Enslaved (Brides of the Kindred Book 14) (4 page)

The
deep, bass noise shook and surprised her. It reminded her again of the sound
made by the lions from Earth which she’d studied. Maybe he was part animal
after all!

Trin
jumped back and looked up to see him glaring at her with such intense hatred on
his face it hit her like a blow.

Goddess, what’s wrong with him?
She’d
never seen such fury and all because she’d tried to help him. All because she
was going to open his trousers and…
Oh.

Suddenly
she understood. She’d told him that she bought him as a slave and that she came
from Zetta Prime. Possibly he thought her people used body slaves the same way
the mistresses from Yonnie Six did. Another look at the way his broad chest was
heaving and his big body was twitching confirmed her guess. He looked like her
stallion, Swift, when he was nervous and ready to rear. When he got like that,
he would shy and lash out at the least little thing and the big Havoc, Thrace,
looked the same way.

Trin
had no idea how to deal with a strange male but she
did
know how to gentle a nervous horse.

“Look,”
she said softly in a low, even voice. “I’m not going to hurt or abuse you. I
know what you must think but I didn’t buy you for any kind of sexual service, I
swear.”

He
had stopped struggling now and was simply looking at her. His muscular chest
was still heaving but at least his eyes had lost some of the intense hatred
that had filled their silver-blue depths when she reached for his trousers.

“I’m
not that kind of female.” Trin risked a touch on his arm—gentle and non-sexual.
He still couldn’t move but she could feel him thrumming like a plucked
string—as tight as a wire with tension. It wasn’t just hatred and anger he
felt—it was fear. A fear so deep it harrowed his very soul.

Though
she was trying to remain detached and calm, his terror touched her heart. No
wonder
he was afraid—she would be too if
she’d woken up in a strange place chained to the bed with someone reaching for
the front of her trousers.

“It’s
okay,” she reassured him again. “I have no interest in males at all but
someone
has to get you connected to the
med-bot so you can relieve yourself. See?” She held up the long, snaky silver
tube with its soft plasti-coupling on the end. “I just need to get this
connected with your, uh, equipment and then you can go.”

His
eyes blazed at her for a long moment and Trin thought she could feel him
evaluating her motives. He was asking himself once again if he trusted her—just
as he had when she offered him the drink. Then she’d been able to take a drink
herself and prove it was all right. Unfortunately with this exercise, she
wasn’t able to prove anything. So she simply waited quietly, meeting his silver-blue
gaze and letting him size her up.

Finally,
he nodded.

“All
right, good,” Trin said briskly, reaching for his trousers again. “Let’s see if
we can get this done as quickly as possible.”

* * * * *

Thrace
gritted
his teeth as he watched her slim, brown hands unfasten the magno tabs at the
front of the too-tight black leather trousers the slavers had forced him to
wear. Gods, this was humiliating! Not just the fact that he needed her help to
relieve himself, but also the way he’d reacted to her touch in the first place.

His
people, the Havoc, did not bond with females or have any kind of long-lasting
relationships with them. In fact, the Havoc code was,
We do not bond.
But that didn’t mean he didn’t enjoy female
attention from time to time. Usually he sought out some willing prosti whenever
The Empress
was docked for repairs or
refueling and scratched his itch that way.

He
was always careful to use protection and he always paid in advance—he was a
good customer and he enjoyed unattached sex—enjoyed it a hell of a lot. And yet
the minute this gorgeous girl with the unusual creamy brown skin like nothing
he’d ever seen before reached for him, he went fucking crazy.

It
was his past again, trying to creep in—Thrace knew it but he didn’t want
to admit it. Instead, he tried to calm his nerves but it wasn’t easy. The
feeling of lying here helpless while someone else handled his shaft was fucking
terrifying. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go—he liked to be in control,
liked to be on top of the situation both literally and figuratively.

Relax,
he told himself roughly as
she got his trousers unfastened at last and pealed the too-tight leather apart.
She said herself this is nothing sexual.
She has no interest in males. So just relax and try to endure it.

He
closed his eyes as she reached for him but cutting off the light let the rush
of dark memories overcome him again.

Let’s have a look at this shaft,
the
Master said, reaching for him.
Nice, very
nice…

Thrace
snapped
his eyes open again. Gods, what was wrong with him? He hadn’t thought of those
bad, old memories in years. Had been sure he was over it, over and done with
the things that fucker had done to him. But this situation was bringing
everything back like a flood of dirty water seeping under the door of his conscious
mind. It was as if everything he’d tried so hard to forget was just waiting
there, waiting for the right trigger to move back into his brain and set up
shop.

Desperately,
he focused on the girl in front of him, on her lovely hands as she reached for
him. They were long and slim with the unusual creamy brown skin
color—completely unlike the hairy, liver-spotted hands of his old Master. Her
fingers were long and tapered and delicate and her touch was gentle, not rough.

Not the Master,
he told
himself over and over.
She’s just a
girl—a female you don’t even know. She’s not the Master.

Her
touch was reassuringly impersonal. Thrace was relieved when she didn’t
linger overlong as she touched him. She simply pulled his shaft out of his
trousers in a matter of fact way and inserted it into the soft end of the
flexible metal tube.

He
was completely limp, despite her beauty and the soft touch of her small hands.
In other circumstances, if she’d been a willing prosti he was visiting, he
would have been hard as a rock. But the feeling of complete helplessness, of
being unable to control what was happening to him, robbed him of any desire he
might have felt.

And
even if he
had
been inclined to get
hard, this girl looked nothing like a prosti. She had an innate class and
regality that professional sex workers lacked. She was what his Sire would have
called a “lady.” Not the kind of female for a quick fuck and run—his favored
way of scratching the sexual itch.

When
the operation was finished and he had relieved himself, she unhooked him from
the metal tubing and tucked his shaft neatly back into his trousers. It went
meekly back to position, curled like a sleeping snake against his belly.

“There.”
She re-fastened his trousers rose from the side of the cot. “Now I need to go
check on some things—this ship won’t run itself and I need to get the navigator
to plot a new course. Will you be all right for now?”

Slowly,
he nodded.

“Good.
I’ll be back to check on you later and bring you something to eat. Try to
rest.”

Then
she was gone, leaving a faint, lingering scent of sweetness behind her.

* * * * *

Trin
was distracted for hours after her encounter with her new slave. He bothered
her…and not just because she suspected something serious had happened with his
last Master. There was something about the huge Havoc she’d spent her entire
bank account on that
drew
her. But
what? Well, there was the fact that he was so different from anyone she’d ever
known for one thing—she couldn’t help remembering his rippling abs and muscular
biceps. She had never been around males much—certainly not enough to develop an
appreciation for the male physique. But even
she
had to admit that the big Havoc was impressive.

But
it wasn’t just the way he looked that interested her—it was the way he acted.
The way he’d distrusted her at first when she tried to give him a drink, the
way he’d flinched from her touch and his deep, bass roar the first time she’d
tried to open his trousers.

Why
did he dread being touched? What did he fear? What had happened to him to make
him that way?

Maybe something the slavers or his old
master did to him,
she speculated idly as she checked and
re-checked the new course the navigator had set for the Demon’s Eye.
Maybe just waking up in a strange place and
finding himself chained down. That would be disturbing to anyone—I sure as hell
wouldn’t want it happening to me!

She
hoped she might be able to let him up eventually but that wasn’t going to
happen until she got some answers out of him. Anyway, there was no denying he
was easier to manage in his current condition. Even lying on his back, the
Havoc was
huge—
every part of him more
than twice as big as every part of her and she was considered tall and well
proportioned for a female on her home planet. Plus, she’d felt his terrifying
strength for herself first hand. She touched her bruised throat and winced. No
pun intended.

Just keep treating him like a spooked
horse,
she told herself. After all, her equine pets outweighed and
outmassed her many times over and she still managed them quite nicely. Of
course, neither of them had ever tried to throttle her.

Trin
sighed, thinking of them now. Her stallion, Swift, galloping in the pastures of
purple grass and pink
gana
flowers in
the fields by her mother’s house…and her mare, Silk, tossing her glossy main
and neighing like thunder the moment she caught sight of Trin coming over the
rolling hills towards her.

The
two of them were old now and they had never managed to breed for some reason.
Every time Trin spoke to her mother she was afraid one or both of them might be
gone but they carried on, always happy to greet her when she made one of her
increasingly infrequent trips home.

But
could she really equate the Havoc she’d inadvertently bought to the large
equine pets she’d left back home? For all his voice didn’t allow him to speak
much, he at least was able to manage a few words. And there was awareness
burning in his striking eyes—intelligence she couldn’t deny just because he was
male. Intelligence and something else…some veiled threat or barely buried rage
she couldn’t name but also couldn’t discount.

Trin
decided she would have to keep a close eye on him. Though she hated to admit
it, Sidna was right about one thing—the Havoc was big enough and strong enough
to cause a lot of damage and injury if he went on some kind of a rampage.

She
patted the stunner in the pocket of her black flight jumpsuit. She wasn’t going
to give him a second chance unless he earned it.

Chapter
Five

Thrace
lost
track of the time he spent chained to the narrow cot. He spent many long hours
trying to force the memories which had been unearthed like half-rotted corpses
back into their crypts. It wasn’t easy. Being restrained and unable to do
anything for himself brought the past back strongly—too strongly to be denied
or ignored.

To
counter it, Thrace
instinctively knew he needed something positive. Something to take his mind off
what he had suffered, something to distract him from the agonies of the past.

He
chose his new mistress, Trin.

Not
that she was really his mistress—he sure as hell wouldn’t
call
her that even if she had bought and paid for him. He
did
accord her the title of “captain.”
She owned the ship he was prisoner on and kept the crew in order and she
appeared to do it effortlessly—though he knew from personal experience it was
much harder than it looked.

He
could hear her talking to various crew members from time to time since their
voices echoed in the long, metal corridors and he had to reluctantly
acknowledge that she handled herself and her responsibilities well.

Her
calm self possession in the face of his own rage was also remarkable. Thrace
had known fully grown males who cowered when he was in one of his moods. Trin
simply spoke gently and looked at him with those big, dark eyes, meeting his
gaze without fear or any anger of her own.

All
in all, impressive.

Not
to mention fucking gorgeous—a fact he mostly noticed at night.

Though
she mostly dressed in the black flight jumpsuit which covered her considerable
curves, she always came to check on him before she went to sleep. At those
times, she was usually dressed for bed and her sleep outfits were considerably
more revealing than the jumpsuit—a fact that wasn’t lost on Thrace.

Trin
didn’t seem embarrassed to walk around half dressed in front of him at all. At
first he’d thought she was deliberately teasing him. When she leaned over him,
showing the creamy brown swells of her breasts or walked past his cot in a
slip-like garment that barely covered her to mid thigh and showed her long,
smooth legs, he was sure she was tormenting him on purpose.

But
gradually he came to understand she didn’t realize what she was doing. It was
as though she thought of him as an animal—one of her pet horses which she had
told him about when she came in to tend and check on him.

It
was fucking insulting and yet, probably not that surprising when he thought
about it. After all, she came from a world virtually without males. How could
she know the effect she was having on him? She probably
did
think of him as a kind of pet. After all, he was completely
dependant on her for everything—food and water and shelter. How else would she
see him?

Thrace
supposed she wouldn’t be embarrassed to let a pet see her half-naked and it
didn’t bother her for him to see her that way either. The difference was, a pet
didn’t get hard at the sight of his mistress half unclothed.

Of
course, at first, neither did Thrace.
Being chained down and helpless was an effective damper for his lust—it was too
much like his time with the old Master. The manacles around his wrists provoked
too many painful memories.

But
as the days went by, he grew used to it—as used to it as he could, anyway. And
as he grew accustomed to being restrained, it actually became easier to push
the old memories away and concentrate on his new reality. And on Trin.

The
situation came to a head on the night when she came in, dressed for sleep in a
thin, see-through white gown that fell to her thighs and a silky robe to match
that belted loosely around her small waist. The berry-dark points of her
nipples were clearly visible pressing against the thin fabric and when she bent
over, he could see a hint of the wispy little panties she wore underneath.

Gods!
The sight of her lush body
half unclothed as well as the sweet scent she always carried with her made his
cock ache. She moved around his small room, often brushing against him since
the space was so close, doing something with a basin of steaming water.

“What
are you doing?” His voice had finally come most of the way back though it was
more of a hoarse growl than its normal timbre.

“Getting
ready to give you a bath.” Trin turned to face him, a friendly smile on her
face. “I have to go away tomorrow and Sidna, our medic, is going to be looking
after you. I want you to feel as comfortable and clean and happy as you can—under
the circumstances.”

“Someone
else is going to be touching me?
Handling
me?” Thrace
didn’t like the surge of panic the news caused in his chest. He’d gotten used
to Trin hooking him to the medi-bot—her hands on him no longer caused the flood
of unclean memories that had threatened to drown him at first. But he didn’t
want someone new—someone besides Trin—touching him while he was chained
helplessly to the cot. Just the thought made his jaw clench and his entire body
feel tight.

“I’m
afraid it can’t be helped but it won’t be for long.” Trin stroked his arm
soothingly, as though he was an animal that needed reassurance. “I just have to
complete these negotiations for our new shipment and then I’ll be back. Now,
let’s get you bathed.”

“You’ve
had me chained down for the Gods know how long,” he growled, deciding to
revisit the issue later. “I suppose I’m starting to stink.”

“Not
really.” Trin frowned as she drew the steaming basin of water closer and dipped
in a soft cloth. “Although you
do
have a very distinctive scent—warm and spicy and…I don’t even know how to
describe it. A little bit like the leather saddle I use on my stallion, Swift.”

“You
treat your pet horse like you treat me?” Thrace asked as she bent over him,
unconsciously showing those full, creamy breasts again. Gods, he could see
right down her top to her nipples! “Wash him…” He cleared his throat. “Wash him
when he gets dirty?”

“Of
course,” she said without a trace of irony as she wiped his chest and shoulders
with the warm, damp cloth. “And I rub him down when he’s sore after a long
ride. I take care of him because he’s my responsibility.”

“The
way you take care of me,” Thrace
muttered. Her soft hand on his skin was doing things to him and the sight of
her full breasts so close he could almost touch them was maddening. Gods, she
was lovely! He shouldn’t want her—shouldn’t want the female who was his captor,
his mistress, who had bought him body and soul and had him chained to a bed.
But damned if he could help himself when he smelled her sweet scent and felt
her touch on his flesh.

“Yes,
the way I take care of you.” Trin nodded. “You’re my responsibility, the same
way—oh!” she gasped as she unfastened his trousers and his hard shaft sprang
free.

Thrace
had
been able to keep himself from getting completely hard when she handled him
before—mostly it was the memories of his past that stopped his desire for her
from coming to fruition. But it had been days since he’d had any sexual relief
and seeing her dressed as she was and smelling her sweet scent was too much for
him. He was hard as a rock and unable to help it.

“I’m
your responsibility the same way your other pets are. Is that right?” he
growled, finishing her sentence for her. “Only I bet none of your other pets
ever had
this
problem.”

“
Is
it a problem? What’s wrong?” She
looked at him uncertainly with those large, dark eyes.

Thrace
groaned. “Damnit, Trin—”

“Captain
Trin or Mistress,” she reminded him severely.

“I’m
not calling you Mistress because I’m
not
a fucking slave,” Thrace
growled. “And the
problem
is you’re
wearing that little nothing of a nightdress that shows all your sweet flesh and
touching me all over. How the hell am I supposed to keep from getting hard?”

“Is
it painful?” She looked with concern at his throbbing shaft. “And are you
actually saying
I
caused it? How?”

“Because
you’re fucking
gorgeous
,” Thrace
exploded. “And you’re touching me with those soft little hands. I know your
people don’t have many dealings with males but that much ought to be obvious.”

“So…you
find me attractive?” She looked disturbed. “I thought the Havoc didn’t care for
females.”

“We
don’t
bond
with them—doesn’t mean we
don’t bed them.” Thrace
narrowed his eyes at her. “I haven’t been with a female in months and I can’t
even get a hand free to relieve myself. Then you come in here dressed like some
kind of a sex goddess and expect me not to react? It’s fucking
torture
.”

“I…didn’t
realize.” Trin put the damp cloth back in the bowl of water and stared at his
shaft with concern. “I’m sorry, Thrace—I
had no idea you felt this way. Why didn’t you tell me before?”

“Would
it have done any good?” he demanded.

“I…don’t
know.” She sounded uncertain. “I’m not sure what…but you’re saying that looking
at
me
is what made you, uh, hard?”

“Painfully
fucking
hard,” Thrace
assured her. “You probably don’t know this but males are very visual. Seeing
your sweet creamy flesh exposed like this is more than I can stand. I can’t
stop thinking about it—about
you—
even
when you’re out of the room.”

“Thinking
about
me?”
She sounded both disturbed
and maybe just a touch intrigued. “Thinking of doing
what
to me?”

“What
do you think?” Thrace
was beyond exasperated. Could even a female who had never dealt with males
before be this oblivious? “I
fantasize
.
Fantasize about caressing your soft skin…tasting those ripe nipples I see
pressing against your nightdress…”

“You—”
Trin looked down and quickly pulled her robe tighter around herself. Still Thrace
couldn’t stop.

“I
imagine tasting you lower too. Spreading your thighs and taking my time, lapping
your pussy with my tongue until you moan and pull my hair. I want to feel your
juices all over my face…want to feel you quivering against my mouth.”

“I…I
don’t…I wouldn’t…” She crossed her legs involuntarily.

“And
finally,” Thrace
continued recklessly. “After you’d come all over my face half a dozen times,
I’d take you.”

“Take
me?” She frowned. “Take me where? How do you mean?”

“I
mean I’d
fuck
you. Penetrate you.” He
was hard as a rock now, nearly crazy with need as he looked at her exposed
flesh and spoke aloud what he’d been dreaming of doing for so long. But his
final words seemed to shut something down in Trin. Something that might
possibly have been growing between them even if it was without her knowledge.

“Impossible,”
she said crisply. “I have never been penetrated and I never will be.
Especially
not by a male.”

“I
suppose being penetrated is beneath you, coming from Zetta Prime,” Thrace
growled.

“Some
daughters of Zetta Prime allow it—but only with each other,” Trin said primly.
“But penetration is reserved for one you love so truly and deeply you wish to
form a life-bond with her—and swear to never be apart again. And if I
did
find someone I cared for that way, I
can promise you this—
I
would be the
one doing the penetrating.
Not
the
other way around.”

“Well,
there’s
a scenario I’m not likely to
fantasize about,” Thrace
growled. “I’m not up for being penetrated either—not even by a female as
gorgeous as you.”

“It
seems you’ll have to restrict yourself to tamer fantasies,” Trin remarked. “Not
that you ought to be…” She cleared her throat and her cheeks flushed a bit.
“Ought to be fantasizing about me in the first place.”

“Why?
Because I’m your ‘slave’ or because I’m male?” Thrace demanded. “Look, I can’t
help what I think—not when you run around half dressed like that. Will you at
least uncuff one of my hands so I can take care of myself?”

“So
you can…” A deeper blush came into her creamy cheeks. “Oh, I see.”

“Just
one hand.” Thrace
lowered his voice, coming dangerously close to pleading. “That’s all I need.”

“It
only took you one hand to do this.” Trin put her fingertips to the fading
bruises around her neck.

“Would
it help if I said I was sorry for that? I never meant to hurt you. I was in the
grip of a dream—a nightmare. I thought you were—” He stopped abruptly, clamping
his jaw shut.

“You
thought I was who?” Trin stared at him shrewdly, her lovely eyes narrowed.
“Someone who hurt you? Your old Master, perhaps?”

“Never
mind,” Thrace
said tightly. “Doesn’t matter who I thought you were. What matters is if I knew
you were a female, I never would have tried to strangle you. The Havoc don’t
hurt females—we’re like the Kindred that way.”