His Human Slave (Zandian Masters 1)

“Zander, Zander, please.” She twisted and danced from the bindings, her naked body mocking him with its perfection. “Tell me what’s going on. What do you mean, my attempted escape?”

He strode to the box of implements and picked up a thick leather strap, sliced at the end to form two tongues. “Why don’t you tell me?” Pure ice in his voice. Ice he didn’t feel. In fact, he’d never boiled so hot in his life. Veck, he’d never felt this much emotion ever—not even when his parents were killed and his planet overtaken.

This was what came of breeding a human. Her overly large emotions had somehow affected his own.

He raised his arm and took aim, applying the strap across the center of her buttocks.

She screamed and twisted away from him, dancing on her toes. A red stripe bloomed across her flesh.

He shook his head. “Hold your position, Lamira, or this strap will fall on your hips and legs and hurt far worse.”

Her full lips trembled and green eyes swam with tears.

No. She would not gain his sympathy. Not this time.

He snapped the strap across her quivering cheeks again.

She cried out and danced away, but this time returned to position.

“Tell me about your plan to escape.”

“I have none!” she cried out.

If he didn’t know humans always lied, he’d think he heard genuine indignation in her voice.

“Liar,” he thundered, whipping her even harder.

Her scream hurt his ears, but he gritted his teeth and delivered another stroke and then another. The strap left a crisscrossing of

puffy red welts across her buttocks.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She was crying already. He smelled the salt of her tears but had no desire to lick them this time.

“You betrayed me.”

Betray was a strong word. She wasn’t his mate, she was a slave. And slaves by nature try to escape. It was the reason he kept her in a cage, after all. But he had no rational outlook on what she had done. It burned in his gut, made him want to put his fist through a wall and smash everything in his chamber. Offering herself to Gunt. Gunt.

He whipped her again, across the backs of her legs this time.

The terror in her scream did move him, though he wished it did not. He wouldn’t whip her there anymore.

Instead, he whipped her ass, three times in rapid succession.

She danced and screamed and wept.

“Gunt told me.”

“Told you what?” she screeched. “That he’s stealing crystals from you and selling them on the black market?”

“Stop your lies,” he yelled, whipping her again. “He told me how you offered him sex if he’d help you escape. You deceitful little whore!”

“He’s lying!” she screamed back at him. “He offered that to me, not the other way around.”

“Zandians don’t lie, only humans have such little honor,” he shouted and whipped her three, four, five more times.

He stopped, struggling to slow his breath and regain his temper. It was all her fault.

Her ass was a swollen mess—covered in angry red welts. He couldn’t go on—not without breaking her delicate skin. He unhooked her wrists and tossed her on his sleeping platform.