by Ravyn Wilde
Fighting to remain conscious after the vicious blow to her head, disbelief roared in her mind. The hysterical notion that she should have been more careful what she wished for surfaced. As her eyes closed in pain, she felt tears falling. It didn’t look like she would ever get the opportunity to find the man in the water silhouette.
Chapter One
Two life cycles later
She was so cold. As she lay in the dark, her body separated from the stone floor by a deplorably thin pallet, Ahnika considered her options. Death would be preferable to the current nightmare of pain, fear and degradation she’d lived through in the last two life cycles. She was so tired of fighting her tormentors. She could think of nothing beyond being released from her suffering and she found herself praying almost fanatically for freedom—even if liberation came with death. Without some form of escape, she knew what would come—her future would be filled with continuous torture.
The scream startled her to her feet. Oh, Goddess! It was starting again. She seldom saw the other women who shared her prison. Everyone was kept locked in separate cells, alone and neglected. Unless it was her turn for “training” or her captors compelled her to observe another’s torture, she was left alone with the chilling screams, and her imagination. Considering all the things she’d seen done in this prison, her imagination was a horrible companion. The beatings and bodily torture paled in comparison to the unnatural torment the women were forced to go through.
Sobs racked her slender, badly bruised body, causing her to double over with grief. She fell to her knees and buried her face in her hands, taking no comfort in the blanket of hair shielding her as it provided no protection. “Please, Goddess. Help me, please help us all,” she cried in heartfelt supplication. “I can’t take any more.”
She couldn’t keep her thoughts from turning inward and back two life cycles, as she tried desperately to recapture the carefree times on her home planet Zmar. She’d been nineteen life cycles old, happy and well-loved by her family. Wanting to go back and relive that time, she wished she’d listened to her inner warnings and focused on what her parents had planned for her.
Instead of being happy with her lot in life, she’d wanted an adventure and time to discover her talents and strengths. She thought her father insensitive to her needs. Her mind had been divided between yearnings for individual freedom, and a compulsion to let tradition guide her. She’d been looking forward to coming of age and spending time visiting other planets and worlds. Knew she was supposed to find her link-mate, but she also wanted time to concentrate on developing her individual gifts and abilities before she tied herself to a mate who would continue molding her into the perfect Zmarian woman.
Now her musings seemed foolish. What she wouldn’t give to just go back and start over. To listen to her parents and revel in the safe and secure if somewhat restricted lifestyle. Tears flowed from her eyes as she grimaced with regret. She hadn’t understood how much freedom she’d really enjoyed.
Looking back, she remembered hearing rumors, little whispered comments about women disappearing and the Zylan leader’s involvement in some sort of slaving trade. She never imagined the stories to be true or that she could be caught in the nightmare.
She hadn’t been the only one to ignore the gossip surrounding the Zylan Ruler’s reprehensible actions. If anyone had believed the stories, she and the other women of Zmar wouldn’t have been allowed to participate in a gathering trip without protection.
But the men invading her planet that long ago bi-non wore the royal crest on their tunics. Once she’d regained consciousness, the men took great pains to tell her how no one could stop them, as guards of the powerful Zylan Ruler they were untouchable. Ahnika had been captured along with two other young women from her village and then taken aboard a ship. The three girls were kept apart, so she had no idea what happened to them once they reached their destination. She’d never seen them again.
Nor could she find out what had been done to the others in the gathering trip. Had they been left alone? Killed? Not knowing the fate of her brothers and Janey almost drove her mad—she’d prayed long and hard that her brothers and friend had escaped the insanity of that day. She may never learn if they were alive or dead.
She knew she’d been taken to Zylar only because she caught a quick glimpse of Zylar’s three moons when she was being moved into this prison.
At first, her life here was mind-numbingly solitary. For the initial life cycle, she’d been locked away in a small, deep, underground cell. There was little light, no fresh air and no one to talk to. Miserable and lonely, the only people she saw were the few watchers who were assigned to walk her back and forth to a bathing pool. She hadn’t been allowed to communicate with them, and swimming in the deep underground pool had been her only escape from the tiny rock chamber and her sole form of exercise. With one dress to wear, she would wash it in the pool before cleansing her body and when her time in the water came to an end, she would put on the wet rag and return to her cell where she would spend several bi-nons uncomfortable and cold in the dripping garment.
The nights were filled with muffled weeping coming from the other cells lining the hall. When the screaming started, she hadn’t understood what was happening around her and many times she’d cried herself to sleep in self-pity and fear. She wanted someone to come and rescue her from this madness.
She hadn’t known how bad it was going to get.
She flinched when she remembered the first time her door had opened during what she assumed was night. Even though she had no way to see the suns rising and falling from her cell, there was an ebb and flow to this place she used to distinguish the passing of time. Groggy and disorientated, Ahnika had been completely thrown by the unusual event of having a visitor shortly after her meal of stringy meat and stale bread. The change in routine gave her a burst of hope, believing that—somehow—someone had found her.
Her hope had quickly turned to disbelief and then to abject terror. The man at the door had jerked her off the pallet and dragged her unceremoniously to a room at the end of the hall. This room was larger and brighter than her cell, the light from several bright orbs added to her disorientation. With tears streaming from her eyes, it took her many minons before she could see and understand the horror awaiting her.
Waiting for her in the rock chamber were two people—a woman dressed much like herself in a tattered gown falling loose around a frail body, her demeanor of downcast eyes and drooping shoulders radiated despair and pain. She didn’t acknowledge Ahnika’s presence in any way.
The guard who’d brought her to the small chamber was dressed in a simple dark tunic and pants. He stepped back and looked toward the second man in the room—the person obviously in charge. Ahnika turned her attention to this man. Obviously a man of wealth and position, he was the most imposing person she’d ever seen. Tall, regally dressed, with odd-colored hair—black with strange copper highlights—he caught and held her gaze. She studied him for several minons, wondering if his hair color signified some sort of special powers. The true nightmare began when he opened his mouth.
“What is your name, girl?” he demanded coldly.
Bewildered, she shifted her vision, looking at him in silent dismay. It had been so very long since anyone had spoken to her. In all her time in captivity, no one had ever asked her a question. They ordered her to the bathing pool or told her to be quiet…talking was not allowed. Her name?
He slapped her. Hard. “Answer me when I speak to you!”
Ahnika’s head snapped back and her eyes welled with tears. She could feel the pain and the heat from his hand on her cheek. That slap destroyed the optimism she’d been desperately clinging to, that somehow, after all this time, she’d been rescued. “Ahnika,” she replied in broken despair.
The man glowered at her. His eyes were deep, black wells of hatred. “Ahnika,” he spat out. “Listen closely and heed me well, Ahnika. You will start your training tonight. In the beginning, you will
be present to observe and to learn what is expected of you. Later, you will participate in activities intended to educate you on your new life. Any and all disobedience will be punished with pain.”
“I don’t understand. What training?” she started to ask.
Crack.
He backhanded her, this time splitting her lip. The taste of blood in her mouth was a nauseating illustration of what she had to look forward to.
“First lesson. You do not speak unless you are asked a direct question,” he growled menacingly. “You will listen and watch and do only what you are told. Do you understand me?”
Oh, yeah. She understood she was in big trouble. This man frightened her with his intensity and his obvious enjoyment of her suffering. The pain in her head and the taste of blood in her mouth made her position very clear. She wasn’t stupid. She kept her eyes lowered and said what he wanted to hear. “Yes.”
His next question confused her. “Do you know what mating links are?”
Was this a trick question? Why wouldn’t she know what mating links were? Unless he didn’t know she came from Zmar. A Zmarian’s physical makeup was the same as those on Zylar, except for their different skin coloring. He couldn’t miss the red pigmentation marking her as a native of Zmar, could he? Then she remembered her father telling her once how Zylar had an assortment of people, explaining she’d see all types of skin coloration and body types. Not everyone with red skin would be Zmarian. Goddess she missed her father and his stories.
And why was this man asking her about the links? Mate links were small, delicate gold chains created within a Zylan or Zmarian body when they mated with their true Life Companion. The links were part of everyone’s internal makeup, but they only made an external physical appearance when you found your one true mate. Once this happened, the link-chains would come into being at the male and female’s breasts, around their waists and through their sexual organs. The chains ensured a couple’s happiness by giving them a perceptive window into each other’s needs. The links heightened sexual pleasure and served as a visible sign of being mated.
Well, she certainly wasn’t going to ask why he questioned her on them. “Yes, I know what they are,” she replied with careful restraint, trying to keep her tone of voice flat.
“Good, then we can skip that part. The blessed things are useless. In the past, a woman was at least somewhat under her mate’s control. Not to the degree they should have been, but I’ve found a way around the leniency the links allowed. I’ve discovered a way to give men a choice of mate, rather than letting nature decide who their mates would be. All that crap about not being able to do anything but see to their mate’s happiness because of the links’ connection is ridiculous. A man’s happiness is what is important. Not a woman’s. But now…now my services are even more significant, since women think they should be allowed to control…”
At this point he started ranting about women who didn’t know their place, women who thought they had a right to use their own power and made no attempt to surrender to their husband’s command.
His vision of how the planet should be governed frightened her. Who was this man?
Ahnika kept quiet, her mind unable to cope with the strain of his fanaticism and the alteration of her solitary routine. She had no idea what he was raging about. Wondering if he’d forgotten about her and the other woman, she couldn’t tell if his comments were directed toward any one person in the room. He wasn’t making sense and the more he talked, the crazier he seemed to become. Spittle formed at the corners of his mouth and his eyes seemed to glaze over.
His view of a woman’s place seemed to be one of pain and silent suffering. Her face hurt where he’d hit her, and her exhausted body trembled from this little mental game. Glancing surreptitiously around the cold room, she tried to see if anything would give her an idea of where she was or what he could be rambling about. But, like her private cell, there were no windows and the larger chamber held no answers for her.
The room contained a single platform with a pallet, and several sets of shackles on the wall. A low shelf was lined with scary, sharp-looking implements. A shudder ran through her body, seeing the evil-looking instruments made her more afraid than ever.
“But I fixed it,” the man gloated.
Oh, great. While she’d been looking around the room, she’d lost track of what he’d been saying.
“…And, to prove my point, I’ll give you a little demonstration. Zabeth…disrobe.” Without raising her eyes or making any comment, the other woman stripped down to bare skin. In shock at this occurrence, Ahnika couldn’t help but see that Zabeth was a linked woman. Her link chains hung from red and angrily swollen nipples.
Ahnika frowned. Link chains weren’t supposed to get infected or cause irritation. Could Zabeth be the Life Companion to this beast of a man? Ahnika suddenly felt sorry for her.
“She looks like a true-linked woman, doesn’t she?” came the sly question.
“Yes.” Ahnika was so confused about what had happened and why she was here, that she decided to stick to yes and no answers. Period.
“Well, she is linked the way she should be bound—totally at her mate’s mercy. She is linked without having to form a true physical bond.” He grinned evilly. “I created those links. I forced her body to accept them and now, if I get tired of her, any man who pays the price can take her for his mate, without the risk of getting a female he can’t fully control,” he said proudly.
Once more she didn’t comprehend what he was talking about. Unfortunately, a few minons later he showed her. Pulling a small black box from a pocket in his tunic, he pressed a button. Immediately Zabeth screamed in pain. She clutched at her chest and fell to the ground writhing in agony. He had used the small device to create what appeared to be a tremendous amount of pain in her links.
Ahnika’s hand flew up to cover her mouth, as she suddenly understood the nightmarish screams she’d heard over the past setnons and why the kidnappers only bothered taking women who had not yet been linked—“Young enough to train,” she’d heard one slaver say. “Young enough to train…”
Unable to fathom the anguish and pain the women in the adjoining cells had been forced to endure, she fought to keep from screaming herself. She was going to be sick. When he barked an order for the poor woman to get up on her knees and take the guard’s cock into her mouth and demonstrate her skill, Zabeth followed the orders without hesitation.
Ahnika had been forced to watch. When she tried to turn away and hide her eyes, the horrid man slapped her again. Only when she started retching did he dismiss her and demand the guard take her back to her cell. Snarling and angry at having been forced to leave the torture chamber, the guard vented his frustration and rage on Ahnika by using every minon of the journey back to her private prison to slap, pinch or kick her.
Crawling to her pallet after she’d thrown up in a corner, she succumbed to the sobs racking her body. She’d cried tears for poor Zabeth, and for what she knew would eventually happen to her if she couldn’t find some way to leave this dreadful place.
Over the following setnons, variations of this night played out in unbelievable ways. The circumstances and rules of her current nightmare had been made very clear. Their captor was a monster who had somehow found a way to create false link chains he could—and did—implant within a woman’s body. While the metal links he’d fashioned looked very real, they were unnatural imitations meant to mimic the legitimate physical links, which formed when Life Companions mated.
He specifically made the chains to cause pain and to ensure a woman’s complete and total submission. During her captivity, she’d been forced to watch the procedure where his false links were attached to other girls. She had been heartsick to see the loss of blood and the torment the women went through as the chains were threaded first through their nipples, then around the waist and, horribly, through their genitalia. Once the links were in place, she watched as women who’d resisted and been beaten for their
failure to comply, now scrambled to fulfill the kidnappers’ commands. She feared she’d be broken like the others before her.
After observing the torturous procedure, she’d come to a decision. If the women were forced to accept the pain and humiliation…she could somehow find the strength to witness their torment with dignity and proud forbearance. Unable to belittle their trials with her own weakness and fear, she watched and remembered for them, and, Goddess willing, some bi-non soon, she would try to find a way to help them all.
When they tried to force her to pleasure a man, she refused. When she wouldn’t touch or respond to their ministrations, she was whipped. From a guard’s comment during one of her trainings, she’d learned that her value would be diminished if her virginity were taken, so she didn’t have to worry about being raped in addition to everything else she was put through. With this knowledge came some strength. Praying each time she was beaten that her body would heal, she continued to resist their demands. She realized once the false links were put in place, she would be unable to do so.
She hadn’t understood how the decision was made as to who would be trained next or when the links were to be implanted. There didn’t seem to be a master plan until she discovered the nightmare only started with the mutilation of the women’s bodies.
If the pain and physical torture weren’t enough, once the girls were trained in sexual submissiveness, they were then sold to the highest bidder. Ahnika had been required to watch the last auction. She’d seen the assembled men inspect each girl and comment on how their hair and physical characteristics met specific requirements.
Links were embedded within the women once the demon had at least one potential buyer and then those girls were featured at the next auction. Evidently he didn’t put the chains in earlier because there had been times in the past when the false links and the pain they caused completely broke a woman’s spirit. It seemed his customers wanted the appearance of being the one to finish their purchased mate’s training. The men wanted a little fight in their women…at least a fight they could control.