Page 38 of Zane

Bianca said nothing, knowing that she was going to die.If only Cooper had listened to her and allowed her to stay.She was just trying to get a front row view to the destruction of the man that had taken everything from her.Her family, her entire world.

“Why were you on my land?” he asked.

“I told you, I got lost,” she said shaking her head.He backhanded her, his ring slicing a line across her cheek, blood dripping onto the carpet.

“You see what you’ve done!” he screamed.“You’re a whore who wanted my bed.”

“NO!No, I swear,” she cried.“I was lost.Please, just let me go and I’ll go home.”

“Go home?No, you’ll never go home,” he said leaning forward.He pulled her chin up to stare into his face and he looked down at her delicious breasts.Taking the sides of her top, he ripped it in half, exposing her simple white bra and the breasts oozing from the top.

“This will be more fun than I expected,” he said.Reaching into his pocket he opened a small packet and forced it into her mouth.She cried, kicking and begging, then suddenly an unwelcome euphoria stretched over her body.

He pressed the back of his head just below her throat, pushing hard against the flesh as he ran his hand between her breasts.His ring, the one with the silver crown sliced into the flesh, giving a single line of blood that matched her face.

“Shall we stay, sir?” asked the man.He’d almost forgotten they were there.

“No.No, I have this,” he smiled.“I may sleep in a bit in the morning.It depends on how good she really is.”

The men left, happy to be out of his sight and out of the range of his anger.The woman, was not so lucky.

Marco stripped to his boxers and then removed everything except the woman’s bra and underwear.He was going to enjoy this and enjoy her flesh.He tucked his thumbs into the boxers and grinned to himself.

“You’ve sinned enough, don’t you think?” said the deep voice from behind him.He turned so fast, he lost his footing, falling to the carpets.He opened his mouth to scream for guards but nothing came out.The figure before him was misty and unrecognizable, then became clear.

“You will not succeed,” smiled the man.“You will not succeed because good men will stop you.Men that will never allow people like you to live.”

He tried to move, tried to speak but could not.The figure moved toward the woman, seemingly releasing her bonds with a snap of his fingers.She fell forward into his arms and he picked her up, still hovering over Marco.

Try as he might, he could not get his legs or arms to cooperate and move.Nothing was working for him.

“I will enjoy watching you die and a man like me does not admit that often,” he said holding Bianca closely to his chest.He kissed the girl’s forehead and whispered to her.

“Let’s go home, child.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Rain came down so hard it erased the upper leaves of the jungle, turning the canopy into a black, thrashing ceiling and the earth beneath it into a river of mud.Beyond the trees, the coliseum squatted like the rib cage of some dead god, its stone arches running with water, its fighting ring already ankle-deep in brown floodwater.

Inside the cages stacked along the arena wall, eyes burned gold, green, and red in the torchlight, and every one of those eyes belonged to an animal marked for death.

Blake stood in the open gate with her hair plastered to her face and one hand pressed against the iron bars of a tiger’s cage.The tiger’s thoughts crashed against her mind like claws against a door: hunger, blood, rope, fire, men laughing, the ring.

Blake swallowed the fear that rose in her throat and pushed back with the strongest calm she could summon.Not sleep.Not surrender.Run.

“If you want to live run to the river.My friends will help you get home or you can stay in this jungle as your home.”

Beside her, Irene drifted through the rain as if the storm had forgotten how to touch her.She was pale silver at the edges, her dress lifting in a wind that did not exist, her eyes fixed on the cages with an aching fury.

When she spoke, every animal heard her in the language of bone, feather, scale, and tooth.

“You were born under open sky,” she told them.“I will not let you die for applause.”

Gaspar fought with a lock that had clearly been designed by someone who hated fingers.

“If any of you are considering eating us,” he shouted over the rain, “please remember we are the helpful meat.”

The hyenas in the nearest cage answered with a chorus of sharp, cracked laughter, and Gaspar froze.