His Human Slave (Zandian Masters 1)

The guard who stood outside Zander’s door grabbed her ass when she passed him on her way into the room. No, he didn’t grab it. It was more of a grope. A fleeting touch—his fingers brushing her inflamed flesh, questing along her curves.

She turned and glared at him but, he stood staring straight ahead, as if nothing had happened. Should she tell Zander? But, no, he didn’t want her speaking unless spoken to.

“Door shut.” The door slid closed at Zander’s command. “In this chamber, you will always be naked. When you leave this room, you will cover yourself.”

She lifted her arms and made a show of searching around her body. “With what?” It was the wrong thing to do—she certainly ought to know better.

But her claircognizance told her Zander wasn’t cruel. He wasn’t dangerous—not like the Ocretion foremen with their shocking devices. Maybe she sensed that underneath the arrogance and superiority, he was an honorable being. Maybe part of her thought it was fun to goad the prince who thought so little of her species. Or maybe she was just a stupid, crazy female who couldn’t suppress her macabre curiosity in receiving punishment at the prince’s hand. Because the pain and humiliation of the first spanking he’d given her had left her changed.

His expression hardened. He sat down on the hovering disk that served as his chair, snapped his fingers, and pointed at his feet.

She didn’t miss his meaning and didn’t have the nerve to pretend she didn’t understand. She lowered herself to her knees near his feet.

“Look at me.”

She craned her neck to meet his gaze.

“Lamira, you have tried my patience too many times already today. If I am to believe Daneth, you are not unintelligent. If you speak to me in a disrespectful tone again, I will make your earlier punishment seem like a caress. Do you understand?”

She swallowed. “I’m sorry, my lord.”

He stared at her for a beat. She gazed into his chocolate brown eyes and realized the outer ring and the pattern within the iris was pure violet. Incredible.

“Humans lie.”

“I’m not lying.” Was she pushing him too far again? Why couldn’t she stop herself?

He slapped her face.

It stung and brought tears to her eyes, even though she knew he might have struck her far harder.

“Why do you continue to fight me?”

“I don’t know,” she whispered, staring at the finely woven rug as hot tears slid down her burning face.

She wondered about her mother—if she even knew what had happened to her only daughter. If she’d ever see her again. How all this would turn out? Did she truly belong to Zander now? His sex slave? His breeder?

Her father had revolted and given his life over his first daughter becoming a sex slave. It would kill him to know his younger daughter also ended up with that fate, to be a breeder.

She hated the quivering place inside her that found the idea half-arousing. She should not be thinking of how it would feel to be strapped down and taken against her will by a giant Zandian male.

Zander cupped her chin. His touch was surprisingly gentle but still strong and sure. He brushed her tears with his thumb then rubbed it together with his forefingers, as if mystified by the substance. “I don’t like when you cry.”

She didn’t know what he meant by that. Was it an order to stop crying? She swiped at her tears with the back of her hand. Thankfully, he hadn’t reattached her cuffs after she’d eaten. She gulped in her breath and held it, trying to stop the tears from flowing. “I’m sorry, my lord.”

His fingers wove into her hair. “We eat once a week in Zandian time, which on Ocretia is about ten planet rotations.”

She stilled, surprised to hear him answer the question he had scolded her for asking.

“The rest of the time, we get our energy from light. The solar rays are different here on Ocretia than they were on Zandia, so we use a crystal amplifier for light baths once a week or more.”

She didn’t often have visions. Usually the curse came as claircognition, not clairvoyance. But, in that moment, she had a flash of the most beautiful rainbow light bathing her skin, making ecstatic ripples of joy shimmer all around her. Gooseflesh stood on her skin.

She swallowed. “Thank you,” she whispered hoarsely.

“You’re still thirsty,” he said. “There’s a fluid tube in your cage. You may go and drink from it.”

A fluid tube. In her cage.