“I…I don’t know, my Lady,” H’rare muttered miserably. “I’m not…I don’t know such things.”
“Which is the only reason I’m not having you sent to the Diluthian mines!” Priss snapped. She pressed the remote again and watched with a smile curving the corners of her thin lips as her bodyslave stiffened in pain. This time she did not let up immediately but watched with that same nasty smirk as H’rare writhed in front of her.
Karn felt sorry for the poor bastard—clearly his young Mistress was a burgeoning sadist. But when he looked at his own Mistress, he saw that Lilli was upset by the display.
“Oh, please—you’re hurting him!” she exclaimed, putting out a hand to Priss. “Please, don’t!”
The other girl shot her a disdainful look.
“You can’t be too easy on your bodyslaves, Lilliana, or they’ll walk all over you,” she snapped. “However, since we are at the dinner table…”
She let up on the remote and H’rare—who had been frozen in a rictus of pain—sank to his knees panting.
“Clean up this mess,” Priss barked at him. “And bring me something non-alcoholic to drink.”
“Yes, Mistress.” H’rare nodded quickly. “At once.”
“Wait.” Priss glared up at him. “Aren’t you forgetting something, H’rare?”
Her bodyslave swallowed and Karn saw a look of pure hatred flash in his eyes. But it was gone so quickly no one else noticed it.
“Thank you for correcting me, Mistress,” he said mechanically. “Truly, I am most grateful.”
“Of course you are.” Priss snapped her fingers at him. “Now go. And if you don’t know the way in this ridiculously huge barn of a house, I’m sure one of the other bodyslaves who works here can guide you.” She looked at Lilli. “Lilliana, have your bodyslave take my H’rare to the kitchens to get me something more appropriate to drink.”
“Oh, well actually, Karn hasn’t been with me very long,” Lilli said, glancing back at him. “So he doesn’t know where the kitchens are either.”
“That’s all right, little Mistress,” Karn told her. “I’m sure I can find my way. Come on.” He nodded at the other bodyslave, who nodded back, and the two of them set off for the far corner of the long banquet hall where there was a swinging double door. That seemed the most logical place to find the kitchens and even if it wasn’t, this was a golden opportunity for Karn to explore.
He only hoped Lilli would be all right with the awful Priss while he was gone.
Twelve
“So, that’s a nice new bodyslave you have, Lilliana—though he’s a bit too quick to speak to his betters if you ask me.” Priss remarked, toying with the food on her plate.
The servants had come and served everyone but the skinny girl had hardly touched a thing as far as Lilli could see. She wished Karn was back behind her chair. His solid presence made her feel grounded, but he and Priss’s bodyslave were still gone to the distant kitchens to clean up and get the picky Mistress something new to drink.
In fact, none of the girls was drinking the bubble wine, though her mother had said it was extremely expensive and sure to be a hit. Lilli had ordered one of the serving girls to bring a bottle of sparkling goochi juice to the table instead and they were all sipping that, though it only cost a fraction of the other exotic vintage.
“Yes, Karn is a Kindred,” Lilli said, trying to be gracious though she was disliking Priss more and more every minute they sat at the same table together. She especially didn’t like the way the other girl had treated her bodyslave.
“A Kindred, is it? No wonder he has such a big shaft.” Priss popped a single sedju seed between her teeth and crunched noisily. “Most impressive, I must say. Maybe I’ll tell my mother to buy him from your mother for me.”
“Oh, but you can’t do that!” Lilli exclaimed. “Karn is mine. He’s my very first bodyslave—Mother bought him for me specially.”
“Karn is mine,” Priss sing-songed in a baby voice. “Honestly, I can’t believe you’re only just now getting your first bodyslave. I’ve had five already, counting H’rare.”
“Five?” Lilli looked at her in surprise. “But, well…where are they?”
Priss shrugged. “They’re all so troublesome. Every single one had to be sent to the Diluthian mines because they couldn’t behave correctly. Mother complains that I go through them too quickly but she always buys me another when I tell her to.”
Lilli was aware that the girls in her circle—the ultra-rich of Yonnie Six—didn’t even bother to recycle their expensive bodyslaves by selling them on the second-hand slave market. Instead, they treated the males they bought to serve them as disposable and threw them away, much the way one might throw away a tissue after using it.
But just because she was part of this social class didn’t mean she had to like it. She hadn’t been raised in the convent to treat people like dirt or throw them away. In fact, they had been taught that all lives were sacred—even the lives of males.
“I don’t think it’s right to send a bodyslave to the Diluthian mines just because he doesn’t please you,” she said, lifting her chin. “Do you know how long the life expectancy is there? Barely a week before the gasses do permanent damage to a male’s lungs.”
“What do I care about his lungs?” Priss demanded, frowning. “It’s his shaft and his service I’m worried about! H’rare has a good enough shaft for display—though it’s nothing like that monster your bodyslave has—and he’s generally good at service, so I’ll probably keep him for a while. At least until my quick-grow comes out.” She stroked her abdomen again, making Lilli frown.
“Your, er, ‘quick-grow’?” she asked. “What do you mean by that?”
“My daughter of course—my heir.” Priss rubbed her belly some more. “It’s all the fashion now to go to the conception center and get having your heir out of the way while you’re young. That way you don’t have to bother with it when you get older and you’re too busy with business to have a baby. Why, Mother insisted I have it done now that they have the quick-grow shots that make the whole business so much faster.”
“My mother had me do it too,” Yulla volunteered timidly. “It doesn’t take long—you’re only pregnant for about three months.”
“Do they use some kind of quick-growing sperm, then?” Lilli asked.
“Goodness, no!” Beelie, one of the twins spoke up.
“The sperm is whatever kind you choose,” Bodie continued.
“It’s the shots they give you beforehand that makes the baby grow quickly,” Beelie said.
“We only got impregnated the other day and look how far along we are already,” Bodie added as both twins rubbed their swelling abdomens.
“And we chose sperm from the same male—so our daughters can be sisters and not just cousins,” Beelie said.
“Isn’t that just perfect?” Bodie asked.
“But…but what will you do with the babies when they come?” Lilli asked. “Are you going to raise them yourselves?”
“Certainly not,” Priss sneered. “We’ll send them off somewhere or have a nannybot raise them. They have some very advanced AI tech now—some nannybots even produce milk calibrated to your heir’s nutritional needs. Why, you never even have to look in on them at all! Just give them to the nannybot the moment they pop out and don’t bother with them until they come of age twenty years later.”
She laughed and the other girls giggled along as well.
“My mother says that if there had been nannybots when I was little she would have used one,” Yulla said.
“Our mother too,” Bodie added.
“She says your mother, Lady Mirabella, was smarter that she was—never having the bother of raising you at all,” Beelie added, speaking to Lilli.
“Well, I don’t like the idea.” Lilli shook her head. “I mean, I don’t feel ready to have a baby now. But if I did, I’d want to raise her myself—not just send her off to a convent or shove her off on a nannybot.”
<
br /> “Well, it doesn’t appear to be a problem since you’re not pregnant,” Priss sneered. “Honestly, Lilliana, when are you ever going to get with the times?”
“I don’t care if it’s in fashion to have a, uh, quick-grow baby,” Lilli said, lifting her chin. “I don’t want to do it—I’m not ready and I don’t think you are either,” she added, looking at Priss.
The other girl’s eyes flashed.
“What do you know about me or anything at all, for that matter? You were raised in that backwards convent where they don’t even let you dress right—let alone do anything else that’s in fashion!” She made a sweet, simpering face at Lilli. “Actually, I feel sorry for you, Lilliana—honestly I do. You’re just so hopelessly out of sync with the rest of society—you’ll probably end up like old Mistress Hownow who actually raised a bodyslave as her heir because she always wanted a ‘son.’ Can you imagine?”
She laughed nastily and the other girls did too. Lilli said nothing because she had no idea what Priss was talking about. She wished heartily that Karn would come back so she didn’t feel so alone. At least she could talk to the big Kindred. Having a nice conversation with the spoiled brats at this table was impossible—especially the awful Priss.
“So she raised him as her heir?” Yulla asked Priss, frowning in apparent confusion.
“Yes—she did! And he was a Kindred too, just like your new bodyslave,” Priss turned to Lilli again. “You know, she wanted to leave him all her wealth and set him free? Luckily her niece, Lady Bittlebum, put an end to that nonsense. She contested the will and sold the old lady’s bodyslave at a ‘troubled slave’ auction because he wouldn’t behave.”
“Why didn’t she just send him to the mines?” Beelie asked, frowning.
Priss sniffed.
“Probably because Mistress Bittlebum is such a penny-pincher she can’t afford to toss a slave without trying to make a profit on him. Why, my mother says she doesn’t even own her own building downtown! But you’ll never guess what happened next, girls…” She leaned forward excitedly.
“What?” Bodie and Beelie and Yulla all asked together.
“Why he killed his new Mistress!” Priss whispered. “Yes, I know—isn’t it dreadful?” She shook her head and looked at Lilli. “And that’s why you have to constantly stay on top of your bodyslaves and never let them get the upper hand. Males are violent and unpredictable and if you give them an inch, they’ll take a parsec!”
“That’s what our mother always says too.” Bodie and Beelie were both nodding.
Just at that moment and much to her relief, Karn reappeared at Lilli’s side.
“Here you are, Mistress,” he rumbled, setting a chilled golden cup with beads of condensation on the outside in front of her. “Frosted li’ta juice. I hope you enjoy it.”
Lilli saw at once what he was doing because H’rare was sitting an identical cup in front of Priss. Clearly if she took a drink and approved the juice, Priss would have a more difficult time refusing it.
Quickly, she picked up the glass and took a sip.
“Mmm, delicious! Thank you, Karn,” she said, smiling up at the big Kindred.
Priss frowned at her.
“You’re awfully trusting, Lilliana. What if that was poisoned?” she demanded.
“Poisoned? Oh, Karn would never—” Lilli began.
“How do you know? You told me yourself you just got him,” Priss waved a large, gaudy ring with a clear stone over the cup H’rare had put before her. The clear jewel beeped and turned green and she nodded and took a sip. “Very good, H’rare—you may get down and kiss my feet,” she said to her bodyslave.
H’rare at once dropped to the floor and began kissing her bare toes which were exposed by her thin, strappy sandals.
“There—that’s how you do it. Never trust anything your bodyslave gives you unless you poison-check it first,” Priss lectured.
“My Mistress has no fear that I will harm her because I have given her my oath only to serve and pleasure her,” Karn growled. “Also, I am a Kindred and we do not harm females.”
“Oh my Goddess!” Priss put a hand to her bony chest and looked up at Karn as though she couldn’t believe he had dared to open his mouth. “Lilliana, do something!” she demanded.
“Do what?” Lilli looked at her in confusion.
“Your bodyslave just spoke to me as though he was my equal,” Priss exclaimed. “He looked me in the eyes and everything! You can’t allow such behavior!”
“Karn was only explaining why I don’t have to worry about him hurting me,” Lilli said defensively. “Kindred are different from other bodyslaves. They never harm women.”
“Right,” Priss snorted. “Have you not been hearing a word I was saying? That bodyslave of Mistress Hownow’s was a Kindred and that didn’t stop him from ripping off his new Mistress’s head, now did it?” She sniffed. “Anyway, at least he’s in jail now. And scheduled for execution.” She pointed a finger at Lilliana. “Mark my words—it starts with letting a bodyslave speak to you like an equal and ends with a bellyful of poison or some other horrible violence. You have to keep on top of them all the time.”
“I…I don’t believe that,” Lilli said, but now she wasn’t quite sure what to think. Was Priss telling the truth? Was there really another Kindred bodyslave who had ripped off his Mistress’s head?
Surely not, she thought. Priss is just trying to frighten me because she’s such an awful bully.
Priss shrugged. “Look it up for yourself. Your mother is the Archivist for the Sacred Seven, isn’t she? She ought to have all the information on file.”
“I don’t have to look it up to know you’re lying. You’re just jealous.” Lilli frowned at the other girl. “Because I have a Kindred bodyslave and you don’t.”
“The Kindred bodyslaves do have the biggest shafts,” Beelie remarked and Bodie nodded.
“Certainly he’s the biggest we’ve ever seen. Well, except for that Trollox bodyslave Mother had for a while but he was disgusting.”
The twins shivered together as though remembering something truly horrific.
Priss frowned, her blue eyes narrowing.
“How dare you say the Kindred’s shaft is bigger than my bodyslave’s?”
“Well, because it is,” Yulla pointed out. She looked between H’rare and Karn, frowning in a confused way. “Isn’t it? Didn’t you admit that yourself?”
“That doesn’t matter!” Priss snapped. “I don’t care how big your bodyslave’s shaft is,” she added, glaring at Lilli. “Because I know my slave can beat him in a seed-shooting contest!”
“A what?” Lilli asked, frowning.
Bodie and Beelie giggled behind their hands.
“Oh my—she doesn’t even know what a seed-shooting contest is!” Bodie whispered loudly to her twin.
“They must have kept her so ignorant in that convent!” Beelie whispered back.
“A seed-shooting contest is where you take your slave in hand and give him a manual release,” Priss explained loftily. “Of course, my H’rare can shoot more seed farther than any other bodyslave in Opulex. But I wouldn’t expect your Kindred to be able to compete at that level—seeing as how you all live out in the country here and you have such backwards ways.”
“Karn can beat your slave at anything!” Lilli said hotly. She was tired of the other girl’s posturing—tired of being bullied in her own home. “Anywhere, anytime,” she added.
“Fine.” Priss gave her a nasty smile. “Prove it.”
Thirteen
Well this was a fucking interesting turn of events, Karn thought dryly. Though he supposed he shouldn’t be surprised. H’rare had warned him in the kitchens—once they found them—that his Mistress was a monster.
“A fucking cruel bitch,” was how the other bodyslave had put it, his face a twisted mask of helpless rage. “But I can’t do anything but obey her because she’ll send me to the Diluthian mines otherwise.”
“I’m sorry, Broth
er—you have a heavy burden to bear.” Karn had clapped him on the shoulder.
“Your Mistress seems all right,” H’rare said. “Or at least she’s not a sadist.”
“Lilli is something special,” Karn admitted, as much to himself as to the other male. “But she was raised in a convent—not that snake’s nest they call Opulex. It’s made her kinder and less jaded than the other Mistresses, I think.”
“You’re lucky,” H’rare had said with feeling. “I’d do anything to have a Mistress like that.”
Karn had to admit that he was lucky—especially since he hadn’t expected to have someone like Lilli for his Mistress. When he had accepted this mission, he’d gone with the idea that Lady Mirabella would be the one who bought him.
The Goddess is looking out for me to send me to Lilli instead, he’d thought. She must approve of my mission.
He had thought it again when he and the other bodyslave came back into the banquet hall and he’d heard Priss speaking about a jailed Kindred bodyslave. Then he’d heard that the poor bastard was scheduled for execution.
Have to look into that, he’d told himself. As soon as he knew where to look, anyway. The trip to the kitchen hadn’t gotten him any closer to finding Lady Mirabella’s private office, though he did have a better understanding of the layout of the vast mansion now.
He got an even better one now, as everyone at the dinner table got up and trooped out the golden double doors to stand on the broad marble balcony.
“Wherever are you girls going?” Lady Mirabella called as they left the table.
“Out for some air, Mistress Mirabella,” Priss called helpfully before Lilli could say anything. “And to admire your view—I understand it’s quite breathtaking.”
“Oh, well—so it is.” Lady Mirabella preened. “Thank you, Priss—do enjoy yourselves.”
“Oh, we will.” Priss’s blue eyes flashed as she glanced at Lilli.
Protecting His Mistress...Book 24 in the Kindred Tales Series Page 6