Total pages in book: 57
Estimated words: 54388 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 272(@200wpm)___ 218(@250wpm)___ 181(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 54388 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 272(@200wpm)___ 218(@250wpm)___ 181(@300wpm)
Serenai didn’t tell him she was already feeling safe with him. She only nodded and put the necklace back around her neck. Then she allowed her new bodyslave to lead her out of the bed chamber.
11
BRAX
When they got to the door of the closet, Brax made sure to keep his own body between his new Mistress and the opening. He scanned the darkness inside, but still didn’t see a damn thing. Whatever the red-eyed monster was, it had disappeared completely. How in the Seven Hells had it managed that?
He had no idea but he was determined to go searching for it tomorrow.
He got Serenai safely out of the room and they went to another bed chamber at the other end of the penthouse. This one wasn’t as elaborately furnished as her mother’s old bed chamber, but it still had a huge bed with an expensive gella-foam mattress which probably cost more than most people made in half a solar year.
Brax held open the sheets for her and his little Mistress crawled into them. But when he would have left her to go stand at the foot of her bed, she tightened her grip on his hand.
“Wait, please…” Her voice was soft, almost pleading.
“Yes, Mistress?” Brax turned and leaned down to look into her eyes.
“I don’t want you guarding me from the foot of the bed,” Serenai said.
“You don’t?” He frowned. “Do you want me to go stand with my back to the door then?” It might be a good idea—that way he could see anything that tried to enter the room.
But she shook her head.
“No, I don’t want that either. I want…that is…” She was nibbling her lower lip as though she wasn’t sure how to phrase her next sentence. “I want you to get in the bed with me!” she burst out at last.
Brax raised his eyebrows in surprise.
“Really, Mistress? But you barely know me. You think you’d feel safe with me in the bed with you?”
“Yes, I think I’d feel much safer if you were close.” She gave him a pleading look. “The eyes…they were right there—at the other side of the bed! I’m sure they were trying to come right across the mattress to get me!”
Brax nodded in understanding.
“I see. Well then, if you really want me to, of course I’ll sit on the other side of your bed and watch from there. If you think you’ll feel safe with me.”
She looked up at him.
“I’m sure I will if…if you’ll agree to tell me why your old Mistress sold you.”
Brax frowned and pinched the bridge of his nose.
“That’s a painful memory you’re asking me to dredge up, little Mistress.”
“I’m sorry.” She looked abashed. “I didn’t think—”
“No, it’s all right.” Brax shook his head. “I’ll tell you. Just let me get settled.” He went to sit on the other side of her bed, making sure to leave some room between them. He positioned a pillow behind his back and leaned against the headboard. “Do you mind if I call for the lights?” he asked. “I think this would be easier to tell in the dark.”
“Of course—that’s fine,” she murmured. Her large, dark eyes were fixed on him, wide with interest.
Brax was happy to call, “Lights out,” and plunge the room into darkness. Some memories were hard to face in the light.
12
SERENAI
“As I told you before, I was captured by slavers when I was just nineteen cycles,” he began in his deep, rumbling voice.
He seemed huge in the bed beside her—a giant. But Serenai wasn’t afraid. As close as he was, she could feel the heat radiating from his big body and smell his scent—a dark, spicy, wild fragrance that seemed to draw her to him. She was glad that this room had a window which let in a little light between the curtains, so she could see the big half-Kindred.
“Yes?” she asked softly, because he had paused.
“I was angry and frightened,” he went on. “Both my parents were dead and I was on my own for the first time—that’s probably why I was stupid enough to get caught by slavers.”
“How did they catch you?” Serenai asked.
He sighed.
“I walked into a bar in the wrong sector of the galaxy and someone drugged my drink. When I woke up, I was wearing my very first pain collar.” He lifted one hand to indicate the thick collar around his neck. “I fought it, of course. But there’s no fighting a pain collar. I nearly gave myself permanent nerve damage before I finally gave in and realized there was no getting away.”
“That’s terrible!” Serenai exclaimed. She suddenly felt twice as guilty—not only for owning her new bodyslave but for having him in a collar. But Brax shook his head.
“No, that’s life,” he said simply. “Anyway, once I was ‘tame’ enough, they sold me to my old Mistress—Mistress Leelah. And she was fucking beautiful.”