“That,” he said very slowly, “was not only rude, but quite unhygienic.”
Unhygienic? Was he kidding?
“Yeah? I’ve also been known to pee myself on command.” She curled the less swollen side of her lip. “Might want to keep that in mind.”
To her surprise, she heard him chuckle. And it wasn’t some snide or superior mocking laugh either, but a rather genuine, good-natured sort of thing.
“I thank you for the warning. With consideration like that, I am certain we can work up to respect.”
Then she felt him move to slide his hands under her back and her knees. Before she could respond, he had risen to his full height and was carrying her high against a chest made of chiseled rock. Dreading what would happen next, she tensed for any possibility. She was already in trouble, she knew, because he wasn’t the least bit afraid of her. It had taken some time, but Winifred and Friedlow had learned a healthy fear of their caged pet, and she had worked it every chance she could to keep herself reasonably safe and alive. She had no idea how she could work the same effect on a man who seemed so blasé about owning a slave who threatened to leak on him like a baby doll. Also, there was the part where she knew she weighed a good sixty-five kilos, yet he was sweeping her up without so much as a grunt of effort. The muscle closed around her in the form of his chest, astoundingly broad shoulders, and those fearfully thickly developed biceps. There was no give on him anywhere. His belly was hard and flat against her round hip, and as he crossed the floor in a crisp, booted stride, he never so much as shuffled a foot under her added weight.
She was in big trouble. She knew it with that sinking surety she got in her gut right before the most dramatic events in her pathetic life took place. Daenaira was oriented to the room as she knew it so far, though, and she was positive he wasn’t heading back toward the bed where this had all begun. However, without knowing what else was around her in the vast room, she couldn’t say for certain if that was a good thing. She did understand that space in an underground city like this one was a scarce commodity. Once used for deep mining efforts, the caves and caverns the Shadowdweller city occupied were located in the far reaches of an Alaskan mountain range. The small sprawl of the city that existed aboveground appeared to the rest of the world as a wildlife and geographical survey post. Those buildings managed things like winter livestock and other city supplies or technology stations, all managed in a lightless environment, especially during the long, dark winters that gave her people respite from the dangers of daylight. Shadowdwellers migrated to the very edge of the Antarctic for the summer, following the darkness to a New Zealand winter that was far less harsh or dark than Alaska, but still less than eight hours of daylight in a day, which was much preferred to eighteen hours of North American summer days.
But here in the northern city, deep in the dark, it meant an entire culture lived in a slowly developing infrastructure, making space very, very valuable. If the room they were in was truly as large as it sounded, her new “benefactor” was as wealthy as they came. A Senator, she considered, although keeping slaves wasn’t exactly politically savvy. Still, Senators were only useful in bringing the issues and needs of their people to the royals and arguing with them about progress, both for and against. But in truth, the Chancellors were the sole power of their government. Daenaira had once thought it would mean good things for their society when the twins had won the war and taken power about a decade ago. But since she had spent the past eight of those years washing clothes in captivity, she had no idea if it was working out that way. She didn’t much care either. It had been hard enough worrying about how to keep ahead of trouble on a nightly basis.
Eventually they came to a stop and she felt him kneel to put her down on a soft surface. It was a sofa or a firm chaise, the satiny cushions sliding under her fingertips. She sat there tensely, trying to blink the persistent blindness away once and for all. It wasn’t clearing up fast enough, and she needed her vision if she was going to have to fight. And she was going to have to fight, she didn’t doubt that.
“Do you wish to explain to me why you were fighting with the guards?” he asked as he rose to his feet and stepped out of striking distance. She saw him squat again and heard the splash of water. There was a humid dampness in the air and she suspected they were at a hot spring.
He had a hot spring in his room? Or was it a bath? She watched him lean forward and realized he was washing his face.
Well, the urge to run up behind him and shove him into the water was just too strong. He had completely turned his back on her—she could make out the wide width of his shoulders and the dark fabric that stretched over them—and she was a lot faster than he probably thought.
Normally.
Daenaira sighed, realizing she’d just make things worse if she did it. Where would she run to afterward? She didn’t have a clue where she was and where she could hide. She might as well save it for another day. She prayed there was another day to save it for. The thought made her heart race. She tested the strength of her limbs by holding herself upright and pushing her feet against the cold, smooth floor. Her new owner turned back to look at her over his shoulder, as if he could sense what she was doing and why. Dae went very still. He rose up and advanced on her, his enormous body quickly blocking out all of her vision.
“Why were you fighting with the guards?” he asked again, lowering himself into a vulnerable crouch with his knees parting around her shins.
Boy, is this guy stupid or what?
She tried not to warn him with a self-satisfied smile.
But then a gentle hand landed on her knees and a hot, damp cloth touched her face in soft, short strokes meant to cause her as little pain as possible as he cleaned her up. Dae realized his hand on her leg was just about as warm as the cloth he used. Heat was radiating from him and slipping under her skin, a swimming sensation that seemed to skip like free-flowing energy up along her nerves. She realized then that she could smell the scent of him. There was leather, from his clothing, of course, but it was more than that. He didn’t reek of sweating armpits like her uncle did, offending her sharp Shadowdweller senses, but instead there was an appealing mixture of fabrics, the detergents used to clean them, the almost sultry scent of the soap he used, and…something else. There was a chemical scent, which she thought might be sword polish, but there was also this dark, toasted aroma, like when black fire burned at its hottest.
“He was on top of me in bed,” she found herself saying truthfully. “If you woke up to find a man larger and stronger than you are on top of you, wouldn’t you fight, too?”
His hand went still against her bruised cheek and she heard him draw a slow breath. “Yes, I would. Can you tell me, was he touching you inappropriately?”
“No one has touched me appropriately in eight years,” she countered in a cold, bitter voice. “I haven’t given my permission for so much as a finger to be laid on my person in all of that time, yet it happens quite frequently.”
Daenaira was taken completely by surprise when he suddenly lifted his touch off her knees, clearly realizing he was doing the very same thing. Confused by his seeming kindness and the show of respect, she became suspicious of whatever game he was playing.
“You are right, of course,” he said, his tone grim. “I am sorry. It was wrong of me to presume. Without excuse I will say I am used to touching others for my work and it is a habit. I will be more thoughtful in the future if it truly bothers you.” He paused while Daenaira tried to figure out what in burning Light was going on. “What is your name?”
“My name?” she echoed. Hmm. Girl. Bitch. Stupid. Idiot. He could take his pick. She hadn’t heard someone use her given name in years. “I suppose it’s whatever you are going to want it to be,” she said with a shrug. She’d keep her name, thanks. It was better than hearing it in contempt or in insult. She had a pretty name, actually, and she wanted to keep it that way.
“What does your family call you?” he demanded.
“Slut,” she retorted sharply. “Or ‘useless whore.’ There are also combinations that include both.”
He was silent for a long minute, and then the cloth was cleaning off her chin and jaw. “I see,” he said, his low voice resonant with a hard sound that actually gave her goose bumps. She remembered then that, for all his tenderness of the moment, there was a deadly man in the form before her. How he reconciled the two was beyond her. Again, she suspected it was a tactic, meant to take her off her guard. “I could compel you to give me your real name,” he informed her quietly. It wasn’t so much a threat as it was a fact he was convinced of, and Dae caught another chill. This one raced down her chest, the sensation making her nipples tighten in painful response. She crossed her arms over her chest, knowing how thin the worn-out sari she wore was. “However, I would much rather you tell me for yourself. In the meanwhile, I think I need something to call you by. Jei li is too familiar for us at this point, and it would be an insult to use it when you do not trust me as yet.”
“I am no man’s jei li,” she countered sharply. She might as well let him know that she wasn’t the soft and cuddly type anyone could ever call “sweetheart.”
“‘Slut’ and ‘whore’ are out of the question,” he said firmly.
“Fine with me. Always did prefer ‘you fucking bitch’ anyway. It’s so American slang.”
“Gods, you are a little spitfire, aren’t you?” he remarked as though both pleased and surprised. “No weeping or fear that you’d want to show, though I know you are feeling that fear. These snide, sharp retorts tempting trouble for you had I been of a different temperament. You pissed off the guards enough to make them forget themselves.”
“No one fucks with me,” she said through her teeth, the words colder than the Alaska winter above them. “I’ll warn you now, if you think you’re coming anywhere near my tits or my ass, you better be prepared to like it while I’m out cold, because so long as I am conscious it isn’t going to happen.”
Again there was that long silence, filled in by the stroke of the cloth along her throat and neck. He stopped at the edge of the hurish collar, and she was glad because it stung like a bitch.
“I see,” he said once more, his tone just as cold as hers was now. Well, she thought, too bad if he didn’t like it. Playing nice-nice with her wasn’t going to win him any points. “It is my guess that this has been your experience in the past?”
“Is that your guess?” she asked sarcastically. “Wow. Bright guy.”
“And who would try this with you?”
“My pig uncle, for one. But he got tired after a while.”
She heard him swallow, but it didn’t release the deadly danger she heard in his voice when he said, “Tired?”
“Of this.”
She extended her leg forward, her foot catching him actually quite gently beneath where his scrotum would be. The top of her ankle fit snugly to his balls through his slacks, and her shin nudged against his penis. She was good at making as full a contact as she possibly could, making certain she caught all the goodies at once. Usually quite hard.
But this time she was making a point, so she just bumped him with a little slide to make him wholly aware of her positioning…and his. She had to smile when the automatic male reaction to grab hold of her leg to control her came over him. His grip closed tight around her calf and shin, but instead of pushing away as most would do to deflect her, he held her tightly in place against himself. Clever boy. He was taking away the power of her momentum this way, something most idiots never realized. She couldn’t get up enough steam to castrate him if she was already in contact with him.
“Resourceful,” he said, the sound of his smile in his voice surprising her just as much as the realization she could just about make out that smile. “But a kick in the balls has been known to simply piss some men off. To make them more violent.”
“Is that a warning?” she asked, narrowing her eyes and trying to make out his features. Dark skin, dark hair, and a white smile described every Shadowdweller male alive.
Well, maybe not the smile.
“Yes. Not as pertains to me, per se—though I would be quite angry, I assure you—but I can teach you other ways that will take a man down in a single blow. Then you can run and get help freely.”
“Freely.” She snorted and flicked a finger against her collar, turning her foot so the ankle cuff pressed through his pants. “Oh right, because I’m so free.”
She saw him shake his head and then realized she could see the shine of smooth ebony. It was long and loose, waved and curled to his shoulders. She looked up quickly and found his eyes. Under fine dark brows and the shelf of a serious-looking forehead, she found golden eyes. Almost as gold as her collar, but darker and deeper than that. Those eyes, and the strong aristocratic features they were set in, looked quite convincingly confused.
“What does that mean?” he demanded.
“Oh, please. Are you going to sit there and pretend I’m not a slave you just bought for gods know what? You can be all sweet if you like, but—”
“What?”
He surged up to his full height, which with her cleared vision Daenaira got to appreciate for the very first time. He was well over six feet, which towered over her as she sat. She hated sitting in front of a standing male. Too often they liked to try to grab her by her hair and try—
“I did not buy a slave,” he ground out with a fiery affront and in a booming voice that gave her the chills. “I paid a bride price for a handmaiden. A dowry, just like any man who takes another man’s daughter would do!”
Handmaiden?
Dae blinked and for the first time looked at what her new owner was wearing.
He was clothed in the dark violet uniform of a temple priest.
Chapter Two
“Well, somebody fucked up,” she informed him with her usual snide attitude. “I’ve been a slave for the past eight years, and today I was sold to someone else. I assume that would be you. You can call it a dowry or what have you, but it’s still buying and peddling flesh without that person’s permission!”
Magnus wanted to reply, but he was so infuriated he didn’t dare speak. He looked at the collar once more, as well as the anklets he had only just noticed under her skirt when she had pressed one to him. They were plain gold rings at first sight, but with ominous dread he looked closer, lifting her hair and seeing the circuit lock in the back.
No one has touched me appropriately in eight years.
That tidbit of information and others like it were beginning to fill in the picture for him. He realized he had touched her again without asking and quickly dropped her hair and backed off.
“Tell me that is not a hurish,” he demanded of her. “Hurish are for controlling cattle. Livestock. Not people!”
“Well, it was all the same to my aunt and uncle,” she spat back at him. “I guess they left it on for you as a gift. The remote is probably around here somewhere.” She affected looking around herself. “No? Maybe the guards have it.”
“They controlled you with electrical impulses?” Magnus had never heard of anything like it. Not in his society! The Nightwalkers were supposed to be advanced, sophisticated people. The Shadowdwellers were, unfortunately, considered the most juvenile of all supernatural species because their culture was still only a decade past picking themselves up out of the ashes of civil war. That, and they were tattooed with a centuries-old reputation of being mischief makers, causing a whole lot of trouble to the rest of the world. However, he and the reigning household had spent thirty years cultivating a newer and more ordered version of their society. They had dissolved the infighting clans, elevating good leaders into the renewed political body of the Senate. Everyone in the city was provided for. Education, shelter, heat, food, religion. As with any society, he knew things slipped through the cracks, but…
Slavery?
“No,” she retorted tartly. “They used electrical impulses to keep me on the property. They
used electro-shock to fry discipline into my ass. Ask your guards if you don’t believe me. They watched Winifred do it to me right before we left.”
Magnus didn’t need to ask. If there was one thing he was knowledgeable of, it was the truth. Truth, in fact, was his special gift. With just a touch, he could compel the truth from anyone. It would replay in both their minds with impartial sight. Even those who didn’t know they were lying to themselves couldn’t hide from his power. Although he wasn’t touching her at the moment, she was radiating the bald honesty of what she was saying in a rather beautiful sort of defiance that fed the truth into him with force.
He reached a hand toward her, saw her almond-shaped eyes narrow the tiniest fraction, and stopped to bend closer to her.
“Can I touch you to take these evil things off you?” he asked her softly.
“Are you really a priest?” she asked with suspicion as she looked over his uniform. She was searching for some kind of flaw that would reveal a deception, he realized.
“Yes. I am a priest. And you, little spitfire, are going to be my handmaiden.”
That made her laugh. She started with a soft snort, but then belted out enthused amusement that might have made him smile if he wasn’t so appalled by all he was seeing and learning.
“Okay, first of all, I am clearly not religious material, M’jan…um…”
“Magnus. M’jan Magnus.”
He watched that hit her like a gut punch, and this time he couldn’t help smiling a little when she giggled in a fit until her face flushed under the smooth cappuccino coloring of her skin. She brushed back the heavy length of her peculiar-colored hair with one hand while she waved the other in her face as if to help herself take in oxygen.
Rapture Page 3
