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This time, I don’t continue down the stairs on my own, but stumble forward with a hard push from behind. With Madame and Henry at my back, I reach the bottom of the staircase before the man who’s apparently won my freedom.

Behind him, the Champion who fought the creature stands flanked by four men, his head bowed, face still covered by the hard, leather mask that reminds me of a dog muzzle. A chain extends from his throat, like that of an animal, and from this distance, I have a better view of the numerous scars that mar his body. New wounds glisten with blood, and the red, inflamed skin around each gash tells me they’re already infected. He doesn’t bother to look at me as he stands stiff, muscled shoulders back, waiting for his master.

“We meet again, my unsullied beauty.” A clawed, cold hand, too soft to belong to a man, drifts down my cheek, and I can’t bring myself to look up at him. “You’re going to love your new home.”

* * *

Bouncing over the uneven terrain, in what looks like a trailer for transporting animals, I sit on a long bench across from the man who fought the creatures earlier. Three armed men separate us, and his wrists and throat are shackled to the wall of the vehicle. I’d hate to think what would happen if we were to get into an accident with him tethered that way.

The more I stare at him, the bigger he seems. Long and lean, his bulging muscles almost look unnatural, with sharp bones that poke through his skin. His hands are rough and as scarred as the rest of him, while he sits slumped against the wall of the truck, staring down toward the bed beneath his feet.

I’m no stranger to grisly-looking scars, having assisted my grandmother, and even my own father had his share of battle wounds, but these are something else. Their haphazard stitching and odd locations tell me they’re the marks of a tortured man. One who’s known incredible pain and suffering.

My Champion.

Only I don’t belong to him. I belong to the man who opted for the vehicle’s front seat, flanked by the safety of two of his men. The same men that safely escorted him from the stadium to his vehicle earlier. He must be someone important, given the entourage, but to me, he’s yet another threat out here.

Another mysterious fate I can’t begin to unravel.

None of the men I travel with seem to have any interest in me, as the guards occupy themselves with a game of cards, while the prisoner stares off in silence.

It’s only through the open back of the truck that I catch a glimpse of the passing landscape, none of which is familiar to me anymore. I’m so far away from home at this point, there isn’t a chance I’d find my way back. Not that I could go back, even if I wanted to. I’ve lost direction and the will to care.

Shifting my attention back toward the man who saved my life, I want to thank him for his bravery, but something tells me such a gesture would be met by his ridicule. He’d probably tell me he wasn’t out to save my life, and that I’m nothing but an annoying tick in his skin that he’d gladly carve out with a knife.

He didn’t choose to fight for me, from the looks of it.

“You stare long enough, he’ll turn you to stone.” One of the guard’s leans in, a man I’m guessing is in his thirties, with age lines but a full head of dark hair. “Makes him edgy.”

“He saved my life.” I steal the opportunity to say it aloud, in hopes the man hears me, but he doesn’t so much as glance over at me.

The guard snorts, tossing a skinny hand of cards onto the bed of the truck. “He doesn’t see it that way.”

“Why is that?”

“He won you on behalf of a man who enslaves him.”

“One that plans to enslave me, too?”

“I suppose that depends.”

“On what?”

“What Remus’s lover has to say about it.”

Frowning harder than before, I try to imagine my place as a virgin prize between a man and his lover. Once again, I’m uncertain of my purpose and future. If God is watching over me, as they say, he sure as hell must be getting a good laugh out of this journey.

At least somebody is.

I nod toward the slave. “What do you call him?”

“Titus. The God of Monsters.”

The man doesn’t so much as twitch at the sound of his name, as if he’s forgotten that it belongs to him. And when the other men break out in laughter over his moniker, I don’t so much as smile.

In spite of the fact that he doesn’t spare me a single look, I can’t help but stare at him, my mind rewinding to the moment when he tore away the head of the mutation. Inhuman, the way he made it look so easy.

My eyes are drawn to the muscles in his arms, hard even at rest, and the map of veins in his forearms and hands. Hands, I’d wager, could crush the skulls of the men beside me. I’ve never seen a man so impenetrable and virile, like a living, breathing stone sculpture.