by Raven Dark
“Welcome, Hadu Raul,” a computerized voice intoned when we entered the bridge.
I looked up, startled by how different the voice sounded from the voice on the other ship, though the voice seemed to come from everywhere at once. It was also very feminine, soft and pliant. Bordering on seductive. I rolled my eyes. Figures these barbarian men would have a voice on a ship that sounded like a pin-up girl.
I raised a brow at Raul, as if to say, Really?
His eyes sparkled and he shrugged.
Malek smirked at my expression and set the chests down on the floor by the door to the bridge. Z’pheer set his on top of them.
“Don’t look at me,” Raul said, taking off Tarku’s leash and collar. “This isn’t my ship, it belongs to the Order. They loaned it to us for the trip.”
“Yeah, and Vaka Shar’onne says it’s the only ship they have that the Rith haven’t destroyed, Raul.” Malek pointed a finger at him. “So be good to her, otherwise we’ll have to pay for it.”
“Come here, nayna.” Raul gestured to me, and when I went to him, he took my cuffs off, clipping them to his belt. “Not to worry, Malek. I always take care of anything I use.” He took the muzzle off, then traced my lips with his thumb. “Don’t I, nayna? I always give a woman what she wants.”
Oh my God, I hated him. Only his threat last night, that if I ever pulled a weapon on him again—if I ever touched one—he’d kill me, kept me from punching him. He’d mentioned weapons, but he might decide to cause me more pain if I walloped him.
I turned my face away.
He tossed the muzzle on a chair. “Why don’t—?”
“Tarku!” Malek’s shout cut Raul off and made me turn. Tarku was curled up in the biggest of the four chairs on the bridge, obviously the captain’s seat. “Tarku, get off the chair!” Malek pushed him out of the seat and glared at Raul for his chuckle. “This is an expensive ship, we don’t want you covering everything in fur.”
“Leave him alone, Malek, he’s just reserving my seat for me,” Raul teased. “We’ll be leaving momentarily, nayna,” he added to me. “We’re hungry, so get a meal started, and then Z’pheer can show you where you’ll be sleeping.”
I dropped my shoulders. This. This, right here, was my life.
Fuck, rinse, cook, repeat.
Fun fucking times.
The next few days passed by in a blur, one that was almost exactly what I figured it would be. If I wasn’t sleeping or cooking one of the meals from the ship’s food dispenser, I was in one of the men’s beds or on my knees.
Or one of them was in the bed they’d given to me.
The room was supposed to be mine, according to what Raul had said, but it certainly didn’t feel like it. The room was as luxuriant as the rest of the ship, with a large comfortable bed, but I was rarely left alone in it. Honestly, I was starting to feel as if my bedroom was like one of those communal baths, open for use at any time, whenever the men chose.
Insert fifty dollars for one hour.
Shleta indeed.
The bright side, though? Being rarely left alone left me with very little time to think about the last few days, or to consider the confusing emotions that were growing ever stronger in me.
I didn’t want any of this, but my body apparently had no interest in my wishes. Worse, that wasn’t the only thing that I had to seriously think about.
That acceptance of what these men were and of all the twisted things they did to me, and that infernal rightness that sank in whenever one of them submitted me to their lust, was beginning to change. At some point, it had gone from an unwanted visitor that only came whenever the men asserted the worst of their dominance to becoming a constant companion, ever present, and seeded too deep within me for me to hope to shut it out. I could feel it under my skin whenever they touched me, humming in the back of my thoughts, a mocking tune that chirped whenever I even thought of escape.
You want them, Danika. You need them. You need them like a drug. You know you do.
Danika, you idiot!
And then there were my feelings for Z’pheer. What those feelings were, I wasn’t sure, but regardless, I wasn’t naïve enough not to see they were a massive problem.
Aside from the fact that I hardly knew him, he did follow the same code as Raul and Malek, however diluted a version of that code it was. He was nicer, but he was still my master. Falling for him felt too much like condoning my role.
Not to mention, accepting him meant excepting the other two. That, I was not ready to do. I didn’t think I’d ever be ready for that. Not even while a part of me had started warming to Raul and Malek. Some part of me felt as if I’d begun to understand and even accept them as much as Z’pheer, and that scared the hell out of me.
No matter what, though, I couldn’t get the conversation with Shelly out of my head. She’d loved Raul’s father. I had felt her bond with him, had seen the fondness for him and this world in her eyes. Moreover, she loved Raul. I’d hated seeing that. I hated it because it suggested something about myself that I didn’t want to face. Something I couldn’t face.
If she’d been taken and brought here as a captive slave like me, only to somehow end up loving what Haruuk had turned her into, then I had to face the reality that, one day, I might not want to leave.
How did that work? And how close was I to that now?
On the fourth day since we’d left the shelter in Vunadar, I sat on the bridge, trying desperately to make sense of the mess my thoughts had become. The bridge had a window that offered the best view of space as the ship soared along, stars and planets whizzing by like an endless science fiction channel on continuous play. The Tanticore was evidently on autopilot, since the men were asleep. I loved the near-silence that lay over the craft, peaceful and broken only by the faint hum of the engines underneath the ship’s belly, the occasional beep from a screen, and the rare announcement of the ship’s computer that spoke up whenever we passed through or entered another star system.
The window had a wide ledge to sit on, and I leaned against the frame, knees pulled up to my chest, bare feet tucked under the comfortable cloth of one of Raul’s dressing robes. Other than my usual uniform—the red dress—the robe was the only thing the men allowed me to wear. When they didn’t make me go naked, that is. I’d slept with Raul that night, and when I’d gotten up to relieve myself, I’d come in here instead of going back to him.
Tarku jumped up onto the ledge beside me and curled up there, setting his furry head on my feet. Warming them up even more. I sighed and stroked his fur, taking an unwilling sort of comfort in its luxuriant softness.
My thoughts dwelled painfully on Shelly, and I shook my head, trying to make sense of what she’d become. Somehow, knowing Shelly enjoyed her life on Xandar only made me despise her more, as if in falling for Haruuk, she’d betrayed herself. Betrayed me and every modern-thinking, independent woman on Earth.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Raul’s voice drifted from across the low-lit bridge, tearing me away from my depressing reverie.
It took me a minute to realize he was referring to the celestial display outside the window. I’d been staring out at it, but I wasn’t really seeing it now, too lost in my own thoughts to notice.
I glanced at him, a dark, muscled shadow in the doorway to the bridge. He had his hands in the pockets of his reptile-hide pants. The gold clasp on his belt gleamed in the faint, flickering lights of space nebula outside.
I said nothing, turning my gaze back to the window.
His feet brushed the carpet as he crossed the room to stand at the window beside me. He studied the bright swirl of a string of close-knit stars, spreading out across the blackness of space like a diamond-studded scarf.
“This is why I could never be king, Vahashatai.” His voice was husky with what I thought was fascination with the view. He scratched Tarku’s ears absently. “The rulers of worlds spend all their time behind desks or sitting on a throne settling disputes between squabbling delegates and cit
y officials while the men of the Order are out there with the people, getting their hands dirty. Rulers don’t fight, and they rarely get to fly among the stars.”
I thought I knew what he was getting at. I could hear the hunger for adventure in his voice, adventure and danger he would rarely see from inside the safety of a palace, or whatever a king on his world lived in.
Unsure how to respond, or what to do with the empathy pulling at me for him, I remained silent. He didn’t seem to care if I replied.
“I belong in space, with a sword in my hand and a woman in my bed,” he added, even quieter, making me wonder if he was aware he was talking out loud. “I wasn’t meant to rule anyone or anything. I’m meant to save them.”
“If you weren’t meant to give orders, some part of you didn’t get the memo.” I looked up at him. “That’s all you know how to give me.”
His teeth flashed in the low light. He massaged my nape.
“Such a mouth on you.” He gave Tarku a nudge and the dog jumped down from the ledge. Raul lowered himself onto it and leaned against the opposite side of the frame to me, bending one leg and stretching out the other.
I’d turned my eyes back to the window, but I could feel him watching me, silent, until I finally looked at him again.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” I demanded. His stares always made my skin way too hot, every part of me too aware of him.
He reached over and pushed a strand of my hair behind my ear. “I like looking at what’s mine, Vahashatai.”
Again, he fell silent. I squirmed, uncomfortable with his scrutiny. “Don’t do that. It freaks me out.”
He turned my face, studying my neck, my chin. “You have a bruise here, and here.” He ran his fingers along the skin, leaving a trail of heat in their wake, tracing the evidence of his roughness from earlier that night. “I’ll have to give you more of those. Preferably in different places.”
I snapped my eyes to his, despising the electricity that raced through me at his words. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
He smiled and put his head back on the window frame.
“Seriously, why do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Twist things around and screw with my head. I don’t like what you do to me. I don’t…” I shook my head. There was zero point, wasn’t there? He was convinced I enjoyed what he did to me, no matter how twisted.
“Don’t you?” His whisper stroked the hidden truth in my soul.
Oh. My. God. He was calling me out for the little liar I was.
His grin was huge.
I shook my head helplessly and looked back out at the stars. Suddenly the gorgeous view made me feel painfully sad, laying bare how far I was from home. From ever getting back to the happy, sane world I knew.
He rubbed my foot. “You miss Earth, don’t you?”
Wow. I wanted to strangle him. There was only one reason he’d ask something like that. It wasn’t like he ever planned on taking me home. He wanted to rub it in.
I said nothing.
“Tell me what you miss most about Earth, Vahashatai.”
I gave a big sigh. There were worse things he could know. Some of them he already did. “I miss…music. Our music, I mean.”
I’d heard music in the shelter’s tavern, tribal music with drums, but nothing like what I could sing to. Did people even sing on Xandar?
He hummed in his throat like he understood and closed his eyes. Then he opened them, and his gaze snagged mine. “Sing for me, Vahashatai.”
Of course. I’d almost forgotten he’d heard me sing at the club before I was drugged and brought here.
He wanted me to sing for him. Somehow, the request shook me to the core. Singing was something I gave to people to make them happy, something personal I felt pure joy in doing. Why, I didn’t know, but it felt as if singing for him would rob me of the one thing that was still mine and any pleasure I got out of it. It would become his, something I could no longer do without it reminding me of him.
“I don’t suppose there’s something else I can give you instead?”
He shook his head, his lips quirking.
I was sure he was just goading me now, deliberately taking something from me he knew damn well I didn’t want to give.
“I don’t want to sing for you, Raul. Singing is… precious to me. It’s the one thing I have that’s still mine.”
“Tell me why you love music so much.” He rested his arm on his upraised knee.
I closed my eyes. “You’re not going to drop this, are you?”
“No.”
“Do you always get what you want?” I opened my eyes.
“Yes.” His eyes danced.
I thought seriously about his question and looked out into the vastness of space. “When I was a little girl, I took singing lessons. Singing was the one thing my father let me have that I enjoyed, the only thing he didn’t try to take from me, I suppose because he was a singer, too. Anyway, my singing instructor said something once that stuck with me. ‘Music has the power to make everything better,’ she said. ‘There is nothing that can’t be made better with a song. It breaks down barriers, transcends all things. Sometimes it even has the power to change the world.’”
I smiled. “She was right. It’s the one time my father was a nice guy, when he sang. When I felt safe with him.”
Raul’s eyes softened, taking in my words. He set his hand on mine. “Sing for me.”
I sighed. There was no command in his tone. Only longing.
“I’m not leaving, nayna, and I’m not letting you sleep again until I hear that gorgeous voice again.”
I heaved a breath and looked out the window again. It had always been easier for me to sing if I didn’t look at my audience, but it seemed harder to do so now, with Raul. I opened my mouth and, for the second time since I’d met him, I sang for Raul. Only this time, I knew who I sang for and what he was.
Singing the same song I had at the club, I let the notes pour out of me, pouring all the pain, the passion, the hopelessness I felt into the words. Things that, outside of singing, I’d never felt comfortable saying. I could do it in a song, because that’s all he would hear, only the music. He wouldn’t know why I filled the words to Darkside with so much pain.
Except, as I sang, I couldn’t miss the change that came over Raul with every word. A few notes in, his eyes had closed, and he leaned back on the window frame. His expression was so relaxed, so at peace, he looked almost like a different man. My heart quickened. He liked it. He actually liked my voice.
I sang on, and a smile touched his lips. My heart swelled for him, watching him take in every word, enjoying the one thing I loved most. I felt suddenly connected to him, linked to him in a way that went beyond any acceptance or rightness I’d ever felt with him before.
When the last note fell from my lips and I let it trail off, his eyes stayed closed as if he were savoring the sounds, or perhaps the images the words evoked.
I fell silent, and his eyes opened slowly, golden spheres of fire in the half-light. My heart was thudding in my chest.
“So beautiful.” He leaned over and stroked my chin. “Your voice is like the finest wine, Vahashatai. It’s exquisite. There is nothing in the universe like it.”
My cheeks flamed, appreciation flooding me. No one had ever talked about my voice like that. Sauders had once said my voice was made of money, but there was no greed in Raul’s tone. There was only wonder.
I had no idea what to do with him when he was like this. When he wasn’t being an ass. I looked out the window again, too afraid to speak without being sure why.
He stood up and crossed the space between us. His fingers turned my chin up so that I had to meet his burning eyes. “I will sleep the rest of the night with your voice in my head, Vahashatai. I’ll never forget what you did for me just now.”
Then he bent and brushed his lips over mine, a single startlingly tender kiss. Then he turned and left the room.
Leaving me staring after him and wondering who that man was, and what the fuck he’d done with Raul.
29
The Beauty of Submission
I remained sitting at the window for a few minutes longer, but no amount of ruminating over my life, and none of the gorgeous view of space outside helped me sort out the clusterfuck my life had become or helped me figure out what to do about it.
“I need food.” I climbed down, stepped over Tarku sleeping on the floor, and went to the galley to find the food dispenser.
This one was nicer than the one on the Raul’s ship, bigger, and with more selection. Too bad that except for the few foods the men had had me cook for them, I didn’t know what most of them were.
God, I had such a craving for chocolate, I’d have sold my soul for it. I wondered if they had anything close to that here.
“Hungry, ra alia?”
Z’pheer. Oh, God, not him. Not now. Things were complicated enough without facing him.
I made myself turn around. I could see the streaks of white in his jet-black hair, and those strange black braids draped over one side of his chest. Fuck, he was gorgeous.
“What are you doing here, Z’pheer?”
He crossed to the middle of the room and the counter. “I heard you singing a few minutes ago.”
“Did I wake you?” It bothered me a little that I cared.
“It wasn’t an unpleasant way to wake. Your voice is gorgeous.”
My cheeks heated.
“I was hungry anyway.” He crossed the rest of the room to the food dispenser and leaned against the wall beside it.
I dropped my hand from the countertop. “I suppose you will want me to cook you something.”
“No.” He pressed a button on the console. A flap opened under it and a small flat, wrapped package that looked kind of like a granola bar slid out onto the counter. “This will do fine.”
“What is it?”
“A… nutrition bar.” He ripped the top of the wrapper open with his teeth and bit into the corner of the bar. My heart stuttered, watching his teeth bite into the crispy shell with a crunch. Suddenly I was jealous of that bar, wishing I could feel his teeth scraping my flesh.
