strings down his thick shoulders. His fancy clothes were torn, and his yellow stare aglow with sorrow.
That was the other smell, the slave thought. That sad emotion the male was feeling had a scent.
As the slave sniffed again he felt an odd pulling in his face, and he lifted his fingertips up to his cheek. There was a groove, a rigid line in his skin... He followed it up to his forehead. Then down to his lip. And remembered the knife blade coming at him. Remembered screaming as it cut.
The slave started to shiver and wrapped his arms around himself.
"We should warm each other," the warrior said. "Truly, that is all I was doing. I have no... designs upon you. I would but ease you if I could."
Except all the Mistress's males had wanted to be with the slave. That was why she brought them. She liked to watch, too...
Yet then the slave remembered the warrior raising that dagger, looking as if he were going to gut the Mistress like a pig.
The slave opened his mouth and asked hoarsely, "Who are you, sire?"
His mouth didn't work as it had before, and his words were garbled. He tried again, but the warrior cut him off.
"I heard your inquiry." The tinny smell of sadness got stronger until it overrode even the fishy stench. "I am Page 175
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Phury. I am... your brother."
"Nay." The slave shook his head. "Verily, I have no family. Sire."
"No, I'm not..." The male cleared his throat. "I am not sire to you. And you have always had a family. You were taken from us. I have searched for you for a century."
"I fear you wrong."
The warrior shifted as if he were going to get up, and the slave jerked back, dropping his eyes and covering his head with his arms. He couldn't bear to be beaten again, even if he deserved it for his insubordination.
Quickly, he said in his now messy way, "I mean not to offend, sire. I offer only my respect to your better station."
"Sweet Virgin above." A strangled noise came from across the cave. "I will not strike you. You are safe...
With me, you are safe. You are found, my brother."
The slave shook his head again, unable to hear any of it, because he suddenly realized what was going to happen at nightfall, what had to happen. He was the property of the Mistress, which meant he would have to be given back.
"I beg of you," he moaned, "do not return me unto her. Kill me now... Do not render me returned to her."
"I shall kill us both before I allow you to tarry there once more."
The slave looked up. The warrior's yellow eyes were burning through the darkness.
The slave stared into the glow for a passing time. And then he remembered, long, long ago, when he'd first awoken from his transition in capture. The Mistress had told him she loved his eyes ... his canary yellow eyes.
Among his species, there were very few with irises of bright gold.
The words and the actions of the warrior began to penetrate. Why ever would a stranger fight to get him free?
The warrior shifted, winced, and picked up one of his thighs.
The male's lower leg was gone.
The slave's eyes grew wide at the lost limb. How had the warrior saved them both in the water with that injury? He must have struggled simply to keep himself afloat. Why had he not just let the slave go?
Only a blood tie could engender that kind of selflessness.
"You are my brother?" the slave mumbled through his ruined lip. "Verily, I am blood to you?"
"Aye. I am your twin."
The slave started to shake. "Untruth."
"Truth."
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A curious dread set upon the slave, chilling him. He curled up into himself in spite of the raw flesh that covered him from head to foot. It had never occurred to him that he was other than a slave, that he might have had a chance to live differently... live as a male, not as property.
The slave rocked back and forth in the dirt. When he stopped, he looked once again at the warrior. What of his family? Why had this happened? Who was he? And...
"Do you know if I had a name?" the slave whispered. "Was I ever given a name?"
The warrior drew a ragged breath, as if every one of his ribs were broken.
"Your name is Zsadist." The warrior's breathing shortened and shortened until he choked out his