Chapter 67

Zara’s POV

The life of a Romani is not meant to be easy, but it is meant to be free.

Freedom for a wolf is easy enough. It’s the liberty to run where they want, fight and mate whom they want, establish territory and join a territory at will, vote, consume, and raise a family wherever they want. Freedom for humans is basically defined by a separation from wolves: the freedom to do what wolves do without interference from wolves.

But what is freedom for a slave, which I had been these three years now? Was it simply not being chained and collared? Was it just some sort of mockery of my ambitions before I was enslaved? Was freedom just the absence of slavery?

When I lived with my family, performing as we liked, living as we liked, I never even thought of the concept of freedom as a concept. Doing as we liked was just something that happened, like breathing the air and sleeping when we were tired. What did we care about “equal rights” or “ownership of property”? We were just living our lives.

And no, despite the stereotypes, we stole from no one. We told no bogus fortunes for food. None of us ran a street scam or made spam calls.

My family lived as our ancestors had lived for generations. We drove into a town, set up a camp, and found those who wanted their fortunes told, their children taught basic lessons in dance and juggling, their kitchen knives sharpened, their houses painted, their lawns cut, and their walkways power washed. We lived so that people were happy to see our RVs pull and park in the town square.

Then I was captured, and I dreamed the dreams of freedom only a slave can dream. I envisioned leisure, of lying down in green fields, of having no one to crack the whip or otherwise use my body.

I had been captured one night after performing the Dance of the Knives. I was repeatedly told it was my own fault for “showing off.” Women and men of my family had performed that dance for centuries, and no one before had thought it was a call to capture anyone for sexual slavery.

As the wolves cut my flesh that night and drank my blood, in my drugged haze I thought about what it meant to be free. I could walk under the stars all night and have no one to berate me when I came home. I would actually have a home, all mine.

I would be able to worship the human God, not the werewolf goddess, though from what I understood about the basics they were basically the same monotheistic entity.

Yes, I could think words like “monotheistic entity.” I had a college education. I had been an independent woman, a jewel of her family.

That’s what my mother used to call me: a jewel. “My Zara jewel,” she’d say, as if that were a thing.

I thought of the hundreds of the things I could not do as a slave, from having a drink to voting to going to a meeting with my peers to traveling, to getting a job (and even being fired from one), to having a pet, to owning property of my own.

But mostly I thought about what it meant to me, standing there lashed to a pole while werewolves cut me and drank my blood.

I remembered the night I’d been captured in fine detail. I’d been telling fortunes along Pirate’s Alley, a tourist locale in the touristy part of the French Quarter. I enjoyed it. I wasn’t there to change anyone’s life; it was just part of the fun and attraction of New Orleans for the tourists.

We all knew what we were doing, and I didn’t charge more than I felt was due for the entertainment value. People come to New Orleans to feel like they’re getting certain types of experiences, including those involving the “haunted cemetery” tour, tea leaf readings, and all the rest.

When I gave a tarot card reading, I made sure to include adventures and unexpected opportunities. Sometimes, my cousin Adrea would come over and play the klezmer and get everyone to dance.

That night, I’d told a few fortunes and then done a dance with Andra and her band. Our other cousins had come over with their batons and juggled them back and forth. We all finished with shots on Bourbon Street, and the whole thing had been hilarious.

And the next morning I’d awoken with a collar around my neck. I’d been raped five times the first day by five different alphas. My ankle bone had been broken on the second day.

And now I stood there lashed to a pole in some rich-ass werewolf venue I could give a fuck about while my blood dripped down my arms to be lapped up by trust fund babies who couldn’t get it up the regular way. The drugs told me to be quiet, to be happy in my slavery.

My brothers would avenge me, I told myself for the hundredth time. They would know what happened to their sister, and they would shed wolf blood.

Then they shoved into the room some human woman who obviously wasn’t a slave. I made sure not to show I was looking at her, lolling my head around as though the drugs still had an effect on me after three years.

In another moment, some sadistic wolf fuck tossed a human boy to the ground, and they took him out. He went looking for better prey. I took another slice to my arm and showed nothing for it, even though I knew if I became totally unresponsive they’d toss me to the trash heap.

A slave dreams of freedom, I thought.

The new woman stood there uncertainly, and what was left of my heart sank. She was new to the game, to being property. She had no idea.

Aliah, a sadistic she-wolf if ever they made one, grabbed her and demanded, What’s this? Don’t think I’ve smelled you before, little one.”

The human woman looked ready to puke, which really wouldn’t have been a bad idea for her, at least in the meantime. But just as Aliah was about to claim her, the woman slapped her across the face with one of those prop floggers they gave us, which did more damage than I thought they could, actually drawing blood.

“What the hell, you little piece of shit?” Aliah demanded, and I stifled a laugh. Oh, that was the most satisfying thing I’d seen in years.

Aliah grabbed the little prop flogger, which also made me laugh inside and threaten the human woman, but then Tregor intervened and said the human woman was to be delivered to her bidder with “her fire undiminished.”

Aliah screeched about how the boy could go fuck himself, which I very thoroughly enjoyed. But then they dragged the human woman out, though not before she’s shouted: “I’m not a whore! “I am Sarah Astor! I am the goddess- mother to the children of—”

Then they took her away.

Well, I wasn’t a whore either, I thought, but then, maybe I wasn’t anything anymore, and that was the worst thought of all.

There was another cut to my left shoulder, which the drug made me think was pleasurable.

I drifted for a while. The drugs they gave us were very hard to resist.

Then my eyes focused. There were little girls sneaking into the room. Two of them, and one of them winked at me.