Mastered By Love

by Tori Minard

  The sound froze his heart. God, if he lost her ....He couldn’t lose her, couldn’t bear it. He loved her.

  “Tariza!” He couldn’t see her in the darkness. He reached out into the pit that the carriage had become, reaching down, his fingers outstretched, trying to feel her so he could get a grip on her and pull her up.

  “Freeze!” a feminine voice shouted. “Come out of the carriage with your hands up.”

  She sounded just like a character in some Galactic adventure vid. Galactic Peacemakers or some such garbage. Where had they come from?

  They could only be Concordians, or agents for Concordia at any rate. They must be looking to take back their princess.

  “She’s trapped under the carriage,” he shouted.

  “Come out of there or we’ll shoot! We are armed with needlers and we won’t hesitate to shoot you.”

  They were wasting precious time that Tariza could ill afford. But if they shot him with needlers, he’d die and then he’d be of no use to her. Cursing under his breath, he unlatched the door and shoved his way through. All its weight hung down on him because of the carriage’s position on its side.

  “Don’t shoot. I’m coming out,” he said as he pushed it open like a hatch.

  He clambered from the vehicle and dropped to the snowy street. The carriage wheels had wedged against the stone wall of the nearest building, but the narrowness of the street hadn’t stopped the thing from falling on Tariza. God! She was under that thing, pinned, with a head injury and God only knew what else.

  Two of the armed women – Concordians, surely – rushed forward with the nasty muzzles of their needlers pointed right at his chest. “Don’t move,” one of them said.

  A third woman grabbed him by the arm and spun him around. She yanked his wrists behind him and locked a pair of handcuffs on him. “Get in the car.”

  “Tariza is trapped under the carriage. You have to help her.”

  “Shut up.” The woman elbowed him sharply in the back. “In the car, Saturnios.”

  He looked into the eyes of one of her compatriots. “She’s hurt. Don’t you want to help her?”

  “We don’t need instruction from you, male. Now shut it or I’ll shoot you just for fun.”

  Her mouth was covered by the muffler she wore, but he could hear the sneer in her voice clearly enough.

  He broke into a cold sweat under his clothing. What if Tariza was dead? What if her spine or legs were crushed beneath the weight of the carriage or her head had knocked against the wall of the building? She could be dying and these crazy bitches didn’t seem to care. How could they not care?

  “Her Majesty wants this one alive,” said the woman behind him.

  Shit. If he’d known that, he would have defied them and done what he pleased. He wrenched his arms, twisting, trying to pull out of their grip, but they were strong. Especially for women.

  Something hard and heavy cracked against the back of his skull and he pitched forward to the snow.

  Chapter 19

  He was cold. Dario groaned at the vicious ache in his head. He pried sticky eyelids open and peered into the darkness surrounding him. Where was he? Windowless stone walls were barely visible in the dim glow of a distant lamp. A prison?

  Cold, dry stone met his bare skin. They’d taken his clothes. He lay on his side, his hands still cuffed behind him, the arm beneath him numb from the pressure of his body weight.

  “Tariza,” he said in a raspy whisper.

  Nearby, a chair scraped against the stone floor. The light swung closer, glaring in his eyes. Booted feet strode toward him.

  “So, the creature awakes,” an amused female voice said.

  He squinted into the light. All he could see of the woman was her feet and legs, clad in tall black leather boots. “Take me to Princess Tariza. Where is she?”

  “Where you will never be able to hurt her again.”

  He lifted his head. “She’s alive?”

  The woman snorted. “Of course she’s alive. Did you think we’d hurt our own princess?”

  Thank God. She was still alive. He hadn’t killed her.

  “Take me to her.”

  The woman – his jailer? – laughed. “She doesn’t want to see you, worm. She never wants to hear your name spoken as long as she lives.”

  Pain speared him in his heart, in his gut. He couldn’t breathe for it. She didn’t want him. He subsided, laying his cheek against the filthy stone floor. Tariza didn’t want him.

  The jailer poked him with a toe. “The only reason you’re still alive is the queen wants to take out everything you did to the princess on your skin. Lucky you.” She laughed again.

  “He’s awake?” a second voice, also female, said.

  “Yes. He demands to see Princess Tariza.”

  Both of them laughed.

  “He’s just as stupid as the rest of them,” the second voice said. “Doesn’t even know when he’s been beaten.”

  “He’ll know he’s been beaten soon enough. Let’s get him on his feet.”

  The woman in the black boots never touched him, yet she somehow forced him up using pressure on his wrist shackles.

  There were only two of them, and both were smaller than he by a significant margin. Dario lashed out with his bare foot, catching the second woman in her gut. She doubled over with a grunt.

  He fell forward, using his body weight to drag whatever it was the guard used to control him out of her tiny female hands. Only she didn’t let go. With a shout, she bore down on his wrists, yanking his arms backward.

  The other guard sprang back to her feet, panting but unbowed. She pulled a whip from a loop on her belt and cracked it right in front of his face. He couldn’t help recoiling.

  The guard lashed him across the back. She must have narrowly missed her comrade, but the other guard made no complaint. Instead, she cranked his wrists higher behind his back, wrenching his arms in their sockets. He ground his teeth together against the pain.

  “Get up,” the second woman said.

  Dario struggled to get his feet underneath him. They were shackled, the cuffs connected by a heavy chain. He got to his knees and staggered upright, the chain clanking. Now that he was standing, he could see a door leading out of the cell into a corridor with identical stone walls.

  “Fight us again and we’ll beat you until you can’t move.”

  “What are you going to do with me?”

  She grinned. “You’re about to find out. I wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise.”

  They’d probably torture him for information. He wouldn’t talk, no matter what they did to him. He’d never talk.

  “Move.” Black Boots shoved him in the back with some kind of stick.

  He stumbled toward the door.

  They seemed to have a rod attached to his handcuffs. The black-booted woman used this to guide him, or rather to control him. In addition, his feet were not only chained together, they were also chained to his hands. He barely had enough length in the chain to take a short stride. Not enough to run; not enough to escape. He’d been a fool to try.

  She forced him down the corridor to a narrow staircase leading upward. At a landing above them, a third woman with black hair tightly bound in a single braid stood holding a whip in her hand.

  She grinned down at them. “Sleeping Beauty woke up.”

  “He has an audience with the queen.”

  Black-hair turned her back on him and led the way to the top of the stairs. Her hips, tightly encased in black leather trousers, swayed provocatively with every step. She had a fine ass; a fine body in general. Before Tariza, she would have aroused him. Now, he couldn’t have cared less.

  The stairs gave onto a broad hall that reminded him of the one at home in Saturnios House. Women in similar trousers and boots, masculine jackets over all, turned and stared as his captors escorted him into the chamber. They glared at him, their expressions rife with hatred and contempt. Some of them spat at him.

  And there w
ere men, or at least males. Most wore short tunics in deference to the winter cold, with half-boots on their feet and thick leather collars on their necks. They knelt at the feet of some of the women, their heads down in submission. Some of them sent furtive glances his way as he passed them.

  Their faces were as full of hatred as the women’s.

  Dario kept his head high, his face impassive. In this strange place, he was the foreigner, the alien, although their ways made his stomach turn. Men should not be cast down. They shouldn’t bow their heads and cringe before their women.

  Why did the Concordian men hate him? Was it loyalty to the princess and anger over his supposed crimes against her, or would they hate any Saturnian man?

  He puzzled over their odd reaction to him as his guards pushed him onward, all the way across the echoing space to a large carved door at the other end. Two women in the blue and gold colors of Concordia stood there, one on either side. They wore swords on their hips.

  “Saturnios?” one of them said.

  “The very same,” Black-hair replied.

  “She’s been waiting.” The guard opened the door.

  This new room must be the throne room or audience chamber. It was much smaller, with walls painted blue spangled with gold stars. At the far end, a blonde who looked like an older version of Tariza occupied a golden throne. He remembered her from the conferences earlier that year; she looked much more imposing here than she had in the Bellerenic embassy. More women, mostly dressed in leather and wool, lined the room on one side, leaving the other wall empty.

  The assembled women muttered to each other as the guards brought him before the throne.

  “Dario Saturnios, Your Majesty,” Black-hair said. The others fell silent.

  “I see that. Thank you, Rosaria.”

  Rosaria bowed.

  The queen fixed a stern gaze on him. “You stole my daughter.”

  He met her gaze without flinching. “I did.”

  “You will begin to pay for that now.” She looked over his shoulder and tilted her head toward the left side of the room. “Go ahead.”

  The woman behind him gave him a shove toward that side of the room. A large metal loop stuck out of the wall, right from the center of one of the painted stars. Rosaria stepped up, uncoiling another length of chain from a loop on her belt. She clipped one end of it to his collar and the other to the loop in the wall.

  “Let’s get his hands up there, too,” said the woman behind him.

  Her slim fingers brushed against his wrists as she unlocked his handcuffs. Rosaria caught his right wrist, yanking it over his head, while the other woman took his left. They lifted his arms up and attached them to a couple of links at the top of the chain. They were well-coordinated with each other and knew just how to manage someone as big and muscular as him; obviously they’d done this before many times.

  Rosaria leaned toward him and grabbed his cock, fondling him rudely. “Two stripes for every one the princess received,” she whispered in his ear.

  She walked around behind him. A crack split the air. Dario forced himself to keep still, to show no reaction. She was only trying to spook him.

  The second crack landed on his skin. Searing pain. He gritted his teeth. Another crack and another. The women behind him clapped.

  “Saturnian dog!”

  “Beg for mercy!”

  He flushed with humiliation. Damn them. No-one clapped or shouted when the king beat Tariza. No-one but he and the guards had witnessed it.

  Rosaria laid down another blistering series of strikes. His skin burned and he flinched each time the whip touched him. It was weak of him, but he couldn’t control the unconscious movement of his body as it writhed under the lash.

  His breath sawed in and out so harshly he was sure all the observers in the room could hear it. Sweat rolled down his forehead and dripped in his eyes, making them sting. The next strike forced an agonized hiss from between his lips.

  “That’s the total, Your Majesty,” Rosaria said.

  “Continue until he screams.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  He’d never felt pain like this. His entire back was on fire. Hot liquid ran in rivers down his skin – blood and sweat, or maybe just blood. He didn’t know. He couldn’t think. The fire had entered his brain, wiped all thought from his mind, erased everything into a white haze.

  Something cold and wet splashed against him, bringing worse fire that burned all the way to the bone. He heard a voice shouting, screaming hoarsely, and realized it was him. The women broke into grim applause and shouts of derision.

  “Enough,” the queen said. “Take him down and let him rest for the next round.”

  They unlinked his arms. He could hardly feel them; all the blood had left them and they were numb. His knees buckled. The women caught him, one on either side and supported him out of the chamber.

  He stumbled forward in a blur of pain. His back seemed to burn all the way through to the other side of his body. Around him, crowds of people yelled taunts. He couldn’t understand their words, could only hear the noise of their shouting.

  He and the two guards descended into the cold prison once again. His feet were wet. It made the stone floor feel like ice.

  The woman in black boots who’d been there when he’d awakened was sitting in a chair outside his cell. She jumped to her feet as they approached.

  “He looks ruined.”

  “He’ll survive,” Rosaria said. “That salt water should keep out infection.”

  She and the other threw him into his cell. He staggered forward until he lost his balance and crashed to his knees. The door clanged shut behind him.

  “I could use a drink,” said the guard who’d pushed him up the stairs. She laughed. “Who’s with me?”

  “I’m still on duty,” Rosaria said.

  “Maybe we’ll bring you something later.”

  Two sets of booted feet clumped down the corridor, away from him. He lay, shivering, on the stone in a pool of his own blood and the salt water they’d thrown on his ravaged back. They hadn’t even asked him any questions.

  The door squealed as it opened again, light flooding the tiny room. Booted feet appeared in his visual field. Rosaria threw a thin pallet on the floor next to the opposite wall.

  “Get on the bed.”

  He groaned, forced himself to his hands and knees. Crawled to the pallet.

  “Stay like that,” she said.

  The sound of a jar opening. A dry towel blotted him. Cool fingers spread salve over his injuries, making them burn all over again. Dario hissed, trying not to flinch. After a torturous few minutes, the jailer wrapped linen strips around him, binding his wounds.

  “Lay on your belly now,” she said.

  He obeyed, mostly because he didn’t have the strength to stay on his hands and knees anymore. The pallet smelled musty, but it was better than the stone.

  She left for a moment. When she returned, she spread a scratchy blanket over him. A peculiar sense of gratitude flooded him, making him wish he could see her face. She was kind.

  “Thank you,” he said roughly.

  “It’s my job to keep you alive long enough to bear the punishment.” Her voice was cold and distant. “That’s all. I don’t want your thanks.”

  She picked up her lamp and left him in the icy darkness.

  Chapter 20

  Mateo got no sleep the night that Dario and Tariza left Saturnios. The prince and his Concordian slave were discovered missing and the Concordian was blamed. This in spite of the fact they’d taken a carriage from the stables, something Tariza could never have accomplished without Dario’s help.

  Now Mateo stood at his bedroom window, staring out at the furiously falling snow and thanking God for it. Their tracks would be covered, assuming they’d gotten far enough quickly enough. With any luck, they’d made it to a safe place where they could wait out the storm. He assumed that afterward they’d leave Saturnios and never return.

&nbs
p; He didn’t understand Dario’s choosing a Concordian slave over his family responsibilities and their uncle, but Mateo would always side with Dario. Always. They were brothers and that meant more to him than any other relationship in his life. And now he had an unpleasant task to take care of.

  A soft scratch at the door announced Lola’s arrival.

  “Enter,” he said.

  She came in and shut the door quietly, a satisfied smile playing over her lips. Although her posture was every bit as submissive as it should be, her face looked distinctly self-satisfied. She padded toward him on bare feet and sank to her knees before him, her red patent leather harness glistening in the cool winter light from the windows.

  “Master, what is your desire?”

  “Rise and look at me.”

  She lifted her head, a startled gesture. “Master?”

  “You heard me. Get up.”

  Lola rose gracefully to her feet. Her gaze flickered nervously to his face and away, over the room’s furniture and floor. “Is something wrong, Master?”

  Her voice came out all soft and whispery, like a dream of feminine submission. Something told him the submission was faked.

  “Did you enter Prince Dario’s chambers last evening and attack his slave in the bathtub?” He put every ounce of stern reprimand he could muster into his voice.

  Blue eyes widened. “Master, I would never –”

  “Lola. Do not lie to me. If you do and I discover it, your punishment will be twice as severe. I’ve already interviewed your accomplices.” Not true, but she wouldn’t know.

  She paled. “We didn’t – that is, I didn’t mean –”

  “She has a concussion, Lola. People die from concussions.”

  Lola’s lower lip trembled.

  “Did you or did you not attack Tariza?”

  She took a ragged breath. “I hate her, Master. She thinks she’s so much better than the rest of us and she isn’t. She isn’t! She doesn’t even know how to act like a real woman. She thinks she’s a man.”

  He’d never even suspected this level of antagonism from submissive Lola. Had he really known her at all? He’d made use of her many times over the past couple of years and had always enjoyed it immensely. She was one of his favorites, and yet she had a side he’d never seen until now.