by Raven Dark
“Maker, I missed you,” I rasped, turning my head to meet his ravenous kiss.
He groaned softly, and his tongue speared into my mouth, hot and needy. One of his hands dove into the front of my dress, cupping my breast. My nipples turned to hardened points at his searing touch. His other hand pushed the back of my dress up to my waist, finding the hem of my panties.
I was already pulling them down to my hips, baring myself for my master’s use.
“Someone’s eager.” He licked my ear. I heard him undoing his pants, felt his cock slide through my sopping folds.
“We have to hurry, Master. The—”
“Hush, Princess. I need you. Don’t rush me, I’ve been waiting a week to feel your perfect pussy milking my cock.” He bent me over, locked my feet in place with his, and entered me in one swift thrust.
My mouth opened in a silent scream of rapture. I had honestly started to believe I would never feel this way again, never feel him here, with me, inside me, and yet here he was.
I clawed at the wall while he pounded me fast and hard, his breathing wild and ragged above me. His fingers dug into my thighs almost painfully.
I loved it.
Another scream tried to escape, but Pretty Boy pushed a cloth into my mouth, muffling the sound. My eyes rolled with pleasure at the helplessness of being taken by him, unable to cry for help or tell him to stop. Not that I would have dreamed of such a thing. He trapped the cloth in my mouth with his palm and fucked me faster.
I huffed into the cloth, the sound muted.
Pretty Boy didn’t stop. He fisted my hair just enough to sting. I panted and rocked my hips shamelessly, meeting him stroke for stroke. He gripped my hip, scraping his fingers across the skin. I wailed silently.
Right then, I loved him more than I ever had, and I felt shameful for never telling him. I wished this could last forever, wished I could tell him now. If I did, he’d only think I said it because he was saving me or because he was fucking me.
Right then, I loved all of them, maybe even Sheriff. I’d spent the last week in hell, but in this moment, I’d entered Heaven, was tasting a small slice of perfection that was all ours.
His hips slapped softly into mine, his breathing animalistic in my ears. There was so much need and longing in him, it seemed to flow through my veins like liquid fire. My heart burst with adoration for him until I wept with relief that he was there, with fear of the guards, with the terror that he’d be gone any moment and I would have imagined it all.
We came as one, a fury of wild gasps, grunts, whispered curses and slapping flesh.
Finally, all too soon, he pulled out, straightened my dress gently and held me close, exactly as I was, bent over and spent. He pulled the cloth out of my mouth. I swallowed, heaving breaths.
“My Kai. My Master.”
“My princess.” He pulled me upright. His mouth brushed my ear.
Then he said the very last thing I expected him, of all people, to say.
“We’ll be back for you, Princess. Stay safe. I love you.”
My heart simultaneously seemed to stop dead and leap for joy all at once. I spun around.
“Mast—”
But he was already gone.
Chapter 16
The Monster’s Soldiers
They were here.
My Four were here.
Over the next two days, I felt like I was walking around in a daze. I was either trying not to leap with joy every time I thought of my masters, or using everything I had to stay focused on whatever was around me. And not to shake with fear of what would happen to them if they were caught.
My men hadn’t given up on me. Questions persisted. How had they gotten in? I’d seen Pretty Boy, but where were the others?
But it didn’t matter. All I had to do was trust them, be patient, and wait.
And for Maker’s sake, I had to behave as if nothing had changed.
Up until the moment I’d seen Pretty Boy, I’d been despondent, moving through the days mechanically, just trying to make it from one moment to the next without falling into a pit of hopelessness and despair. A sudden change in my behavior might make Damien suspicious. I had to play the part of a broken slave. As if all hope was still lost.
Which is why, over the two days since Pretty Boy had taken me in that stall, I kept my head down, saying and doing nothing I wouldn’t normally have done.
I read in the library and walked in the gardens, rode Maja, or stayed locked in my rooms. The perfect slave who’d given up on the notion that her life would ever be anything better.
It was almost easy until the third day. Until Damien summoned me.
While Herma waited as I dressed for my daily ride, I kept my face expressionless, but my thoughts raced. Damien wanted to see me in an hour. Playing the role in front of the slaves and guards was one thing, but part of me couldn’t help thinking that the moment Damien saw me, he’d know something was afoot. He’d see it in my eyes, hear it in the hammer of my heart. If he discovered the Legion was right under his nose, it would put them in danger.
As usual, my two J’nai escorts followed me out to the stables. Perhaps I’d see Pretty Boy again. My heart fluttered.
Once again, the guards left me and stood outside the stable doors where both exits were visible. I walked to Maja’s stall, digging out an apple for her from my bag.
At the stall, I stopped, looking inside.
Maja wasn’t there. The stall stood empty.
I glanced around, but I didn’t see her in any of the other stalls. One of the stable boys was brushing down a black stallion usually ridden by one of my guards when I rode. I didn’t see Pretty Boy there at all.
“Excuse me, sir?”
The dark-haired boy, barely a teen, looked up.
“Where’s Maja, sir?” When he only raised a brow at me, I nodded to the empty stall. “My horse. Where is she, sir?”
He shrugged, brushing the stallion in front of him down with long strokes. “Someone took her away. I saw her being led out of here early this morning.”
Someone had taken her away?
It was irrational, perhaps, but my thoughts immediately conjured up the worst possible scenario. Damien had decided to take her from me. The obvious reason why sent my stomach dropping to my feet. Did he know my Four were here? If he did, I wouldn’t have put it past him to have Maja killed to punish me before he tried to do the same to them.
I swallowed, feeling suddenly sick. It didn’t reassure me that Pretty Boy didn’t seem to be there and hadn’t shown himself in two days.
Why, I didn’t know, but I couldn’t bring myself to ask the guards. Maybe I didn’t want to hear the answer. Instead, I returned to my room and changed, preparing for my meeting with Damien. If he knew… I shuddered at what might be waiting for me when I was presented to him.
The nearly hour-long wait felt like the longest of my life. I half expected him to take me out to some area of the compound and show me Maja’s corpse. And then for him to show me my masters, the four of them tied and hidden away in a room, waiting to be slaughtered.
Herma led me into the Throne Room again, departing as soon as Damien dismissed her. The chairs that had been sitting atop the dais that one day were gone. I stared at what sat in their place. Two new chairs, only these weren’t throne-like, they were thrones—high-backed and gold, encrusted with precious stones.
Damien sat in one of them, the other empty, allowing me to see the sunburst of the J’nai carved into the elaborate back.
Standing and then coming slowly down the steps, Damien wore that unsettlingly fatherly smile again. “Beautiful, aren’t they?” He gestured to the thrones.
I didn’t have to lie. “Yes…Master.” My chest tightened at my betrayal, calling him something only my Four deserved. Being as I hadn’t seen him since that first day when my jaw was still broken, I’d been able to avoid addressing him that way.
Damien stopped in front of me and held out his hand, waiting for me to take
it. I cringed and slipped my hand into his, using all my will to rest my palm in his as if it belonged to him.
“I had those things made years ago by a Boruvian artisan. Both are solid gold, encrusted with over a hundred precious stones each, and they weigh a ton. Boruvians are by far the best goldsmiths in the world.”
“Why are they in here now, Master?” I asked, keeping my tone even as he walked me through a set of glass doors and out into the garden. The same garden where he’d told me I’d be sold.
He was planning something big, I could feel it. Even Damien wouldn’t have bothered displaying that kind of extravagance without a specific reason.
“I’ll be having guests here shortly. I wanted to show them off. And you.”
There was more to those thrones being there than his usual self-indulgence. I knew it as surely as I knew my heart was racing.
I wanted to ask about Maja, but for some reason, fear wouldn’t allow the words to come. Besides, there was a more important matter to deal with.
After toying with how to ask what I needed to ask, I decided on directness. Either he would tell me or he wouldn’t.
“Master, what are you planning to do with me?”
Damien didn’t answer. I risked a look up at his profile. His lips pulled into a knowing smile that made my skin crawl.
“Are you going to sell me again, Master?” It took everything I had to keep my voice demure. My palms were sweating; he could probably feel the slickness against his own palm.
Still he didn’t speak, instead, gesturing to the fountain where we’d sat the day of the auction. Shaking, I forced myself to sit on the stone ledge. Waiting for him to sit beside me.
“I am not going to sell you, no.” He looked at me and shook his head. “It was never my intention to sell you before.”
I stared at him, confusion whirling. “But…” Anger welled up at his lie, but I stamped it down. It was suddenly difficult to breathe. “But…Talek. The barbarian. You were going to sell me to him.”
Damien cradled my hand, setting it on his knee.
Had he nothing to say? His deliberate silence and the amusement in his eyes turned the spark of anger in me to raw fury. I yanked my hand out of his and stood up.
“Mast…” No. I was too angry to give him that right, even in pretend. “Damien. You were going to sell me to him. I heard you.”
His gaze snapped to mine. “How did you…” His voice trailed off.
I could see it in his eyes. He hadn’t expected me to have heard him discussing my sale. He was caught in a lie. It was a measure of how caught off guard he was, that he didn’t react to my using his name, something I’d never, ever done before with him.
How would the demon in front of me weasel his way out of this?
“I was standing outside that room while you and that barbarian were discussing my price,” I said when he didn’t say more. “You agreed to skip the formality of the bidding and sell me to him outright.”
The temptation to tell him that my real masters were here, that they were coming for me, was almost overwhelming. I kept the thought to myself. The impulse was a purely irrational thought, borne out of rage, and giving into it would only risk their lives and mine. Instead, I let the thought of their presence give me strength, feeding off of it.
Damien pushed to his feet. The parental warmth in his eyes extinguished, his mouth turning down before he seized my elbow, his fingers like talons.
“Now you listen to me.” His tone was deadly soft. “Everything I have ever done was for your own good. Selling you to Talek was the only way to protect you.”
“Protect me?” I spat. I tried to yank myself free, but his grip tightened. “Protect me from what?”
“No more questions. You’ll see in a moment or two anyway.”
But I wouldn’t let this go. I couldn’t. I needed to know what in Maker’s name he had in store for me. “No. Tell me. I want to know. How could you have possibly thought selling me to a barbarian would protect me? And if you thought you had to sell me before, why are you not doing so now? What changed?”
Damien grabbed my jaw, wrenching it up so I had to look right into his cold blue eyes. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but he didn’t get the chance.
“Captain.” One of his J’nai stood in the doorway to the garden. He nodded to the inside of the house. “They’re here.”
“Wait two minutes, and then send them in.” Still gripping my jaw, he glared down at me. “Listen carefully. You will keep your mouth shut. You’ll sit at my side before my guests and let them see that you belong to me. I do have plans for you, Little Dove. Ones you can’t imagine, but they do not concern you. Right now, all you need concern yourself with is looking like the perfect queen at my side. Is that clear?”
His queen? Maker help me.
The last thing I wanted to do was comply with any plan he had for me, but he was too strong to fight. The guard had left, but there were still two more at the doors, each with those whips at their sides.
I nodded.
He released my jaw, but his other hand gripped my arm tight. “Say nothing unless I tell you to.”
When I nodded again, he held out his arm. Waiting for me to lay my hand on it like the perfect First Slave.
Damien walked us up the garden path and into the Throne Room, up the steps to the dais where he seated himself on one of the thrones. Head spinning, I followed suit.
Only when we were seated did I notice that there were four guardsmen standing beside the doors instead of the usual two. The two guards from the garden stepped in, shut the doors, locked them, and took up a flanking position there. All four wore their visors down, and all of them had swords at their hips now. Two more marched in and came up to the steps. They took position to either side of the thrones, one standing at my shoulder, another at Damien’s.
Six guards? Why? He often had that and more in here for parties, but not for meetings like this. Not unless the guests he was receiving were unusually dangerous.
I shivered, hoping to all heaven that my Four weren’t about to be dragged in here and massacred, hoping that the guards posted in the room weren’t there to ensure the Legion didn’t put up a fight.
When Damien’s “visitors” entered, my jaw nearly fell to the floor.
Eight guardsmen entered in two lines of four, but they were not J’nai. Plates of silvery armor covered every inch of them, and their helmets had a thin strip for a visor over the eyes. Swords hung from their hips, but with long, thin blades that reminded me of some of Hawk’s swords. Each man carried a lance in one hand, tipped with what looked like large arrowheads.
My eyes widened. The shoulder plates of each man’s armor extended beyond the width of their shoulders, curving upward into familiar points. What’s more, the breastplates of each were emblazoned with a white flower that had a pink throat.
Aurora’s Wings.
Nausea washed over me, my stomach tightening in a painful knot.
No. No, no, no…
One of the two armored guards at the front took a step forward.
“Pleasant day to you, Captain Vale. Presenting the High Lord Commander of His Honorable Cama Don, Julian Ishan Kahl.”
Julian. He was real. The virus was a lie. My head swam horribly while my heart seemed to be trying to hammer its way from my chest.
Damien sat back more comfortably on his throne, giving the unmistakable impression of casualness. But out of the corner of my eye, I saw his hand grip the arm of the throne.
He said nothing, and I wondered if he wasn’t expected to.
The guard stepped back to his place in the procession and another entered. He strode in, moving like an accomplished warrior, almost too smoothly, the way Hawk might have done. He wore the same uniform, but there was a white stripe around each of his biceps. He also wore two crossed swords on his back.
The High Lord Commander stopped only when he stood in front of the others, feet planted on the sunburst before the dais. He took off
his helmet, revealing a completely shaved head, except for a single thick stream of purple hair gathered in a band at the center of his head. The hair was pale purple, glinting with a touch of bronze.
Panic started to well up until I noticed a touch of brown hair that peaked out from the band holding the rest of it in place. That, and his eyes were silvery in hue. He wasn’t a Violet; the hair was dyed, as if in some custom of respect to his superior.
Also, there was none of that strange buzzing in my head I felt every time I got near another Violet, but then again, I’d never felt that in Julian’s presence in the dreams, either. The unique color of the man’s eyes, not grey like Doc’s but silver, like shining metal, made me wonder where he was from. I’d never seen eyes like his.
That strange gaze zeroed in on me for an instant before settling on Damien.
“Zone Captain Vale.” The commander cradled his helmet under his arm. He paused as if waiting for something. When Damien only watched him silently and didn’t do whatever he expected, he scowled before his face cleared. “Pleasant day to you.” His voice was tight.
“Commander Tahmi.” Damien leaned forward on the throne. “Always so formal. What brings you so far from your master’s home?”
The hint of sarcasm in the word master was unmistakable.
If Commander Tahmi noticed it, he gave no sign. “The Cama Don has received word from his sources that you have something which belongs to him. He offers you the opportunity to return it.”
Damien took his hand off the arm of the throne and set it slowly and deliberately over mine. “Is that so? I assure you, I have given Julian everything he has a right to.”
Tahmi’s jaw hardened. “The Violet called Setora belongs to him, Captain. She is here, is she not?”
Hearing my name from a man associated with Julian, not in a dream but with him standing right in front of me, made my stomach drop. Light of the Maker, Julian knew I was here. He’d sent for me. Would his guards force me to go with them? Would Damien try to deny I was here?