Zoya’s eyes dipped; then, without looking at me again, she slid from the bed. My heart sank as she disappeared into the small bathroom, but she appeared again with a bottle of water. Nervously she moved to my side. Kneeling on the bed, she brought the bottle of water to my lips and poured some of the cold liquid down my throat. She repeated the action until the bottle was drained; then, as before, she lay down on the bed beside me.

I cleared my throat, the burning sensation already dulled.

My hand was lying on the mattress between us. Zoya’s fingers went rigid, and with a sigh her small hand covered mine. My eyes snapped to hers. Soon her warmth seeped into mine, and she licked along her lips.

“Valentin,” she said in the thick Georgian accent I used to despise but now had learned to adore. “You are not a bad man.”

My eyebrows pulled down. Those images of what I was about to do to her raced through my head. As if sensing what was happening, Zoya squeezed my hand. “I know what you are thinking,” she said softly. I focused on the rope burns on her body.

“Look at me!” Zoya said. My nostrils flared on hearing a command from her mouth. Zoya’s face softened and she added, “Please.”

Forcing my body to not respond to a strict female voice, I sank farther into the mattress and met Zoya’s eyes, as requested, not commanded.

Her fingers began stroking across my own. “When you first touched me, you terrified me.” I stayed still, just listening. Zoya’s face paled and she said, “The things you did to me when you first brought me to this chamber”—she shook her head—“I could not have even dreamed of in my worst nightmare. The electric shocks, the hot and cold, then the way you used my body and its centers of pleasure against me. It was barbaric, cruelty at its very worst.” My jaw clenched at the hurt lacing her voice, but I didn’t react. I had committed these acts. I’d done what I’d been commanded by Mistress.

Zoya smiled, but it wasn’t a happy smile. “At first, I thought you were coldhearted, a monster. But then I realized what the collar around your neck was doing to your body. I knew when it took you in its hold. Your blue eyes would turn black, fully dilated. It still didn’t explain the hours when your eyes were blue, yet you still caused me pain. But you began to slip, and I glimpsed fleeting moments of compassion sneaking through.” Zoya’s head tipped to the side. “And even though you had me held captive, even though you had hurt me, had brought me to a torturous level of pleasure, I worked out that you were doing all of this because you had to, not because you wanted to.”

I rolled my lips together; that feeling again burst within me. I stared at this female. I questioned how she could be speaking to me this way. How could she care for me, after all that I had done to her?

“As I said before, Valentin, we are not dissimilar. And believe it or not”—she tipped her head forward—“you and your chamber are not the most horrific of things that have happened in my life. You see, I think in that respect we are alike.” Her hand squeezed mine and she added, “Except the people who found me and took me in were good and honest people. They protected me and kept me safe.” Zoya lifted our joined hands and brought them to her lips. As her lips brushed the back of my hand, a blanket of heat covered my body.

“Where I believe the people that found you caused you nothing but pain and sorrow. I believe that had you not been forced to have this life, you would have been a very different man. Do you agree?” she asked, her question hanging thick and heavy in the air.

I shrugged and whispered, “I do not know. I have caused others pain. I have killed and tortured since I was a child.”

Zoya’s face fell and she asked, “By choice?”

I closed my eyes and slightly shook my head. “No,” I admitted, “made to. Forced to.”

I heard Zoya sigh. I felt her warm breath on my face. My answer rewarded me with another kiss on my hand. As if some invisible barrier had been torn down between us, Zoya shifted closer until I could feel the heat of her body seeping into mine. A deep blush ran up her neck to fill her cheeks and face. I decided at that moment that she was the most beautiful female that could have ever existed. She, a Georgian, of an enemy race I had vowed to always hate. But with that flush, brown eyes, compassion, and tender grace all the hatred fell away.

Zoya lifted her leg to place it over mine, moving closer until her head lay next to me. “I know you do not like Georgians, Valentin, but my grandmama would tell me the story of the Tbilisi monster. Have you heard of it?” she asked. My lips curled up at her Georgian accent fluidly wrapping around the Russian words.

“No,” I replied.

Her brown eyes became lost as she explained, “I was only five years old when my family was killed.” My eyes dropped to the scars on her shoulders and hip. Seeing my attention focus on these, she stroked along my face and said, “The day I too should have died.” My stomach dropped just at the thought of Zoya being dead. But I refocused on her words as she carried on, “I have no more memories, I believe, from that age. I think it is because I lost them all to trauma. I think when a horrific event has tarnished your soul all the lighter days prior to that event are the brighter for it.”

Zoya’s eyes dulled for a moment but brightened when her lips pulled into a small smile. “My grandmama loved to tell me stories. And I loved to hear them. She knew this, so she would often tell me stories. But there was one she would tell me over and over again. Every time she told it, I would always find fault.”

I listened to her talk of her family with such happiness. At that moment I could have listened to her always. Her voice changed as she recalled her family. I never had that. Even with Inessa, I was always fighting for us to survive, stealing to help us eat.

“Valentin?” Zoya pushed. I snapped back to the present. “Are you okay?” she asked. I pressed my cheek to the hand she had left under my face. “Tell me about the monster.”

She smiled again. “Legend has it that the monster, who is as tall as the trees and as broad as an ox, lived in the deepest parts of the Tbilisi forest. For years he had been spotted by the children in the town. He would live on his own in peace, but the children all wanted to see him. But when they saw him, they would laugh at him and make fun of him, call him ugly. They prodded him with sticks, hit him with rocks, and ran screaming past where he slept to keep him awake.