by JAX
“I’ll bet he was,” the Baron said, his air unsuccessful in hiding his sudden stiffening. “Perhaps now that you have a new confection, you will consider selling the old. He’s getting a bit long in years, isn’t he?”
“Najir?” She laughed as though it were the most ridiculous concept on the planet. “Najir is as fit and fine as the day I bought him.”
“Out from under me as well, if I recall,” he said with a chuckle that sounded as forced as it was.
“The perils of an open auction I am afraid, Baron,” was her sweetly polite reply. “No, Baron, Najir will make a fine match to the new slave. I plan them to be the finest pair of studs ever seen, the envy of every woman in High City.”
The Baron’s false smile faded as he stepped a little closer and lowered his voice for her ears alone. “Tell me, Hanna, why do you persist in baiting me? You know I will find a way to wound you.” He raised his voice again. “I am curious why I have not seen your brother Kaino around in so many months. He is sorely missed at all the clubs.”
Hanna felt the strike go through her chest, her heart pounding hard from the pain of it as she narrowed eyes on the Baron. She wondered if he realized how very hard she resisted the instinctual urge she had to rip his throat out. The Baron knew very well that Kaino had gone off on a journey to “find himself.” The idea had been that he would travel the world and see how others lived and thrived. Other cultures had always fascinated him. However, despite his promises to keep in touch, Kaino’s communications had abruptly ceased only two months after he had left. Ever since then, Majum had persisted in dropping these poisonous hints that he’d had something to do with that…and that she wasn’t likely to hear from Kaino ever again.
“I believe I mentioned before that he is traveling. He is a grown man with a taste for adventure, and I doubt I will be able to lure him back here anytime soon when there is a world to be explored. Of course, he is only third in line to inherit, so he even has the option of going offworld.” Hanna did not lower her voice as she delivered her counterstrike. In fact, she raised it. “I thank you for asking after my family, Baron. Tell me, how does your nephew fare? You must be so delighted that in only two years he will reach majority and no longer be in need of your guardianship. He will finally be able to take all of your burdens as acting Master to House Majum away from you as he claims his rightful inheritance. Is he well?” Again her quick, cunning smile of perfect pleasantness. “I would hate for some mysterious illness to affect him as it did his poor sister. What a tragedy for you to lose the girl while she was in your care! I know you must be striving with all effort to see your nephew arrives healthy and happy at his waiting seat in the Chamber of Masters.”
“He’s quite healthy I assure you.” The Baron made his assurance through tight teeth as he glanced around at the other Masters who stood nearby on the steps to the Chamber of Masters. They were observing the exchange with interest…some even with unconcealed amusement. “When he takes his seat, it will be as though I am right there beside him. I’m training him well.”
“I’m sure you are teaching him everything you possibly can.”
To anyone who knew the Baron, the implication was clear. Since everyone at hand was a peer, few felt the remark slip past them without understanding.
“My Lady,” Najir interrupted softly at her back. “The Chamber convenes in five minutes.”
“So it does. Well, we shouldn’t be late, Majum. I will take my seat, and you will take your nephew’s for now. Business as usual, then.”
She nodded a farewell and went to leave, but she had barely moved a step when the Baron’s hand clamped like a vice around her arm. He found her ear as he jerked her shoulder hard against his chest.
“Beware that clever tongue, Hanna, or I will cut it out and lay it beside your brother’s. Or perhaps I will take your heir’s first and leave your House without succession. I hear your sister Ashanna is impossible for you to control these days, and I would hate to cut apart one Drakoulous bitch only to have her replaced with another. I already made that mistake with your mother.”
Hanna turned her head slowly and met the Baron’s black eyes with cold contempt and fury in hers. This time she joined him in his whispers.
“Now let me warn you, Wheyn,” she hissed, his name dripping from her lips like spit-out poison, “that unlike my mother, my nature is not so peaceful. Pray your taunts about my brother are never proven, because if I discover you touched even the air around him, I will eviscerate you. I will bathe my face in your blood and then lick away every drop with ultimate pleasure afterwards.”
Her threat was so unexpectedly vivid and vicious that the Baron released her arm and took a step back. The believability Vejhon had discovered in her eyes was not exclusive to him. Majum could see the coldness of her truth and the honesty of her threat. He had never realized that the daughter of so temperate a woman as her mother could ever be so ruthless. Where had she learned it from? And where did she hide it? Even he couldn’t help exposing his less savory side in public now and then. In her eight years as Master of her House, she had given no clue at all to her bloodthirsty nature. Should he believe her? It was more than likely a bluff…
Wheyn flicked his eyes to Najir. The slave had stood passive the entire time, although he had been close enough to catch some of the exchange. The slave would pay with his life if he attacked a free man of any rank without permission to protect his Master’s life, but the big bastard looked as though he didn’t much care. Najir clearly wanted to rip Wheyn’s head from his body.
Impressive. If Majum hadn’t hated the bitch with such a passion, he’d ask her how she managed to control the brute, even when it was obvious he did not wish to be in control of himself. Whatever her technique, he was beginning to think that she might even be able to break in her new confection as well one day. As he watched her walk off, Najir in tow, he forced himself to master the furious scream of jealousy the idea sent ripping through him.
6
Sunshine on this planet had a distinctive rose-colored hue.
It was Vejhon’s first thought as he woke only to wince at the brilliance of the sun reflecting from the imaging windows. His next realization was that he wasn’t alone.
He was damn slow, in his opinion, as he rocketed to his feet and struck the target lurking beside his bed with full impact. Apparently not all that slow, because Najir took the hit without so much as an attempt to block. Jhon had rammed a knee and shin into the other man’s chest as he had come out of bed on a single pivoting foot, but Najir was a big, solid bastard, and he only staggered back a step or two before digging his balance back in. Still, it gave Jhon time to reapproach.
Yeah, he thought grimly, I’m slower than sludge. Too many days in stasis had taken their toll. The result was Najir’s smooth ability to strike him right underneath his next attack. Both men moved with full power and total commitment, Jhon’s strike only glancing off Najir as the slave countered with a fast, mean maneuver that hauled Jhon off his feet and sent him tumbling off his opponent’s back. Jhon discovered the burn of friction against his skin as he hit the stone floor sliding.
Using the momentum for advantage out of pure habit, Jhon rolled right back up onto his feet, and he tried to regain his balance as Najir approached looking mightily pissed off.
“Don’t be an idiot!” Najir snapped, coming to an unexpected halt and discontinuing the altercation, something Vejhon would never have expected or done himself if he’d been attacked. “I know how you feel and what you are thinking, Colonel, but your temper and outrage at others does not belong in this House! This House is your salvation. My Lady is your precious savior, your guide into a life of unimaginable wonder, and all you want to do is fight it?”
“I’m a warrior,” Vejhon sneered. “It’s in the job description. And I highly doubt that your leash holder is anybody’s savior. If I hadn’t promised my mother not to use certain words in reference to a female, I’d tell you exactly what she is.”
/> It was actually amusing to watch the color of fury that climbed the other man’s neck. Najir curled his hands into fists and used what appeared to be extraordinary restraint to keep his feet firmly in place and his fists out of Jhon’s face. Vejhon had to give the man his due. In his top shape, it was likely that he would have wiped the floor up with Najir, but he had never had that kind of control over his emotions and impulses. He had adapted to the weakness, using it to make himself a better fighter and leader in the long run, but he’d always been notorious for his temper.
“I know everything you’re feeling right now,” Najir announced. “Ten years ago, had I been faced with a man of our power and strength behaving docilely and respecting to someone of this society, I would also have been as disgusted by him as you are by me. We are not so different, you and I, and yet…we are just different enough to make you the luckier man.” Najir obviously had no plans to explain that remark as he continued, “When Hanna bought me ten years ago, I had suffered my time on the auction stage fully awake and aware, bound from tearing the hearts out of those who abused me against my will. It was Hanna’s first and her last auction. She was so horrified over my treatment that she couldn’t ever attend another, no matter what her needs. One day you will realize what a sacrifice that has meant for her.”
“So what? She couldn’t stomach it, so she sends you in her stead. She thinks she can pretend she isn’t a part of perpetuating slavery because she doesn’t do the actual buying of those who draw her bath and cook her food?”
“Hanna has only two slaves, Vejhon,” Najir informed coldly. “Me and now you. This House is run by paid commoners, servants earning wages. It is the only House in the city to do so fully.”
The information gave Jhon pause. He narrowed suspicious eyes on Najir, trying to read whether or not he was being honest. Then again, it was completely counterproductive to the training of a slave to say things like this. What he said amounted to a woman who actually couldn’t tolerate slavery. But then why…?
Jhon asked the question with only his expression, and Najir nodded in understanding as he relaxed just a little. “She has her reasons for the exceptions she has made with you and me, and it is not my place to speak of them. She will reveal herself in her own time and way. What I will discuss with you is how Hanna spent her time with you earlier.”
Najir saw the rushing clouds of fury that ran over the other man’s expression, and he didn’t blame him in the least for it. But that response was why he had come there in the first place.
“What do you know of it?” Vejhon asked furiously, a sheen of red coating his vision.
“Because I’ve lived it! Hanna reached into that nightmare and plucked me out of it. But at the time, like you, I didn’t know she was different from the others and I didn’t trust her either. For you, it is worse, because she was forced to submerge you into the ice of her culture herself, and she damaged the path to trust with you for the sake of your life and comprehension.”
“Do you get that vague way of saying shit from her, or is this common around here?” Jhon snorted contemptuously.
“Fine.” Najir took a step closer and both men tensed. “She drugged you. She touched you. She forced your body into orgasm against your will. And I am here to tell you how lucky you are that it was her doing all of it. Yes, it felt like a violation, and it was. But she only did it to show you a little of what you will suffer if you try to leave the safety of this House. If you run away, in this society, you become fair game for the hunt. Anyone who can recapture you will own you. Do you understand?”
“What’s your point?” Vejhon asked gruffly, although he had a terrible sinking feeling that he already knew what it was.
“Run, if you want. Go. Try to do what no slave has ever done. You are powerful and resourceful, you might make it farther than any of them. But be warned,” Najir said, his voice dropping to an ominous tone that Vejhon realized came from a terrible place of knowledge within the man, and not just theatrics. “What she did to you today is bliss and delight compared to what you will face once captured by another. Hanna is singular, I assure you. No one else will weep in their heart with guilt after they have violated you. No. They will revel and celebrate, delight in your manhood, your will, and all the monstrous ways they can create to tear it out of you. Hanna feared for you if she failed to make you see this fact. What she did, she did to save and protect you.”
“Why couldn’t she just tell me all of this? Just like you are telling it to me now! Why the—?”
“She tried. You were too busy threatening to kill her to hear her. Besides, I guarantee it is a lesson you won’t ever forget, and Hanna needed you to have that burned in you so you would never be careless or blasé. You don’t yet want to realize it, but what she did has saved your life. Or better yet, saved you from a fate worse than death.”
Najir finally stepped back and with a nod toward the conversation area he indicated a tray of bread goods and what looked like cheeses.
“It is late and past dinner, but my Lady knew you would crave something when you woke.”
“Past dinner? With all of this sun?”
“Night will come tomorrow. You will see. Many things are unique here.”
With that understatement, the other slave exited through the door, leaving Vejhon with a head full of conflicting input and thoughts. He tried to weed emotion out of it, but hell…becoming a slave on an alien planet was emotional business.
“He didn’t eat.”
Hanna looked up from her workstation, a ready frown on her lips as Najir reported the fact to her. She stood up and stretched a long arch of her back, trying to move her kinked-up muscles enough to relieve their knots.
“Not even a little? He must be starved after being in stasis so long.”
“At his size and muscle mass? I imagine he is. But I think he doesn’t trust us not to drug him.”
“Would you, after what I did?”
“Well, he’s being thickheaded, then, because I already re-explained that to him.” Najir frowned this time. “I suppose only time and visible proof and action will convince him.”
“And I suppose that is my job,” Hanna agreed with a sigh. “What is he doing now?”
“Sleeping. I believe he was displeased with his performance during our little scuffle, so he spent time exercising and working through fight stances and maneuvers. He also refuses to get dressed. He’s not modest, I’ll give him that.”
“Don’t criticize,” she chuckled. “You wouldn’t wear clothes for three days. You said you’d rather be dead than dress like a woman. I had not realized that in your culture only women wore trousers. The men wore kilts.”
“Yes.” Najir’s grin was pure mischief. “Trousers were meant to keep the men out, and kilts made it easy to do just the opposite.”
“Najir! Naughty man,” she teased, sidling up to him and brushing a hand down his hair.
“Just how you like me,” he countered.
The tease brought her up a little short, her body language instantly becoming aloof. He immediately knew why, and he couldn’t help the sting of hurt that raced the edges of his skin.
“Najir,” she began a little awkwardly, “you realize…”
“Don’t.” He cut her off. “I am perfectly aware of the situation. I have always been aware of what would happen. I am no adolescent and I can accept what I myself have set in motion, Hanna.”
“Dearest,” she soothed, instantly moving into his embrace, all coolness vanishing as she hugged herself around him. “I only meant that I need the line to be clear. We enjoyed each other our last time together, did we not?”
“Immensely,” he assured her, unable to help the return of his wicked smile.
“So we did. And now that I am certain we understand each other, I want everything to be just as it always was. All our free and easy ways together should stay exactly the same. I won’t change anything else between us. You are my best friend. I would be lost without you.”
“It wouldn’t have occurred to you,” she swore with soft vehemence. “You are incapable of such deception.”
“Only with those I love.” Najir took her by her chin, tilting her head back and finding her soft and sweet lips. The kiss deepened, crossed the line into bittersweet passion for just a moment, but then he pulled back and stepped away from her. The tears filling her eyes were more than he could bear. Fighting the tightness in his throat, he said, “I have some training with the guards in a little while. I’d better be headed to the yard.”
He turned and left the room, refusing to look back and forcing himself to look only forward.
Vejhon awoke with a start when he smelled food. There wasn’t a single thing about it that smelled familiar, but he knew it was food because the aromatic scent made his stomach twist into a painful knot of want. Gods, he hadn’t eaten in so long he wasn’t even sure his stomach would keep anything he ate. Although, he thought with a grimace as a loud rumble of demand ground out of him, it was willing to try in spite of his own reluctance.
Rolling over, he took a moment to adjust to the changed light in the room. Daylight had disappeared, but the recessed lighting along all the seams of the walls and ceiling had taken over the job. The room was very well lit, almost like daylight itself. Most worlds, in his experience, ran on cycles or days ranging from twenty to thirty hours in length. From what he had surmised watching the slow course of the sun for the past day, this world spent an entire cycle in daylight and the next in total darkness. It was unusual, but not unheard of. The planet rotated so slowly on its axis that schedules had had to be adapted to provide a healthy balance between waking and sleeping time, whether it was dark out or not.