by Sara King
She lost herself to the horror then, weeping for mercy as their heavy forms moved over her, while at the same time she was grateful for the warmth…
Victory opened her eyes sometime later, her body still shaking with leftover adrenaline. When she looked around, she was surprised to see that she was back in her chambers, laying comfortably in her bed, the blankets wrapped around her.
For an instant, she thought that perhaps she had experienced another nightmare, that her father truly hadn’t given the order to chain her to a man. Then she felt the hardness of the metal belt biting into her back, saw the chain loop under the covers and down onto the floor.
Frowning, Victory sat up and looked over the edge of the bed.
Dragomir was there, face down on the stone, his body a mass of ugly red bruises. Aside from a shallow breath now and again, he was absolutely motionless. His wrists and ankles were bleeding where the metal had bitten into his skin, obviously due to some struggle. She stared. Then she cried out for her Praetorian.
“I gave orders that this slave not be harmed!” she snapped. “What happened?”
The captain of her guard, a lithe, powerful woman who had aptly chosen the name of ‘Lion’ once she finished her training, looked irritated. “Your father’s guard, milady. You went into shock and screamed. The lord Adjudicator decided to prove to you that there was nothing to fear.”
“By beating him senseless?” Victory was so furious she could hardly breathe. “Bring my doctors in here. Now.”
The woman actually looked relieved. “Thank you, milady. As much as your father’s ways are blunt and brutish…we’re all glad to see the changes the slave has brought about in you. We all think your brother made a good choice.”
The changes? Victoria thought, frowning. It’s only been a day. Then her eyes went wide. “You know what he is?”
Lion smiled. “We accompanied your brother, looking for him. Your brother’s personal guard, and yours.”
“And you’re not afraid of him?!” Victory demanded.
“Milady,” the Praetorian said, “I believe that if he was going to harm someone, he would have done it during your brother’s beatings. It’s why Prince Matthias was so brutal—he was testing him. Three others failed the test.” She nodded her head at the native on the ground. “He passed without even a ping on the meter.”
“What happened to the others?” Victoria whispered, dreading the news.
“Your brother sent them home, milady.”
Victory froze. “He did what?”
But the Praetorian bowed her leave. “If you’ll excuse me, I will go get him some medical attention.” Turning on heel, she jogged from the room, her heavy, steel-shod boots clicking on the marble floor.
Victory hesitantly dropped down beside the unconscious man and, after a long moment of watching him breathe, gingerly touched a hand to his battered brow. She bit her lip. The last time she had seen anything so gruesome, it had been on her own face, after the first man had taken her virginity on the raiders’ ship and left her naked and shivering, chained to the toilet in the tiny lavatory.
Her eyes slipped down his back, gingerly touching the bruises along the spine. They could have paralyzed him, she thought, horrified by the huge black bruises she saw there. Her fingers moved on, and they stopped on the bands around his wrists. She bit her lip at the crusted blood she saw there, recognizing the marks for what they were. He tried to protect himself, she thought, remembering a time when she had done the same.
“You could release them, you know,” came a weak rasp from the floor. “I’m pretty sure it’d be easier for me to shit nails than it would be to get my ass off the ground right now.”
Victory jumped and slid away from him, though only halfway to the end of the chain. She sat there, just out of reach, watching him warily. “I’ve got doctors coming. They’ll give you nanos, painkillers.”
Dragomir made a wry sound into the black marble floor. “My arms don’t hurt so much anymore.”
Victory winced at what he left unsaid. When the doctors arrived, they lifted Dragomir off of the floor and laid him out in the bed, the relocation dragging a ragged moan from his throat. They analyzed him, injected him with nanos, wrapped his ribs tight in bandages, and cleaned and covered any visible wounds.
“Ribs are broken, milady,” one of the doctors said. “Should be a simple fix, though, and the healing process will be greatly increased by the nanotech. Bruises should fade within a day and a half. You’ll be able to remove the bandages within a week.” The woman nodded at Dragomir’s sleeping form. “We’ve given him a sleeping draught, as well as painkillers. He should be asleep for the next five or six hours.”
“Thank you,” Victory said, nodding their dismissal. Already, on the bed, the native’s huge chest was rising and falling in a deeper, more even rhythm, and the lines of pain had faded from his face.
“I’m sorry,” she told the sleeping man, once the door had closed behind them.
“Not your fault,” he slurred.
Victory smiled, despite herself. “Go to sleep, stubborn cad.”
“Working on it, wench.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Did you just call me wench?!”
His reply was a soft snore.
She let a slow grin play upon her lips, despite herself. Once she was sure he was asleep, she crept forward. Somehow, the fact that there was nothing powering the brute made it easier for her to cope with his presence, and she found her curiosity taking hold of her. Even bruised and bloody, his body was glorious. She reached out and traced the bandages of his ribs, gingerly feeling the rise and fall of his chest.
She remembered her father’s arrival, his bellow of, “I’m tired of you disobeying me, girl! I’ve told you to come to my chambers six times, now, and you’ve ignored me. What do you think my empire must think of me, if I cannot even control my own child?”
Victory squeezed her eyes shut against the vision.
“I see you were properly fitted with the beast. Are you beginning to see that your fears are ridiculous?”
Victory slammed her fist into the headboard. I hate you, she thought, wishing she could have had the presence of mind to say as much. Matt and I both. You are a prideful, small-minded fool.
She thought of Matt and her heart ached. She hadn’t seen her brother but once, when he had quietly slipped into her chamber after Victory realized she had somehow come to be taken back home. She had seen his great body, the size of his shoulders and hands, and had screamed herself hoarse.
He had quickly backed away, tears in his eyes.
She glanced again at the Emp, misery welling up within her. He said he could help me, she thought. She allowed herself a little hope. Twice today, she had received comments that she was getting better. In less than a day, he had somehow begun to do what an army of doctors had not.
And, for his troubles, her father had beaten him bloody.
Victory dropped her forehead to the bed beside his shoulder, stifling a wretched laugh. “I’m sorry. You must be very unimpressed with my family. Two heartless bastards and a woman who goes into screaming fits for no reason.”
He did not respond.
Gingerly, she crawled up onto the bed beside him and pulled the covers over herself.
“You have a reason,” he said.
Victory sat up quickly, her heart beginning to pound. Dragomir’s eyes were closed, rapidly moving against the lids as if in a dream. She watched him for several minutes as he continued to snore softly. Then, slowly, she lowered herself back to the bed.
When Dragomir opened his eyes, it was to the tingling wash of Imperial nanos working their magic within him. Usually, he would have removed the disturbance within his tissues immediately, much preferring to heal normally than to use the Imperium’s dispassionate tech. He hated the odd feeling, the strange energy the tiny machines left behind that was so foreign to his own, but at this point, feeling bones in his back and ribs and arms mending, he was willing to put
up with their internal buzz. His ribs were killing him, and his shoulders felt like they had been hacked off and their bloody stumps used to pound at his empty sockets. He groaned and tried to roll off his arms.
Too late, he found himself face-to-face with the sleeping princess.
He froze.
She was beautiful. Body and soul. When she slept, her ramas opened slightly, allowing some of her deep silver energy to flow through, setting her au aglow.
Dragomir knew he should probably roll back aside quickly, before she could catch him staring at her in her sleep like some morally-deprived letch, but he found himself enraptured by every curve of her face, the gentle lines of her nose and chin. Against his better instincts, he settled back to carve every detail into his memory. Her smooth face, completely devoid of fear or anxiety, was an exquisite work of art, and the gentle curve of her neck as it disappeared into the hem of her nightgown, the way her raven hair lay across her chest in luxurious ripples, took his breath away. Had he had his sketchbook, he would have taken pleasure in drawing her freckles, her alabaster skin…
Her green eyes popped open suddenly, startling him.
Instantly, she sucked in a huge breath and—
“I’m rolling back over!” he cried, fighting the wash of panic she was throwing out. “See?” He flopped onto his back and winced at the way his shoulders started to pound again. He rolled onto his other arm, scooting himself away from the edge of the bed.
“Why were you staring at me?!” she demanded. She had crawled out of bed and was at the other end of the chain. He knew, because he felt it go taut.
“My arms hurt like hell, Princess,” he said honestly. “I rolled off of them when I woke up and you were there.”
He could feel her squinting at the back of his head. “Then that’s what woke me? You rolling over?”
“Probably,” he lied. He wasn’t sure how long he had been staring at her, but he was pretty sure it had been upwards of fifteen to twenty minutes. He wasn’t about to tell her that, though. She’d probably think that he had been planning some nefarious deed, or something else equally as ridiculous.
After a moment, she tentatively said, “I had an interesting dream. Very vivid.”
Sensing an olive-branch, still facing the opposite end of the room, Dragomir gingerly said, “What about?”
“It was about a one-eyed woman.”
He froze. Trying his best to sound disinterested, he said, “Really?”
“She was taken from her village by a handsome soldier. A general of some sort. For some reason, I kept feeling like I knew him from somewhere.”
Dragomir winced. “Probably your brother, then.”
There was a long pause. “You’re hiding something.”
Oh crap. “No I’m not,” he blurted.
“Sit up,” she growled. “I want to see your face.”
“I’m comfortable right here,” Dragomir said.
“Now.”
He sighed, deeply. Lancing agony through his ribs at the contortions necessary to get into a seated position, he let out a huge breath of relief as his head came to rest on the headboard.
She squinted her emerald eyes at him. “There’s something you’re not telling me about that past life.”
Dragomir tried to keep his face utterly straight, the picture of sagely, knowing wisdom. “What makes you say that?”
“You want your hands unshackled?” she demanded.
He sighed and slumped forward, the scholarly façade vanishing in an instant. “Lady, you sure know how to dangle a carrot.”
“Tell me what you forgot to mention last night. Don’t think I didn’t catch the way you babbled like an idiot trying to change the subject. What did you find? Was I a mass murderer or something?”
He looked up at her, scanning her face. She’s going to think I’m lying. Softly, he said, “Your village got taken by an invading army. I was one of the officers. I grabbed you and threw you over my horse. You weren’t pleased.”
She stared at him, clearly in disbelief. “That man was you.”
Dragomir allowed himself a nervous grin.
She narrowed her eyes, her face darkening. “You took me against my will.”
Dragomir reddened. “Uh. From your home, yes. But, uh,” he said, remembering the dream, “Not sure how much of the life you saw, but you were more than willing by the time I took your virginity. Took a couple months of coaxing you. Was hard to get you to trust me, considering.”
Her mouth fell open. At first, she started to blush. Then her hackles went up, and anger started boiling up from within, making his skin ache where it radiated outward. “I didn’t get to that part,” she growled.
“I warned you,” Dragomir said, glaring. “I wasn’t going to say anything, but you got pushy.”
“Tell me of another,” she snapped. “Something I can believe.”
Once again, he felt as if he had become the passing entertainment for a bored princess. Dragomir sighed and closed his eyes. “Very well,” he said. One of the curses of being an Emp was that people always wanted insight onto their past lives, always too fascinated with what had once happened, and not with who they were now, and what they planned to do. Fortunately, until today, he had been able to simply tell them, ‘Not right now,’ and they would bob their heads and babble their thanks that he would consider it, someday.
Here, with the princess, he had the feeling that he’d get the same result telling the princess ‘Not right now’ that he would get telling God to halt the tides.
Settling himself, Dragomir focused on her au. Within moments, he found another strong soul-thread drifting through the embarrassment and irritation that was her current state of being. He narrowed his consciousness to that single image, then followed it back to its soul-bead.
She was a merchant’s son who grew up in his father’s footsteps. He watched him count every credit, watched him save up the money for a new mansion and a retirement at a very young age, watched him sell his empire and move to the colonies for adventure. He watched a great catastrophe befall the colony’s supply lines, watched much of the colony deteriorate to primitivity within a few short years. He watched a band of desperate raiders attack his manse, take his food, and cart off his property. He saw the raiders force him to the ground, hogtie him, saw them put a gun to his head. He saw a fiery redhead stop them, saw her step forward and lift his chin, a warning in her deep blue eyes…
Dragomir’s mouth fell open as he watched himself claim the young merchant, take him for his own.
“What?” the princess demanded, wary.
“Uh,” Dragomir said. He replayed the lifetime, trying to find some evidence that it wasn’t him carting the merchant off to work her fields. But he knew. There was no mistaking the fiery redhead…or the passion they shared between the sheets. “Uh.” He swallowed, his mouth suddenly very dry. This can’t be happening, he thought. Coincidence.
“Tell me, slave,” the princess growled.
The word ‘slave’ got under his hackles just enough to make him tell her. Dragomir grinned, all teeth, and said, “You were a merchant’s son who inherited a vast trading empire. You sold out, went out to the colonies, claimed yourself a huge swath of land, had a mansion built. The colony’s supply lines failed—I got the feel maybe it was an exploding star that rendered one of the jumps unusable…” He paused, frowning. “Stars can explode?”
“Probably a supernova,” she said dismissively. She was watching him hungrily. “What else?”
Still frowning at the idea of an exploding star, Dragomir haltingly continued, “Well, you were a practical man, and rich, so you had plenty of stored foodstuffs. You did well for yourself, right up until the point where some starving colonists raided your mansion and put a gun to your head.”
When he stopped there, the princess frowned. “They killed me?”
“No,” Dragomir said reluctantly.
“What happened?” she demanded. When he didn’t respond, her look was utt
erly cold. “I have seen horrors that you can only imagine, slave, and if you think to spare me some shock to my sensibilities, you’re wasting your time.”
Dragomir narrowed his eyes. “You’re going to unlock the cuffs?”
She bit her lip and eyed his hands warily. “We’ll see.”
“I want your word.”
“You’ll tell me what I want to know and I’ll think about it.” No threats. Just a statement of fact. Once again, Dragomir was reminded of just how much power the princess had over him in his current state. Life or death. She could deliver either, with a single word.
Sighing, he said, “A redhead woman told them to hold their fire. Saved your life. Raiders told her to take him home with her, ‘cause they weren’t leaving evidence for the government to find, if it ever did get back on its feet. She trussed you up, threw you in a wagon. Took you back to her farm to work her fields. That was me, too.”
Victory stared at him so long that Dragomir began to wonder if something inside her brain had snapped. Finally, she laughed and said, “Another.”
“What do you think I am?” Dragomir growled, “your personal storyteller?!”
The princess narrowed her eyes. “Until I say otherwise, that’s exactly what you are.”
And Dragomir realized she was right. He found himself feeling very much like he was facing off an annoyed tigress. Nervously, he searched through her au for another powerful soul-image. He found it and followed it back to the lifetime-bead.
He watched her born a chieftain’s daughter on one of the forgotten colonies. He watched her people struggle for resources, watched her grow to a life of war. She was raised a warrior, a glorious Valkyrie amongst a militaristic people. He watched her lead raids on countless towns and villages, watched as she accumulated a vast wealth, blossoming into a chieftain in her own right. He watched her fall to a peasant’s shovel, watched her men pushed back in retreat. As the village finished routing the attackers, searching back through the fields of wheat looking for raiders to put on display and execute, he watched her thrown over a shoulder, quickly scurried off the field by an anxious villager. He watched her trussed up to a barn post. He felt her defeat, felt her acknowledge the laws of combat and victory’s spoils. He felt her not care. He watched her open her eyes, take in her captor’s face for the first time…
