Closing my eyes, and with that traitorous sympathetic ache flaring back in my chest, I switched on the fan and smothered her smooth wet skin with the coldest of air.

6

ZOYA

I didn’t think it was possible to feel any more pain. My skin had gone from feeling on fire, to as if it were being ripped apart by razor blades, to nothing but numbness with the deliberately changed temperatures I’d endured over the last couple of hours—torturous heat, swiftly followed by unbearable cold. I tried to wrench my arms and legs free as the pain ripped through me, but the cuffs wrapped around them made that impossible.

I gritted my teeth, suppressing the scream in my throat from slipping out of my lips. My back arched. My fingers and toes became rigid. But my eyes never moved from the man who stood before me. The monster who had returned today with piercing crystal blue eyes. Gone were dilated black eyes, and in their place were intense blue pools. A deceivingly beautiful feature on a man so cruel.

He watched me now as the heat caused my skin to sweat, and I could see in his blank stare that my pain and my suffering made no impact on his heart. He was huge, severely scarred and muscled, and the most frightening thing I had ever seen.

My body continued to jerk and jump as the effects of the changing temperatures. But I watched my captor. I never removed my arms, suddenly confused when, on occasion, his eyes would tighten in the corners as though he felt discomfort in causing me pain. His hands would ball at his sides, as though they were fighting the urge to turn off the heater or cold air fan.

As the hours rolled on, I wondered if I was simply imagining it, but it was there: an element of empathy or remorse.

Maybe this heavily scarred monster had feelings after all.

Since I had arrived in this chamber of hell, since this man had made me strip, I felt my innocence tearing to shreds. I had never been with a man. But he had bared me. He had touched my naked skin, he had run his nose along my neck, and he had pressed himself against my naked flesh.

Yet something was different between this man and the one from last night. Last night, his blue eyes were dilated and blown. His body was taut, as if filled with anger and rage. Last night, the man was coldly cruel and violent. He gave his instructions like he had no choice. Like something deep inside was making him do these despicable things.

This version of the man had knowing eyes. His movements were not so strained, definitely more fluid. And his eyes? His eyes today were bright and filled with the most amazing blue color. And he knew exactly what he was doing. The way he watched me. The way he smelled me. He teased and tested my endurance. It was all him. This version of the monster was very much in charge of his own actions.

This version of the man terrified me like I’d never been terrified before—he knowingly made me scream. Yet despite this, I could see a flare of humanity in his stare.

Last night, there had been none.

The monster turned off the heater, my head dropping with exhaustion. He stepped closer and leaned down, his musky scent of dark spices blanketing my face. As before, his nose tucked into the crook of my neck, the tip of his nose dusting below my ear. It ran down and back up my tender skin, until his warm breath stopped at my ear and he whispered, “How do you know Zaal Kostava?” His voice was soft, almost convincing me into thinking he felt a morsel of regret. Then I remembered his balled fists and tight eyes and wondered if he did.

He repeated the question again and made all the blood drain from my face. My eyes slammed shut. Whether I wanted to or not, a tear escaped the corner of my eye. I knew he had felt the droplet. When my eyes reopened, I saw he had captured the droplet on the pad of his finger.

I kept my mouth closed, holding back the answer to his question. He lifted the finger holding the drop. Making sure I tracked his movements, he brought the droplet to his mouth, and flicking out his tongue, he then wrapped his lips around the digit.

Slowly, he pulled his finger from his mouth and lowered it, until it landed on my chest. Even the featherlight touch of his finger felt like the stab of a dagger to my sensitive skin. But he kept it moving, until it ran over my breast and circled the wet tip around my nipple.

My breathing hitched at the fear of not being able to move, at the fear of what he would next. I knew he was pushing me for an answer, testing my resolve. Avto had told me what torturers could do. However, learning of such acts and enduring them were not even comparable.

Fluttering my eyes closed, I tried to take myself away from the here and now. I instead pictured the meadow when I was a child. I remembered Zaal and Anri walking side by side as I hid behind a tree, watching my two brothers smiling as they talked. I remembered my grandmama rocking me in her arms as she sang me her favorite song. I remembered my papa buying me whatever it is was that I asked for. I remembered lying with my mama, her stroking my hair as my baby brother and sister slept in their cribs. And I pictured Zaal, my sykhaara now. I held the image of his photograph, smiling and in love.

Inhaling through my nose, I finally pictured Zaal’s fiancée in the window of the house in Brighton Beach. I saw his hands wrapped around her waist. And she was happy. The house seemed full of such happiness. My sykhaara, after a life of pain, had finally found happiness. He had found another family. That was all that mattered.

Steely resolve settled over my soul; I vowed to never betray him. I would not heel to this monster. No matter what he tried.

Then when I opened my eyes, I took in the size of my captor, the scars, the tattoos, the collar around his neck … the collar resembling that of a slave, and my face blanched. I replayed what Avto had told me about Zaal and Anri, that they had been captured and drugged. Experimented upon until they were like beasts, monsters, ghosts of who they once were. Forced to kill and fight for Jakhua. Then I pictured Zaal’s tattoos on his arms, tattoos not too dissimilar from this man’s, and I wondered if he was the same. He wanted my brother. My brother who had recently killed the man who had experimented on him as a child.

A man whose people could still want revenge. A man who might have had more than just my brothers under his control.

What if…?

As I lifted my eyes to meet his, my captor was waiting for my answer. Swallowing, I shook my head, ignoring the headache pounding in my skull. The man froze, his jaw clenching in frustration.

He stepped back to stand by my side. I braced my body for what I knew would come next. His free hand took hold of my face, lightly gripping my cheeks. He pulled my face to the side until it was facing his, mere inches from his, and he said, “You may believe you are strong, little Georgian, but I have barely begun. You will not be able to take what I can deliver if you force my hand. In the end you will break.” Flexing his arm, the inked names littering his skin protruding with the movement, he added, “You all do. I’m the fucking Smert’ Kosoy. Designed to do only one thing—kill.”