The Slave Palace: Wulf and Locke (Kingdom of Slaves Book 1)

by Wendy Rathbone

  “Ah,” Locke said. “I hit a nerve here just above the knee, I think.”

  Was Locke being sarcastic? Playing games?

  Wulf forced himself to keep his breathing even and shallow. He had been lying. To his master. This was not how he should make his new start if he wanted to live. But he could not make himself speak the truth.

  Malik could find out and then say anything. It would be Wulf’s word against Malik’s. He was nobody. Malik was a master. Wulf would lose. Wulf would be sold as a disobedient slave, a liar, if he could not please Locke and show him he was worth keeping. Worth owning.

  “Training begins with trust.” Locke’s words fell across Wulf’s back like light and warmth. The hands pressed more tension away.

  “If you don’t trust your master,” Locke continued, “you will falter. Always. But not all masters are trustworthy. That is a fact. We are human. But here at the Palace, we work hard to make the community strong. The lessons in training are less about criticism and more about highlighting assets, strengths, and praising what you do well.”

  Wulf believed Locke believed what he was saying. But Wulf was not a Palace slave. The circumstances for him were different. To be labeled a One-Night Thrall was disastrous.

  When he’d been captured and fought, and during his days in the military prison, he didn’t care what happened. He had told himself death was his only option. He could be a martyr.

  He convinced himself his fate would put an end to this hell. But only six days here at the Palace and he saw death as one option only. An option he no longer accepted. With all his soul, he did not want to face that. He wanted Locke to see he was worthy. He wanted to be the best.

  In a way, it wasn’t fair that Locke refused to train him like the other slaves.

  Wulf moved as Locke’s fingers woke him again from his reverie, skimming his calves, almost tickling. He wanted to turn over, sit up, but he also wanted those hands on him, and more words in the way Locke spoke them, like a prayer.

  “Easy. Lie still.”

  Wulf only now realized he’d lifted his arms to push himself up. He fell forward again, crossing his arms underneath his face in a more comfortable position.

  “Lie still,” Locke repeated.

  Heat ran through Wulf at the words Lie still. He wasn’t sure why. But the combination of those words, the command of them, and their meaning eased him into a quiet peace. They filled him with something else, too, an erotic promise he found he wanted despite the old voices in his head that forbade such feelings.

  Despite the idea that he might be disobeying some other, deeper, unseen voice that told him he was bad. If a master commanded him to lie still, then he needed to take no responsibility for what happened.

  It was freeing.

  “Will you tell me,” Locke asked, “what you are thinking right now this very moment?”

  Wulf’s eyes flashed open. He couldn’t. Could he?

  “There are no wrong answers.” Locke’s hands had reached Wulf’s feet and were massaging the ankles, the heels, the instep, first one foot, then the other. Wulf wanted to arch at the pleasure of it. He held still.

  The silence stretched between them.

  “No thoughts?” Locke pressed gently at the ball of Wulf’s left foot. “Anything that comes to mind is welcome.”

  Wulf wanted to be right, to be good.

  “That I am bad.” But no, he should not have said that. That was too dark, too negative. “That when you told me to lie still my body wanted to uh, maybe… dissolve?”

  “Thank you for your honesty. Was that the first time?”

  “First time?”

  “That you haven’t told me what you think you should be telling me, or what you think I want to hear.”

  “I don’t know—“ Wulf didn’t know. He had not been in tune with his heart, only his intellect. Since childhood, he’d thought his way through every predicament. Feelings were never to be taken into account. Outbursts in children were severely punished.

  “What do you know now?”

  “That I want to be good for you as a slave. I want you to see that.”

  “Why? Why have you changed so quickly? Can you tell me that?”

  “I want to fit in here.” Now he was lying again. He didn’t want to fit in. He wanted to live.

  Locke chuckled. “I do not think that is true. Try again.”

  “I—I—“ Frustration clenched in Wulf’s throat and chest. He moved his head up, his hands pushing against the pillows.

  Locke’s hands moved to his hips. He did not touch Wulf’s buttocks, only the sides of his upper thighs, and the dent of his hips where they met his torso. Thumbs caressed close against his lower back. Locke was efficiently cupping his waist.

  “What is it you’re trying to tell me?” Locke’s hands came up quickly to Wulf’s neck, pushing gently.

  “Down, down,” Locke said.

  Wulf pressed his forehead into his arms again. “I—I—don’t want to die. If I am of value, I could maybe stay alive.” He gulped.

  Locke did not seem at all surprised or flustered. Only calm as he worked kinks from the back of Wulf’s neck.

  Locke said, “I have told you you are safe. Yet you do not believe me.”

  Wulf groaned. The fingers felt so good.

  “Truth, please,” Locke said.

  Wulf shut his eyes tight. Held his breath.

  “Nothing?”

  Through gritted teeth. “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know if you can believe me.”

  Louder. “I don’t know!”

  “Then the trust between us is not established.”

  Failure.

  Wulf started to deny it. “That’s not—that’s unfair.”

  “How does fairness come into play? It’s what is. You do not trust me.”

  Locke’s fingers furrowed in the hairline at the base of Wulf’s neck. His blond hair, parted, hung on either side of his jaw. The master’s fingers pressed up, weaving themselves into his locks.

  Sparks stirred in Wulf’s stomach, a fluttering of individual heated points within. The sensation moved up and down his body, but most of it centered at his groin as his cock pressed against the spread with an overwhelming ache. His balls shifted and he lifted his hips to ease the pressure.

  The sandalwood scent of the oils and the fresh-air fragrance of the pillows mixed with the musk of arousal. Wulf’s mind whirled.

  He was supposed to be arousing his master, wasn’t he? He wanted to learn the art of pleasure, not this—this feeling. It was too intimate, too revealing. His clothing had been stripped away, but this was more stripping, as if his skin was sloughing off. The vulnerability of helplessness before all options of loss and more loss hurt but the arousal deepened. It was too much.

  Locke said, “Hmm,” and nothing more.

  Wulf lifted his hips a second time. Adjusting, but his cock only grew warmer.

  “It’s not fair,” Wulf began. “Because—“ He gulped. “Because you won’t train me like the others so I am doomed to fail anyway. If I fail, you will be displeased. Why keep me then?”

  A lot of his words muted themselves as he spoke into the pillow.

  “I see. Good questions. Did you think of them on your own?”

  “But your bet—“ And now he’d said it. What he wasn’t ready to reveal. But the hands had relaxed him so much.

  They continued to stroke him on his neck and shoulders.

  As if nothing had been revealed that Locke didn’t already know, Locke said, “I see. You know that the bet is between me and Malik. No one else. Not even you. You are not responsible for my actions, or my choices. I am the master here. You are responsible only for obeying me. You still have not learned the lesson.”

  Had Malik talked to Locke? Did Locke already know Malik had assaulted him in the night? This made things far worse.

  Wulf could not move. The hands on him were too relaxing. Fingertips scraped lightly against Wulf’s scalp. His body
felt hot all over, slick from more than oil. He sweated, seethed, wanting to move, to feel and not feel. Which?

  His hair ruffled at Locke’s ministrations. His nostrils filled with the perfumes of pleasure. He tasted something sweet in the back of his throat. He was a prude, he knew it, but this wasn’t new. He’d come before with his own hand. Just not often, and too often quite unwillingly. He used his petal often and it helped.

  Locke said he wasn’t responsible, but he couldn’t think. A petal would help him think. Before he knew it, he was saying it aloud. “If I had a petal, it would help.”

  “What is a petal?” Locke asked calmly.

  It was the most erotic feeling, those fingers in his hair, moving in slow circles, pressing in all the right places.

  Wulf realized now that he would have to explain. He couldn’t. But of course he could.

  Locke was a master of pleasure slaves. He’d seen it all. He’d heard it all. But he did not know what a petal was.

  “It’s-- it fastens onto a man.” Wulf shifted against the spread and the sparks grew into conflagrations. His cock tingled. “And a chain pulls it back and fastens to a belt.”

  “It? What?”

  “It forces an—an erection down. I need one.” On that last word, his voice quivered and came out too high.

  “Oh, you are describing a cock cage.” Locke said this so matter-of-factly that Wulf shut his eyes tight enough to see red explosions on the insides of his eyelids.

  “You have worn a cock cage before?” Locke asked.

  “Yes,” Wulf replied in a small voice.

  “Often?”

  “Off and on since I was fourteen.”

  “What?” Locke’s hands came away from Wulf’s head. He heard Locke move closer to the head of the bed, heard the rustling of clothing as he bent down. A hand touched him at the center of his damp back, slippery but at ease.

  Wulf whispered into his arms. “All boys wear them.”

  “No,” Locke said softly. “No, they don’t.”

  Locke’s hand slid down Wulf’s back, a gentle stroking.

  Then Locke asked, “That night when your collar malfunctioned. Is that when you learned of the bet?”

  Wulf couldn’t answer. Didn’t care anymore.

  Oh, it was like flying. That hand on him, the gentleness and the feeling of gloss and smoothness. Wulf’s muscles rippled.

  The pressure in his cock intensified. Burning sensations all over his body trapped him in a sort of bliss and terror at the same time, for he was on the verge of coming and it couldn’t happen like this. It was just a massage. He had not even turned over to show his vulnerable underbelly yet.

  “I need a petal. I need it now,” Wulf said.

  “A petal. Hmm,” Locke’s hand would not stop. “I don’t think so. It would mar the beauty of you completely, the utter purity of your response. Don’t you think?”

  “No. It’s not pure. It’s not pure, it’s—“

  “Shhh.”

  The bed shifted and Wulf realized Locke had settled himself on the edge. The side of his pant leg brushed Wulf’s thigh.

  “But I— I need you to win the bet.“

  “It is not for you to worry about. Have I not told you? You are safe here. With me.”

  Wulf lifted his head and turned it, trying to see Locke at his side. He wanted to look into his eyes. To know. Was he telling the truth?

  Locke’s knee was close to Wulf’s nose. He inhaled the man’s scent, the cleanness of him, the clothing fresh and laundered, a singular scent he could not name that was Locke’s alone, a fresh almost-sweetness. He hungered for it. But the more he hungered, the greater his arousal flared.

  His gaze was blurred. He blinked and blinked, trying to clear it. But Locke’s hand up and down his back made his eyes roll up.

  And then Locke’s words, “Don’t you realize how beautiful you really are?”

  He was a fighter. A warrior. A nobody. He could be sacrificed for his country’s cause at a whim. He wasn’t beautiful. He was just a machine.

  But Locke made his body believe. For a second, he believed.

  “On your side,” Locke commanded thickly.

  Wulf suffered to obey. Tried to roll. His trapped cock sprung up before he could draw his knees up.

  And to his horror, as it dipped back to smack his stomach, that single movement alone stimulated the heat to a white-hot burn. His arm went down but not fast enough to grab himself. Locke caught his wrist, held it, and looked into his eyes.

  Wulf groaned and everything came apart, turned into stars and crashing planets, white sheets of hot rain and fire. Everything fell to pieces around him. Including his soul.

  His cock spasmed. The flaming fluid of his ejaculation spurted against his thigh and stomach, and no doubt onto the spread as well.

  He’d messed up bad. So bad.

  He gasped in shock at himself, the air rasping like sand in his throat. Hot breaths of air gushed from his mouth. “Oh, I—I didn’t mean to, I—“ He couldn’t find words.

  He ripped his wrist from Locke’s grip, putting his hand to his face as if to hide like a stupid child. His cheeks were wet but he didn’t know when that had happened. It was all like a horrible dream.

  “Please don’t sell me!” said a voice that sounded very much like his own. “Don’t sell me! I didn’t mean to. I didn’t mean to.”

  Ok, so he could still talk. He had to get hold of himself. He had to fix this. It was fixable. Locke had certainly seen it all, including failed slaves.

  “I’ll do better, I promise! Just don’t make me be a—a thrall for one night for strangers, I—I—“

  “Shh. I won’t sell you. Do you hear me now? I won’t sell you.”

  Locke’s words sounded hollow to Wulf’s ears. He was lying. Malik said so. This was all for a bet. All for a bet and Locke was going to lose. And Wulf was going to lose, too. Lose everything.

  Chapter Nineteen – Locke

  “I beg you, please.”

  Wulf seemed to be trying to right himself onto his knees, so out of place, so wrong, and Locke would not have it. But no matter how hard he tried, he could not get his slave to relax.

  “Why would you think I am going to sell you? Have I not told you over and over you are mine now?”

  “For ten days I’m yours. That’s all. I know—“ Wulf’s breaths came slower now as he got control of himself.

  So beautiful, he was, his cock still hard, the pink tip wide and engorged, dripping. How spectacular he’d been, coming from just a touch to his back.

  Locke said, “That’s how long the bet was for, yes. But not how long I own you. I already told you, the bet is not your responsibility. It’s mine and I will deal with it. The winning and the losing have nothing to do with you. I have bought you in a final sale. You are mine. How many times do I have to explain this?”

  “But—but I am all wrong, not working right in my head or my body—broken. Obviously, you can’t keep me. Not here in the Palace. Not anywhere. But I am trying—trying to do better. I can do better!”

  To hear Wulf’s voice hitch and pant, to watch him hold back the tears of horror and mortification he must be feeling made Locke frustrated and angry and sympathetic all at once. He wanted to take the man and shake him, make him see how beautiful he was, how perfect with his fighting nature and proud denials. To see how brutally and honestly Locke had fallen for him like no other slave he’d ever met.

  For he had fallen. And fallen hard. This man’s anger and passion and denial made him glow.

  “Sweetheart, you do not have to try to do better for me. You are the one who wanted to be brought to the training room.”

  “Yes! Because I want to learn to do this right. I want you to keep me.”

  “I am already keeping you.”

  But Wulf’s breathing came hard again, and he seemed not to hear him.

  Locke put both hands on Wulf’s slippery shoulders, gripping tight. “Listen to me! I am keeping you.”

&
nbsp; Wulf looked up at him. “Ten days only,” he said. “Ten days.”

  “Someone other than me has put this notion into your head. Who said that to you?”

  But there was only one person it could be. He suspected. But now he knew for sure. Malik.

  “Come,” Locke said, moving forward and off the bed, standing. He grabbed Wulf’s leash.

  Wulf recoiled.

  “Stand. I’m taking you back to your room.”

  Wulf shook his head. “Please. Can we try again?”

  “A massage? No.”

  “Not for me. For you. Please. Let me.” Slowly, Wulf got to his feet, his body gleaming with oils. His cock had lost its lovely fullness—how alluring and virile this man was!—but still so beautiful nestled and half-hard in its golden glistening curls.

  “I am to walk through the halls like this?” Wulf asked, mouth open in horror.

  Locke took pity, handing him a towel. He said, “If a master asks you to walk through the halls like that, you must do so. Is that the training you are asking for?”

  Wulf’s face pinked.

  Locke’s gaze softened. “Trust,” he said. “Your first lesson. Do you understand now?”

  Wulf looked up, lashes catching the edges of bluish light that rained down from the high ceiling overhead. “I failed.”

  “Oh, no, my proud warrior, my slave. You did better than anyone who has gone before you as my trainee. You have moved me.”

  The towel dangled from Wulf’s grip. His mouth opened, the pink lips full and perfect, framing such a handsome mouth. As if a magic wand had been waved, all the muscles of his face and torso relaxed. If possible, he became even more stunning and alluring than ever to Locke.

  Locke stepped forward until his mouth was only inches from Wulf’s. Their eyes met. Locke whispered with all the reverence he could muster.

  “This is the final time I will say this. I will never sell you.”

  *

  How could he tell Wulf everything that was in his heart? For a master, it was unthinkable. He’d been taught early on to distance connections with slaves even as he taught them to trust him.

  By his own will, he could have lovers, of course. But he’d had only trysts. Nothing with staying power. His heart was a ghost because of it.