Kwin

by Trudie Collins

  “You love him.”

  Brend shook his head. “I’m in love with him. There’s a difference.”

  Shona had heard others say that before and she hoped, one day, to find out.

  “Are you open to some advice?”

  Brend hesitated before saying, “Alright.”

  “Firstly I suggest that you pretend to be interested in me.” This took Brend by surprise, as his face showed. “Dani has a crush on you and might start to grow suspicious if you continue to ignore all of the women you meet. I’m sure she’s not the only one who takes an interest in you, you are an attractive man after all. The fact I am the master’s sex slave−”

  “Pleasure slave,” Brend said, interrupting her.

  “Pleasure slave,” Shona said, bowing her head slightly in acknowledgement of the reprimand. “I have a good excuse for turning down your advances, but I seriously think you should consider making some.”

  “I’ll discuss it with Fillen,” Brend said.

  Shona smiled at him. “I see what you mean about you saying his name.” Brend grinned back at her. This conversation was going better than she had hoped. “I do have one more suggestion.”

  “What?” Brend asked.

  “How many bedrooms does the master’s suite have?”

  “Four. Why do you ask?”

  “I should move into one of them.”

  “Explain.”

  “If I live in the suite, nobody will know whether I’m sleeping in my own bed or the master’s. If anyone happens to overhear any noise coming from his rooms, they will assume that he’s with me, not you.”

  “Shona, I am really glad I purchased you,” Brend said. “Now get dressed. We’re late for breakfast.”

  He had the decency to turn his back while Shona slipped out of bed and put on some clothes. When she said he could turn around once more, he held out his arm to her.

  “Allow me to escort you to the dining room, my Lady.”

  Later that day, Shona was moved into the suite. Brend had taken Fillen aside and put forward Shona’s suggestion. Fillen agreed that it was a good idea. It would mean that Shona would have to take care of herself, instead of having a maid to help her dress and wait on her as Fillen rarely let any of his slaves enter his suite when he was there, other than Brend, but she didn’t mind.

  Fillen was not so happy about Brend showing an interest in her, though he understood the reasons why it was necessary. He reluctantly agreed to allow him to do so.

  They each played their parts well. Brend flirted with Shona whenever it seemed that they were alone, but in reality one of the other slaves was close enough to hear. Every time Shona told him that she wasn’t permitted to so much as kiss any man other than Fillen. Once Brend let Fillen publicly catch him making a move on Shona and Fillen had reacted angrily, ordering him to his suite, where the shouting could be heard at the other end of the house. Fillen acted coldly toward Brend for the following few days, but Shona knew it was all an act. They no longer hid their feelings in front of her so she saw that nothing had really changed between them.

  Dani did not take it very well. Initially she was hostile toward Shona as she failed to hide her jealousy. Eventually Shona managed to persuade the young girl that she was not interested in Brend and that they were not having an affair behind Fillen’s back.

  Late one evening, Dani plucked up the courage to tell Brend of her feelings. Brend told her that she was too young for him and that he preferred his women a little more mature. Shona spent the rest of the evening comforting the crying young lady.

  She spoke to Brend about it the next day. Though he said he felt bad for upsetting the maid, he told Shona that it had been necessary and she was forced to agree.

  In general, life for Shona was pleasant and at times she almost forgot that she was a slave. But she missed her old life, her family, her friends. She found herself becoming closer and closer to Brend. The two started to tell each other everything, how they were feeling, what they wanted out of life. But her feelings for him never developed past friendship.

  Fillen soon allowed her to start calling him by his name instead of master. Despite having to spend a lot of time with him, Shona didn’t get to know him. He was a very private man and rarely talked about himself. She didn’t learn to respect him and couldn’t think of him as anything other than her owner, an owner she was determined to escape from.

  Everything changed when Brend caught a fever. It wasn’t life threatening, but he was in bed for a few days and unable to perform his duties for nearly a week. Without him to translate, Fillen refused to take Shona anywhere and being stuck in the house began to make her feel claustrophobic.

  Fillen didn’t react well to his lover’s illness. He became short tempered and irritable. One evening he walked into Shona’s room without knocking.

  “Get on your knees,” he ordered as he undid his trousers and let them fall to the floor.

  “What?” Shona asked, backing away.

  “I purchased you as a pleasure slave. That means you have to give me pleasure. It’s about time you did your duty.”

  “No,” Shona said as a feeling of dread ran through her.

  She watched as Fillen stepped out of his trousers and carefully folded them before placing them on her bed. He casually walked up to her, then struck her face, making her lip bleed.

  He grabbed hold of her hair, using it to pull her closer to him. Their faces were almost touching as he said, “You will do as I say or you will regret it. I’m sure my soldiers will enjoy spending a night with you and they won’t be as gentle as I will.”

  “But I didn’t think you liked women,” she stammered.

  She didn’t like the smile on Fillen’s face as he released her. “Don’t worry about that my dear. I will close my eyes and pretend you are Brend. After all, a woman’s mouth is not much different to a man’s. Now get on your knees.”

  Shona’s legs were trembling as she obeyed.

  “That’s better,” Fillen said and removed his underwear.

  A tear trickled down Shona’s face as she opened her mouth.

  Chapter 13

  The morning after Fillen forced himself on Shona, a visitor arrived to see Luka, who shut herself in her office with him until lunchtime. He was a well-dressed man, in his late forties, by the look of him. Luka explained that he was the man who looked after all of her business interests and said Kwin should find a way to amuse himself until lunch was ready.

  He decided to spend his time speaking with the other slaves. Luka may refer to them as servants, but Kwin couldn’t do so. When someone was owned by someone else and forced to do their bidding with the threat of death hanging over them, no other word could be used.

  It was a sunny day, with a cool breeze preventing it being too hot, so he decided to start with the gardeners. Without being asked, Canis accompanied him.

  “I don’t need an escort,” he said to the dog. “It’s not as if I can escape. As soon as Luka finds out I’m gone, I’m as good as dead, unless there is a limited range to these things.”

  He held up his arm to show the animal that he was talking about his bracelets. Then he shook his head. He was talking to a dog. It wasn’t as if the mutt could understand what he was saying.

  Canis whined.

  “Sorry mate, I don’t speak dog language,” Kwin said to him.

  Canis pushed his hand with his head and whined again.

  “You want me to link our minds again?” Kwin was sure the dog nodded. He shrugged his shoulders. Why not. It had worked before. Maybe he could make a permanent link this time.

  He sat down on the grass and crossed his legs. Canis sat in front of him and placed his head in Kwin’s outstretched hands. Kwin closed his eyes and let his mind seek out the dog’s. The moment he brushed against Canis’s mental barrier, he felt it part.

  “This is so much easier than having to listen to you yap on,” the dog’s thoughts sounded in Kwin’s head, making him smile.

&nbs
p; “My apologies if my voice annoys you,” Kwin said out loud.

  Canis huffed. “It is very irritating.”

  “If I make this link permanent, we can talk like this whenever we want.” Kwin was not sure how Canis was going to react, but he was not stupid enough to do anything without the dog’s permission.

  Had his eyes been open, he would have seen Canis rolling his. “Why else would I be letting you into my mind?”

  Kwin opened his eyes and looked at the dog. Now that the link had been formed, he didn’t have to concentrate as hard.

  “How do you know about making a permanent link? Have you done it before?”

  “Yes, with my creator, Luka’s father.”

  Canis had hesitated before answering. There was something he wasn’t telling Kwin. As the link had yet to be made stable, now wasn’t the time to be questioning the animal. If Canis didn’t like being interrogated, he could break the link just as easily as Kwin could.

  Kwin closed his eyes once more and concentrated on fixing the link in both of their minds. It didn’t take long and Kwin relaxed as soon as the task was accomplished. He withdrew his hands from the hound’s head and opened his eyes.

  “Can you still hear me?”

  “Of course. Who else do you have a link with?”

  Kwin tensed. The dog shouldn’t have been able to detect his link with Gareth. Then again, he had been magically enhanced. Who knew what else he could do.

  “A friend. He entered Wayvern with me and is being held as a sex slave.”

  Kwin said no more as Canis looked at him, as though assessing him. “You need to trust Luka,” the animal finally said.

  “How can I trust someone who owns me?”

  “All is not as it seems.”

  “I keep hearing that. Would you care to explain?”

  “Luka will explain when she is ready.”

  Kwin sighed in frustration. “If you won’t tell me, maybe someone else will.”

  He stood up and walked away. Canis followed him. “I wouldn’t bet on that.”

  Kwin ignored him and went in search of other slaves.

  The grounds were large and there were more gardeners working for Luka than Kwin had been expecting. All were polite and friendly to him, but would reveal nothing. While happy to speak about their owner, they clammed up when he asked any of the questions he really wanted to know the answers to. If he didn’t know better, he would have said she had them all under some sort of spell. They didn’t seem scared of her and spoke of her almost affectionately.

  “I told you,” Canis said smugly when Kwin gave up and went back to the house.

  He headed to the kitchen, where he found Koal preparing lunch.

  “You’ve made a friend I see,” the big man said as Canis lay down on the ground near Kwin’s feet.

  Kwin grunted. “More like a guard dog. Something tells me that if I had tried to leave the grounds, that mutt would have sunk his teeth into my leg and dragged me back.”

  Koal’s booming laugh echoed around the room. “You really do have a lot to learn.”

  “So I keep hearing, but how am I to learn if nobody will tell me anything?”

  Koal indicated toward a bench to his right with his head, where a coffee maker was steaming. “Coffee has just been made. Grab yourself a cup then take a seat.”

  Kwin obeyed and as soon as he was seated, Canis moved and settled down under the table, laying on Kwin’s feet.

  “If you don’t move,” Kwin said mentally to the dog, “I will lose all feeling in my feet and won’t be able to walk.”

  “I’m just trying to keep you warm,” Canis said as he moved off Kwin. It sounded like the animal was sulking.

  “If I need a hot water bottle, you will be the first to know.”

  Koal gave the pot he was tending one last stir then turned the heat down before joining Kwin at the table.

  Kwin passed a mug of coffee across to him and Koal grunted his thanks. He took a sip before speaking, wincing as the hot liquid burned his tongue.

  “You need to change your attitude. Instead of looking at yourself as a slave, see yourself as a member of the household. We are a family here and you need to decide if you are going to be a part of it or remain an outsider. The choice is yours.”

  “But Luka owns me. How can I see myself as anything other than a slave if I can’t leave?”

  “Luka will not do anything to prevent you leaving, if that is what you decide to do. Her controlling bracelet can kill you, even if you make it to the other side of the country, but that is something she will never do.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s not who she is. She buys slaves out of necessity, not because she agrees with the practice.”

  “So you’re telling me that I can leave here, just walk out whenever I choose.”

  “Yes. I would not advise it though.”

  Kwin had no doubt that Koal was telling him the truth, but he knew there would be a catch. “Why not?”

  “How far do you think you will get before you are picked up as a runaway slave? Luka will not report you, but people wearing shackles don’t travel alone without permission notes from their owners. You will be captured and resold and, trust me, there are a lot worse owners than Luka.”

  “I can look after myself. I am a skilled magic user.”

  Koal grunted. “Didn’t do you much good though. You still got captured.” Kwin graciously conceded the point. When he looked up from his coffee, he didn’t like the way Koal was looking at him. “You haven’t been told about the universal controllers, have you?”

  Kwin drained the last dregs from his mug then put it on the table. “The what?”

  “Universal controllers. The peacekeepers all wear them. They can command the shackles on any slave, even magic users, and the peacekeepers are a mean bunch of bastards. They torture and kill first, ask questions later, if they can.”

  So much for an easy escape. Seeing as Koal seemed to be in the mood for talking, Kwin asked about his shackles. “Is there a way to get these off?”

  Koal shook his head. “Only whoever wears your controller can remove them, or the peacekeepers.”

  “So what’s stopping me using magic to control Luka, to force her to remove them?”

  Koal burst out laughing. “I would like to see you try.”

  Kwin was left a little deflated by the comment. It felt like he was being insulted, but he wasn’t sure how. The feeling intensified when he heard Canis’s voice in his head.

  “Please let me be there to watch.” The animal sounded like he, too, was laughing.

  “Alright,” he replied. “I will try later today, next time Luka and I are alone.”

  Taking control of someone’s mind and influencing them to do things wasn’t something he enjoyed doing, but he knew how to do it and was good at it, better than anyone he knew, which was why he felt so uncomfortable about both the cook and the dog finding the thought of him attempting it on Luka amusing. It was a foregone conclusion that he would succeed, wasn’t it?

  Koal misinterpreted the look on Kwin’s face. “I’m sorry if I insulted you. I was not laughing at you, I promise.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Kwin said as Koal stood up and returned to the stove, looking in the pot and giving it another stir.

  “You’re having trouble finding your feet here, aren’t you?”

  Kwin decided to be honest. “I’m a soldier and have been for many years. I’m used to giving and following orders. More importantly, I’m a highly respected commander. When I tell someone to jump they ask how high. I’m always the one in control. Even in the slave pens, I knew what was going on and the best way to act. Here, nothing seems to be as it should. I don’t understand the people or the situation. It’s almost as if we are all playing a game and I haven’t been told the rules. For me, this is unsettling, to say the least.”

  Koal gave him a sympathetic look. “I would say I understand how you feel, but I don’t. I just accepted that thing
s were different here and didn’t care about the why. You, however, need to know more. Without that knowledge, you won’t be at ease.”

  Kwin didn’t have the heart to tell him that he was never at ease. A well trained soldier never let himself fully relax.

  Koal continued. “Earn Luka’s trust and you will be told everything you want to know.”

  “And how do you suggest I do that?”

  “Open your mind to her.”

  The comment took Kwin by surprise. “Do what?”

  Koal grinned. “You’re a magic user. You must be able to do that. Her father could.”

  Of course he could do it, but did he really want to? It was a question he would have to give some thought to. But now was not the time.

  Koal tapped his spoon on the side of the pot to get Kwin’s attention. “This is ready. Would you inform Luka please.”

  “Of course,” Kwin said as he stood up. “Thank you for the coffee. And the chat.”

  The door to Luka’s office was closed, so he knocked politely, entering when he received permission. Luka’s man of business was packing up his things.

  “Perfect timing,” Luka said. “We have just finished.”

  “Koal asked me to let you know that lunch is ready,” Kwin said. “Should I inform him that your guest will be staying for the meal?”

  “Thank you,” the man said, “but no. I have a lot to do. I can see myself out, Luka. See you next week.”

  Kwin waited until he had left before holding out his arm to Luka. “May I escort you to the dining room, my Lady?”

  Luka laughed, but that didn’t stop her placing her arm through his. “Why so formal?”

  Kwin shrugged his shoulders. “Why not?”

  By the time they reached the dining room, a tureen of soup had been placed on the table, along with two place settings and a plate of sliced bread.

  Kwin acted the perfect gentleman, pulling the chair out for Luka, then offering to serve her, an offer which she declined. They didn’t speak as they began their meal, other than Kwin’s exclamation when he realised the soup had been made using an old Tippetian recipe.

  Without looking at her, Kwin pushed his mind toward Luka’s. What he was about to try would require the use of magic, but he hoped he would be subtle enough that it wouldn’t register on her controller.