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.
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. Her getting up on top of him. That hideous merging of their bodies.
When he closed his eyes and turned his head, she slapped him once... twice... many more times. But he refused to look at her, and she was not strong enough to force his face around, even when she grabbed onto one of his ears.
As he denied her his eyes, her weeping grew as loud as the slap of her flesh against his hips. When it was over, she left in a swirl of silk, and not long thereafter the chains were released.
The slave eased himself up on one forearm and wiped his mouth. Looking down at his blood on his hand, he was surprised that it was still red. He felt so soiled, it wouldn't have been a shock to find it some kind of rusted brown.
He rolled off the bed, still groggy from the darts, and found the corner that he always went to. He sat with his back to the juncture of the walls and curled his legs up against his chest so his heels were tight to his male parts.
Sometime later he heard a struggle outside his cell, and then the guards pushed a small female inside. She fell in a heap, but launched herself at the door as it closed.
"Why?" she yelled. "Why am I punished?"
The slave rose to his feet, not knowing what to do. He hadn't seen a female other than the Mistress since he'd woken up in captivity. This one was a maid of some sort. He remembered her from before...
Blood hunger rose in him as he caught her scent. After all the Mistress had done to him, he couldn't see her as someone to drink from, but this diminutive female was different. He was suddenly dying of thirst, his body's needs coming out in a chorus of shouts and demands. He took lurching steps toward the maid, feeling nothing but instinct.
The female pounded on the door, but then seemed to realize she was not alone. When she turned around and saw who she was locked