Slavemaster's Woman, The

by Angelia Whiting

  The Slavemaster’s Woman

  by

  Angelia Whiting & Gail Wolfe

  (C) Copyright by Angelia Whiting & Gail Wolfe, December 2013

  (C) Cover Art by Jenny Dixon, September 2013

  ISBN 978-1-60394-845-6

  Smashwords Edition

  New Concepts Publishing

  Lake Park, GA 31636

  www.newconceptspublishing.com

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and places are of the author’s imagination and not to be confused with fact. Any resemblance to living persons or events is merely coincidence.

  Chapter One

  Cushla Zaviot squinted from her hiding place in the brush, ignoring the bramble that tormented her already bruised skin.

  Black and blue were never her favorite colors.

  Lavidis, the slave trader, her present owner was selling her and she didn’t want to be owned by the slimy and lecherous King Mecor, so Cushla ran away.

  She touched the metallic slave band clamped around her forehead. Once Lavidis realized Cushla was gone he would activate it, transmitting a painful current that would make her brains feel like they were being squeezed from her skull, until she passed out from the pain. And he would find her--hunt her down like an animal, using the tracking device embedded in the band. Though she knew it was useless, Cushla would, of course, fight. She always did.

  Foolish?

  Maybe, but Cushla couldn’t help herself. It was an ingrained part of her nature to resist what wasn’t right, even if it resulted in her suffering. At least she had a high tolerance for pain. How many times have I jumped in harm’s way to prevent a slave from being beaten or raped, only to be beaten or raped myself? She sighed. It was amazing that she didn’t have more scars because of her intervening, but the deepest scars she carried weren’t of the visible kind.

  Movement in the woods nearby caused her to shrink farther into the foliage, ignoring the rocks that dug into her feet and the bugs crawling on her arms. Sweat rolled down between her breasts as she caught a glimpse of red and black tunics, the telltale signs that identified the hunters. Her heart thumped in her chest. It was Lavidis’ blackguards, looking for her. She couldn’t let them find her. She had to get away!

  Cushla scanned her surroundings.

  Yes. She heard the sound of water rushing along and turned to see a river just a short distance away. Now if she could only get there without being noticed. Crouching low, she crawled from her forest curtain, intent on reaching the river, thinking—hoping perhaps the water would camouflage her whereabouts—interfere with the slave band’s tracking device. If only she could find a way to rid herself of the thing. It would make escaping so much easier. But Cushla had been warned. Removing it would cause a security mechanism to be triggered killing her instantly.

  She didn’t want to die despite her brutally oppressed situation. Cushla held to the belief that her father would find and rescue her from this dismal life. She refused to consider that he might no longer be alive. She needed to believe. There were many dismal dawnings when hope was her only companion.

  Cushla heard the shouting first and briefly turned to look over her shoulder. She’d been spotted. Six blackguards were spreading out, circling the perimeter--closing in. Her heart rate increased to panic mode, and she quickly rose, running toward the waterline as fast as her bare, torn feet would carry her. Her adrenaline pumping, fear and determination drove her forward. They were gaining on her, clear in the nearness of their pounding footfalls and the loudness of voices commanding her to halt.

  Never!

  If not this dawning, sometime soon she would escape and be free. Cushla would never surrender with ease. Her father had taught her to be strong, and she would not disappoint him. Oh father, she attempted to tamp down the tears, as memories of times gone by flashed through her brain. I know you never meant for my life to be like this.

  In the short, five solars she spent living with her father on the planet Buranis, she was brought up to be a lady, taught all the social graces given all the luxuries and niceties afforded to females of the royal court.

  His royal court.

  Oh, she could not go back there! How she hated the king!

  A hand skimmed her back, grabbing at the strap of the shear scarf she wore, a poor excuse for a top. Cushla screamed.

  “Halt!” the blackguard commanded, attempting to yank her to a stop, causing a tearing sound.

  Cushla ripped free from his grasp as her halter came apart in his hands.

  Serves him right! If they’d dressed me better that wouldn’t have happened. Lucky me, she thought bitterly as she came up to the river and plunged into the icy, rushing waters. She tried to swim but the current took her with it, shards of ice piercing her flesh. Oh, how it stung! But this pain was nothing to what she would be forced to endure if Lavidis were to catch her. Attempting to escape was worth the effort--always worth the effort, if it meant possibly gaining her freedom.

  Cushla’s head bobbed above the water, and she gazed further downstream. Blackguards were already entering the river ahead of her, carrying a net to snag her from the drift. She attempted to turn the other way, but the force of the water flow was too strong, and there were men in that direction also. She was surrounded. Against her will, her body floated into the net, and Cushla fought to untangle herself from it. But the more she struggled the more entangled she became. She was firmly snared.

  “Cease, bitch!” Lavidis bellowed as he watched his men carry her onto the shore. “The netting is shredding your flesh!”

  With a heavy thud, the blackguards dropped her so roughly that air was expelled from her lungs when her back slammed against the ground. She gasped, attempting to force air into her momentarily paralyzed chest.

  “Cut her loose,” Lavidis ordered.

  Through the corner of her eye, Cushla saw one of the guard’s yank his dagger from its sheath. She gulped finally able to breathe again, but having been cut before in a similar situation she went very still as the wicked blade lowered toward her. The guard dragged it along the netting, slicing through her bindings until she was free.

  Free. Such a loosely used word. Some dawning, she mused. Some dawning she would truly be free. They would never break her spirit. Even with this present failure, she would never feel defeated!

  “Will you ever learn, Cushla?” Lavidis crouched and reached for her, shackling her wrists with his hands.

  Now safe from the blade, Cushla began struggling again.

  “Be still wench!” He eyed her with disgust as he examined her. “Now you’re filthy and completely unsuitable for presentation.” The fingers of one hand he had closed around her delicate wrists tightened. With his other hand Lavidis cupped her naked breast, skimming his thumb across the nipple. “I can’t be delivering damaged goods to his Majesty. He paid such a hefty price for you, though I can’t imagine why. I’ve warned him that you’ve been much trouble.”

  Cushla stiffened at his touch. Reflexively turning her head, she promptly bit his arm, sinking her teeth in far enough to cause pain.

  “You stupid whore!” Lavidis growled through gritted teeth. He attempted to recoil but her jaw was firmly clamped down. If he activated her slave band, the torturous shock would cause her teeth to clench even harder. Slaves often bit their own tongues when the bands were activated, and she knew this—she’d tricked him with this stunt before.

  Not this time.

  His other hand swept up, curving around her jaw, his thumb and index finger applying painful pressure to the joints between at her mandible and skull.

  Cushla attempted to chomp down harder, resentment and anger slamming through her as he used the technique that often resulted
in having a cock stuck into her mouth. Her efforts were futile, and Cushla’s jaw was painfully forced opened.

  Lavidis pulled his arm free. He backhanded her across the cheek and then his hand moved swiftly to the control button at his belt. He activated her slave band.

  Cushla cried out, arching her back from the ground as she was hit with the agonizing jolt. She prepared for another but none came. It didn't matter. He’d given her a hefty dose and as it was she would suffer a head throb and vomiting and exhaustion translating to the inability to perform sexual acts for at least two dawnings. Cushla welcomed the impending consequences if it kept her from the forced sexing. She’d much rather endure this kind of torture.

  “Damn you, Cushla! I’ll not have another buyer returning you!” Lavidis bellowed. “Five times you've been sold and then later, brought back for a refund. You're fortunate none have beaten the spirits out of you. You are lucky to still have your life.”

  “Please Lavidis—My master,” Cushla begged through heavy pants as she tried to tamp down the residual pain from the band’s shock. “Not him. Anyone but him.”

  “I cannot breach contracts already signed, Cushla. The credits have already been transferred to my account.” Lavidis stared at her--his commodity. His brow wrinkled inquisitively. With a sigh he sat down in the dirt beside her and pushed the wet, dirty hair from her face.

  Cushla knew he saw the rarely expressed fear in her eyes. “My Sir, please find another,” she pleaded. “I promise this time—I’ll be good.”

  “Why Cushla? Tell me,” Lavidis asked, as he picked out a twig entangled in her locks.

  Would he listen? Cushla wondered. Even after sixteen solars of being his possession she still knew little of the man, save the sex he forced her to endure with him. Perhaps Lavidis would listen. Perhaps the man had some compassion?

  “The king is a heartless murderer.” Cushla’s lip quivered, but she bit back the tears threatening to surface. No one ever saw her cry and she wouldn’t have it now.

  “A murderer?”

  “Yes a murderer!” she snarled, ignoring the throbbing in her head, forcing her anger forward. “I lived on Buranis as a child.”

  “What does this have to do with murder?”

  “My mother, he murdered my mother.”

  * * * *

  Lavidis shrugged, ignoring her pleading eyes. “This is none of my concern.”

  He stood and stared down at her. If he had a heart he might care. But he did not. She was goods to him and nothing more--credits in his pocket, though she was earning him very little. What a grave error in misjudgment it had been on his part when he bought her from the man who escorted her all those solars ago. She was a slip of a girl then, five solars old…pliable…trainable. Even at Cushla’s young age, her innocent beauty held the promise that she would blossom into a desirable and sensual woman. And her virginity alone would earn him a hefty profit. She could be sold at a premium price.

  Hmm. Now that he thought about it, he did hear rumor that the man he bought her from was a royal.

  Greedy bastard.

  Lavidis had paid a ridiculously large sum to acquire the rare beauty after the drunken man had blown all of his credits at the gaming tables, and he laughed in the royal’s face several dawnings later, when he returned to beg for Cushla's return. Lavidis had him tossed out on his ass and that was the last he saw of him.

  “Take her to be cleaned and fed,” Lavidis ordered his blackguards. “And let her sleep off her punishment. The new slavemaster will be here in a few dawnings and she must be presentable.”

  Judging by her cuts and bruises, he doubted Cushla’s appearance would be near acceptable enough to meet the satisfaction of the king’s slavemaster. The king was used to perfection, and although Cushla was typically an extraordinary beauty, at the moment, she was a complete mess. The slavemaster would likely reject her on the spot and demand his credits back.

  Lavidis rubbed his forehead. The woman was nothing but an ache to the neck—a perpetual stone-pick in his ribs since the dawning he bought her. He hoped he would finally be rid of her. The cost of Cushla’s keep had well exceeded his investment in her and if she kept up this sort of behavior he might have to kill her himself, but he was a stubborn man, as stubborn as the wench herself. Come hades or wild waters he would find someone, anyone who would not only buy her, but keep her.

  Perhaps he should have her stamped with a no return seal. ‘Use at your own risk.’ Ah, but alas, she was still a beauty and such a label might decrease the interest in her as buyers always want a slave who is well-trained. Shaking his head in dismay, Lavidis watched his guards drag Cushla away. She said nothing more to him, though he knew it was no sign of defeat. Not in Cushla.

  Her silence was stoic.

  The king must like feisty woman, he thought, hoping it would be the last time he had to deal with the wench. No matter. Lavidis had been honest with his Majesty about her unruliness, and he’d bought her anyway. King Mecor was duly warned.

  Chapter Two

  Tarken stood on the hill and looked out over the fields. His slaves were busy this dawning, carrying out their assigned tasks. A yowl in the distance caught his ear. Someone was yelling as if in pain, and his attention drifted to the quarry where the more capable slaves excavated for muartzin, a galactic rarity whose properties contributed to creating breathable atmospheres on planets and satellites that were typically uninhabitable. Mecor was making a hefty profit selling the stuff.

  “Master, master.”

  Tarken looked down at his feet, where a female now wrapped herself. “What is it Sheren?”

  “The pari fruit is ripe.” She peered up at her slavemaster. “The children they would like…” Her head dropped to a submissive position and she studied the dirt.

  Crouching down, Tarken lifted her chin with two fingers. “How many baskets have you filled this dawning?”

  “Nearly thirty, master.” The slave cast her gaze downwards, refusing to look him in the eye--obedient conditioning. No slave looked a superior in the eye unless invited to.

  “Then you have already earned a portion for yourself.” Tarken stood and gazed down at the thrall.

  He bedded her last moon cycle. It was her first time and she cried, but he allowed her to stay in his bed that eve, comforting her, and she was better by the dawning. After that, she came willingly and trained well. He was glad he kept her from the king until she was ready, for it was rumored that Anzer Mecor found sadistic pleasure with shredding a woman’s hymen. And when he was done with her, often the king tossed her to his guards to do with as they pleased.

  The thought of such mistreatment made the slavemaster sick. He wasn’t particularly fond of bedding virgins. There was little pleasure to be gained. Nevertheless, Tarken often hid a female slave’s chastity from the royal, taking her for himself first, doing his best to prepare her both physically and mentally for any sexual assault that may come her way.

  Sheren experienced it just recently, when she was passed around amongst six of the king’s guards a few eves ago, coming through the violation unscathed.

  As much as any woman might be unscathed by such a repulsive act. Tarken frowned. Gently, Tarken smiled down at Sheren and bent to cup her chin, but there was another yowl, and Tarken looked up. He scanned the area training his sight to where the yelling was coming from. The slavemaster’s mouth twisted.

  His apprentice was slapping Kleb around again. He didn’t much like the trainee King Mecor assigned to him. The young man was cruel and had a vicious nature in his manner. But who was Tarken to judge the decisions of the king? “Tell the children to pick one more half basket each and then they may have two pieces for themselves.” Tarken’s attention shot off in the direction of the quarry, his shoulders flexing backwards as if to stretch tightness there, ready to take action. “The older ones will help the little ones, who may have trouble.”

  “May I rise, master?”

  “Of course, Sheren. Return to your chores.”
He turned his head and watched the girl scurry off, but abruptly snapped his attention toward the quarry and quickly made his way down the hill, his eyes riveted to the apprentice. “You can cease now, Durnin.” He moved with a sharp gait toward the offending apprentice.

  “He’s a disgrace, m’lord.” Durnin spat on the man. “Worthless.”

  “He’s old, Durnin.”

  “And worthless,” Durnin muttered once more beneath his breath. “I should give him a dose of the slave band. The pain will bend him to my will.”

  Tarken reached down and helped Kleb to his feet.

  The older male slave had been in servitude even before Tarken arrived some eight solars back. Kleb never gave him an atom of trouble, always attended to his deeds without complaint or argument. He was a healthy aging man, still strong though he was nearly sixty-five. In fact, the elderly slave was probably stronger than the puny apprentice, who thought he was inflicting grave harm,

  Tarken knew how much the slave could take and would never have allowed Durnin to even come near to the brink of Kleb’s pain tolerance. Still, the man was aging, and Tarken understood that he would be less and less useful as the solars took his strength, physically or otherwise. It bothered him immensely.

  The king typically ordered the execution of slaves that were incapable of giving him more gain, or he sold them cheaply to masters who from what Tarken had heard, treated them quite horribly. Secretly, Tarken loathed the king, but departing from Buranis wasn’t in his future. By choice, the slavemaster was here to stay. He would probably die on this planet. It was his reputation as a trainer and talent at gaining more productive labor that had the king offering him triple the pay he would earn elsewhere. Enticed by the proposition, the slavemaster accepted.

  Over the course in time however, something inside of the slavemaster had changed. No longer was it the credits that kept him on Buranis. He was there because he felt an obligation to these slaves. He’d witnessed the abuse they’d endured at the hands of the prior slavemaster—scars from beatings, malnourished children, sickness and disease with no offer of treatment.