He placed a supple animal hide collar around her neck, caramel in color. It fit perfectly, snug but not bothersome. With a swift, easy movement, he gathered her hands behind her back and cuffed her wrists together with bands of what felt like the same supple leather. His touch was impossibly gentle, considering the strength behind it.
Cuffing her was entirely unnecessary. She’d never win in a struggle against his species, and there were guards everywhere. Nor could she ever leave the Zandian’s guardianship. They had knowledge about her past that would have her executed by the local species, the Ocretions, immediately. She could only assume cuffing her was for effect. To show his dominance, his mastery over her.
This male Zandian will soon punish me. Her sex tightened again.
He propelled her forward, his touch still light, but the direction plain.
How would he do it? Intimately? Or publicly? It would be physical punishment; she had no doubt. Lamira had intimated Zander spanked her.
In the factories where she’d met her human mate, Johan, and on the agrifarm where she’d raised their daughter Lamira and hidden her beauty from the greedy Ocretion masters, they’d used a shock-stick to keep the human workers in line. The pain from the shock was unbearable. Overuse caused permanent damage in the nerves and eventually in the brain.
But in the short time she’d been, as he put it, a guest on Zander’s pod—since he’d bought her as a gift for her daughter, whom he loved—she’d seen no shock-sticks. There’d been no abuse. She and Lamira had always been treated with courtesy, even though it was understood they were slaves. They ate delectable food, slept in luxurious surroundings, and were not required to labor in any manner. Though her daughter wore a collar and cuffs, they were decorated with priceless Zandian crystals—part of the Zandian mating ritual, and she’d been well cared for here. Leora knew Zander punished Lamira, but in private. They hadn’t spoken of it, but Lamira had never seemed to resent it. In fact, from her blushes, Leora suspected there was an enjoyable aspect to his mastery.
Was that why Seke was in charge of her? Had he asked to be the one to punish her? Since the very first planet rotation she arrived, he’d been solicitous with her, almost protective.
Am I to become Seke’s sex slave?
The moment that thought tumbled through her head, she stumbled. Master Seke steadied her, slowing and showing a patience that, again, implied concern. Something in her core pulsed with excitement, even as her mind rebelled. She stiffened her spine, preparing her resistance. Though she had little choice but to ultimately submit, that didn’t mean she had to make it easy on Seke.
He led on, down a brightly colored corridor, the polished marble floors covered in expensive, hand-woven Ostrion rugs. Everywhere she turned, the opulence served as a reminder of the comfortable life she’d led there. This pod, no more than a giant spacecraft parked over Ocretia, was the sole seat of the Zandian kingdom until their species reclaimed their planet from the Finn.
He stopped before a door, which swished open when he placed his palm against the panel beside it. He pushed her into what had to be his chamber.
It was beautifully appointed, as was every room in the palatial pod. An oval sleepdisk hovered on one side, suspended as if by magic. The thick mattress was draped in the finest fabrics of amber, green, and midnight-blue. Crystal-amplified light shone through a skylight, making the room, with its high ceiling, light and airy. A workstation hugged one wall.
But what made her breath stop and her solar plexus twist was the cage suspended in the corner. The punishment apparatus on the bed. The tall basket filled with various manual implements, all
designed to inflict pain.
A trembling started in her knees and traveled up her legs to her core. It turned her hands clammy and cold. To hide her terror, she lifted her chin and met the eyes of her new master. “So, am I to be your sex slave? I’m past the ideal age for breeding. Surely you know that.” At forty-one solar cycles, her body could still reproduce, but the risks were higher.
Something in Seke’s face tightened, a slight strain showing beneath the marble mask. “No,” he clipped. “You have displeased your host. Prince Zander ordered your punishment and training, but he gave his word to Lamira you would not be used as a sex slave.”
She wondered if he inserted the part about the prince ordering it as a subtle means of letting her know this wasn’t his own idea. Did he find it distasteful? She couldn’t tell.
“Release cuffs.” The cuffs, which had to be voice-commanded like the doors and locks in the pod, separated. “You will refer to me as master at all times. You will keep your eyes lowered and your hands behind your back unless otherwise instructed. I expect your obedience and complete submission. Defiance will be immediately punished. Remove your clothing.”
Even though she should have expected this treatment, his words struck her as if she’d been punched in the gut. From another male, it would not have wounded so badly, but from Seke, the male who had always shown her such courtesy, it came as a betrayal. Before she could consider the wisdom of it, her hand shot out to slap him.
He moved even faster and caught her wrist, twisting it behind her back so she had to either spin around or have it wrenched in the socket. She whirled, and he flattened her against the closed door, with one wrist pinned to her back, the other to the cool metal. Her cheek pressed against the door, and his body covered hers, pinning her with the whole of his chest, his torso, the bulge of his cock against her lower back.
So. He did find this arousing. His hard muscles met most of her body, unyielding and warm.
The trembling in her legs grew stronger. “Seke,” she whispered.
She didn’t know what made her speak his name so intimately, as if they were lovers, not almost-strangers ordered by another to complete this strange scene.
And his breath was at her neck, hotter even than his flesh. “Defiance will be punished every time, Leora.” He, too, sounded more like a lover than a keeper. She didn’t hear anger or even danger in his threat. Only promise—sweet promise, as if he looked forward to conditioning her to his command.
She struggled then, terrified, not of the punishment, but of him and her body’s reaction to him.
He took her hand from the door and folded it behind her back with the other one, fastening the cuffs together once more. “Come.” Again, there was no bark to his words, only quiet determination. He turned and guided her to the sleep-disk, where he sat and pulled her across his knees, her torso resting on the mattress.
She understood immediately what he meant to do, but held back from struggling. Perhaps, if she was honest with herself, she’d admit her curiosity, her fascination with the scenario—of being held so intimately on a male’s lap to have a private part of her anatomy touched, punished by him.
When he pulled up her white robes, though, she came back to life, fighting against his obvious intent. Of course, her struggles were no match for him. He had only to scissor one leg over her kicking limbs to pin her in place. Her robes slithered up her back, the fine material sliding over her skin like a caress. The modest panties went in the opposite direction, down her thighs. He lifted his leg to wiggle them past it, and the cool air of the room hit her bare bottom.
She twisted, contorting her torso in an effort to bring her mouth to his arm to bite, but she couldn’t reach.