Her black dress did her no favours, but it didn’t hide the lush promise of those curves either. She had a sweet, womanly figure, which was really all he required in a wife, though why he was thinking that this little maid shovelling ash could fit the bill he had no idea.
Then again, why not? It didn’t matter which woman he chose, she’d never be Naya, and that meant one pretty woman was as good as any other. She clearly wasn’t bothered by his scars, though, which was a considerable point in her favour. He didn’t care what people thought of them, yet he also didn’t want to be confronted by distaste or fear over the breakfast table every morning. Or in his bed every night.
‘Well?’ she asked. Her hands had curled into fists at her sides, though her small, delicate features were unreadable.
A woman used to hiding what she felt, he suspected.
‘Help with what?’ He really shouldn’t be continuing with this conversation, considering Ivan, but now he was curious and more than happy for his father-in-law to have to wait.
Rose stared with a direct, unblinking gaze. It might have been disconcerting for a lesser man, but Ares had never been, nor would he ever be, a lesser man.
Her lovely mouth compressed, and she shifted on her feet at last. Nervous, obviously. Then she darted a gaze at the door, as if she was worried about eavesdroppers. ‘They’re going to sell me,’ she said, the words falling over themselves in their efforts to escape. ‘Tomorrow, I think, or maybe the day after, I’m not sure. I don’t know where I’ll be going or to who, but I don’t want to stay to find out. I need to escape somehow, but I’ve got no money and I’ve never been out of this compound, and I can’t get out of here anyway, not without help, and I know because I’ve tried. Someone has to get me out and I have no one else to ask.’ She took a shuddering breath. ‘Please, sir. Please, help me.’
Rose knew she’d said too much the moment the words were out of her mouth. They’d escaped as if he’d somehow tripped a switch inside her, causing all her desperate fears to come cascading out.
She didn’t want to sound like a scared little girl. Scared little girls were victims and she was tired of being a victim. She’d been one for her entire life and that had to stop. Here. Now. Today.
The man said nothing, sprawled out in the seat in front of her as if he didn’t have one single care in the entire world. Because of course he didn’t. Men like him never did. The rich, the powerful, the infamous. All kinds stayed at the compound, and she’d seen them all. She was a house servant, and it was her job to make their beds and clean their fireplaces, scrub their baths and pick up their clothing.
Some were terrible, lashing out with a cuff for no reason at all, and others groped her because she was there, and they thought they had the right. Some shouted at her for some imagined slight, and some made disgusting insinuations, then laughed. Some ignored her like she wasn’t even there.
But this man... This man was different, and he always had been.
Rose stared fixedly at him.
He was immensely tall, immensely powerful. Built broad and muscular like the guards that kept watch over the doors of the compound. Except for all their physical strength, the guards seemed small and insubstantial next to this man. They thought they were wolves and maybe they were, but this man was a dragon.
He projected the strength of a giant, the arrogance of a king and the confidence of God himself, and she had no idea who he was that granted him such massive self-assurance, but one thing she was sure of: he could help her.
She’d been cleaning this room for five years and it was only the previous year that she’d risked punishment by looking at him. She already knew he was tall and that his voice was cracked and broken sounding. That he walked silently and with a grace that was almost shocking in a man built so broad.
His scars had been shocking too, but only because she hadn’t expected them.
She didn’t care about his scars. The only thing she cared about was that he was the only one who didn’t paw at her, who didn’t try to touch her, or say disgusting things and make crude jokes whenever she was in the room. He didn’t shout at her or even make conversation.
He wasn’t one of those men who ignored her either, though.
She’d sensed him watching her, and why he did so, she wasn’t sure, but it didn’t frighten her. His attention felt curious rather than threatening, though again, she wasn’t sure why that was. Perhaps it was her humming. Perhaps he liked it.
That was beside the point, though. What mattered was that he’d never made a single move towards her, not one. It didn’t mean he was any better than all the rest, but it was a sign that he was at least no worse, and that was as good as she could get in a place like this.
Not that she had a choice now. They were going to sell her tomorrow and he was her only chance of escape.
She stared at him without blinking, willing him to say something, her heart thudding uncomfortably loudly in her ears.
He stared back, in no hurry. As if he hadn’t even heard her little speech.
She swallowed, a feeling she didn’t understand flickering like a fire inside her.
He wore an exceptionally well-cut suit of dark grey wool; she knew a good tailor when she saw one, she was nothing if not observant. His shirt was snowy white and open at the neck—he hadn’t bothered with a tie.
She found herself uncomfortably mesmerised by the glimpse of his throat, though she couldn’t imagine why. His skin was dark bronze, the white of his shirt showing it off to good effect, and his hair was darkest black and cut close to his skull. His eyes were startling, a strange silvery green, like a tarnished sea.
He was a man wrought of iron, everything about him hard. Yet there were great gouges in his face, scar tissue twisting one side of it, while leaving the other side almost unmarked. That side was beautiful, high cheekbones, beautiful mouth, straight nose, while the other side was...scar tissue and melted flesh.
Horrifying. Compelling. Frightening. Magnetic.
She couldn’t settle on which, but that didn’t matter either. She needed his help and she needed it now.