Jaded

by Anya Bast

  “That’s the beauty of it. You don’t have to do anything but be yourself and he will love you.”

  She drew a deep breath. “Byron, really—”

  “Hush.”

  Pressing her lips together, she wrinkled her brow and looked up at him. “I think you’re insane, you know.”

  “I think I’m right.”

  He knew his reasoning was sound. His reason for tracking her down after all these years had ostensibly been for Alek’s benefit, but the act had been selfishly motivated at the heart of it. Six years ago when he’d found her in Milzyr, he’d fallen in love with her. Back then, fresh from an ordeal that would have broken anyone else, an ordeal that did break her for a time, she hadn’t been ready and hadn’t wanted a relationship with anyone. Even though he’d thought—maybe in his “high-handed” way—that a loving relationship had been exactly what she needed.

  So, now, six years later, he’d thought perhaps she’d be different, more willing to enter into a serious, loving relationship with him. But, clearly, she was still the wild, independent woman she’d always been and always would be. Though under the strength she displayed to the world, he sensed vulnerability. Still, she was just a little broken.

  Was he a bad man for wanting to touch that vulnerable part of her? Were his intentions dark when his goal was to make her see him as something more . . . someone to care for, maybe even someone to whom to bind her life? Maybe it was bad and dark because in a way it would be like trying to cage a beautiful, wild animal. That was never right.

  And perhaps he’d been wrong. Maybe what she had endured truly had ruined her for love.

  Time would tell.

  Movement caught Lilya’s eye. Alek had entered the room. She already stood very near to Byron, but she took an additional step closer to his body, setting a hand on his waist. If she was going to do this, she’d really do it. She knew how. Men weren’t that hard to understand—they always wanted what they couldn’t have, or what another man had. Jealousy was a useful tool.

  She studied Alek as he wavered in the doorway, looking ambushed and ready to bolt. Clearly he hadn’t realized she and Byron would be in the room. He was a scholar, so one would expect him to be pale, weak-limbed, perhaps wearing glasses. Yet, he defied that pigeonhole. Well, he was a bit pale and he did wear glasses, but that’s where it stopped. Weak-limbed he definitely was not. Byron was one of the tallest men she knew, but Alek rivaled his height. Broad shoulders melded into a leanly muscular body, hard, as if from regular and vigorous exercise. His reddish blond hair was thick and had a slight curl to it, making it look wavy and a little tousled. His face had the handsome quality that Byron’s lacked and his eyes were a deep, compelling shade of chocolate brown.

  She was actually surprised that Alek was as immersed in his studies as Byron claimed. Women had to be throwing themselves at him. She’d known enough men in her life to understand that some of them were oblivious to such things, but they were rare as unicorns, mostly myth, unless they were actually interested in men instead.

  Yet, from the heated look in Alek’s eyes when his gaze took her in, she figured the latter was not the case. In fact, she sensed a pent-up sexuality in him. That was good. If she was serious about seducing him, that would make it easier. She could use his attraction to her to draw him out. As a courtesan, she was definitely not above doing such things.

  “Alek, come in.” Byron’s arm snaked around her waist and he pulled her up against his side.

  “No.” Alek stepped back into the corridor. “I’ll go up to my room.”

  “Alek,” Lilya called. “Don’t be afraid of me. I won’t try and seduce your virtue away.” There, a nice prick to his manly pride should engage him.

  “I’m not afraid of you; I’m just not interested in talking to someone who sells her body for money.”

  Byron’s voice growled out of him. “Alek, this woman is very dear to me and I didn’t bring her here to be insulted. You don’t know her story. Stop being so blindly judgmental.”

  Lilya forced a smile. “At least you’re honest about your feelings.” His words pricked her a little, as comments like those always did. Such sentiments weren’t often thrown in her face and rarely so blatantly. “But I wasn’t brought here to have sex with you and Byron is not paying me. He’s an old friend and I came here at his request because I respect him and I owe him much.”

  Byron’s arm tightened around her waist. “How many times do I have to say you don’t owe me anything?” he murmured. Then he said louder to Alek, “She’s my guest and you’re being abusive to her.”

  Alek took a deep breath and entered the room, coming closer to them. “Why do you owe him?” A note of heavy curiosity flavored his voice. Was the scholar in him coming out?

  She considered Alek. At the moment, she didn’t like him very much. However, she cared deeply for Byron and trusted his cause where his friend was concerned. Could she bear to share this story with Alek? She supposed she could, for Byron.

  Lilya looked up at Byron. “You never told him the story?”

  He shook his head. “Alek, do you remember the year I spent in Milzyr? I went for business just for a few months at my father’s request, then ended up staying longer. I came back only when my father died.”

  “I remember.”

  Lilya stepped away from Byron and motioned to the carafe. “Why don’t you share a cup of coffee with us and we can tell you all about it?”

  He hesitated a moment and Lilya marshaled her tongue with effort. Deciding to reveal this story was a huge decision for her. She’d told only her closest friends at the Temple of Dreams about what had happened to her, because every time she was forced to speak the words, they opened up wounds she’d long ago forcibly closed.

  Finally Alek nodded and moved toward the table where the carafe sat.

  Grief already beginning to clog the back of her throat, she returned to her seat and took a fortifying sip of her cooling coffee. It had been a long time since she’d walked these dark roads of remembrance.

  Alek found a cup, filled it, and sat down. He held her gaze for a long moment. “I apologize for my rudeness earlier. I spend too much time with books and not enough time with people these days.”

  “Byron thinks you do.”

  “Maybe he’s right. I’m looking forward to this story. Byron never explained why he lived in Milzyr for those many months.”

  “Settle in because it’s a long one.” Lilya took a shaky breath, preparing to tell her story.

  Byron found a seat by the fire and gazed into the flickering flames with a brooding expression on his rough face. He likely wasn’t looking forward to reliving this either. A part of her loved him for that.

  Lilya began, “I was born into a poor family. My mother died during childbirth and my father contracted an illness that took him from me when I was fourteen. I had no other family and was forced to live on the streets of Milzyr, staying alive by my own wits. I survived that way, remained miraculously unscathed—mostly, anyway—for three years until I met a man named Ivan. I think I fell in love with him the day he offered to make me soup. No one had offered to make me food of any kind since my father had passed. So when Ivan offered to make me soup, I was done for. But Ivan wasn’t always so kind. . . .”

  Five

  Ivan had been the most charming and handsome man she’d ever met, Lilya mused, touching her fingertips to her split lip. She’d never suspected the monster the beauty masked. How could she have been so blind? He roared at her, looming over her like some demon from a child’s nightmare....

  She flinched away, covering her head from his wrath. Anger flared inside her, pushed her to lash out at Ivan, defend herself. Yet she weighed half what this man did and the room was filled with his henchmen. Any damage she managed to inflict upon him would be revisited upon her tenfold. It was a lesson she’d learned on the streets quickly.

  Before this day, just yesterday, she’d loved him. Oh, she’d loved him with everything she was
. Yesterday seemed like a century ago and her heart lay smashed under every second of that imagined period of time. Why had she given herself to him? He’d bent her to his will so easily, took away all her free will. He’d done it from the beginning, done it through love.

  Never again.

  He’d been like no man she’d ever met, buying her clothes, taking her out to dinner, showering her with compliments and small gestures of his affection. In Ivan’s eyes she’d felt like the only woman in the world. She’d been so young and, while she’d had a rough few years that had made her seem older than she should have been, still very impressionable. He’d smiled at her and the entire world had stopped. He’d spoken to her and her heart had swelled with warm pleasure.

  That love meant everything to a girl who’d spent the last three years of her life living hand to mouth as a sometime street vendor and beggar, living in a dingy rented room when she could afford it and on the streets when she couldn’t. For all those years she’d managed to avoid most of the violence that could befall a young girl with no family or protection. Not all, but most of the truly bad stuff.

  That was, until she’d met Ivan. He’d been a predator in kitten’s clothing. Once she’d realized that, it had been too late.

  She’d landed a good job as a flower seller, mostly because she’d been pretty to look at, with her long, curling dark hair and dark eyes. The flower-stand owner had cleaned her up and watched her closely for theft. When she’d earned his trust, he’d left her alone on a street corner to hawk his fresh-cut lilies and carnations. It had been the best job she’d ever had. Ivan had spotted her one day, bought a rose, and then handed it to her. She knew right then her luck, and her life, was about to change.

  So it had begun.

  A month into their relationship and she’d smiled and blushed when he’d look at her. Two months into their relationship and she’d been head over heels. Three months and she would’ve done anything for him, even though she’d begun to get the first hints that Ivan was not the businessman he’d told her he was. Or at least if he was a businessman, the business was shady. By that time she was far too gone on Ivan to care very much. He treated her like a princess.

  Four months into their relationship was when he’d asked her to live with him. Could marriage be far behind? Lilya said yes and spent the next few days walking on air. She would be safe. She would have food. Love. Children? She’d hoped for it.

  She quit her job selling flowers and moved into Ivan’s apartment. There were always various men there, men who worked for Ivan, but he wouldn’t tell her what they did. They were hard men, who looked at her like she was a piece of candy.

  That’s when things got bad.

  Almost immediately after she’d moved in, Ivan became controlling, dominating, yelling at her over the smallest things. Once in a while he hit her for spilling the tea or incorrectly ironing his shirt. But every time he hurt her, he made it up to her, said he was sorry, that it would never happen again, and bought her something pretty. It had been hard and she’d been disappointed, but she’d stayed.

  But today things had gone from bad to hellish.

  That afternoon one of Ivan’s thuggish men, one of many who lingered around the apartment, had trapped her in a hallway. He’d blown his garlic-scented breath on her and squeezed her breasts. She screamed and fought him.

  Ivan had run to her rescue, or so she’d thought. Instead of blaming the man who’d trapped her, Ivan flew into an insane rage. He knifed the man who’d cornered her and he’d slumped to the floor, dying.

  Then he’d dragged her out into the main room, accusing her of trying to cuckold him. Beyond reason, eyes crazy, he wouldn’t listen to her protests of innocence. He beat her with all the men in the room looking on and cheering. The occurrence had been a swirl of blood, betrayal, pain, and twisted male faces glimpsed through swollen eyes and a blur of tears.

  After the beating was done, every part of her body had hurt. Ivan had ripped her dress at the collar and hem. The polished wood floor of the room felt hard and cold under her palms and knees.

  Looking up at Ivan through her hair, her split lip burning and her blood thick on her tongue, she vowed that this time she would really leave him. This time she wouldn’t let him say sorry, buy her a bauble. This time she wouldn’t stay. Even if it meant returning to a hand-to-mouth existence on the streets, she would be out of his residence by sundown.

  Then he said the words that would forever change her life.

  Ivan shoved her at the men in the room. “She’s yours. Do whatever you wish with her. Just take her away and make sure she never comes back here.”

  Shock had ripped through her veins like a syringe filled with ice water. The men cheered and thanked him, their hands closing over her, pulling her hair, and dragging her backward. She’d screamed and fought, but she’d weighed less than a hundred pounds.

  Lilya stopped telling her story, swallowing the ball of emotion that lodged itself at the back of her throat.

  Byron was beside her, his big, warm hands on her cold ones. She hadn’t even noticed he’d moved to her side. “You’re pale.”

  “Please stop if you need to,” Alek added.

  She shook her head. “It’s all right. I’m stronger than that.” She offered a shaky smile to Byron. “You can imagine what happened next. Eventually it ended.” Strong she might be, but she said those last sentences quickly, just to get them out of the way. Information given. “They dumped me in an alley of Milzyr, leaving me like a piece of garbage to die alone. . . .”

  Every part of her body burned and ached, some parts of her screamed in pain. Her eyes were so swollen she could barely see out of them. For a time during the ordeal she’d left her body completely, giving her numb detachment to what was happening to her. Now her mind offered her no such luxury and she knew she was going to die. . . .

  She welcomed it. She wanted it.

  Her fingers scratching in the gravel of the alley, she gazed at the people on the street that was too far away for her to crawl to. For a moment she contemplated calling for help, but closed her eyes instead. She curled up in the cold, scraps of her ripped clothing barely covering her, and gave up.

  Her thoughts drifted to her father, to the easel and paints he’d once scrounged enough money to buy for her. That was a good memory, a warm one. It was the only thing she could think of that didn’t make her feel like vomiting, so she held on to it. Maybe her next life would be better, full of more of those kinds of memories. She couldn’t wait to get there.

  But life lingered, unwanted.

  Darkness took her on and off. Evening came and went. Then day. Night again. Her throat burned from a need to drink water, but she hardly noted it. The pain of her body was too great for that. The haze of her mind was too cloudy for her think straight . . . to care. No, she was far, far beyond caring about what happened to her now. Time itself lost meaning. She prayed to Blessed Joshui that He would end her suffering.

  Her eyes closed for what she hoped was the last time, but the muffled sound of footsteps made her open them again.

  Black boots met her narrow slit of a gaze. Black boots. Boots kicked. Boots inflicted pain. Boots belonged to men. Men hit. Men hurt her. She looked up into a jagged, rough face. The face of a thug.

  Suddenly she found it in her to care.

  Some last gasp of a primal desire to survive reared its head. She scrambled back, her body on fire, the dried blood on her body cracking, until she hit the brick wall behind her and fresh pain exploded. Her vision went black, her body went weak, and unconsciousness took her before she hit the ground.

  Sometime later she woke again to a bright room, her vision still narrowed by her swollen eyes. Glancing carefully around her, she noticed she was clean; her broken limbs bandaged and set to heal. The walls of the room were painted a sunny yellow. The bedding was a gentle shade of gold shot through with expensive silver thread.

  A man stood nearby, perhaps ten years older than she was. He turned t
oward her. It was the thug. She drew air to scream and terror-filled blackness enveloped her again.

  On and off she floated up from unconsciousness. Every time her eyes opened, the rough-featured man was there. Sometimes he was with another man she took for a doctor because of the way he frowned, fussed, and poked. For those brief times consciousness claimed her, she could see a little more and felt a little better.

  Finally she surfaced from the lovely black nothingness she’d come to welcome and stayed aware. Her eyes open, she watched the thuglike man from the bed. His broad back was toward her as he talked to the doctor. They didn’t know she was awake and their voices drifted to her on the quiet air.

  “How is she doing?” the man asked in a low, gruff voice that fit his face and body.

  “Physically, she’s healing. Her broken arm and leg will take some time, of course, but her ribs and the lacerations to her face and body are doing well. Luckily I think she’ll have minimal scarring. She had some internal damage, but she’s been strong enough to endure most of it. However, she’ll never be able to bear children.”

  In the bed behind them, Lilya jolted with a burst of grief. Pressing her lips together, she fought not to make a sound and reveal herself. She’d given up hope of surviving and had even prayed for death, but the cold, hard reality of her infertility still had the power to devastate her.

  “Psychologically, I don’t know how she’ll fare. I have rarely seen such violence visited upon a woman. I suspect she will never fully recover from what’s been done to her. However, if she’s not been made insane, she might recover enough to live out the rest of her life in some semblance of normality.”

  The man rubbed his chin, as if deep in thought, and glanced at her. Her gaze locked with his and his blue eyes opened wide as he realized she was awake. He turned to her, causing the doctor to notice she was aware as well.

  The doctor walked to her with a kind smile on his face. He reached her bedside and tried to cover her hand with his. She jerked away. Rationally she understood this man had been touching her in order to treat her, but she didn’t like it. Not one little bit. If she had anything to say about it, no man would ever touch her again.