Slave Empire - Prophecy (21 page)

Over an hour
passed before the shuttles returned, and the slaves rose to reform
the queues. Rayne got some odd looks from the other slaves when she
joined the line, but ignored them. After half an hour of waiting,
the shuttles were full again, and the slaves returned to sit at the
back of the room once more. She wandered over to lean against a
wall, affecting a bland expression to hide her growing nervousness.
The shuttles returned and the queues reformed once more, and this
time she got a place much further up the line, not far from the
nearest shuttle. Her spirits lifted as she shuffled forward,
prodding the man in front of her to try to speed things up, and he
glanced back irritably a couple of times.

The slaves'
murmur hushed, and an eerie silence fell on the crowd as the people
in front of Rayne glanced around. They fell to their knees with a
great sigh, and she stood rooted to the spot, unable to look around
at her approaching doom. An insane urge to run for the shuttle made
her want to giggle as hysteria swelled inside her like a giant
bubble.

A soft,
beautiful, and all too familiar voice spoke beside her. "Going
somewhere?"

She swung to
face him, her brows knotting as she was forced to look up at the
ugly mask. "Trying to."

"Well done.
You got quite far. But surely you didn't think you'd escape this
easily. Who helped you?"

"No one." She
couldn't bring herself to betray the girl.

The Shrike
took hold of her arm and led her towards the distant door through
which she had entered. The slaves watched him pass, their
expressions adoring, or perhaps merely terrified, she mused. Why
would slaves adore a slaver? In the next hangar, he released her,
apparently once again secure in the knowledge that she would walk
meekly beside him. His arrogant assurance made her seethe with
futile fury, wishing she could prove him wrong. He stopped before
the sleek black ship and gestured to it.

"What do you
think of my ship?"

"It's a bit
small," she said, hiding her admiration.

"It's meant to
be. Size isn't everything. I have huge battle cruisers too, of
course, some even larger than Atlan's finest, but they require big
crews, and I prefer solitude."

"You like to
brag, too, don't you?"

He took her
arm again, his touch impersonal, and steered her away from the
ship. "You're in a bad mood today, aren't you?"

Rayne longed
to jerk free, for his touch made her shiver. "So would you be, if
you'd almost managed to get free of a damned slaver, then been
caught."

"Well, almost
isn't good enough, is it? Anyway, it was a pretty dumb plan in the
first place. Whose was it?"

"The - mine.
And it wasn't so dumb. The captain of that ship would have jumped
at a huge reward from Atlan for my return."

He shook his
head. "No he wouldn't. My crews are all loyal to me. He would have
brought you back."

Rayne fumed as
he escorted her back towards the office where she had seen him
earlier. The short, stocky man to whom he had been speaking, an
Atlantean with pudgy features, narrow brown eyes and high class
two-tone hair of ash blond and dark brown, came at his signal and
bowed. The Shrike stopped and released her arm, facing his
subordinate.

"Find Layalia
and bring her to my quarters."

The man nodded
and left.

Rayne looked
at the Shrike. "Who's Layalia?"

"The one who
helped you, I'm sure."

She shivered
as he took her arm again and led her towards the corridor. "Please
don't punish her."

He glanced at
her, and she sensed a rare unguarded emotion from him. Surprise.
"Why not?"

"She was only
trying to help me. She seems to think..."

"What?"

"That she's
not a slave."

"Ah." He shook
his head. "But she was wrong to do that."

"She thought
those slaves were being freed. She thought I could leave too. She
didn't know she was helping me escape."

"Layalia was
trying to get rid of you, and her actions might have jeopardised my
plans."

She cast him a
baleful glance. "What will you do to her?"

"That remains
to be seen."

"You don't
even know if she's the one who helped me."

"She's the
only one who would have a reason to, strange though it is. She's
the girl who served us lunch, the one who disliked my attention to
you. Don't bother denying it."

Rayne jerked
her arm from his grip as they arrived outside her door. "If you
want to punish someone, punish me. I'm the one who persuaded her to
do it. She's a poor deluded creature, living in a fantasy world.
Please, Tarke."

"Very well."
The door opened, and he followed her inside. "So she told you my
name. Stupid girl."

Rayne turned
to face him in the middle of the lounge. "What will you do to
me?"

"Do to you?
Oh, punishment, right." He went to the bar and poured a drink,
which he sipped, then chuckled. "You know, right now she's probably
disporting herself naked on my bed, hoping my summoning of her is
for that reason. Unfortunately for her, it's not, and her wish will
be unfulfilled. That, along with a few choice words of
chastisement, will doubtless send her weeping to her room, and will
be her punishment. How do you plan to partake in that?"

"That's all? I
suppose it's cruel enough, in its way, considering the fantasy she
lives in. I thought slave collars were used for punishment."

He turned to
face her, and she sensed a faint flash of pure pain from him. "They
are. They inflict exquisite torture. But this is far too slight an
infraction for such drastic measures, don't you think?"

"I think the
whole thing is barbaric."

"Of course you
do." He put down his glass and picked up a dress that was draped
across the back of a chair. Its delivery was doubtless how he had
discovered her escape. He held it up, displaying a shimmering fall
of silver-shot white silk-like material, the thin shoulder straps
glittering with gold thread, its uneven hem a marvel of silver
filigree lace. Rayne stared at it, entranced by its beauty and
repelled by its purpose.

"I want you to
wear this for the auction." His words made her stomach clench.

"No."

"Come on, it's
not as bad as the one Drevina made you wear. This isn't revealing
and crass, just beautiful."

"I won't wear
it."

He lowered the
dress. "Don't be difficult, Rayne." She shook her head, and he
added, "I don't want to have to get the guards to put it on you, do
you?"

"I'll rip it
to shreds."

"And be sold
in the nude. You certainly will be tempting like that." He put down
the dress and stepped closer, forcing her to look up at him. "Do
this for me."

The full force
of his devastating charisma made her spine turn to jelly and her
knees quiver. She fought it, hating the raw power he exuded, a
blatant charm so strong he did not even need a face to wield it.
The urge to do as he asked was almost too strong to deny. She was
aware that some of the power she sensed was mental; a telepathic
coercion mixed with his animal magnetism, but the combination was
almost irresistible.

She swallowed
hard and stepped back. "All right, on one condition."

"What?"

"You take off
the mask."

"No. No deal,
I'm afraid. Just wear the dress. It's not much to ask. It's a
beautiful gown. I'd like to see you in it."

Once more the
full force of his charm came to bear, and this time he reinforced
it by reaching out to stroke her cheek with a gloved hand. The
caress was feather light, but her skin tingled and her stomach
tried to turn over. With an act of will, she swung away and strode
across the room, putting as much distance between them as possible
before facing him again.

"No."

"You're a
strong one. Or are you...?" He walked closer, and she forced
herself to stand her ground, refusing to let him chase her all over
the room. This time she sensed only his natural charm. He stopped
and studied her, the mask a blank barrier that she longed to tear
off. A slight tingle within her skull warned her, and she gasped,
trying to throw up the mental shields she never remembered to keep
in place. The tingle of his intrusion stopped, and he turned
away.

"So, no wonder
that didn't work."

"What did you
try to do? Why didn't it work?"

"I want you to
put on the dress, and I really don't want to use force."

"Take off the
mask."

"No."

She folded her
arms. "Then you'll have to use force."

He sighed and
sank onto the sofa. "Why this preoccupation with the mask? Why does
it matter to you what I look like, unless you want to tell the
Atlanteans?"

"Why would the
Atlanteans care?"

"Because
whenever they've come close to capturing me, one of my people has
donned a copy of my mask and taken my place to save me. So far the
Atlanteans have tried and executed six Shrikes. I don't like it,
but my forbidding them to take my place means nothing to them, they
do it anyway."

"How loyal of
them," she muttered.

"So, now you
know. Apart from that, I have other reasons for not wanting my
fellow slavers to know what I look like, very different reasons. If
you want to bargain for the dress, name something else."

Rayne
considered. Her position was hopeless; he would get the dress on
her one way or another, so she might as well gain some small
concession out of this. If he was willing to offer something in
return for her co-operation, it was better than nothing. Her gaze
wandered over him, then snapped back to the hated mask.

"Show me
something then, your skin, at least. I'd like to know whether
you're green with purple spots or orange with blue ones."

He chuckled.
"Neither. I'm Antian. You can look it up in Atlan's databases. My
skin is the same colour as yours."

The name did
not ring any bells, and, if his race was extinct, she probably had
not encountered it during her studies. "Prove it," she said,
determined to make him do something to earn her co-operation.

The Shrike
hesitated, then sighed and started to pull off one of his gloves.
She went over and sat beside him on the couch as he stripped it off
one finger at a time. The slender hand that emerged looked human in
every respect, except she had never seen such fine, beautiful hands
on a man. He held it out for her inspection, but as she reached out
to touch it, he withdrew it slightly, then appeared to stop himself
with an effort.

It was as if
he fought the urge to snatch it away, and she wondered why. Did he
think she had some disease? He allowed her to run her fingers over
his skin, and she turned his hand over to examine his palm, then
back to study his nails. There seemed to be nothing alien about it,
other than its refinement. A beautiful voice and beautiful hands.
What would his face be like?

"You seem to
be very like a human."

"Antians are -
were. Very similar."

"Do the
Atlanteans know you're Antian?"

He shook his
head. "Not for certain, and even if you told them, you have no
proof. They tend to arrest anyone in a grey coat and mask."

"I wouldn't
tell them." The words tripped off her tongue without thought, and
she wondered where they came from.

"Why not?
Don't you want to see me captured and executed?"

"Captured,
perhaps, but I don't want to be responsible for anyone's
death."

"Ah. How noble
of you. You'd like to see me dead, but don't want it on your
conscience. Fair enough, I suppose. Now, put on the dress, we must
leave for the auction." He rose to his feet and pulled on his
glove.

Rayne fought a
strong urge to beg him not to sell her, for she longed to stay and
discover his secrets. The more she learnt about him, the more he
fascinated her, and for all his apparent ruthlessness and barbaric
trade, he spoke and acted with no hint of malice or cruelty. It
might all be an elaborate façade, but she sensed a deeper mystery
within him, something dangerous and complicated. Then there was his
all too strong attraction. He marched out, and, as the door slid
closed behind him, the room seemed empty all of a sudden.

Picking up the
dress, she studied it, then stripped off the functional black suit
and slipped into its shimmering folds before gazing in the mirror.
It clung to her slight curves, and, unlike the brazen gown Drevina
had dressed her in, made her look like a princess. She found a pair
of delicate white sandals, which complemented the dress, and the
final effect was quite stunning. A silly idea flitted through her
head, that perhaps he would not want to sell her once he had seen
her in it. She snorted at her stupidity, wondering where such
foolish romantic notions came from, and settled down on the couch
to await his return.

When the door
slid open, two guards stood outside, and her heart sank. She
realised that she might never see him again, and found the prospect
unpleasant. With a mixture of trepidation and regret, she followed
the guards back into the building where she had seen the black
ship. As they passed the office in the first hangar, the guard
ahead of her stopped so abruptly she almost bumped into him.

Curious, she
peered around him. The Shrike stood several metres away, in a
tableau that had apparently only just happened. A slave woman knelt
at his feet, gripping the edge of his coat as she shook with sobs
and wept unintelligible words. He gazed down at her, his hands at
his sides. Then he jerked his head at a couple of matronly,
uniformed women, who came forward, gripped the woman's arms and
helped her to her feet, leading her away.

At first,
Rayne thought the woman might be Layalia, but she was a stranger
with copper-gold skin, an alien of surpassing beauty. She stared
after the woman, whose wails of woe reached Rayne until the guard
behind her prodded her forward. The Shrike glanced at her as she
approached, then signalled to the guards, who escorted her past him
into the next hangar, where the black ship was berthed. The guards
strode past it into the hangar where the slaves had been, now empty
save for a single shuttle parked on the far side. The men guided
her to it and escorted her aboard, strapping her into a seat before
sitting on either side of her.