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“I always feel where you are,” he says, turning me to face him. Those blue eyes sweep over me once. Their intensity still leaves me breathless. “Thought you might be trying to escape.”

“Where have you been?” I try to keep the desperation out of my voice.

“Working.” He watches me for a second longer. “You shouldn’t be out here alone.”

My heart flutters at the thought. Maybe some small part of him actually cares about my well-being.

“No one is after me anymore.”

“Everyone is after you, Zaiya,” he says quickly. “You’re under a microscope.”

Fear flares up my throat but I swallow it down. I still don’t understand why anyone would want me.

“Why do they have to watch?” I ask. “The cloaks and masks make it more disturbing.”

He steps back and snaps a thin branch between his fingers. The sound cracks through the quiet and disappears into the trees, leaving the stillness behind even heavier than before.

“Part of the anonymity and spectacle. Anxiety sharpens obedience. It’s all designed to push you.”

“Push me to what?”

He goes still and locks his eyes on mine.

“To break.”

That word turns cold in my chest. I drop my gaze to the moss and dirt at my feet. It was bad enough to have his cock forced down my throat in front of an audience. But it didn’t break me. I can’t imagine what more they could put me through.

“Were you trying to escape?” he asks, softer now.

I shake my head. “I just needed to get away. Where I came from…” I glance at him, remembering he already knows everything. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad. “I got used to being alone, living inside imagined worlds.” My gaze drops to the ground again. “I hated it then, but I guess I kind of miss disappearing.”

The gears work in his head as he stares at me. Then he turns abruptly and walks deeper into the woods.

“Come.”

I hesitate, the sting of his absence still fresh. But curiosity pulls me after him just as much as desire.

I do as I’m told.

The path he finds narrows into a line stomped down by roaming deer, letting leaves brush against my bare legs. A small stream bleeds out from the river where an old dock slumps into the water, its boards warped and gray. There’s even a motorboat tethered and waiting.

My fingers curl into my palms as flashes of the Trial creep up.

“Another boat?” I ask warily.

He steps into it without hesitation. “What did you learn last time?”

That the boat took me somewhere I had no control. Somewhere they buried me alive.

But also that I came back.

That I lived.

That I can trust him.

He sighs, reading too much of what I don’t say. “You might be scared.” His voice remains even. “In fact, you should be. But your life is always safe with me.”

He holds out his hand, those long elegant fingers beckoning.