by Sierra Dafoe
It didn’t matter. She had to find Kantou.
Her sword was leaning in a corner. She seized it up, peered out the tent-flap, pleased that it was already nearly full dark. Sliding out of the tent, she slipped silently around the corner, flitting through the spaces between the tents.
* * *
Rolen sat back, puzzled. He helped himself from the tray as he studied Kantou. He was handsome, Rolen had to admit, his classic profile and lean, chiseled body almost breathtaking in their beauty. There was a will here, a strong one. It showed in the way the smaller man held himself stiffly, refusing to give any sign of the hunger he must feel.
Will, and good self-control.
“I’ve misjudged you, slave. You’re more of a man than I thought.”
Kantou bowed his head, as if acknowledging his tacit apology. Like an equal. Is that it? Rolen wondered. Is he so conditioned that all men -- even I -- are slaves in his eyes, no better than him?
The question roused his ire. “So tell me, Kantou. What is there to be proud of in being beaten by a woman?”
Kantou’s eyes darkened. “She would not do that.”
“She has. I saw the scars on your back.”
Kantou shook his head in absolute denial. “That was not her.”
“But it could have been, slave.”
“No.”
“It could have been.”
“No.”
Rolen snorted contemptuously. “Come, little slave.” He leaned forward, slit Kantou’s bindings. “Eat.”
Kantou ate ravenously. Rolen watched him, noting the soft, full lips, the long, gleaming hair. Well, that was what he was bred for, after all. “Doesn’t it bother you to know that she could?”
Kantou paused, his gray eyes distant, thinking. Then he nodded. “Yes. I see what you’re saying.”
“Then why not join us, Kantou? Join us, and be a free man?”
There was no pause at all before Kantou shook his head. Rolen sat back, nonplussed. “Do you love being a slave so?”
“Her slave, yes.” He looked up, his eyes bright and quick, studying Rolen. “What do you want of her?”
Rolen chuckled, masking his unease. Sharp, this one. And utterly incomprehensible. “What makes you think I want anything of her?”
“You haven’t killed us.”
“True.” Rolen shrugged it off and reached for a wine-flask. But Kantou’s next question made him freeze.
“Why me, then? You want something of her. Badly, I’d say. So why waste your time talking to me?”
Rolen uncorked the flask and took a long draught before answering. “To understand her. Her, you, this whole damned League that’s killing my people.”
Kantou shook his head. “You can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because you look at me and see only the scars.”
Rolen sat, struck mute by his words. Kantou continued. “You cannot understand because to you I’m an abomination. A man who submits himself to a woman’s will. In your world, the man commands, the woman obeys.”
“That’s different.”
“Does no man here ever beat his woman?”
“No! I… Sometimes,” Rolen admitted grudgingly. “But the woman can leave.”
“And go where? With another man? One who might beat her, as well?”
Furious, Rolen sprang up, his knife in his hands. He towered over Kantou, still kneeling on the floor. “You know nothing of us, slave! How dare you pass judgment?”
“Perhaps because you have passed judgment on him.”
Rolen spun to see Soleyla standing before him, naked, legs braced, sword held at the ready. Gods, he thought, what a woman! She was like the warrior princesses legends spoke of. Legends, he realized suddenly, that were probably born of these same Guardians that his most ancient ancestors had fled to Antoros to escape.
Rolen grabbed Kantou, dragged him to his feet, and pressed the knife against the smaller man’s throat.
“Drop it, Guardian. Or your pleasure-pet dies.”
Chapter Nine
Soleyla glanced at Kantou. His eyes were wide, but not panicked. He seemed as yet unharmed. She studied the stern man holding him, then dropped her sword.
“Good. Have a seat.”
She did, glaring as he tied her hands behind the rough-carved chair.
“I’m glad you could join us, Guardian. We’ve been having a most interesting discussion.” He motioned harshly at Kantou, indicating he should seat himself on the floor. Kantou purposefully strode to Soleyla and sat at her feet.
“Ever the lapdog,” Rolen sneered. He seated himself and poured some wine.
He was every bit as massive as Soleyla remembered. Short, thick hair as black as ravens’ wings fell over eyes that were a stern, clear blue. His jaw and cheekbones looked carved of granite. Soleyla felt a tingle that wasn’t exactly made of fear. “What do you want?”
“I’m afraid we didn’t have a chance to finish our conversation last night.”
She glared. “If that’s what you can call it.”
He laughed at that, throwing back his heavy head. The cords of his thick neck stood out clearly. Gods, he’s an ox!
“That wasn’t what I meant, though as I recall that ended a bit abruptly, too.” He raised one hand to the back of his head, feeling the lump she’d left there. “But when I woke, I remembered something you said. Something that puzzled me, Soleyla.”
Kantou stiffened at the sound of his voice speaking her name. The other man’s piercing blue eyes flicked to him, noting his reaction, then moved back to Soleyla. “Your pet there doesn’t like that, I think. My knowing your name.”
“I’m not sure I like it either.” The fact was that his voice, pronouncing her name in his deep, oddly accented tones, was having precisely the effect on her it had had the night before. Bound, at his mercy, she felt something more than a tingle. Damn him! “Get to it, Rolen. What did I say?”
He tilted his head back, narrowing his eyes, watching her keenly from under those dark brows. “You said ‘they,’ Guardian.”
She froze, eyeing him warily. Rolen smiled to himself. He’d touched a sore spot there, he was certain. She sat across from him, bristling, gloriously naked -- and utterly unafraid.
In fact, it occurred to him, the only time he’d seen her show the slightest trace of fear was when Kantou had been threatened. Rolen frowned. It was hardly what he’d expected, no matter how pretty the play toy.
He shook away that puzzle. Whatever they did between themselves didn’t concern him. His people, and their survival, did.
“You said, ‘They will kill you for it.’ Not ‘we.’ I want to know why.”
“You kidnapped us just to ask me that question?”
He nodded.
“Why?”
He felt his jaw clench, his massive shoulders tightening. “Because you were right. They will kill us for this planet. And I’ve no way to stop them.” Trying to keep the desperation he felt from his voice, he leaned forward. “I want your help, Guardian Soleyla.”
“You choose an odd way to get it.” Soleyla smiled thinly. She glanced down at Kantou, curled at her feet. “Did he harm you?”
Kantou shook his head.
“I had no choice,” Rolen replied. “Fully a third of my people have been killed by your advance team. I would ask your forgiveness, but under the circumstances, I can’t.”
Soleyla nodded. “But why not simply approach me?”
“And get myself skewered? I think not.”
“If I’d wanted to kill you, I’d have done it last night.”
Rolen grinned ruefully. “You had me off my guard, all right.” That was putting it mildly. She’d made him come like an overeager boy. He felt his cock twitch below the table and looked away.
It was damnably hard to concentrate with her sitting there naked -- and tied, too, he reminded himself, feeling a quick heat in his loins. The bonds held her arms back behind her, forcing her breasts up and out in a way that was hi
ghly distracting. Firmly, he looked away. “I cannot expose my people to unnecessary risk. Surely you can understand that.”
“If you wish me to help you, you might start by trusting me,” she shot back.
A hard woman, indeed. He switched tactics. “Who put those scars on your pretty boy’s back? Kantou tells me it wasn’t you.”
She stiffened. “No. It was my mother.”
“I see.”
“I doubt it,” she replied. Then sighed. “May I have some wine?”
He nodded, and Kantou reached for the flask, pouring her a glass. Rolen was bemused by the way he held it, eyes cast down, everything about him now radiating a meek submissiveness. Was this the same man who had defied him, only minutes ago, in this very tent? It hardly seemed possible.
There was something sensual about the way he knelt, passive, waiting… And the way she accepted his attentions. Barely acknowledging his presence. And yet…
And yet she’d surrendered herself at the first hint of risk to her slave. Rolen shook his head, confused.
She sat back, and Kantou removed the cup from her lips. A droplet of wine clung to them, red and moist, as she closed her eyes. Her face was so still for a moment Rolen thought she was falling asleep on him.
Then, eyes still closed, she spoke, her words clipped, distant. “My mother is the regent of Argulus IV. The oldest planet of the League, and the most powerful. When I was sixteen, she bought me my first pleasure-slave, Danel. Then, six years later, she took him away.”
“Why?” Rolen was transfixed by the unspoken grief in her voice. Slave or no, she’d cared for this Danel deeply.
Soleyla opened her eyes, and immediately Rolen regretted the question. Something looked out of those eyes, something dangerous and desperately bleak. A look that reminded him of his own feelings, the night he’d laid in the darkness and listened to the tortured pleas of his men. He was relieved when she didn’t answer.
Rolen cleared his throat and asked gently, “What happened to him?”
“I don’t know.” Her expression was distant, flat -- it’d be so easy to mistake it for indifference, if he hadn’t heard the naked pain in her voice. She looked straight at him and asked, “Tell me, Rolen, what right did she have to do that?”
He cleared his throat, roughly. “He was a slave.”
Her eyes closed again. Strangely, Rolen felt an urge to reach out to her, take her in his arms. This woman who spoke so easily of owning a man. No, he realized. Not easily at all. There were layers of pain here he couldn’t begin to unravel.
“You don’t understand me, I think.” She gazed at him now, her eyes dark with an emotion he could not read. “Nor Kantou.”
“I must confess, my lady, his attitude puzzles me.” He looked at the man, larger and stronger than the woman he served, sitting so meekly at her feet.
“You shall,” she said, then breathed one more word. “Kantou.”
Kantou looked up. He’d followed the conversation closer than Rolen would ever have guessed, hearing nuances this Antorean could not begin to understand. And what he heard in that one word, his name, was that Soleyla had set him free.
He was a slave no longer.
He stood, his eyes on Rolen who was watching them closely, uncomprehending, as he bent to Soleyla and for the first time kissed her softly on the lips.
“Thank you, my lady,” he murmured. Then he turned back to Rolen. “You know what she’s done, of course.”
“I can’t say that I do.”
“She’s released me. Could you not hear it?”
Rolen shook his head and glanced at Soleyla, his brow knotted uncertainly. She stared back at him, silent.
“Would you like to see, Rolen, how I use my freedom?”
Rolen’s piercing eyes darted back and forth between the two of them. “Is this a joke?”
“No joke,” Kantou assured him, and picked up the knife from the table. Rolen stiffened, but Kantou had turned away from him to cut the ropes around Soleyla’s wrists. Then he sank back down by her feet and laid his head in her lap.
Soleyla dropped a hand to his head, running her fingers gently through his hair, and looked challengingly at Rolen.
“I don’t believe it,” he said.
“No,” said Soleyla, “you don’t understand it.” Kantou lifted his head, and she smiled down at him gently. “If he is no slave, Rolen, then no one can ever take him from me.” She raised her eyes. “I will help you, Rolen. But then you will help me.”
“Help you what?” Rolen’s attention lingered on the motions of her hand, running through and through Kantou’s long, ash-brown hair.
Soleyla smiled. “You will help me overthrow the Nine-Star League.”
Chapter Ten
“What?” Rolen sprang to his feet. “Woman, are you mad?”
“Sit down,” she ordered. It was a voice that had commanded more than just slaves. It had commanded Guardians in battle. Rolen hesitated, then drew his chair back to the table.
“Thank you. Now…” She glanced down at Kantou. He looked back at her, his eyes luminous, waiting. “It isn’t good to ally yourself with people you despise, Rolen.”
“I don’t --” he began.
She cut off his words with a motion. “Of course you do. Because you do not understand. Now, Rolen, you will.”
Soleyla couldn’t deny the erotic attraction of what she was about to do. But it wasn’t lust that moved her to it -- it was necessity.
He was a slave.
When Rolen had spoken those words, so much had crystallized for her. Because Danel was a slave, her mother had the right, the authority, to take him away. Because Kantou was a slave, her mother could beat him.
And the Nine-Star League gave her that right.
Soleyla looked at Kantou. No one had the right to take him away. He had given himself to her, utterly. Forever. And if something threatened that? Then that something must go.
And for that, she needed Rolen, needed his strength, and the strength of every man he commanded. But how could he fight for something he couldn’t understand? Freedom he understood -- the freedom to dominate, to decide, to conquer. It was that drive that had, if old tales were true, almost destroyed humanity before it ever reached the stars. That will to dominate was, in men, so strong and so innate that the wars they had started had almost wiped out the species. It was for that reason women had first seized power.
Now the pendulum had swung too far. It was time to correct it. But there was more than one kind of freedom that needed protection. There was also the freedom to submit. To obey. To serve. And there was a beauty and a strength in it that this man would never see.
Not unless he was shown.
Kantou knelt silently at her feet. His incredible cock jutted, purple and erect from between his thighs. A stab of hunger flared through Soleyla, along with a momentary pang of regret. She wanted him so badly, wanted that massive cock inside her, wanted to seal the binding between them with that most intimate of sharing.
But there were more important things at stake in this room than her desires.
“Kantou,” she breathed again.
Those marvelous gray eyes, so quick, so penetrating, rose to her face, studying her. She thought she saw a brief flash of regret as he realized what she needed of him. Then he bowed his head. “What is my lady’s will?”
Soleyla fixed her gaze on Rolen, pinning him with her eyes as she slid her hands under her breasts, cupping them. She saw his eyes widen, the pupils dilating.
“Lick them, Kantou. Now.”
Rolen stared as Kantou leaned forward, carefully touching Soleyla with nothing but his tongue. He could see the younger man’s cock, fully erect. God, it was enormous! It pulsed with arousal, and yet he never touched it, never so much as brushed it against her thigh as his tongue worked steadily over one breast, then the other. Rolen felt his breath grow short as Kantou’s deft tongue flicked at her nipples, making the points rise, hard and pink. God! How did he do it? If it were
him, Rolen would already have dragged her from her chair and thrown her to the ground…
As if reading his thoughts, Soleyla smiled languorously, clearly enjoying Kantou’s attentions. She glanced at Rolen’s hand which had, without him being aware of it, been sneaking toward his crotch. “Shall we stop?” she asked calmly. Rolen froze, then shook his head. “Good. Then keep your hands on the table.”
Who the hell did she think she was? Rolen snarled inwardly. But his hands, he realized, remained where they were. Her eyes softened with pleasure, and she reached for the breast that Kantou wasn’t licking, drew her fingers over it. Rolen gritted his teeth. He could feel his balls swelling, pressing against the chair. Surreptitiously, he rocked, increasing the pressure. He saw Soleyla frown, and drop her hand.
She rose fluidly, moving to stand behind him. Her hands slid across his shoulders, caressing them, then down his chest. His nipples tingled as she brushed them lightly. “Do you like that, Rolen?”
He didn’t answer. But his cock, straining at his breechclout, answered for him. She chuckled, deep in her throat. The sound sent a shiver down his spine.
“You must learn to answer when I ask you a question.” Rolen jerked forward, out of her grasp, but she grabbed his hair and pulled him back. Rage shot through him.
“Let me go!”
“As you wish.” He felt himself released, and she moved back to her chair, settling in it demurely. Kantou curled again by her feet, seemingly content. She lifted her wineglass and reached for the food. “So tell me, what sort of crops do you grow on this planet?”
What? His cock was so hard he was afraid he might pass out, and she wanted to discuss agriculture? Rolen ground his jaw, feeling his balls pulse with unreleased cum. He should just throw them out, call in one of the women and have her service him properly, damn it!
“As Kantou services me?”
Rolen glared, shocked. Did the bitch read minds, too?
“You were muttering,” she replied. “Have you no will at all? You can’t even control when you speak or not.”
