if they came inside his cell. Moreover, the bedding platform was now fitted with restraints that could be sprung from outside, so that after he'd been used, the guards didn't have to endanger their lives letting him go. And when the Mistress wanted to come calling, he was drugged into submission either through his food or by blow darts that would be shot through a slot in the door.
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The days passed slowly. He was focused on finding the weakness in the guards and on removing himself as much as he could from the depravity... when for all intents and purposes he died. And died so hard that even when he was out from under the Mistress, he would never truly live again.
The slave was eating in his cell, trying to keep his strength up for the next opening within the guards, when he saw the sliding panel on the door shift open and a hollow tube protrude. He leaped up, though there was no cover to be had, and felt the first sting in his neck. He pulled out the dart as quickly as he could, but he was hit with another and then another until his body grew heavy.
He woke up on the bedding, shackled.
The Mistress was sitting right next to him, her head down, her hair shielding her face. As if she knew he had found consciousness, her eyes shifted to his.
"I am to be mated."
Oh, sweet Virgin in the Fade... The words he'd longed to hear. He would be free now, for she would need no blood slave if she had a nellren. He could go back to his duties in the kitchen...
The slave forced himself to address her with respect, although to him she was no female of worth. "Mistress, will you let me go?"
There was only silence.
"Please let me go," he said raggedly. Considering all he had been through, to throw his pride out for the possibility of being free was an easy sacrifice. "I beg you, Mistress. Release me of this confinement."
When she looked at him, tears were in her eyes. "I find that I cannot... I have to keep you. I must keep you."
He started to struggle, and the harder he fought the binds the more the look of love overtook her face.
"You are so magnificent," she said, reaching down to touch him between his legs. Her face was wistful...
nearly worshipful. "Ne'er have I seen such a male as you. Would that you were not so far beneath me-I would show your face in my court as my consort."
He saw her arm moving slowly up and down and knew that she must be working that rope of flesh that interested her so. Mercifully, he could feel it not.
"Let me go. ..."
"You never harden without the salve," she murmured in a sad voice. "And you never find completion. Why is that?"
She stroked him harder now until he felt a burning down where she was touching him. Frustration bled into her eyes, darkening them.
"Why? Why do you not want me?" When he stayed silent, she yanked at his male staff. "I am beautiful."
"Only to others," he said before he could catch the words.
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Her breath stopped, as if he had choked her with his very hand. Then her eyes slid up his stomach and his chest to his face. They were still glossy with tears, but rage also filled them.
The Mistress rose from the bed and stared down at him. Then she slapped him so hard she must have hurt her palm. As he spit out blood, he wondered if one of his teeth wasn't leaving with it.
While her eyes bored into his, he thought for sure she was going to have him killed, and a calmness came over him. At least the suffering would be over then. Death... death would be glorious.
Abruptly she smiled at him, as if she knew his thoughts, as if she'd reached into him and taken them out of him, as if she'd stolen them just as she had laid larceny to his body.
"No, I shall not be sending you unto the Fade."
She leaned down and kissed one of his nipples, then sucked it into her mouth. Her hand drifted over his ribs, then onto his belly.
Her tongue flicked yet and still over his flesh. "You grow gaunt. You need to feed, do you not?"
She worked her way down his body, kissing and sucking. And then it happened quickly. The salve.