His Human Slave (Zandian Masters 1)

Her breathing still sounded ragged, long terraced inhales she held and then let out with a burst. The scent of her tears hit him. Were they fresh? Or from the spanking he’d given her?

He didn’t think he’d paddled her too hard. The slender wooden implement had packed more of a wallop than his hand, but it was too light to have left anything more than surface bruising.

She sniffed. Yes, she was crying.

He hated the way her tears made him feel—agitated. Cranky.

Veck, he hated all the feelings the foolish little human invoked. He preferred not to feel, in general. Zandians weren’t emotional like humans. He couldn’t have her disrupting his life so much.

Another sniff.

Veckety veck veck.

He climbed out of bed and padded over the hand-woven Ostrion rug to her cage. “Unlock cage.” She flinched when he touched her ankle, but he laid his hands on her anyway, pulling her out of the enclosure and carrying her to his sleep disk.

“Lights on.” He stared down at her.

She blinked, her large green eyes wide and wary. He grasped her wrists and attached the ring on the cuffs over her head to a fastener Daneth had installed.

“No,” she wailed, fresh tears starting up again.

“Hush. I’m checking you for injuries. What hurts?” He parted her legs and peered at her sex.

Most of his seed had spilled out of her, coating her inner thighs with the rainbow-hued semen.

That wasn’t right. Another sign they were incompatible.

“Call Daneth.” He spoke to his processor on the wall.

A hologram of Daneth’s face illuminated, hovering before him. Daneth blinked in his dark room. “My lord?”

“I think I inflicted internal dama

ge. She won’t stop crying.”

Daneth flew out of his sleeping platform. “I’ll be right there.” A few moments later, he knocked and entered.

Lamira shrank from his physician.

“Why is she afraid of you?” he snapped, his agitation not diminishing.

Daneth arched his brows. It wasn’t like Zander to be out of sorts. “I imagine she’s tired of being poked and prodded.”

The scientist clipped her ankles wide and examined her.

Zander gritted his teeth when Daneth probed her sex, although he wasn’t sure if it was because he didn’t like it, or her obvious displeasure. “All your seed spilled out of her.”

“I saw that,” he snapped.

Daneth tapped his lips with a forefinger. “I will research it.”

“You’d better. If things don’t improve drastically—” he broke off, not wanting to speak about Lamira’s future in front of her. She might try to thwart his attempts to breed her if she knew how close he was to writing off the whole project.

Daneth completed the exam and flashed images of her vital statistics and internal organs up for him to see the holograms himself. “There’s nothing seriously wrong with her. She shows signs of stress and likely is experiencing some discomfort from punishment and copulation. Nothing serious.”

“Then why is she still crying?”

Daneth shrugged. “It could be emotional pain.”