After a while Mary said, “Zsadist?”

“Yeah?”

“What are those markings?”

His frowned and flicked his eyes over to her, thinking, as if she didn’t know? But then . . . well, she had been a human. Maybe she didn’t. “They’re slave bands. I was . . . a slave.”

“Did it hurt when they were put on you?”

“Yes.”

“Did the same person who cut your face give them to you?”

“No, my owner’s hellren did that. My owner . . . she put the bands on me. He was the one who cut my face.”

“How long were you a slave?”

“A hundred years.”

“How did you get free?”

“Phury. Phury got me out. That’s how he lost his leg.”

“Were you hurt while you were a slave?”

Z swallowed hard. “Yes.”

“Do you still think about it?”

“Yes.” He looked down at his hands, which suddenly were in pain for some reason. Oh, right. He’d made two
fists and was squeezing them so tightly his fingers were about to snap off at the knuckles.

“Does slavery still happen?”

“No. Wrath outlawed it. As a mating gift to me and Bella.”

“What kind of slave were you?”

Zsadist shut his eyes. Ah, yes, the question he didn’t want to answer. For a while it was all he could do to force himself to stay in the chair. But then, in a falsely level voice, he said,
“I was a blood slave. I was used by a female for blood.”

The quiet after he spoke bore down on him, a tangible weight.

“Zsadist? Can I put my hand on your back?”

His head did something that was evidently a nod, because Mary’s gentle palm came down lightly on his
shoulder blade. She moved it in a slow, easy circle.

“Those are the right answers,” she said. “All of them.”

He had to blink fast as the fire in the furnace’s window became blurry. “You think?” he said hoarsely.

“No. I know.

J.R. Ward