by I. T. Lucas
As if the bitch didn’t know it.
“Richard.” He was careful to avoid her black-on-black eyes, focusing instead on the colorful robes billowing behind her.
She was tall, like they all were, slim, and nearly flat-chested. Perhaps the Krall didn’t nurse their young?
Despite them rising out of hibernation over a century ago, not much was known about them. The demons weren’t forthcoming about their culture and belief system, but they’d earned their nickname fair and square, and not just because of their black eyes and forked tongues.
They were cold and cruel toward each other almost as much as they were toward humans. The main difference was that they compelled and enslaved the human population to their will, but they couldn’t do that to each other.
What the princess didn’t know, though, was that she couldn’t compel him, and Richard needed to keep up the pretense. If she found out that he was immune, she would order him executed on the spot.
“Rishaaard,” she hissed his name.
The hissing had nothing to do with malevolence, only with aggression, which was worse because it meant that the bitch had the hots for him. Female Krall equated sex with blood sports, and aggression made them horny.
Richard had to remind himself that it was all good. If he wanted the damn princess to keep him in her household, he had to give her a good reason to do so.
“That’s my name, Your Highness.”
“The resistance leader who we’ve been hunting for months, and you let yourself get caught so easily.” She was in his face, her breath tickling his ear. “How disappointing.” She trailed her long fingernails down his neck, scraping, but not drawing blood. “I expected more of you.”
He affected a grimace. “I expected more of myself as well.”
They would have never caught him if he hadn’t allowed it.
After weeks of trying to infiltrate the princess’s household, he’d realized that letting himself get captured was the only way to get in and free Cilia.
Since she’d been taken over two months ago and sentenced to lifelong slavery, every extraction plan he’d come up with had failed. She’d never left the house, and getting in to snatch her had proved impossible.
Richard had hoped that she’d been assigned a maid’s job, but he knew it was wishful thinking. A young and healthy human female was no doubt used as a source of nourishment for the bloodsuckers.
Cilia was also too beautiful for the Krall males to ignore, and unlike him, she wasn’t immune to their compulsion. They could do whatever they wanted to her, and she couldn’t even object.
“Maybe you wanted to get caught.” The princess closed her claws over his neck. “Perhaps you are curious about bedding a Krall.” Holding him in place, she leaned closer and sniffed him. “You are angry. How exciting.”
Forcing himself to stand as still as a statue was an exercise in restraint.
The Krall princess was too strong for him to take down, and she wasn’t alone, but it would have been so satisfying to try.
She was a predator, and if he moved, she would pounce and bite him. But if he stood his ground, she would just keep toying with him.
“Look at me, slave.” Her sharp fingernails dug into his neck, drawing blood.
Closing his eyes, he shook his head.
The fingers of her other hand closed over his chin. “Open your eyes, Richard.”
“Why are you wasting your time on him?” a male voice sneered. “I’ll kill the disobedient dog for you. His crimes deserve the death penalty.”
“Shut up, Creg. Killing a food source is wasteful. Besides, the worst punishment for a so-called freedom fighter is lifelong slavery.”
“You might compel him to obey you, but he’ll always resent you.”
“I’ll enjoy his defiance. It would be so pleasing to break him.”
The feel of her lips on his was so shocking that Richard’s eyes popped open. He closed them right back.
The princess laughed. “Is that what humans call a kiss? I’ve never had a human lover before.” She touched his lips with hers again.
Even though the princess was beautiful, he was repulsed by her, but he couldn’t let her know that. His head would roll off his shoulders before he batted an eyelash. To be allowed to stay in her house, he had to do the opposite and let her think that he was attracted to her.
Pretending that he was kissing Cilia, he brushed his lips over hers and flicked his tongue over them.
Unexpectedly, the princess giggled. “That tickles. But it’s not unpleasant.”
“If you want to find out more about the way humans make love, I would be more than happy to show you. But I can do that only if you leave my mind free and let me serve you of my own free will. Otherwise, it’s not going to be genuine.”
She laughed. “Make love? The Krall don’t make love. We fight and we fuck. Can you even put up a decent fight to get me aroused?”
So that part of the lore was true. The Krall females needed their males to wrestle and subdue them in order to get aroused.
Savages.
And they thought that they were so much more civilized than humans.
“I promise to give it all I have.”
“It’s not going to be enough.” She sniffed his neck, then licked the blood she’d drawn with the tip of her forked tongue. “If you don’t open your eyes, I’ll drain you right here right now. If you do, I’ll only take a little taste.” She licked him again. “Yummy.”
He opened his eyes, and as she looked into them, he pretended to be enthralled.
“Now, that wasn’t so hard. Was it?” She shifted her grip from his neck to the back of his head.
“I’ll tell you a little secret.” She blew on his ear. “I don’t need to look into your eyes to make you my devoted slave until death do us part. There is another way to do that. One that I will enjoy much more.”
Bracing for what he knew would come next, Richard cringed.
He’d never been fed on before.
The previous generations of humans living in the Krall controlled territories had been fed on indiscriminately. Richard had been lucky to be born after the reforms had been enacted, allowing the Krall to feed only on humans who gave their consent or those sentenced to slavery for breaking the law.
Not that the Krall obeyed the rules of conduct they had put into law themselves. Compelling consent was forbidden, but it still happened quite often.
Her grip on his neck tightened, and a loud hiss preceded the sharp pain of her fangs piercing his skin.
Except, it didn’t last long.
A couple of seconds later, a wave of intense arousal crashed over him, and as much as he detested the princess and all of the Krall, he couldn’t help it.
Forgive me, he asked Cilia in his head.
Just as she’d promised, the princess retracted her fangs after a minute or two of suckling and licked the puncture wounds closed.
With a light shove of her hand, she sent him toppling back.
“Take him to the slave quarters and give him a job.” She sauntered back to her throne.
46
Cilia
“Hurry up, Cilia.” Elton cast her a glare. “I don’t have all day.”
“I’m going as fast as I can.” Her fingers were cramping from peeling pounds of potatoes, but the head cook didn’t care.
It wasn’t like his fingers ever cramped.
As a rare mix of human and Krall, he didn’t have fangs, he didn’t drink blood, and his eyes looked almost normal, but Elton had their forked tongue and their compulsion ability, and he was also freakishly strong and fast.
Humans and Krall were usually incompatible, so even though Krall males banged a lot of human females, only a small number of them had ever conceived, and out of those, only a handful had managed to carry to term.
“And I had to be one of the unlucky ones,” Cilia muttered under her breath.
Elton looked at her over his shoulder. “What did you say?”
/>
“Nothing. I’m lucky to have this job.”
“You’re damn right. It’s better to be peeling potatoes than being a blood bag.”
“Very funny.”
That was the one good thing about her pregnancy. The Krall had lost interest in her, and they’d also stopped drinking from her. Now she only had to worry about unwelcome advances from the human staff. Unlike the Krall who could sniff her pregnancy, the humans didn’t know that she was pregnant, and she wanted to keep it like that for as long as she could.
It could be worse.
In the princess’s household, her child would at least be allowed to be born. He wouldn’t be granted full Krall privileges, and he would be treated as a second-class citizen, but he wouldn’t be murdered in her womb.
Instinctively, her hand went to her stomach. He was her baby, and he was innocent of any wrongdoing. She wouldn’t let anyone harm him.
Humans considered hybrids an abomination, but Elton was a halfling, and he was a good guy. Her son would be a good man as well.
As far as Cilia knew, no hybrid girl had ever been born. But maybe if more had been allowed to live, some of them could have been female. The Krall males outnumbered the females five to one, so perhaps the same ratio applied to halflings.
It was against the law to have a hybrid child outside a Krall household. If a free woman got impregnated by a Krall, she was supposed to march into the male’s household and ask for sanctuary. Or, in other words, offer herself as a slave in exchange for his protection.
Most opted to get rid of the demon seed.
Hell, if she were out there, Richard would have dragged her to the doctor kicking and screaming and demanded that she abort the abomination.
Richard. Her eyes misted with tears. She was never going to see him again. Even if the demons allowed her to leave, she wouldn’t go to him.
What for?
So he could look at her with disgust?
It was better to cling to the memories of the love they’d shared than get them trampled on.
Even if she weren’t pregnant with a Krall baby, she was damaged goods. Soiled, used. Richard would never be able to look past it.
With tears misting her vision, Cilia dropped the peeled potato into the pot and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. She was about to reach into the basket for another, when a man walked into the kitchen.
Her hand froze midway. “Richard?”
Had her mind just conjured him?
He put a finger on his lips, signaling her to keep quiet.
A moment later Elton walked into the kitchen. “You are the new guy?”
“That’s me.”
“I was told to send you to the stables. Go out the side door, make a right, and then let your nose guide you.”
“Got it.”
“When you are done, report back here.”
“Yes, sir.”
How in damnation had Richard gotten caught? Had he come to rescue her?
If so, he was too late.
Even if she somehow managed to break the compulsion that bound her to the princess’s house, she would not go with him.
Richard was immune to the Krall’s compulsion, so he could just walk out of there. Chances were that no one would try to stop him.
Security was tight for those wishing to enter the house, but it was lax on those residing within it. The compulsion bound the human staff to the household, and unless given explicit permission, none of the slaves could step foot outside of it. The guards might ask to see a written note from Elton or the mistress, but that could be forged.
Cilia, on the other hand, could not leave. Her legs would refuse to carry her.
Hot tears stinging the back of her eyes, she turned her back to Richard and attacked the potatoes with renewed vigor.
“Report to the stables manager,” Elton said.
47
Richard
By the time Richard finished mucking out the stables, it was past eight in the evening, but since it was an Arctic Circle summer, it was just as bright outside now as it had been in the morning.
When he got to the kitchen, Cilia was no longer there.
“I’ll show you where you’re going to sleep.” Elton motioned for him to follow. “If you keep your head down and do as you are told, life can be quite pleasant in the princess’s household. Once you are done working, you are free to hang out with the rest of the staff, either in the common room or in our section of the garden, and the back courtyard is ours to use as well.”
The guy was one of the rare halflings, despised by humans but oddly accepted by the Krall. Not as one of their own, of course, but a step above humans.
They walked into a large room lined up with beds. “The ones with no bedding on them are available, and you can choose whichever you like.” Elton walked Richard to the closet lining the entire back wall of the room and opened one of the doors. “The bedding is in here. You make your own bed.” He opened another door. “Clean uniforms. All the male slaves share them. Whenever you need a clean one, you take it from the closet. The dirty ones go into the laundry hamper.”
“Where is everybody?”
“Some are probably in the showers, and the rest are hanging out in the back courtyard. There is a match going on.”
“What kind of match?”
“Wrestling. A lot of betting goes on during those.”
“And the Krall allow it?”
“They don’t care what we do in our spare time.”
Richard scanned the large room. “Do the female slaves sleep here as well?”
“For obvious reasons, the women have their own private rooms.”
Richard grimaced. “I guess they don’t have the option of locking their doors.”
“No, they don’t.”
He couldn’t allow himself to think of Cilia in a room with no lock. His rage would betray him, and it was imperative that he didn’t show any emotions. He was supposed to be under compulsion.
“What about the males? Are the Krall females not interested in them sexually?”
Elton shrugged. “No human male can offer them a decent fight. It’s a turn off for them.”
“They still feed off us.” Richard rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “It’s surprisingly arousing.”
“It’s also addictive.”
“I know.”
Elton smiled. “You just didn’t expect it to happen to you. You thought that you could fight it.”
“I did. But I guess it’s a chemical reaction.”
“It is. And just so you are prepared, the Krall females like to toy with their food.”
“Do they feed on you too?”
The guy nodded. “My blood tastes human, and no food source gets wasted. They need to ration the feedings, so we don’t get anemic.”
Evidently, the halflings got the short end of the stick from both sides. Despised by humans and fed on by their own kind.
“After you clean up and make your bed, come to the kitchen and grab something to eat. You missed dinner, but there are plenty of leftovers.” The guy clapped him on the back. “You’ve missed most of the match anyway.”
“Thank you.”
Richard didn’t plan to shower or go get food. He didn’t have time for any of that. He needed to find Cilia and tell her that he was springing her from this place.
Dropping the bedding Elton had handed him on one of the beds, he walked out of the room and continued down the hallway.
Richard knocked on the first door, and when there was no response, he opened it and peeked inside. The room was only slightly larger than a closet, with a narrow bed pushed against the wall and a wooden stool serving as a nightstand. No one was there.
He knocked on the next door.
“Who is it?” The voice didn’t belong to Cilia.
“I’m looking for the kitchen maid. I believe her name is Cilia or Sylvia. I can’t remember what Elton said.”
“Two doors down on the left.”
Stopping in front of the door, he rapped his fingers on it.
“Go away. I don’t want to watch the stupid match.”
That was his Cilia. Opening the door, he slid inside and closed it quickly behind him.
“Richard,” she breathed. “What are you doing here?”
He put his finger on his lips to shush her and walked up to the bed. “I’m rescuing you.”
He tried to pull her into his arms, but she resisted and scooted toward the wall.
“What’s wrong?” He sat on the bed.
“You are too late.”
“What do you mean?”
“I can’t leave now.”
“I know that you are under compulsion, and that you can’t force yourself to leave, but I will get you out of here. If need be, I’ll knock you out and carry you. Our people are going to create a distraction early in the morning, and we can just walk out of here.”
“You don’t understand.” She put her hand on her belly. “I’m pregnant.”
A grin stretched his face. “That’s great news, and all the more reason for you to come with me. Do you want our child to be born in a Krall household?”
“It’s not our child, Richard.” She looked down at her flat belly. “I wish he was. His father is a Krall.”
He’d known that Cilia would be taken advantage of, but hearing her say that felt like a punch to the gut.
“Are you sure?”
She nodded. “I got my period shortly after getting here. Then they started feeding on me and using me in other ways, and then I got pregnant. I wasn’t sure, but the Krall can tell right away.” She sighed. “At least they leave me alone now.”
“Do you know who the father is?” He was going to murder the bastard.
Cilia blushed. “There have been several of them. They get aroused when they feed, and I couldn’t help getting aroused too. I would have fought it, but they compelled me, and I couldn’t resist.” She lowered her head. “I’m so ashamed, and I feel so soiled.”
Reaching for her hand, he clasped it and brought it to his lips. “It’s not your fault. I know that you couldn’t have done anything to prevent it. You’re just at the very beginning of the pregnancy, and it’s not too late to abort it.”