by Renee Rose
“Exactly so.”
“Do you imagine I will breed her?” The Zandian species was nearly extinct, with no females of breeding age remaining, which was why Zander had taken a human for breeding.
Zander at last turned from the window and leaned back against it, folding his arms over his chest. “No. I promised Lamira that when her mother arrived she would never be used that way. You will honor my word in that respect.”
He ought to be relieved by the pronouncement—breaking the vow of celibacy he’d made in Becka’s memory would be cause for quarrel. Besides, as a Master Warrior, he believed sex had the effect of scattering one’s energy. Before Zander had bought Lamira, Seke had advised him not to dally with females until it was time to breed. But the fact Leora was off limits niggled Seke, too.
“So why don’t you do it? You already keep and discipline one slave. How different—”
“Punishment arouses them.”
Seke’s jaw went slack, visions of a humbled and aroused Leora making his cock thicken. “Pardon me?”
Zander nodded. “You understood me. Daneth inserted sensors in Lamira to aid in breeding. I discovered—”
Seke’s chest had constricted, and he waved a hand, not wishing to hear more. The thought of any male monitoring Leora that way—or observing her arousal during a punishment—made him clench his fists. It was an odd reaction for him—a highly trained and disciplined warrior who usually kept all emotion in check.
“So I cannot punish her, as I am mated to her daughter. It would be wrong. You seemed like the next best alternative.”
“Why?” he demanded, though he already knew the answer. He’d shown a proprietary interest in Leora since the day she arrived. That didn’t mean he wanted her, though.
He had no desire for a female—not for mating or for sex.
“Shall I ask Daneth?”
Vecking Zander! Too vecking observant for his own good. He knew Seke wouldn’t stand for any other male touching Leora.
“No,” he clipped. If the vecking physician so much as thought about putting monitoring devices in Leora or punishing her, he’d tear his limbs off.
Seke changed tactics. This order to train Leora wasn’t about the human being unruly or undisciplined. It was about Zander’s unresolved anger with his own slave-mate. The pregnant Lamira had essentially run away—leaving with her mother and the warrior Rok in pursuit of her sister, causing Zander to give chase and enter a war between humans and Ocretions they could not afford to engage in.
“Have you punished your mate yet for leaving?” He knew Zander had not, because the prince had hardly spoken to her that morning, acting like a stranger. Both Leora and Lamira had been quiet and subdued, Lamira’s sad eyes following her mate with longing.
Zander’s eyes flashed dangerously purple. “That is not your concern.”
Like veck, it wasn’t. If the leader of the Zandian species allowed his personal relations to affect the way he led and the decisions he made, it was exactly Seke’s concern. But he didn’t say that. Respect, honor, obedience. He had pledged himself to Zander’s father and to the crown of Zandia. He did not give of himself conditionally.
He rubbed his ear. “You wish Leora punished. And trained.”
“Daneth will send the equipment to your chamber and can instruct you in its use. You will keep her there, with you, until she demonstrates complete obedience and bonding with you as her master.”
Bonding. Was that why punishment aroused them? Was that how the Ocretion slave masters had enforced obedience? Punishment and breeding? Was their arousal at punishment the trait that made humans good slaves? He’d always thought it was their weaker physical and over-emotional constitution. The thought made him want to kick down a wall. Who else had punished Leora? Had they used her for sex? For breeding?
But no. Both her daughters had been sired by Johan, the human revolutionary, killed during the last slave revolt. Seke relaxed by a degree. Still, the need to know each and every master who’d ever touched her, to seek those masters out and destroy them, rose like a hot flame, giving him a restless, angry energy. He flexed his fingers to keep them from clenching.
So Zander expected him to punish her to arousal, not have sex with her, and still establish a bond. He supposed it was possible. He’d trained many males in battle arts, establishing a master-student bond. But with Leora, the female who already tempted him from his vow of celibacy on a daily basis...veck.
“Very well. I will do as you command. But with all due respect, I suggest you resolve matters with your own mate. Humans have delicate constitutions. Lamira appears stressed by your disregard, and it could affect the young she carries.”
Zander’s eyes flashed, and he surged forward on his feet, his chest nearly bumping Seke’s. “You worry about your slave, I’ll worry about mine.”
Veck.
His slave. One he had to punish in the most intimate manner, who would become aroused when he did so. How in the stars would he manage?
~.~
Leora entered the Great Hall of the palatial pod, summoned there by Prince Zander. “You asked for me, my lord?”
He had called her to his opulent throne room, no doubt to inform her she had displeased him by allowing her daughter—the prince’s pregnant mate—to risk her life in pursuit of her sister. She’d expected his rebuke, even punishment. So had her daughter Lamira, yet she’d chosen to act, anyway. They had succeeded in rescuing her elder daughter, Lily, thanks to Zander’s forced influence, and no one had been harmed. But they’d returned to the pod the night before, and the time for the reckoning had come.
He fingered the leaf of one of Lamira’s potted plants absently. “Yes.”
She approached him, stopping a few feet away.
“You are my guest here, Leora.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“When I bought you, it was as a gift to Lamira. I have not made any demands of your service other than as her companion.”
She dropped her head, sensing the rebuke coming. She had accompanied her daughter on an unauthorized, dangerous mission to rescue Lily, her other daughter. “Yes, my lord.”
“As her mother, I would expect you to hold her health and well-being as the utmost priority. Even more so because she carries my young.”
“Yes, my lord, that is why—”
“No,” he cut her off. “Do not give me any explanation—I have no patience for your excuses. Allowing Lamira to risk her life as she did was unacceptable.”
She kept her eyes trained on the floor. “Yes, my lord.”
“You have displeased me, and I require that you be punished.”
A knot tightened in her middle. Would Zander punish her himself? Lamira had suspected, when he’d first bought Leora, that he intended to use her, too, as a sex slave. How would her daughter react to hearing Zander had punished her?
A movement drew her attention to the doorway. Master Seke, the warrior, had been standing in perfect stillness. How long had he been there?
“I have asked Master Seke to punish you.”
Her belly fluttered as Seke’s blue-violet gaze held hers.
“As it seems you require a direct master, and it is inappropriate for me to take that role, you will now answer to him. He will take responsibility for you and your behavior.”
She couldn’t seem to breathe.
“Your obedience training begins today.”
The prince’s words rebounded in her head, ricocheting around like a rubber ball.
Your obedience training begins today.
Master Seke stepped forward from the shadows to claim her, his expression inscrutable. Like all Zandians, he stood taller than a human male, with purple-hued skin and two small horns on the top of his head. The master at arms’ face was worn and scarred, and always composed. He moved with a feline grace belying his size. His broad shoulders stretched the fabric of his tunic, and a sword hung at his belt. Purple rimmed the blue irises of his eyes, which was unusual. The rest of the
species she’d seen had brown-purple irises.
Against all reason, her pussy clenched at the mere idea of the scarred warrior punishing her. She’d always thought of him as her warrior, though they’d exchanged few words.
He placed a supple animal hide collar around her neck, caramel in color. It fit perfectly, snug but not bothersome. With a swift, easy movement, he gathered her hands behind her back and cuffed her wrists together with bands of what felt like the same supple leather. His touch was impossibly gentle, considering the strength behind it.
Cuffing her was entirely unnecessary. She’d never win in a struggle against his species, and there were guards everywhere. Nor could she ever leave the Zandian’s guardianship. They had knowledge about her past that would have her executed by the local species, the Ocretions, immediately. She could only assume cuffing her was for effect. To show his dominance, his mastery over her.
This male Zandian will soon punish me. Her sex tightened again.
He propelled her forward, his touch still light, but the direction plain.
How would he do it? Intimately? Or publicly? It would be physical punishment; she had no doubt. Lamira had intimated Zander spanked her.
In the factories where she’d met her human mate, Johan, and on the agrifarm where she’d raised their daughter Lamira and hidden her beauty from the greedy Ocretion masters, they’d used a shock-stick to keep the human workers in line. The pain from the shock was unbearable. Overuse caused permanent damage in the nerves and eventually in the brain.
But in the short time she’d been, as he put it, a guest on Zander’s pod—since he’d bought her as a gift for her daughter, whom he loved—she’d seen no shock-sticks. There’d been no abuse. She and Lamira had always been treated with courtesy, even though it was understood they were slaves. They ate delectable food, slept in luxurious surroundings, and were not required to labor in any manner. Though her daughter wore a collar and cuffs, they were decorated with priceless Zandian crystals—part of the Zandian mating ritual, and she’d been well cared for here. Leora knew Zander punished Lamira, but in private. They hadn’t spoken of it, but Lamira had never seemed to resent it. In fact, from her blushes, Leora suspected there was an enjoyable aspect to his mastery.
Was that why Seke was in charge of her? Had he asked to be the one to punish her? Since the very first planet rotation she arrived, he’d been solicitous with her, almost protective.
Am I to become Seke’s sex slave?
The moment that thought tumbled through her head, she stumbled. Master Seke steadied her, slowing and showing a patience that, again, implied concern. Something in her core pulsed with excitement, even as her mind rebelled. She stiffened her spine, preparing her resistance. Though she had little choice but to ultimately submit, that didn’t mean she had to make it easy on Seke.
He led on, down a brightly colored corridor, the polished marble floors covered in expensive, hand-woven Ostrion rugs. Everywhere she turned, the opulence served as a reminder of the comfortable life she’d led there. This pod, no more than a giant spacecraft parked over Ocretia, was the sole seat of the Zandian kingdom until their species reclaimed their planet from the Finn.
He stopped before a door, which swished open when he placed his palm against the panel beside it. He pushed her into what had to be his chamber.
It was beautifully appointed, as was every room in the palatial pod. An oval sleepdisk hovered on one side, suspended as if by magic. The thick mattress was draped in the finest fabrics of amber, green, and midnight-blue. Crystal-amplified light shone through a skylight, making the room, with its high ceiling, light and airy. A workstation hugged one wall.
But what made her breath stop and her solar plexus twist was the cage suspended in the corner. The punishment apparatus on the bed. The tall basket filled with various manual implements, all designed to inflict pain.
A trembling started in her knees and traveled up her legs to her core. It turned her hands clammy and cold. To hide her terror, she lifted her chin and met the eyes of her new master. “So, am I to be your sex slave? I’m past the ideal age for breeding. Surely you know that.” At forty-one solar cycles, her body could still reproduce, but the risks were higher.
Something in Seke’s face tightened, a slight strain showing beneath the marble mask. “No,” he clipped. “You have displeased your host. Prince Zander ordered your punishment and training, but he gave his word to Lamira you would not be used as a sex slave.”
She wondered if he inserted the part about the prince ordering it as a subtle means of letting her know this wasn’t his own idea. Did he find it distasteful? She couldn’t tell.
“Release cuffs.” The cuffs, which had to be voice-commanded like the doors and locks in the pod, separated. “You will refer to me as master at all times. You will keep your eyes lowered and your hands behind your back unless otherwise instructed. I expect your obedience and complete submission. Defiance will be immediately punished. Remove your clothing.”
Even though she should have expected this treatment, his words struck her as if she’d been punched in the gut. From another male, it would not have wounded so badly, but from Seke, the male who had always shown her such courtesy, it came as a betrayal. Before she could consider the wisdom of it, her hand shot out to slap him.
He moved even faster and caught her wrist, twisting it behind her back so she had to either spin around or have it wrenched in the socket. She whirled, and he flattened her against the closed door, with one wrist pinned to her back, the other to the cool metal. Her cheek pressed against the door, and his body covered hers, pinning her with the whole of his chest, his torso, the bulge of his cock against her lower back.
So. He did find this arousing. His hard muscles met most of her body, unyielding and warm.
The trembling in her legs grew stronger. “Seke,” she whispered.
She didn’t know what made her speak his name so intimately, as if they were lovers, not almost-strangers ordered by another to complete this strange scene.
And his breath was at her neck, hotter even than his flesh. “Defiance will be punished every time, Leora.” He, too, sounded more like a lover than a keeper. She didn’t hear anger or even danger in his threat. Only promise—sweet promise, as if he looked forward to conditioning her to his command.
She struggled then, terrified, not of the punishment, but of him and her body’s reaction to him.
He took her hand from the door and folded it behind her back with the other one, fastening the cuffs together once more. “Come.” Again, there was no bark to his words, only quiet determination. He turned and guided her to the sleep-disk, where he sat and pulled her across his knees, her torso resting on the mattress.
She understood immediately what he meant to do, but held back from struggling. Perhaps, if she was honest with herself, she’d admit her curiosity, her fascination with the scenario—of being held so intimately on a male’s lap to have a private part of her anatomy touched, punished by him.
When he pulled up her white robes, though, she came back to life, fighting against his obvious intent. Of course, her struggles were no match for him. He had only to scissor one leg over her kicking limbs to pin her in place. Her robes slithered up her back, the fine material sliding over her skin like a caress. The modest panties went in the opposite direction, down her thighs. He lifted his leg to wiggle them past it, and the cool air of the room hit her bare bottom.
She twisted, contorting her torso in an effort to bring her mouth to his arm to bite, but she couldn’t reach.
The first slap of his enormous palm came almost as a relief—the actual punishment was better than the anticipation that had been twisting and coiling in her belly. Then pain bloomed, and she started to fight anew. He spanked her fast and hard, a steady pace that covered every inch of the lower half of her buttocks.
Though she tried to keep her lips closed, not wanting him to know how quickly he’d conquered her, grunts and gasps slipped out and, at the
loudest, he stopped and rested his paddle-like hand on her blazing skin.
Her back heaved with panting, and she arched, lifting her head to protest the ignominious position.
“Tell me something, beautiful female. Did you fight your Ocretion masters this way?”
Beautiful female. She wished his words didn’t affect her, but she liked hearing the endearment far too well.
“No,” she admitted after a moment.
Abruptly, his hand crashed down on her bottom again, slapping hard and fast.
She let out a mewl of protest.
“No, master,” he corrected. “Try it again.”
She stilled her struggles and closed her eyes. Something stubborn in her didn’t want to give in, even though she knew she’d never win this battle.
“You may keep resisting, little human, but I will break you in the end. And your punishment for displeasing the prince has not even begun.”
Tears began to smart her eyes, not from the pain—the spanking wasn’t light, but it wasn’t unbearable—but from the humiliation.
“No, master!” she croaked angrily.
He stopped spanking, smoothing his rough, calloused palm over her twitching buttocks.
“Is this rebellion for me alone?” His words came softly, as much a caress as the hand circling her burning bottom.
Her heart thundered. Heat swirled in her core. She didn’t understand his question, or the angle behind it, but the truth tumbled out before she could stop it. “Yes...master.” Again, the tears burned.
And just like that, Master Seke righted her, letting her robes fall back down over her bared ass as he plopped her on his lap, one arm looped around her waist. Her panties were still lowered, tangled around her thighs, which kept her humiliation in place.
He rubbed his knuckles over her cheek, and she resisted the irrational urge to lean into the touch. “This training was not my design, Leora.” Regret echoed in the heaviness of his voice. “But it must be. You will humble yourself to me. I will punish you. And I will care for you, for that is the role of a master.”
