Page 44 of Reforging Onyx

Dominic chuckled. “There is knowing, and there is seeing.” He ran his fingers through Onyx’s hair before turning back toward the door. “I have a couple more hours of work before I’m done for the day. Think about what you would like for dinner.”

Uh-huh. That was what he’d thought.

Onyx endured the touch with minimal scowling. “Not sushi. But fish maybe, I don’t know?”

It was so weirdly domestic.

He stole a glance at Shane, wondering what he thought of all of it. He had to have opinions.

Whatever he was thinking, though, Shane didn’t share it.

Probably for the best. No, definitely for the best.

“Bye,” Onyx said. After Dominic had left, he turned his attention back to Shane. “See?” He didn’t specify exactly what he was talking about, but it would be clear enough. Probably. He sighed, then continued, “Only a few hours, then. Guess we need to rack up a kill count fast.”

Shane nodded almost reluctantly. “Yeah… let's kill some zombies.”

Onyx nodded as well, turning back to the game. After a while, he asked, “There are cameras and stuff in here now, right?”

Shane nodded. “Yeah. Cameras, microphones. Full 3D technicolor surround sound.” He paused, then added, “With recording and playback.”

Onyx’s eyes darkened. “Oh.”

So he had nothing private. Even when Dominic wasn’t physically suffocating him, he was doing it in another way. He tried to think about all they’d said, but… Well, it was what it was now, he guessed.

“Thanks for telling me,” he said. He went back to killing zombies, for all that it had stopped being fun. Everything he did was under Dominic’s control. The psychopath wanted him under full surveillance if he couldn’t be almost literally up his ass.

Great.

Shane slanted a sidelong look at Onyx. “You can’t expect someone like Dominic Bancroft to not flip his shit when you tried to… you know. He’s not going to let something like that happen again.”

“He shouldn’t have cared that much,” Onyx muttered. Dominic was powerful enough, rich enough, to get any slave he wanted. He could even get someone who wasn’t already a slave. Why had Onyx been the one for him to fixate on so excessively? “Anyway, it’s fine. I get it.”

He hated it.

“Yeah,” Shane replied, which was so much of a non-answer that it irritated Onyx. “But he does.”

“Lucky me,” Onyx said sarcastically. He let the conversation lapse, instead focusing solely on the game. There was no sense in dwelling on something he couldn’t change.

And with Dominic Bancroft… that was everything.

Shane sighed, continuing after several minutes, “You are, you know. Lucky.”

Onyx paused, blinking at Shane. “What?” he asked, disbelief — and a touch of betrayal — in his voice. “I’m lucky? Me?”

“Mhm. Think about it,” Shane replied. “You’re taken captive at the end of the attack, and you go up for auction at Tartarus, right? Dominic isn’t there to buy you; who does? There was a lot of bidding on you, and those amounts went up high. Someone powerful — and rich — was taking you home that day. Then what happens?”

Onyx’s eyes remained dark as he stared at Shane. “I’m sorry, what?” he demanded. “You think I’m lucky?” After everything he’d been through?

But then… Dominic had made a comment once about how much worse it could’ve been. He could’ve been missing limbs.

He could’ve been genuinely broken by then.

More broken than you already are?

He gritted his teeth. “Okay, maybe it could’ve been worse,” he allowed, like with the blond witch who’d pierced him. “But that doesn’t…”

That witch slave had had his magic. What was the cost? Being broken?