Page 15 of Shai

Avoiding what I seemed to remember was a chest of drawers, I located the wall. I felt my way along it until I found the point where the two walls met. I had no idea why I’d become so fixated on the corner as being my salvation. Maybe it was the caveman instinct of making sure that there was only one direction attack could come from. Not that knowing the direction the snake would strike from was going to help me in the slightest.

With the wall at my back, I slid slowly and silently to the floor, pulling my knees into my chest to make myself as small a target as possible. And then there was nothing to do but wait, to count the hours and hope the snake would busy itself with whatever it was that snakes did when they weren’t biting people.

The night that followed was the longest of my life by far, punctuated by moments of abject panic where I was sure the snake was right next to me, and moments where I’d nod off, only to jerk awake, my heart thumping in my chest when I remembered where I was, and the situation I was in. Sometimes during those moments where I succumbed to dozing, I’d imagine it was a bite that had woken me, and it would take all the willpower I had not to give in to the urge to run my hands over my body in a frantic search for phantom puncture wounds.

The need to know how much time had passed was a constant

companion. I became convinced that more than eight hours had passed, that Shai wasn’t coming back until I was dead. Eight hours had been a red herring, just another of his games, like him deliberately withholding the fact that there would be no light in the room.

I’d just jerked myself awake again when the light came back on. I froze,

squeezing my eyes shut against the explosion of pain behind my eyeballs. It was a few minutes before I could open them fully, my eyes watering as they struggled to adjust. Once I could see, I turned my head slowly, scrutinizing all of the room I could see in an attempt to catch a glimpse of the familiar brown body of the snake. There was no sign. Wherever it was, I couldn’t see it.

The door clicked open, Shai leaning nonchalantly against the door

frame, a snake hook dangling loosely from his right hand. His gaze found mine across the room, a look of surprise and, if I wasn’t mistaken, pleasure, sparking in his eyes. “Elijah, you’re still alive!”

There was no response I could give to that. An awareness of my

discomfort started to filter in, the fact that my eyes were burning from a lack of sleep, and I had cramp from a night spent twisted up like a pretzel.

Shai stepped into the room, his gaze roving around it. “Where is it?” A surge of rage rose up in me, burning hotter than anything I’d ever

experienced before, eclipsing any feelings I’d had toward McIntyre every time he’d stepped over my prone figure after another beating, or ordered it in the first place on a whim. “How the fuck should I know? I couldn’t see anything.”

Either oblivious to my anger or choosing to ignore it, Shai started a

search, peering into dark spaces and lifting up vases and other assorted decorative objects. None of them revealed the coiled-up bulk of a snake. He worked his way around the edge of the room, every search producing the exact same result. Running out of options, he turned his attention to the bed, the bed that I was close to.

I tensed as Shai’s fingers curled around the bed cover, a quick whip of

his wrist leaving the mattress bare apart from the sheet that covered it. Empty. No snake. In my sleep-deprived state, the thought crossed my mind that the snake had never been in the room, that Shai had fashioned some sort of illusion simply to make me believe it had been.

Shai lifted the pillow, the snake rearing up out of nowhere, its head aimed in my direction. I tried to scramble backwards, but with the wall at my back there was nowhere to go, the snake’s gaping black maw which gave it its name opening wide, its fangs extending.

The snake hook stopped it in its tracks, pushing its head to the bed and pinning it there as I gulped in air, my heart ready to burst out of my chest. Shai used his forearm and superior body weight to hold it still as he abandoned the hook to grab its head, lifting it so that the snake was perilously close to his face as he addressed it. “You had all night. It’s too late to make a last-ditch attempt now. That’s not how the test works. You should know that by now.”

Shai’s little speech to the snake was spoken in a soft, crooning voice, as if he truly believed it could understand him. He levered himself carefully off the bed before making his way over to the door. He paused to look back over his shoulder. “I’ll be back once I’ve put this guy away. Stay there.”

I nodded, not sure whether my legs would hold me if I tried to stand. Shai had saved me. I stopped short at the thought, confused. Thinking that way was dangerous. He might have stopped the snake from biting me, but it had only been there in the first place because he’d locked me in the room with it in some sort of twisted experiment. It was ludicrous to start seeing him as some sort of savior. That way lay madness. That was a lack of sleep talking.

A shadow fell over me and I looked up to find that Shai had returned. He stared down at me with a thoughtful expression on his face. “You’re a survivor, Elijah. You’ll fit in well around here.”

Was I? Would I? What was he basing that on exactly? Because I hadn’t drowned like I was supposed to? That was down to his men fishing me out, not any show of fortitude on my part, and as for not being bitten by the snake. That was pure dumb luck. Nothing else.

His dark eyes continued to bore into me. “Your fate has been chosen. And it lies here with me.” Shai held out a hand and I stared at it, unable to shake the feeling that accepting it was akin to making a deal with the Devil. What would I need to give in return? Except I already knew the answer to that, didn’t I? He wanted my body. Despite not being able to hold back a shudder, I reached out and took it, his fingers closing around mine.

I let myself be pulled to my feet, caught off-guard when he tugged me into his chest, in what could only be described as an embrace. He was shirtless again, his skin comfortingly warm against my cheek. One hand cupped the back of my head, his fingers stroking softly through my hair in a confusingly soothing gesture. It would be so easy to close my eyes, to sleep against his chest with the knowledge that he would keep me safe.

My eyes flew open. There I went again. He was my captor, not my

savior. He could smile all he liked, but it wouldn’t change the truth. I needed to remember that if I tried to leave, he would hunt me down like a dog and exact revenge on me. It was just the lack of sleep playing tricks on me. I needed to sleep. Things would be back in context then. I wouldn’t behave like a mistreated dog who followed the first person to demonstrate any kindness to it.

“I know you need to sleep.”

I jerked. Had I spoken that part aloud? What about the rest? I was

fucked if I was already telling him my innermost thoughts. Nothing seemed to matter, though. Nothing except for his gentle, stroking fingers. How long had it been since anyone had touched me in a way that wasn’t violent? It had to be months at least. His fingers strayed from my hair to my neck, the featherlight touch causing a strange sensation to ripple over my skin, a sensation that was far from unpleasant.