Page 16 of Agor the Merciless
When he finally spoke, his voice was dangerously low, a sound she had never heard from him before.
“You will not do this again.”
Chapter Nine
Zoe scrambled to her feet, straightening her grease-stained shirt. Blood pounded in her ears. The joy of working with her hands had vanished, replaced by rage. Is was the same anger she felt when her father dismissed her talent, and Mark told her to be less of herself.
“You said I could do whatever makes me happy.” She showed him her blackened fingertips. “This makes me happy. Fixing things. Making them work.”
Agor’s nostrils flared. He stepped forward, radiating a contained, dangerous heat.
“I changed my mind.”
“You can’t just…”
“You are not to work with your hands. Not in grease. Not in dirt. Not in filth.”
“That’s not fair. I was helping! The engine was broken, and I fixed it. I did something useful!”
Agor slammed his fist against the stone wall. Dust and small fragments rained down, but Zoe didn’t flinch.
“Useful?” He barked the word. “My mate doesn’t need to be useful! My mate is a treasure, not a tool.”
He paced around her, his eyes never leaving hers. The torchlight cast his face in sharp angles, highlighting the broken tusk, the scar across his nose.
“Do you understand what it means to be mine?” He stopped in front of her. “You are to be worshipped, honored, kept safe.”
His hand reached out, thick fingers brushing against her cheek with a gentleness that contradicted his anger.
“I will bring you fresh water, not let you wallow in muck. I will feed you the choicest meat, not watch you strain and break yourself for others.” His voice dropped. “I will dress you inthe finest pelts, not in rags stained with grease. I will give you pleasure beyond imagination, not subject you to labor.”
He grabbed her hands, engulfing them in his, rubbing at the grease smudges with his thumb.
“These hands will touch only me. They will never again be blackened by common work.”
His words were a dismissal of everything she was. She pulled her hands free, stepping back.
“So I’m supposed to sit here in this cave? Waiting for you like some... some doll?”
“You are to be cherished, not used.”
“What you call cherishing feels like a prison. I didn’t come here to be useless.”
Agor shook his head, his eyes showing only incomprehension. “Not useless. Sacred.”
“Is that why you dragged me away? Because I’m too sacred to help? Too precious to have a purpose beyond waiting for you?”
“I protect what is mine.”
The gentleness in his voice was worse than the anger. He believed he was honoring her by locking her away, by stripping her of the very thing that made her feel alive. His worship was a cage.
She’d actually started to think this world was different, that she’d found a place where her hands on an engine were a good thing. For a moment, she’d thought her strength wouldn’t be treated as a flaw here. But Agor saw her skill as something to be scrubbed away. He didn’t want Zoe the Mechanic. He wanted Zoe the Ornament. Another pretty, useless thing to polish and display.
“You don’t understand who I am at all.” Her voice was a whisper.
For a moment, she didn’t know how else to react, what to say to him to convince him he was making a mistake. Then it struckher it wasn’t her responsibility to make him see how wrong he was. He should’ve known better.
“You lied to me. You told me I could do whatever makes me happy. You said that!” Her hands balled into fists. “Was everything a lie? The gentleness? The respect? Just to get me into your bed?”
