dress, her waist so tiny I could crush the life out of her with just my hands. Her legs…

Shit.

The moment my eyes landed on her legs, memories swamped me.

“See her? The prima ballerina?”

My eyes had trouble focusing through the binoculars, but I could make out a girl in a tutu with legs that looked matchstick thin and so easily breakable. “Yes.”

“She’s the target tonight when her father and mother are asleep.”

I’d long ago stopped asking why. I never got a reply, only a swat around the head, and any fear that my soul was destined for hell had been purged from me in the early days of training.

“Okay.”

The pat on the back made me curl in horror. I hated people touching me. It always brought pain to me or pain to others.

“Stay here until 3 a.m., then proceed.”

“—and just because you own this illegal place doesn’t give you the right to hurt me!” Zel snapped.

I blinked, trying to seem like I’d heard the entire string of obscenities she’d no doubt thrown my way.

Dragging hands over my face, I said, “I’m not going to hurt you.” Much. My voice was deep and gravelly. I hated flashbacks. They came at the worst times. Ironically, my body had been trained to perfection—I could kill in hundreds of different ways. I could mutilate and massacre with an artistry only learned from a lifetime of tutelage, but the weakest part of me was my brain.

Try as I might to block the nightmares and visions, they broke through randomly, shoving me back into horror. However, this one had done me a favour.

I was no longer hard.

What the fuck were we talking about?

Ah, yes. “Ten thousand is the going rate for a woman of talents. Not a bad income for a night’s earnings.” I licked my lips. “I could be persuaded to go to twenty thousand if you’re so repulsed by me.”

Her eyes flickered to my scar. “I told you. I’m not a whore. You can keep your money as there’s no way in hell I’m letting you fuck me.” She backed up to the balustrade, her face paling from cream to white.

The hair on my forearms stood up. I inched forward, trapping her between my body and the glass. A metre existed between us, but the air hummed, arching and spitting with the same delicious energy I’d felt when I’d touched her.

“Fine. You’re not a whore. But if you were…inclined…to agree to a one off deal. To let me, as you eloquently put it, fuck you—what would you charge?” My heart raced at the thought of peeling the lace off her shoulders.