Somehow, he didn’t mind.
You will mind when you can’t get the damned thing off after this mission is over, whispered a practical voice in his head. But Thorn chose to ignore it. Right now the end of the mission seemed very far away. All he could see was his Mistress’s lovely face when she placed the collar around his neck and marked him as hers. All he could feel were her soft hands and, as her sweet, feminine scent filled his senses, he briefly wished he could never leave her side.
Which was foolish, Thorn reminded himself as they waited in their hover coach for their turn to step out onto the plush purple synthi-grass carpet which had been unrolled from the huge double doors of Club Carnivorous. He was only here to get information on the Hive from the Library of All Knowledge—he had to keep his end objective in mind and not allow himself to be swept up into some fantasy where he and his Mistress fell in love and decided to run away together or some damn thing like that. He—
“Oh, dear.” The dismay in Neh’sa’s soft voice drew Thorn out of his contemplation.
“What is it, Mistress?” he asked.
“Just look.” She nodded at the line of hover coaches that snaked down the block, waiting their turn to disgorge their passengers onto the purple carpet. In the coach directly ahead of theirs, Thorn thought he saw a familiar face.
“Fucking hell,” he muttered as the door opened and a long, skinny leg appeared, “That’s—
“Lady Wraith’neck,” Neh’sa said and sighed again. “I wonder what trouble she’ll cause tonight. If we’re fortunate she’ll completely ignore us.” She shook her head. “Unfortunately, I doubt we’ll be that lucky.”
“What in the Seven Hells is that creature she has with her?” Thorn asked, frowning.
For instead of leading a regular body-slave out of her hover coach, Lady Wraith’neck had the strangest thing Thorn had ever seen at the end of her leash.
It was tall and thin—taller than him, he was certain—with a skeletal frame and odd, bony protuberances extending from the ridge of its spine. Its skin was a pale, ghostly white and it didn’t appear to have any eyes at all—just a round, bulbous head with a mouth full of long, needle-like teeth.
The teeth were only partially hidden behind a tytano-frame muzzle and its freakishly long arms were strapped to its sides as well. This kept its long fingered hands, all tipped with deadly looking claws, from reaching for anyone—though Thorn saw them opening and closing in frustrated fists, as though the creature was angry at its forced captivity.
“What is that thing?” he asked again, “It doesn’t look very fucking safe to bring into a crowded club—that’s for damn sure.”
Neh’sa’s dark eyes were wide and she shook her head uncertainly.
“I’m not sure what it is.”
“Well can she bring it into the club with her?” Thorn demanded. “The bouncers aren’t going to allow that, are they? If that thing gets loose—”
“Unfortunately, as long as she has it properly restrained, she’s within her rights as a high-ranking Mistress to bring any kind of male body-slave with her she wants—even into public places.”
Neh’sa didn’t sound too happy about being in close proximity to the strange white, bony beast with its needle sharp teeth and clawed hands and Thorn didn’t blame her one damn bit. He was doubly glad he’d insisted on coming with her tonight.
“Well, it’s definitely male,” he growled. For between the strange creature’s legs rose a long phallus, shaded a dull, angry red and roped with veins. At the base of it, a thick black band was placed to constrict around the creature’s member and keep it erect.
Thorn knew he himself would have to wear something similar tonight. In fact, Neh’sa had it with her in the small, beaded purse she carried which matched the gorgeous blue and green and turquoise sequined gown she wore. It was called an “everlast constrictor,” but she had declined to put it on him back at her domicile.
“I’ll put it on you in the readiness room at the club. You shouldn’t have to wear it too long,” she told Thorn as she was dressing for the club earlier that evening. “Just during the banquet and the announcement and naming of the new member of the Sacred Seven.”
Thorn’s ears had pricked up at that.
“The Sacred Seven?” he asked carefully, trying to sound casual. “Who are they?”
“The keepers of the Library of All Knowledge,” Neh’sa told him. “It’s a vast repository of learning located on Villala—the smallest of Yonnie Six’s moons. I am one of the Sacred Seven myself, which is why I cannot miss tonight’s banquet.”
“So what are your duties—as one of the, uh, Sacred Seven?” he asked with studied off-handedness. “Do you have to go in and look around every once in a while—make sure the place is being run right?”
“Oh, it’s not a library that’s open to the public.” Neh’sa had sounded shocked at the idea. “Only the Yonnite Council of Mistresses can visit it—along with any female scholars who have applied for entrance that they deem worthy. In fact, for most of the time it’s locked tight and no one can get in or out without the retinal scan and fingerprint of one of the Sacred Seven.”
This was news to Thorn, who hadn’t been able to find out exactly how to access the library. He’d had an idea that maybe Neh’sa had a key of some kind which had been entrusted to her as one of the Sacred Seven. But now she was telling him her key was her body.
It gave him a very uncomfortable feeling to realize that in order to get into the library, he would have to force her to let him in. It would have been so much easier if she had a key or some other opening device he could steal and use on the day of the Ceremony he knew was coming up at the Library itself…
However, now wasn’t the time to think about that, Thorn told himself. Tonight he had to concentrate on keeping Neh’sa safe during the banquet—while parading around with his cock out and hard.
Gods, this planet was so thoroughly fucked up.
“Well, it looks like the guards are allowing Lady Wraith’neck’s new slave to accompany her.” Neh’sa sighed. “Get ready, Thorn—we’re up next. We’ll go straight into the club to the readiness room to put on your everlast.”
“Yes, Mistress.” He watched with a frown as Lady Wraith’neck tugged on what was obviously a reinforced leash to force the tall, bony white creature to follow her, hissing and spitting, into the club. And then Neh’sa’s hover coach moved into position and the door whooshed open.
“Come, Thorn.” Neh’sa slid from the coach and straightened her dress, which fell like a waterfall of blues and greens, clinging lovingly to her full curves and outlining her lush ass.
Thorn couldn’t help staring at her as she moved. The dress, which she wore with ease, seemed designed to torment him even as it showed off her assets to perfection.
The front of it had a low, rounded neckline which bared her breasts, though the tips of her nipples were hidden with fingernail-sized golden modesty patches which didn’t extend far enough to hide the dark pink circles of her areolas. The bottom of the dress was cut to match, clearly revealing tiny golden panties which were no more than a series of triangles arranged in an artful pattern which hid her pussy lips while leaving her slit in the center bare.
Thorn had to admit he was looking forward to the moment of Neh’sa’s announcement into the banquet for then he would be allowed to kneel before her and kiss those tiny panties…and maybe more.
Gods, he really shouldn’t have let himself go down on her last night! It had awakened all kinds of instincts in him—instincts that were purely male and in no way rational.
The Kindred part of him was telling him that he was already halfway to claiming Neh’sa since tasting was usually a part of the Claiming Period most warriors went through with their mates. The Enfuego part was insisting that he keep her locked up somewhere no other male could steal her. Just the thought of anyone else being near to his Mistress made the fire inside him rise, which was going to be a problem if any other male got too
close.
Keep it together, he lectured himself sternly. You went almost twenty cycles without a flame-up so you can go another two hours, no matter how crowded it is in that Goddess-damned club.
But his self control, once as hard as rock and as cold as ice, had been eroded little by little by Neh’sa’s training. From her first touch his control had started crumbling until he wasn’t sure what might happen if she was threatened in any way.
I’ll be fine, he told himself uneasily. I have to be.
And he followed Neh’sa through the vast double doors, painted the color of dried blood, into the club.
Chapter Eighteen
Inside it was dim and cloudy and fluorescent lights strobed to the heavy drumming beat of bone-jarring music. There were bodies gyrating on a dance floor which seemed to be made entirely of clear green glass bricks. Tiny holes in some of the bricks periodically shot out powerful jets of air. Every once in a while one of the dancers—most of them Mistresses but also some body-slaves as well—would be lofted ten feet in the air via the air jets and blown into a heavy-duty net positioned at the far end of the room.
Shrieks of laughter and shouts of rage greeted the results of each new blast of air but always the Mistress or slave who had been carried away simply struggled out of the net and went on dancing. Thorn thought some of them looked almost manic, their eyes so wide you could see the whites all the way around and their mouths grimacing with frantic glee.
“Watch out, we need to stay off the dance floor,” Neh’sa spoke in his ear, rather louder than usual to make herself heard. “They’re using spiked dream gas in the blowers. It heightens sensations but it also kills your reality perception. We don’t need to be drugged at the banquet.”
Thorn had to agree with that. They needed to stay sharp to get through tonight—especially with Lady Wraith’neck and her bizarre pet in attendance.
Instead of turning into the main room, they threaded their way down a narrow corridor which housed freshers—a grand one with marble and gold fixtures for the Mistresses and a much smaller and plainer one for the body-slaves—as well as a few other dark rooms.
Some of these rooms had the same gear Neh’sa had in her training area at home—agony crosses to tie a submissive to, whips, canes, paddles, spanking benches…but there were also new pieces of equipment Thorn hadn’t seen before.
In one room he saw a submissive male crouching in a spiked cage with the spikes facing inward. When his Mistress threw a handle on the side of the cage, one wall of spikes slowly inched inward, forcing the hapless slave to skitter to the other side of his iron prison while trying to keep away from the spikes which stuck out from that wall.
It was clear to Thorn that the slave would eventually lose this contest. Hopefully he would only be scratched when the spikes inevitably touched his skin. But if his Mistress was a sadist, well…there were some dark marks on the floor beneath the spiked cage that looked an awful lot like blood.
In another room they passed, Thorn saw a male body-slave bent over a spanking bench with his legs chained wide apart. His Mistress was in the act of inserting a long, thick phallus with painful looking metal knobs imbedded in its surface. Protruding from the end was a series of feathered plumes like a bird’s tail.
To Thorn’s surprise, he recognized the body-slave—it was the male with long, luxurious black hair who had been on display beside him at the auction almost a week ago. The male who had admitted he wanted to submit to a stern Yonnite Mistress.
Thorn wondered how much he was enjoying his submission now.
“Now hold still, Yarks,” the Mistress was telling her slave as she worked to press the thick, metal studded phallus into his nether entrance. “This is just the thing to wear to the banquet tonight. All the other Mistresses will be so jealous.”
“But Mistress, I’ve never had anything so large in me before,” the male protested. He jerked his head so that his long hair wouldn’t hide his face and stared over his shoulder at her appealingly. “Please, Mistress! Perhaps a smaller tail—”
“Shush!” Absently, his Mistress pressed a small silver remote which was attached to her wrist with a slender black cord.
The body-slave gasped and every muscle in his body went tense and jerked in a kind of seizure for a moment.
It was clear to Thorn that his Mistress had activated his pain collar and sent a jolt of agonizing pain through him for daring to disagree with her.
At last he went limp and lay panting over the spanking bench once more.
“Now then, Yarks—who is in charge of which kind of tail you wear tonight?”
“Y-you are, M-m-Mistress,” the body-slave gasped.
“Good. Now that’s established, hold still so I can put this in you. The banquet is about to start and I don’t want to be the last one announced.”
She went back to screwing the metal-studded phallus into her hapless slave’s ass while he bit his lip, clearly trying not to cry out.
“Thorn, come.”
Neh’sa’s voice jerked him out of his contemplation of the scene in the small dark room. Thorn realized he had gotten caught up in watching and hadn’t kept up with his Mistress’s step.
“Forgive me, Mistress.” He strode forward, cursing himself for a fool. He couldn’t let himself get distracted like that—especially when he was here to protect Neh’sa from all the freaks in this place.
“Got caught up in watching a tail insertion, did you?” Her dark eyes danced just a bit as she regarded him.
“I knew that male. He was right beside me at the auction,” Thorn said, not answering her remark about the “tail insertion.”
Neh’sa shook her head. “A pity for him he was bought by Mistress Hell’waist then. She cares for nothing but appearances and doesn’t give a damn if she has to hurt her body-slaves to achieve the desired ‘look’.”
“Why aren’t you making me wear a tail?” The words burst from Thorn’s lips before he could stop them.
Neh’sa arched one perfectly shaped brow at him.
“Do you want to wear a tail?”
Thorn scowled. “You know I don’t.”
“But you would if I wanted you to.” Her voice grew softer. “Which is one reason I won’t ask it of you. Your willingness to serve and submit is enough for me, Thorn—I don’t need physical proof of it. Besides,” she added, reaching up to stroke his cheek, “you had enough trouble with the silver wand I used on you and that was only inside you for a few minutes. I don’t think you’re ready for prolonged penetration yet.”
Prolonged penetration. The thought sent a cold shiver down Thorn’s spine. Gods, no matter how pleasurable it was when Neh’sa penetrated him, he still didn’t think he could ever imagine himself asking for it.
“What is this place, anyway?” he demanded gruffly as they continued down the long, dim corridor. “I thought this was a club, not a Goddess-damned torture chamber.”
“These are just play rooms where Mistresses can try out new and exotic equipment they don’t have at home,” Neh’sa explained. “They—”
But just then a door on their left swung open, revealing a scene that hit Thorn like a blow to the gut.
A body-slave about his age was chained to an agony cross, his arms and legs manacled to the four corners of the X shaped equipment. Behind him was a Mistress holding a whip. But not just any whip—the end of this whip hissed and sparked, tongues of flame licking along its long, snakelike surface.
Thorn bit back a curse. A fire whip—they had a fucking fire whip here!
As he watched, the Mistress flicked the whip with an expert motion of her wrist, causing the end of the fiery lash to lick across the broad, bare expanse of her slave’s back.
The slave howled in agony and a bright red burn mark appeared between his shoulder blades. The Mistress drew back her arm again, a cruel smirk twisting her red lips. Clearly she was just getting started.
“Gods,” Thorn whispered hoarsely. Because of his Enfuego nature and the fire
inside him, outer burns were somehow much more difficult to bear than almost any other injury. The pain of his own whipping when he’d been tortured during a past mission came back to him tenfold.
The crackling flames… the hiss of the whip… the faint stench of scorched flesh…the agonizing burn as the lash licks my skin again and again…each blow as painful as a lightning strike…
“Oh Thorn, I’m sorry!” Neh’sa put a small hand on his arm to urge him along the corridor.
But for a moment, Thorn felt frozen in place. He literally couldn’t move—he was too mired in the past. Too stuck in the labyrinth of his own brain.
The whipping was horrible but it was no more than I deserved. A payment for the sins of my past. The last time the fire got loose in me, the last time it overflowed…
“Come,” Neh’sa urged him again. Maybe it was her soft hand on his arm or the loving concern he heard in her voice but finally Thorn found his way out of himself and turned away from the room where the fire whip was being wielded.
“I’m…sorry,” he said haltingly, his voice sounding hoarse and strange in his own ears. “I didn’t mean to—”
“I’m the one who should apologize,” Neh’sa said. “I knew they had fire whips here but I never dreamed we’d run across someone actually using one. They’re such a sadistic form of punishment. Almost as bad as a branding iron!”
“Which they also have here, I’m guessing?” Thorn said dryly, beginning to recover his composure.
“Well…yes.” Neh’sa sighed. “Of course, some submissives enjoy such extreme punishments. But they aren’t the only ones who get whipped and branded, unfortunately. There are many, many unwilling participants in Yonnite society. We have a very…unequal distribution of power and wealth.”
Her words surprised Thorn.
“Would you have it otherwise?” he asked, frowning.
“Yes. Does that surprise you?” She looked up at him.
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