Mastered By Love

by Tori Minard

  “I agree,” he said neutrally. “I don’t know what Dario sees in her.” Although she had learned how to give good head.

  Lola blinked. “Then you don’t ... like her?”

  “She is very attractive. Using her was pleasurable. But I don’t like her.”

  “But you –”

  “My brother asked me to look after her while he was in the country with the Bellerenic prince. That’s all.”

  A huge smile broke over her face. “Oh.” Her relief was palpable.

  “You attacked her out of jealousy, then.”

  The smile disappeared. She dropped her gaze and gave a hesitant nod.

  “You know it’s unlawful to attack another slave.”

  The lip began to tremble again. “But –”

  “No buts, Lola. You know the rules.”

  “Master –”

  “This is very serious misbehavior. You not only assaulted her, you caused serious injury. I have to administer suitable punishment.”

  “Please, Master. Please don’t hurt me. I swear I’ll never do anything like that again.”

  She looked so contrite, her large blue eyes tearful, her whole frame quivering, that he almost relented. But punish her he must. An infraction like this could not go unacknowledged or they’d have no peace in their household. Jealousy was always a problem among the slaves and only tight management kept it in check.

  “Turn around.”

  Lola obeyed, weeping.

  “Get on your knees. Put your elbows on the floor.”

  She leaned forward until her elbows were flat on the floor. This put her ass in the air, a nicely vulnerable position. Lola had a fine ass, toned and round. Mateo reached down to run his palm over the smooth curves.

  Straightening, he took up the cane he’d left on the nearby table. He slapped it against his palm a couple of times, watching her flinch at the sound. Then he brought it whistling down on her exposed flesh. Lola yelped.

  He striped her well, raising long red welts that would make it almost impossible for her to sit for at least a week. By the time he finished, she was sobbing.

  “Get up and turn to face me, slave.”

  She rose on wobbly legs, still crying. Her eyes were red and swollen, her lashes stuck together in big wet clumps. Strangely, she still looked beautiful to him. But that was immaterial.

  “You are not to eat anything for three days. You may have water and broth, nothing else. For another seven days after that, you’ll have nothing but broth and stale bread. The cook has already been notified.”

  Lola sniffled.

  “Furthermore, you are banished from my presence until I rescind the order.”

  She sobbed. “No, Master –”

  “Arguing, slave?”

  Her reddened face went white. “N-no, M-master.”

  “You’ll assist the cook as a scullery maid for three months. You’ll be housed in isolation from the other slaves. You will speak to no-one unless spoken to. Is that understood?”

  More sobs. “Y-yes, M-master.”

  “Leave me. Go directly to the kitchen and report to the cook.”

  Lola stood, sobbing and trembling. He wanted to put his arms around her, comfort her. But she’d committed a serious crime and he couldn’t overlook it. He would miss her. And that was something she must never know.

  “Get out of my rooms, Lola.” He made his voice snap.

  “Yes, Master,” she whispered. Lola turned and fled his quarters, still crying.

  ***

  Tariza hurt all over – head, ribs, legs, arms – especially the arms. Even her hair gave her pain. Where was she? Not in the carriage, obviously, since she was warm. The carriage had been punishingly cold and there had been snow all around. Darkness.

  She’d been floating upward through the remaining dark, trying to reach the light.

  Wherever this was, it was warm. And there was light. The room – it was a room. She opened her eyes before noticing what she was doing. There were walls around her, whitewashed walls, and the air smelled faintly of sweet wax and woodsmoke.

  “Dario,” she rasped. “Where?”

  A slim feminine hand stroked her brow. “It’s all right. He’s gone.” Her sister? Was that her sister’s voice?

  How could Lenora be here? Had she somehow penetrated Saturnios and come to get Tariza? Was she in danger? They had to get out of the palace immediately before someone in Saturnios realized her sister was there.

  Wait. What had she said about Dario? He was gone. She frowned, blinking up at the searing light that filled the room. Dario was gone? No!

  Her sister’s familiar face appeared in her field of vision. Lenora looked worried, her blond brows drawn together, her mouth set tightly.

  “Gone?” Tariza said.

  “He can’t hurt you.” Her sister brushed something from Tariza’s forehead.

  She grabbed Lenora’s hand. “Dario is gone?”

  Then they must not be in Saturnios after all. Where? Could they be in Concordia? It didn’t seem possible. There was no way they could have crossed the mountains, either on foot or horseback, in such a winter storm. They would have died of the cold.

  Then she remembered the noise, the blowing snow in the darkness of a cramped city lane. Float cars. There had been float cars and the horse had panicked.

  The float cars must have contained Concordian warriors, women who would never believe that Dario cared for her or that he was trying to protect her. Had they killed him? Savage pain gripped her heart. Not Dario. Please, not Dario. A tear leaked from her eye.

  “Shhh,” Lenora said soothingly, brushing more hair from her face. “He can’t hurt you anymore, Tariza. You’re safe.”

  She wanted, needed to know more. But the darkness pulled at her, dragging her down, and she didn’t have the strength to fight it.

  Chapter 21

  For several days, the jailers fed Dario thin gruel and broth three times a day and refused to talk to him or answer his questions. Even Rosaria, the one who’d given him the bed and blanket, wouldn’t tell him anything no matter what he said to her. He lost track of morning and night in the darkness of the prison. He couldn’t tell anymore how long he’d been down here.

  Did his family know where he was? They’d probably found the carriage, but they might never know about the float cars. Unless they found witnesses.

  If they knew Concordia had him, would they ransom him? Would Queen Merita even accept a ransom? And if she did, would he want to go, knowing Tariza was still here?

  She hates you. She’s left you here to rot.

  In the face of that knowledge, nothing seemed especially important anymore.

  They came to him after he’d choked down his meager allotment of lukewarm gruel. Rosaria and the other one, whose name he’d never learned. Once again, they cuffed his wrists together. They attached a chain to his collar, but instead of using it as a leash, they pulled it around his back and clipped it to his wrists. They chivvied him out of the cell using the rod attached to his handcuffs.

  When they shoved him into the great hall, the light flooding through the tall windows blinded him. He pinched his eyes half-shut, relying on the guards to shove him in the direction they wanted him to go. Women surrounded him, viciously pinching him, kicking him, yanking at his hair.

  They didn’t bring him to the blue and gold throne room. Instead they forced him along a gauntlet of Concordian women and their slaves, all along the length of the great hall to a dais at one end of the room. They made him mount the dais.

  A second, higher platform supported the queen on a simple chair of dark wood, along with a handful of other women who must be her councilors. Two naked slaves knelt at the queen’s feet, their oiled skin gleaming in the harsh daylight. Both of them sported huge erections.

  Dario eyed them with apprehension. This looked bad. Very bad. His heart began to race.

  “Get him on his knees,” the queen said.

  His guards shoved him to his knees. One
of them unlatched the pole from the connection on the back of his collar. He kicked out, his feet landing solidly on Rosaria’s calves. She swore.

  Dario rolled, got his feet under him, began to rise. He didn’t know where he was going or how he was going to get there, just that he had to get away. He couldn’t allow them to do this to him.

  The guards screamed orders. A gang of males dashed up to the dais as he bent his knees to leap to the floor. They tackled him en masse, bearing him to the floor of the platform under a heap of bodies.

  A voice roared. He recognized dimly that it was his own.

  The men shoved him hard against the floor, pinning him down by his arms and legs. There were too many of them to fight effectively, despite the fact he was a trained warrior and they knew nothing of battle. They held him down by sheer weight and number.

  Rosaria bent over the horde of males, her face rigid with some intense emotion he couldn’t read. She disconnected the chain that connected his collar to his wrists and pulled it until she could clip it to his ankles instead, forcing his head and torso down.

  “Turn him,” she said.

  They pushed and lifted him onto his elbows and knees. Now he rested on his own forehead, his hands bound awkwardly behind him, his ass in the air.

  A cold sweat broke over him. This was a position used in Saturnios for taking a woman. He’d used it himself, many times ... and now he was the one being used. His body began to shake.

  Get hold of yourself. But he couldn’t seem to control the trembling.

  Someone snapped her fingers. The slaves kneeling at the queen’s feet jumped down to his level of the dais. One of them carried an ointment jar. They were really going to do this. They were about to... .

  Show no fear. No matter what they do.

  “Prepare him,” the queen said.

  The jar opened. A broad finger spread oily stuff over his anus before forcing its way inside him. He flinched, a strangled moan escaping him at the ruthless invasion. The watching women began to murmur, little bursts of laughter coming from the crowded room.

  The second slave pushed his hand between Dario’s belly and his curled thighs, found his cock, began to rub. He jerked. The slave worked him expertly, and somehow Dario’s body responded with shameful arousal – shameful because it was being forced on him.

  He’d never been with another man, had never wanted to. Never thought he could possibly respond to such a thing. But his cock couldn’t lie. It throbbed, thickening as the slave continued to stroke him and his partner probed his ass.

  The finger retreated. Something larger, more blunt, probed his hole. Dario choked back a sob. The man behind him shoved his cock into Dario’s body inch by torturous burning inch, stretching and opening him, and he was helpless to do anything but submit. The relentless stroking at his cock brought dark waves of pleasure while the other man plunged deeper and deeper into his body until at last he was in up to the hilt.

  The slave behind him groaned. Dario bit his lip and tasted blood. This was worse than the whipping, although it hurt less.

  The slave flexed his hips, driving his cock deeper into Dario and then retreating. He groaned again as he pumped rhythmically, using Dario’s ass while his partner kept up a matching rhythm on Dario’s cock. The invading penis struck something inside him that responded with gleeful bliss and Dario’s hips bucked. His balls tightened and a climax erupted from him as he gasped beneath the other man’s assault.

  Now the women laughed openly.

  My God. I did this to Tariza. I debased her in the same way.

  The slave inside him roared in triumph. Hot jets of come spurted into Dario’s ass. The slave smacked him on the hip as he withdrew, laughing. The slave who’d had Dario’s cock jumped to his feet.

  “My turn.”

  Before Dario could protest, the second man had mounted him. This second invasion was smoother than the first because of all the lubrication, and the pace was faster. He had no more climax left in him. All he could do was kneel helplessly while the second slave used him, his moans of pleasure loud in the otherwise silent room.

  The slave gasped, his fingers digging into Dario’s hips. More fluid pumped into Dario’s body. He pushed his face into the stone floor, wishing he could go blind so he wouldn’t have to see all those Concordian women laughing at him.

  But this was only the same thing that had befallen Tariza. A fate he’d brought on her. It was only what he deserved, wasn’t it?

  Sticky fluid trickled down his thighs as the second slave pulled out of him. Rosaria’s shiny black boots entered his field of vision. She’d want him to get up, but he was shaking so badly he wasn’t sure he could do it.

  “Shall I take him away, Your Majesty?” Rosaria said. Strangely, her hand stroked his hair.

  “No. Let him stay there for the afternoon.”

  Rosaria left him there alone. The slaves departed. He was on display on the lower dais, while Concordian courtiers milled around him, pointing at his chilled, trembling and violated body, talking about him. About the show he’d given them.

  Was this really what Tariza had experienced at his hands? It must have been. He’d taken her against her will, forced her to climax. Exposed her to other men, some of whom had raped her.

  What he’d just survived – the helplessness, the utter invasion, the involuntary arousal – all of that she had suffered first. All women in Saturnios suffered the same. Dario shuddered. He hadn’t known, hadn’t understood what he was really doing.

  But that was no excuse.

  He was seeing himself from the other side, from the perspective of a slave. Looking at his behavior from this angle made his heart shrivel in self-loathing. How could he possibly have justified what he’d done to her? How could he have thought it acceptable?

  Someone shoved him hard, and he lost his balance and tipped over onto his side. He stared dully at the crowd of Concordians. They were nothing but a blur of noise and contempt, nothing but a mirror of the contempt he now held for himself.

  Was Tariza here? Had she seen what they’d done to him? Had she enjoyed it? Maybe if she’d been here to witness his punishment, it would give her some peace.

  Chapter 22

  Tariza sat in bed and stared out the window at the falling snow. She really ought to get up and move around, try to get her strength back. Lying in bed all day was unhealthy and she’d been doing it for nearly a week. But she couldn’t seem to care enough to make herself get up, although the court doctor had cleared her for light activity.

  Dario was gone. Gone. She could hardly believe he was dead. How could all that male vitality be wiped away? She would never see him again, never touch his warm skin, never kiss his mouth.

  Every day she missed him. His body, his arms around her, the music and conversation they’d shared. She missed his friendship in a way she’d never missed anyone before. There was an enormous, Dario-shaped hole in her life, in her heart.

  He’d wronged her by kidnapping her, by enslaving her, and yet somehow that central fact had ceased to matter. He’d been so much more than a conqueror and a master.

  She’d missed her period two months in a row, now. It was possible she carried his child. That thought gave her a tiny, fragile crumb of comfort in an utterly bleak world. But her child would grow up without a father.

  I loved him.

  A dull shock beat in her chest. She’d been in love with him, but she’d managed to convince herself that because they’d argued her love wasn’t real. She’d been so caught up in holding on to her Concordian identity that she’d refused to acknowledge how deeply she’d come to care for the man who’d abducted her. Pride had kept her from seeing the truth.

  Tears seeped from her eyes. She hadn’t told him how much she loved him. He’d died not knowing, and now it was too late.

  If only he were still alive, somewhere. If only there was a chance to rescue him, they could be together again. She would give anything to have him back, even her Concordian identity. Any
thing.

  Get up. You’re not a slave anymore, and Dario is dead. Get up.

  Still crying, she pulled the covers back and swung her legs off the bed. Her broken arm ached, but not as much as her heart. Yet she couldn’t spend the rest of her life mourning him; she had work to do.

  The door opened and her sister Lenora came in to the room. “Good morning!” She’d been offensively cheerful ever since Tariza had returned.

  “Morning,” Tariza muttered, wiping surreptitiously at her eyes.

  “You’re crying.”

  “Go away, Lenora.”

  “He’s gone. He’s not coming back. You’re home, safe. There’s nothing to cry about.”

  She glared at her sister. “How would you know? You weren’t there; you have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  Lenora winced. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”

  Tariza took a calming breath. She couldn’t blame any of this on her sister, who’d been so supportive since Tariza had come home.

  “It’s all right.” She sighed. “I’m just – I haven’t gotten used to being home yet.” She hadn’t gotten used to being without Dario. Everything in her yearned for him, yet she couldn’t tell her sister that.

  Lenora laid a hand on her shoulder. “Would you like to talk to someone? Maybe one of the priestesses?”

  “Goddess, no. Thank you for the suggestion, but no.”

  “Not even me?”

  She sighed again. “Lenora, I can’t.” Her sister would never understand.

  “Whatever he did to you, it’s over.”

  “I know that,” Tariza snapped. That was the problem; she didn’t want it to be over.

  “Then what is it? What’s wrong?”

  She gave another, heavier sigh and reluctantly met her sister’s gaze. “I miss him.”

  The younger woman recoiled. “Miss him?” she whispered in horrified tones.