Mastered By Love

by Tori Minard

  Her head came up and she looked directly at him without thinking of the consequences. “I didn’t see it.”

  “I’ll show it to you when we get back. Now keep your gaze down.” He sounded more amused than angry.

  She ducked her head. “I’m sorry, Master.”

  Inwardly, she winced. Every time she repeated one of the formula speeches of a slave, it became easier. Soon she’d be rattling them off without thinking about it at all.

  When they reached the grand staircase, they encountered many more people, both men and women. Most of the women were nearly naked and barefoot. People of both genders stared openly at her as they passed. No doubt everyone knew who she was by now.

  Tariza pretended she didn’t see the looks she was getting. But she did. The men seemed to gloat and the women were openly hateful. The glares they gave her hurt almost as much as a slap to the face. She hadn’t expected that.

  No. You thought they would look up to you, see you as a hero. What a fool she was.

  Dario led her through some back corridors of the palace to a door that opened onto the vast courtyard through which they’d entered the night before. They crossed the cobblestoned space and entered the stables at the other side. The warm animal smell of horses, leather and straw filled her nostrils and made her smile.

  “I thought you might like to visit the horses,” he said.

  Her throat grew tight. She didn’t know whether to throw her arms around him or curse his name. He was trying to charm her, trying to wear down her defenses. Or was he trying to make her happy?

  She didn’t want to be happy here.

  ***

  They returned to Dario’s quarters late in the afternoon. He led her through the sitting room to a large desk in the corner. Bookcases flanked the piece and on the wall above hung a painting of a man and woman who looked very much like Dario.

  “Here it is,” he said. “My parents.”

  The man closely resembled Grasos, except without the cruel edge to his smile. His dark eyes, so like Dario’s, were kind. The woman kneeling at his feet wore a filmy gown of pale blue embroidered with silver thread. She stared out of the painting with a boldness Tariza had never seen in a slave. Her eyes were the same icy blue as Mateo’s, her hair nearly black.

  “You look like both of them,” she said.

  “My sister is nearly a replica of our mother.”

  She glanced up at him. “I didn’t know you had a sister.”

  “She lives on the other side of the city with her master.” Dario looked down at her. “He treasures her as my father treasured my mother.”

  “But she’s a slave, isn’t she?”

  “She is. Her master’s favorite.”

  “And your mother was your father’s favorite.” She, Tariza, would never be satisfied being merely a favorite.

  “She was the only woman for him. They were in love.”

  “Love,” she said softly. “I never believed in love.”

  “Have you never seen it?”

  “I’ve met a few women who claim to love one of their slaves.” None of them, to her knowledge, had commissioned a portrait of the male, however.

  “Why don’t you believe in it, then?”

  She tilted her head. “I suppose it seemed more like sexual obsession to me. And most of the love stories I heard came from male dominated cultures. I thought –” She stole another glance at him. “I thought it was a fairy tale meant to keep women docile.”

  To her surprise, he seemed to genuinely consider her words. “I don’t think it is. If anything, it sounds like a story women would tell to make men limit themselves to only one partner apiece.”

  She frowned. “Are you saying men are more naturally promiscuous than women?”

  “It’s what I’ve always believed.” He gave her a wry smile. “Do you disagree?”

  “Yes.”

  “On what grounds?”

  “For one thing, women are capable of multiple orgasms while men can have only one and then must rest. That tells me we women are made to enjoy several partners in a single encounter.”

  His brows climbed toward his hairline. “Really. Does that mean you’d be happier if I shared you with other men?”

  “No!” Her face heated. “It only works if the woman chooses freely.”

  “I see.” He grinned at her.

  “You’re teasing me.”

  “Maybe a little.”

  The grin brought out his dimples. He looked so charming, his eyes sparkling, that she couldn’t help smiling back at him. It was a strange relationship they had – talking, like friends, making love like master and slave, and it was leading her somewhere she couldn’t see.

  While she’d met women who claimed to love their slaves, she’d never observed any of them treating those slaves as equals. Not even for one conversation. Why was Dario doing this? Why did he speak to her this way?

  Her gaze faltered, breaking contact with his eyes as she looked down, flushing. They were both explorers in an unknown land. It was a place that sometimes frightened her.

  His fingers caught her chin, urging her to look upward. “Hey. What’s wrong?” he said in a low voice.

  “Nothing, Master.”

  “Tariza. You don’t have to call me Master here.”

  She frowned at him. “But you said –”

  “I know what I said. It just doesn’t feel right between us. Not here, when we’re alone.” He bent his head and touched his lips to hers. His hand rose to cup the side of her face. “You’re not just a slave to me.”

  Chapter 13

  Three months later:

  She awoke with her hands tied. When she lifted one to push the hair from her eyes, the other came with it. A band of red leather encircled each wrist, a thick steel ring connecting them. Tariza gave a start, tugging at the leather.

  Dario’s long fingers brushed slowly over first one band, then the other. He moved on to her arm, gliding up her naked skin to her shoulder, then down to her breast.

  “Good morning,” he murmured huskily.

  “I’m not sure it is.”

  A soft laugh escaped him. “It will be.”

  His big hand, warm and rough, cupped her breast, molding her, his thumb rubbing insistently across her nipple. This wasn’t so bad. She arched her back and moaned.

  “You like this.”

  “Mmmm.”

  He nuzzled the back of her neck. His teeth lightly scored her skin as his hand continued to play with her breast, as he pinched and released her nipple. She pushed her ass back against his body. His thick erection prodded her eagerly.

  “I can’t touch you,” she said in a plaintive tone.

  “I know.”

  “Don’t sound so pleased with yourself.”

  He laughed again. “This way I can do whatever I want with you and you can’t fight back.”

  Did she ever fight with him? No. But she didn’t argue as he turned her on her back and bent his head to suckle her. She spread her legs, and he settled between them with a sigh.

  She didn’t argue when he slipped down to taste her pussy, either. The hot, liquid delight of his tongue on her was nothing to complain about.

  Then he flipped her onto her belly and she pushed up on her elbows. “Hey.”

  “That’s right. I want you on your knees.”

  “No.” Tariza tried to roll to the side. “Not like that.”

  “Yes.”

  “No, Dario. I don’t like it.” Sex from behind scared her.

  “Who’s the master here? And you loved it the last time.” He shoved her thighs apart and buried his tongue in her again.

  Tariza moaned.

  He paused in his attentions. “You know I’d never hurt you.”

  “It’s too ...”

  “Male dominant?”

  She flushed, hiding her face in the covers. “Yes.”

  “Tariza.” He bent over her, his body encasing hers. “I’m your master. I want to fuck you from behind and
I’m going to do just that.”

  His fingers found her vagina, teasing, dipping inside, plunging. She gasped into the covers. Her fingers curled and dug in, fighting against the monstrous pleasure.

  The ecstasy was too much for her. She couldn’t fight it, could only scream and moan as he worked his fingers inside her body. His lips traced a random pattern on her back, soft and warm.

  There was some reason she shouldn’t enjoy this, but she didn’t care anymore what it was. “Please,” she moaned.

  He kissed the back of her thigh. “Please, what, little slave?”

  “Please fuck me, Master.”

  He entered her slowly, ever so slowly, his heavy cock burrowing its way into her sheath, the gradual stretching exquisite even in this humiliating position.

  His breath came out in a long, low moan. “Yes. Oh, Tariza, yes.”

  She lifted her hips to him, pushing back against his penetration with a whimper of pleasure.

  Dario groaned. He stroked the side of her body from hip to rib cage, cupping a breast with a tenderness that made her throat hurt. “So beautiful.”

  “Please –” she whispered.

  He pinched and rolled her nipple, drawing a sharp little cry from her. She wanted him so much, needed him, ached for him, and he wasn’t giving her what she needed. He wasn’t giving her the raw fucking she wanted. Why wasn’t he pounding her yet?

  Dario withdrew and then sank back into her in just the same leisurely fashion as the first stroke, another low moan issuing from his throat.

  “Please, Master Dario, please.” Tariza shoved her hips back against him.

  He gave a low laugh. “We’ll get there, sweet.”

  She attempted to fuck him by planting her elbows firmly in the bed and bucking her pelvis against his. He gave another laugh as he gripped her more tightly, holding her still for his domination.

  “Not yet.” His voice was hoarse.

  “Now. Please.”

  Dario gave her another long, slow glide of a stroke. “Like this.”

  She moaned. Her fingers dug into the bedding. He filled her so perfectly, hitting every sensitive spot in her cunt, including one so far inside her it seemed to reside beneath her heart.

  “Tell me how it feels.” He gave her another. “When I do this.”

  “Deep,” she whimpered.

  He did it again.

  “Oh, Goddess, so deep. So good!”

  “So good,” he moaned, rocking his hips. “So hot and tight ... on my cock ... perfect.”

  His words set off an answering tremor within her, glorious spasms that made her eyes roll back and her voice cry out. Her hips undulated against him, shamelessly begging for more.

  He surged into her, sending a bright shock of pleasure through her cunt and into her womb. Tariza cried out. He did it again. Her fingers dug hard into the bed covers.

  Dario groaned as he settled in to a steady rhythm of thrust and retreat.

  She tilted her head back, moaning, “yes, yes,” and forced herself back on him, impaling herself on each stroke.

  His grip tightened on her hips. She loved it, loved the force of his pounding, loved the hoarse, rough sound of his breath as he fucked her, fucked her as if fucking her were the only thing in life worth doing.

  Ecstasy bloomed in her like a great starburst, expanding outward to encompass all of her body. All she could do was scream and wail under the beautiful onslaught of his sex.

  He made a strange kind of growling moan and jerked against her and flooded her with hot come. Tariza lifted her hips to receive it, to take everything he poured into her.

  They collapsed face down on the bed. Dario kept his weight off her by propping himself on his elbows, his hands pressed against the mattress on either side of her head. She couldn’t see his face, couldn’t kiss him although she wanted to devour him. She turned her head and pressed her lips fervently to the big, rough hands that had loved her so fiercely, so tenderly.

  “Sweet girl,” he murmured, nuzzling her cheek. “Sweet, darling girl. You please me so greatly. I don’t have words.”

  Then the tears began. Tariza ducked her head so he wouldn’t see, but he was too quick for her. He brushed the hair back from her face and rubbed his fingertips through the hot, betraying moisture on her cheeks.

  “Don’t cry.” He kissed her. “Please don’t cry.”

  That only made her cry more, of course. She didn’t want to. It was upsetting him and that was the last thing she wanted to do. She kissed his hands as she cried, trying to tell him without words how she felt about him because she couldn’t say it out loud.

  Dario pulled out of her, rolled to his side, drew her against his warm, hard body. He ran his fingers through her hair, crooning to her, and she let him. She wrapped her arms tightly around his waist and held on, loving him, loving him and unable to say the words.

  “Sweetheart, what is it? Did I hurt you?” His voice rumbled in her ear.

  “N-no. Of course not.”

  “Then what?”

  “I don’t know. I’m s-sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry, love.”

  He said such wonderful things sometimes. She wished he would say them all again, over and over again, just so she could listen to the sound of his deep, beloved voice saying those words. Love. Sweet. Darling. The words she couldn’t say.

  ***

  Dario lay with his eyes half-closed, his body limp and glowing in the aftermath of morning sex. Tariza snuggled against his side and he put his arm around her, holding her close. This was what he’d wanted, ever since he’d first seen her. Not merely her subjection, but her arms around him, her naked body pressed to his.

  They’d grown close over the last three months, closer than he’d ever imagined possible. He no longer required her to address him as Master unless they were in company, and she freely met his gaze when they talked between themselves. In public, she was the docile and obedient slave, but in private she was simply Tariza, and he liked it that way.

  They could talk about almost anything. They shared music, often playing together. Tariza was a first-rate musician. They’d even composed a couple of songs together. She was more than a lover; she was a friend. He’d never had a lover who was also a friend.

  Her lips made a trail of kisses across his chest. He ran his fingers through her hair. If they could hide out here and avoid the rest of the court, that would be his idea of a perfect day. Unfortunately, judging by the sounds in the corridor and outside, the Bellerenic ambassador had arrived and there would be no more hiding.

  “We have to get ready to appear in public,” he said lazily.

  “Why?”

  Dario chuckled. “You always ask why.”

  “Wouldn’t you?”

  “Yes. That’s why I put up with it.”

  “Is something special happening?”

  “The new ambassador from Belleren is arriving for a visit. In fact, I think he may be here already.”

  She lifted her head. “A Demon Kin.”

  “Yes.” He frowned at her. How prejudiced was she? After all, the Demon Kin had few women left in their society, and they’d never been a matriarchy. “Does that bother you?”

  “No. I find them intriguing. Besides, what does it matter? I’m just a slave.”

  “You’ll never be just a slave to me.”

  The quizzical look she gave him made him blush. And he hated to blush. He covered his confusion and embarrassment by sitting abruptly and flinging the covers back. They didn’t have the time for pillow talk anyway.

  He led Tariza into the bathroom for another shower.

  “What’s his name?” she said.

  “You ask too many questions for a slave.” He opened the shower door and turned on the water.

  “I’m sorry,” she said in a subdued voice.

  Damn. He hadn’t meant to take out his discomfort on her.

  “Sam Envy,” he said.

  “What?”

  He turned back to her. �
�His name is Sam Envy.”

  Her brows rose. “Sam Envy? That’s a name?”

  “Yes. The Demon Kin often have names like that. It’s part of their supposed demonic heritage, I guess.”

  “Hmm. Well, I suppose it’s not as bizarre as Gluttony Black.” She smiled to herself.

  What was that all about?

  With a shake of his head, he returned to the shower and adjusted the temperature. “Get in.”

  Tariza gave him a sidelong glance from under her lashes. “Yes, Your Highness.”

  She walked past him into the enclosure, hips swaying enticingly. The vixen was teasing him. That was new, a side of her he hadn’t seen before. He followed her into the shower, smiling at her change of mood.

  ***

  King Grasos received the ambassador in the Saturnian throne room, a place Tariza hadn’t been allowed until today. It was a cavernous chamber with thick, dark beams on the ceiling and elaborately painted naturalistic designs on the plaster. It looked archaic even by Argelian standards.

  Dario led her to a spot just below the throne and bade her kneel at his feet. She threw down the pillow he’d given her, then sank to the floor. Keeping her head down, she studied the room and its inhabitants in furtive, sidelong glances.

  On the other side of the throne was Dario’s older brother, Mateo. Lola knelt beside him. She wore a snug but long-sleeved gown similar to Tariza’s. Lola gave her a simmering glare from beneath her lashes. Tariza met the look blandly before directing her attention somewhere else. She wasn’t going to play Lola’s pathetic “who’s the most loved slave” game.

  The roar of conversation died when guards at the doors announced Grasos’s arrival. Tariza kept her eyes trained on her knees as the king walked slowly toward his throne. She didn’t want to look at him. If she looked at him she wouldn’t be able to lock away the memories of his treatment of her.

  A naked female form crawled after him. The sight startled Tariza into looking up in time to watch the king’s emaciated Concordian slave follow him to the throne. She wore no clothing at all, even though icy drafts blew continually through the chamber. Goosebumps stood out all over her sickly-looking skin.