he thought vaguely that the frantic nature of the attack didn't bode well.
When he awoke, the Mistress was standing over him, furious. There was something in her hand, but he couldn't see what it was.
"Think you too good for the gifts I give you?"
The door opened and the young female's limp body was brought in. As the guards let go, she flopped onto the floor like so many rags. Dead.
The slave screamed in fury, the roar rebounding off the stone cell walls, magnifying to an earsplitting thunder.
He strained against the steel bands until they cut him to the bone, until one of the posts cracked with, a Page 70
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squeal... and still he roared.
The guards backed away. Even the Mistress seemed unsure of the fury she'd released. But as always, it was not long before she took control.
"Leave us," she shouted to the guards.
She waited until the slave wore himself out. Then she leaned over him, only to grow pale.
"Your eyes," she whispered, staring down at him. "Your eyes..."
She appeared to be momentarily frightened of him, but then she cloaked herself in a regal forbearance.
"The females I present you with? You will drink from them." She glanced over at the maid's lifeless body.
"And you'd best not let them comfort you, or I shall do that again. You are mine and no one else's."
"I will not drink," he shouted at her. "Ever!"
She stepped back. "Do not be ridiculous, slave."
He bared his fangs and hissed. "Look upon me, Mistress. Watch as I wither!" He screamed the last word at her, his booming voice filling the room. As she went rigid with fury, the door flew open and guards came in with swords drawn.
"Leave us," she snarled at them, her face red, her body shaking.
She lifted her hand up and a whip came with it. Slashing her arm down, she brought the weapon across the slave's chest. His flesh broke and bled, and he laughed at her.
"Again," he hollered. "Do that again. I felt it not, you are so weak!"
Some dam had burst within him, and the words would not stop... He railed against her as she whipped him until the bedding platform flowed with what had been in his veins. When finally she could lift her arm no more, she was panting and blood-splattered and sweating. He was focused, icy, calm in spite of the pain.
Though he was the one who had been beaten, she was the one who had broken first.
Her head fell downward as if in submission while she dragged breath through her white lips.
"Guard," she said hoarsely "Guard!"
The door opened. The uniformed male who ran in faltered when he saw what had been done, the soldier blanching and teetering in his boots.
"Hold his head." The Mistress's voice was reedy as she dropped the whip. "Hold his head, I say. Now."
The guard stumbled over, slipping on the slick floor. Then the slave felt a meaty hand clap onto his forehead.
The Mistress leaned over the slave's body, still breathing hard. "You are not... permitted... to die."
Her hand found his male flesh and then dipped down underneath it to the twin weights below. She squeezed and twisted, making his whole body spasm. As he cried out, she bit her wrist, held it over his open mouth, and Page 71
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bled into him.
Z backed away from the bed. He didn't want to think of the Mistress in Bella's presence... as if all that evil could escape his mind and endanger her as she slept and healed.
He went over to his pallet and realized he was curiously tired. Exhausted, actually.
As he stretched out on the floor, his leg throbbed like a bitch.
God, he'd forgotten he'd been shot. He stripped out of his shitkickers and pants and willed a candle to light beside him. Cocking his leg around, he inspected the wound on his calf. There was both an entrance and an exit hole, so he knew the bullet had passed through. He'd live.
He extinguished the candle with his breath, draped his pants over his hips, and lay back. Opening himself up to the pain in his body, he became a basin for the agony, catching all the nuances of his aches and stings-He heard an odd noise, like a small cry. The sound was repeated, and then Bella began to struggle on the bed, the sheets rustling as if she were flailing around.
He shot up from the floor and went around to her, just as her head tilted