by Sara King
Dragomir glanced back at Victory. “I wasn’t sure I was, either.” When Victory looked away, he grunted. “Well, let’s go see the damage.” He started down a path that led from the village.
When the entire village tried to follow them, however, Thor rounded on them with a roar. “Get back to your own business,” he snapped. “Let the healer find his own way home, fools!”
People scattered like startled deer.
Once they were alone, Thor grunted with irritation. Gruffly, turning away from the departing crowd, he shook his head and said, “Like a damn wandering circus had come to town.”
“In a way, it did,” Dragomir chuckled, as they walked. They were following a dirt track out of the village, deeper into the valley beyond. They went at an easy pace, slow enough for Victory and her Praetorian to keep up, but Dragomir made no motions to free any of them of their restraints.
As they walked, Victory caught Thor eying the three of them. He grunted. “What do you plan to do with them, Drago?” His eyes stopped on Victory. “That one there looks like she’s gonna bolt for this hills, first chance she gets. We both know how long an Imperial would last up there in the snow…”
Dragomir glanced back at Victory, then shrugged. “Haven’t decided yet.”
Victory stumbled, so great was her shock. He hadn’t decided yet? She fell to her knees, glaring up at him.
Dragomir reached down and gently helped her back to her feet, then went on chatting with his brother as if nothing had happened. They talked about the weather, the house, the livestock, the news…
And all the while, the lump of dread was growing in the pit of Victory’s stomach.
About an hour later, they stopped at a crude wooden fence, where Dragomir paused to open the gate. “Let’s leave them here for a couple minutes,” he said. “Let them catch their breath. I’d like to walk around the property a bit. See what’s new.”
And then, to Victory’s horror, like they were no more than horses, he clipped their leashes out of reach around the crux of a heavy birch branch. Thor did the same. Then Dragomir turned his back to them and he and Thor walked on down the fence, chatting casually between themselves.
Once he was some distance away, Victory saw her Praetorian slip their keys into their palms and start working at the locks.
“Don’t,” Victory muttered, watching the Emp’s back disappear
“But milady!” Lion cried. “This is ludicrous. He hasn’t yet removed the shackles, and he has us strung up here like beasts of burden!”
“He’s keeping up the charade,” Victory said, praying that it was true. Her gut, however, was telling her otherwise. Every instinct was screaming at her to get free, to run, run, run, run.
“What if one of those villagers comes along and finds us like this?” Lion growled.
“We knew going into this that we’d have to trust him,” Victory managed. “So just calm down and let him chat with his brother.”
Muttering, Lion watched the line of the fence where the Emp had disappeared. “He has one hour,” she snarled. “If he’s not back by then, we’re taking you home, Princess.”
“Home?” Victory snorted. “I think my father made it clear that I don’t have one right now.”
“We’re taking you somewhere else,” Lion amended. “He has one hour.”
With the finality in the Praetorian’s words, Victory knew that an angry bear wouldn’t be able to stop her from carrying out her threat, if the Emp arrived a minute later.
“You ask for livestock and they give you slaves.” Thor shook his head, sounding mystified. “Don’t they realize that’s more mouths to feed?”
Dragomir shrugged, trying to decide how much to tell his brother, now that they were alone. “It’s the way the Imperium thinks. I suppose they were doing me a great honor, giving me their finest livestock.” He sighed and glanced back in the direction of the gate. “Now I just need to figure out what to do with them.”
“Don’t give them to the village,” Thor said. “We have a few thoughtless men who would enjoy breaking an Imperial.” He cocked his head, his blue eyes fixed on Dragomir. “But then, you already knew that. That’s why you gave one of them to me.”
“To look like I wasn’t being greedy,” Dragomir agreed. “Less chance there will be hard feelings if I’m not holed up on my farmstead with three beautiful women.”
“True enough,” Thor said. Then he slowed, watching him. “What are you not telling me?”
Dragomir took a deep breath. His younger brother had no love for the Imperium, but when asked a direct question, he found he couldn’t lie. He glanced over his shoulder at the tree where they’d left the women. “That green-eyed one is the Royal Princess and the evil-looking ones are two of her Praetorian. I’ve been asked to watch them for awhile.”
Thor’s eyes widened. “Asked by who?” And then, his voice rising, “Somehow, brother, I think you might be serious.”
“Dead serious,” Dragomir said. “There’s a power-play going on in the palace right now. She’s next in line for the throne, and her father has made several attempts on her life. She needs a place to lay low for a bit. Stay out of sight.”
Thor turned to stare in the direction of the gate, hidden behind a copse of trees. “You have a Royal Princess of the Imperium and two of her Praetorian strung up in a tree like slaves?”
“Thought it was fitting, didn’t you?” Dragomir said, grinning.
His brother stared at him like he’d gone mad. “And you somehow think you’re going to live through the next couple days?”
“They’ll be here a couple months, at least.” Dragomir eyed their backtrail thoughtfully. “If I were you, though, I wouldn’t release the Praetorian. I’ve seen what she can do, and you give her her hands or her feet and you’re going to be on your back in two seconds flat.”
“You’re insane, brother. We should turn them over to the rebels. We—”
Dragomir felt fury surge through him in a rush. He had lunged at his brother and slammed him into a tree before he could finish his sentence.
“Listen to me carefully,” Dragomir growled into his brother’s face. “We are being given an opportunity to change things here on Mercy. Her father has the power now, but she stands to inherit the throne from him.”
“What throne?” Thor roared. “What they’ve done is illegal! Mercy is an independent colony. They are invaders. You are helping the invaders.”
“Believe me,” Dragomir said, “She is a better alternative than her father. Can you think of another royal princess who would willingly put herself at her subjects’ mercy?”
“Then she’s insane as well as an outsider,” Thor growled.
Dragomir glared at his brother. “Mercy has tried war. We’ve tried war for forty years, and look where it’s gotten us.”
Scowling, Thor turned his head in silence.
“I think it’s time we tried something else, instead,” Dragomir said. “Don’t you?”
“You know I belong to the resistance,” Thor growled. “By all rights, I should report this.”
Dragomir shrugged. “If the resistance gets her, then it will only be more fuel for her father’s fire. He will use it to request more troops from the Imperium, and you certainly can’t use her as a bargaining chip. The Adjudicator’s wanted her dead since she came out of her mother’s womb ahead of her brother.”
Thor looked back at him, and Dragomir saw the desperation there. “Do you really think she can change things?” he asked softly.
“I do,” Dragomir said. “And before I send her back to represent Mercy to the Imperium, I’m going to do something that should be done to every ruler, before they are allowed to take the throne.
“What’s that?” Thor snorted, “Starve her, dress her in rags, make her work the fields, and show her what it’s like to be common?”
“I’m going to make sure all of her ramas are fully functioning,” Dragomir said. “The heart, especially.”
His brot
her’s eyes widened slightly. For a long moment, he said nothing, his breath caught in his throat. Then, softly, he whispered, “You just convinced me, brother.”
The Core Rama
Dragomir appeared around the copse of trees a good thirty minutes later, coming from the same direction he’d left.
“What do you think he told him?” Lion growled, obviously assuming the worst.
“He said he wanted to walk the grounds,” Victory said, but she wasn’t so sure. If he had walked the grounds, they had only seen a small portion of it.
When the two men neared, Victory thought she saw the brother’s eyes come to rest on her before they flickered away and he cleared his throat. “Well, I need to be getting back. Have to buy a sack of salt before heading out to the homestead.” Almost tentatively, the man reached up and unclipped Whip’s leash from the tree. To Dragomir, he said, “It’s good to have you home, brother.” He rested a hand on Dragomir’s shoulder. “If you need anything, let me know. I’ll keep the channel open.”
“Come over for dinner tomorrow,” Dragomir said, leaning his big body against the fence. “I should have settled in by then.” He looked at Victory and Lion and grinned, making the Praetorian bristle.
Grunting, Thor gave Whip one last frown, then gave a gentle tug on her collar and started back down the trail.
As Whip passed, Dragomir grabbed her by the wrist suddenly and pried one of her hands apart. Then he slapped her on the rump and shoved her after his brother, Whip gasping and suddenly looking very pale.
Did he just…? Victory thought, stunned.
“He just took her key,” Lion snarled. Already, the Praetorian was starting to work at her own shackles. Chuckling, Dragomir came up behind her and wrenched the key from her hands, as well. “You didn’t actually think I’d believe you’d leave yourselves completely at my mercy, did you, Praetorian?”
Lion bared her fangs at him, and probably would have sunk them into his flesh, had he not chuckled and backed away. Then, as Victory’s world started to crumble, he reached out and, holding Lion’s head steady with one hand, dipped his hand into the Praetorian’s shirt. He came back with a string of keys, which he snapped off of her neck with a tug.
“You are a dead man!” Lion snarled up at him.
“You know,” Dragomir said, “I think that’s one of the few times I haven’t needed an interpreter.” Smiling at Lion, he said, “Please inform your Praetorian that she will be civil or I will sell her to the village and use the money to feed my horse.”
Then, as Lion snarled curses, Dragomir stepped around Victory and touched her shackles.
Victory shuddered as she felt his big body move behind her. She was helpless. Just as she had been in that village, just as she had been for six years of her life, she was utterly helpless. Her eyes began to burn with tears. She dropped her head, waiting for the humiliation to end.
She felt a click in her wrist-shackles, then jerked her head around to stare as they fell to the ground. Behind her, the Emp squatted and began tinkering with her ankle-shackles. “You hold up okay, Princess?” he asked, releasing her feet. Then he stood, his blue eyes kind. “I was worried about you there for awhile.”
“What is that man doing with Whip?” Victory demanded, straightening.
The Emp raised a single ebony brow. “Whatever he wants with her, would be my guess.”
Victory felt a sickness crawl through her gut. She looked away. “Take this chain off of me.”
“Hmm,” Dragomir said. “How about no?” He unclasped the leash holding Lion to the tree and, carrying their leashes and both sets of shackles, started walking towards the small stone hut. Victory grabbed her chain and dug her bare feet into the soil, but she might as well have been fighting an Imperium freighter—all she succeeded in doing was scraping the skin of her heels.
“Let me go, you cad!” Victory shouted, as he dragged her to the house. “What are you doing?!”
He grinned at her. “Chaining you to my bed.”
Victory forgot how to speak. Her body went rigid, and she almost toppled to the ground as he continued tugging her along.
“What did he say?” Lion asked, watching the man with a deadly scowl. She looked somewhat mollified that he had released Victory’s hands, but not by much.
Victory was so shocked she found she couldn’t reply. She stumbled after him as he opened the rugged wooden door and pulled them inside.
The interior of the shack was depressingly small—perhaps only a thousand square feet—and smelled strongly of leather and wood-smoke. Dragomir took them to the middle of a dingy living-space no larger than several couch-widths, then he got up on a chair and clipped Lion to a rafter. “Stay there for a second,” he told the Praetorian. “I have to deal with your mistress.” Victory’s heart began to speed up when he started dragging her deeper into the house.
When she saw the bedroom, she balked. “You can’t be serious,” she snarled at him.
As if he hadn’t heard her, he pulled an extra padlock from his pants’ pocket and moved to wrap her chain around the heavy wooden frame of his bed.
Victory froze, every muscle going stiff, eyes on the padlock. “Where did you get that?” she asked.
“I stole it,” Dragomir said cheerfully. Then he snapped it into place around her chain and she was, quite thoroughly, chained to his bed. “Wait here while I make up a place for Lion to sleep, okay?”
“My brother will come looking for me!” Victory shrieked, yanking at the chain.
“And I intend to be finished with you by the time he does,” Dragomir said.
…Finished with her? Victory froze at that, a thousand different scenarios playing havoc with her mutated brain cells.
Then, leaving her with that ominous statement, he left her in the bedroom and retreated deeper into the house. Victory heard scuffling in the living-room, followed by Lion’s curses. Then, suddenly, a loud thump, followed by silence.
Oh my gods, Victory thought. She backed away from the sounds until she hit the length of her chain, then scrabbled along sideways until her back was against the wall.
The quiet coming from the other room was eerie. Victory strained to hear over the sound of her own heartbeat, desperate to know that her Praetorian was all right.
Then she heard footsteps in the hall, big and heavy. Victory cringed and started frantically jerking at her chain again, the memories rising around her in a flood of terror.
“Okay,” Dragomir said, as he stepped into the room. He smiled at her. “Finally. It’s just the two of us.” Seeing her huddled against the wall, he frowned.
“Please don’t hurt me,” Victory babbled. “I can pay…”
Growling, Dragomir strode across the room to her, plucked her off the floor, and deposited her in the bed as she flailed and screamed herself hoarse. He moved over her a horrible instant later. His heavy body pinning her beneath him, his blue eyes only inches from her own, he rumbled, “Just so we’re clear, Princess, if I’d wanted to hurt you, I would have done it a long time ago.”
Victory whimpered and started to hyperventilate, but suddenly a rush of golden energy drove the fear back home. “Now,” his husky voice said, against her neck, “Let’s think about this a moment, Princess.” He shifted above her, so that he was looking into her eyes. “We both agree I could take you at will right now, yes?”
Victory shuddered against the horror and squeezed her eyes shut.
“Look at me,” he commanded.
She shook her head, able to feel every inch of him above her, trapping her with his warm body.
“I can wait all day, Victory,” he said, his chest vibrating above her with his deep voice, much too close. Almost touching her face with his own, he whispered, “I didn’t want to say anything earlier that might discourage your plans, but that’s the beauty of this particular setup, Princess. I’m finally being given the time I need to work with you…on my terms. So open your eyes. I’m a healer, girl. Not a rapist.”
Trembling, she met his blue eyes for an instant before she looked away in shame.
“We’re going to start with trust,” Dragomir said. “Are we both in agreement that I haven’t violated you, despite the fact that I can?”
Victory trembled under him, so wrapped in the terror of his massive presence that she couldn’t respond.
“Okay,” Dragomir said softly, his blue eyes gentle. “Let me put it this way. I could pull down my pants, lift your shift, and drive myself into you, if that were my intent. Does it look like that’s what I’m doing?”
Victory stopped trying to twist from under him. In truth, he was just lying there, holding her in place with his body. “No,” Victory whispered, though she didn’t allow herself a shred of hope. Hope was what destroyed the mind, once her captors found it, and crushed it.
“That’s right,” Dragomir said, “I’m not. I’m just squishing you to the bed like an ill-bred oaf.” He paused, watching her. Softly, he said, “My name is Dragomir Shipgrown. I am a healer for the village of Sodstone, in the Skitwater Pass. I have the ability to see and feel emotional energies, and the life energies that precede them. Some would call me an Emp. I’m really just a farmer who’s lucky his crops didn’t fail while he was gallivanting across the planet with a royal princess.”
“What do you want?” Victory whispered, not daring to look at him.
“I want to help you,” Dragomir said, never moving from his position atop her. “But in order for me to do that, I need you to trust me.” He was too close. Much too close. Victory could feel the memories at the edge of her awareness, visions of times when other men had been this close…
“But you’re…you’re…” Victory couldn’t find anything truly horrible about what he was doing. “You chained me to your bed!” she finished, anger seeping up with her words.
“Yes,” Dragomir said. “And?”
She blinked at him in dismay.
“Have I hurt you in any way?”
She could find nothing to say.