right? And you’re so much better? What am I to you other than just a victim?”
He took a step closer and raised her chin to look deeply into her eyes.
“You will be my treasured and much-beloved concubine, Allisandra. While you live with me, I will tend to your every need and pleasure you very, very thoroughly. You will come as you have never come before because I will make it my priority.”
“You…you will?” Alli didn’t know what else to say.
Slowly, he nodded. The strange, mirrored eyes went half-lidded with lust.
“Can’t wait to touch and taste every inch of your beautiful body, baby.” He leaned even closer, bending down until his cruel, sensual lips were just barely brushing hers and breathed, “Can’t wait to make you come.”
Alli felt suddenly breathless. Her heart was pounding as she looked up at him. Part of her wanted to kiss him and part of her wanted to slap him. She felt torn between the two impulses and so she froze in place.
“You…you…” She faltered, realizing she still didn’t even know his name.
“My name is Kane,” he said, drawing back a little, to look into her eyes. “But while you’re here with me, you’ll call me ‘Master.’ Is that understood?”
Alli didn’t know what to say.
“Yes,” she whispered at last.
Kane frowned.
“Yes, what?” he demanded, his gravelly voice dipping to a soft growl.
“Yes…Master,” Alli said at last. But inside she was thinking, You’ll never be my master! Never!
Kane’s cruel mouth turned up into a mocking smile.
“We’ll see about that, baby. Now get ready for your bath—I’ll be back soon.”
Eight
As soon as he was gone, shutting the big black door behind him, Alli went to try it. Locked, of course. She guessed she shouldn’t have expected anything different. And even if it had been unlocked, where could she have gone?
Well, I could try to steal a ship and get out of here, she thought. The controls of his ship—which she had studied as he flew—didn’t look that different from the ones on her own little Kindred shuttle.
But it’s not like I can just grab a ship and fly right back down to Earth, Alli thought despairingly. We’re in a whole different universe here!
And the one control on his shuttle she had no idea how to work was the trans-dimensional wormhole generator. But what if she somehow did get it to work and made a wormhole and it took her into a whole other parallel universe? Theoretically, there could be hundreds or thousands or even an infinite number of universes, all overlying each other like the thin layers of an onion.
How would she ever know which universe she was actually in or if it was the right one? And if she got into the wrong one, would she mess up the space-time continuum? Would she screw up the flow of time in one universe and maybe start a domino effect that toppled all the others?
Alli knew she was no theoretical physicist. She might mess up the Multiverse just trying to get home—or else get herself hopelessly lost in time and space.
No, for now anyway, she was stuck here, she decided. She would just have to wait and see what happened. So far Kane hadn’t hurt her—it didn’t seem like her pain was what he was after.
It’s your pleasure, I want to taste, baby…
The low, rumbling voice in her ear made Alli spin around, one hand pressed to her heart which was suddenly thundering in her chest. But there was no one there—she was alone in the empty room.
So how had she heard his voice? And how could he read her thoughts?
She thought of what Commander Sylvan had said, about the Kru’ell Ones being able to read the innermost desires of a female and make them reality. It must be a special ability of their kind of Kindred—the same way Blood Kindred could heal their mates by licking their wounds or Touch Kindred could touch their mates using their whisper fingers.
For whatever reason, it seemed like Kane—she refused to refer to him as her “Master”, at least inside her own head—had access to her thoughts, both conscious and subconscious. That was a scary idea because Alli had no idea what was going on down there in the unknowable layer of her psyche—she guessed no one did.
Kane had claimed to know what was there though—had claimed that he could read the desires lurking there that she had hidden, even from herself. Was he telling the truth?
Alli guessed she would find out but