Hers To Cherish (Verdantia Book 3) (4 page)

“What do you think you are
doing?” She jerked out of his hold and snarled at his effortless command over her. 

Ramsey appeared unaffected
. With a lift of an eyebrow, he snapped, “On Vxloncia, I own you. Your body is mine to treat as I desire. I can fondle you intimately in public. I can fuck you in public or have others fuck you. You have no say in the matter. Get used to it, now, or you’ll endanger the entire mission and get both of us killed.”

Ram’s cold words chilled the heat of her anger
. She wiped her face of all expression. “I understand. It won’t happen again.”

Once again, his glacial blue eyes swept her. “
I read your personal dossier while you were pouting in your cabin. Before Verdantia rendered your skills superfluous, you had been highly trained in artificial surveillance. When we get to our rooms planetside, I need you to sweep them for bugs. Don’t disable them. Just point them out.”

Steffania nodded. “Understood.”

“You will behave at all times like my
slaaf,
and I will treat you as such. They will observe us closely, I’m certain. Anything but the most general responses come through your comm-disc.”

Steffania
muttered every disgusting name for High Lord DeTano she could summon. “You never intended for this to be an act, did you?”

“An act would never have worked.” A disreputable smile
tilted Ram’s mouth. “Impressive vocabulary.”

“I suppose you’ll want me to serve you sexually.”

His smile took on new dimension. “It would seem odd if I didn’t. Don’t you think?”

{
Fuck you, Ramsey!}

{
I’m looking forward to it, Captain.}

A slight chill
of foreboding prickled down Steffania’s spine. She had momentarily forgotten about the comm-disc.

Ram waited with Steffania in the priority passenger lounge on Vxloncia’s surface. He gazed idly around the cool, luxurious space and contrasted it with his tawdry lodgings on Verdantia. Still, he’d felt safer in the dilapidated brothel surrounded by pimps, murderers and whores – definitely more sure of his footing. Darkened plex-glass walls tempered the intense golden daylight of the Vxloncian world inundating the room, but hid nothing in the interior from passers-by. The skin crawled on the back of his neck as pedestrians threw curious glance after curious glance his way.
Look at the barbaric alien,
Ram thought with bitter honesty and acknowledged he bore little resemblance to the effete, immaculately groomed Vxloncians. Even under their swirling robes, Ram could tell they lacked muscle, were soft and pampered. Hells, even the Verdantians thought him a savage.
I am what life made me.

He sipped
at the wine in the expensive cut-crystal goblet an attendant had offered him upon arrival – some of the finest he’d had in years – a welcome change from the watered-down excrement that most cheap taverns and cat-houses passed off as wine on Verdantia. He held it up and peered through the pale crimson fluid.

{
I could get used to this
.
}

Sullen silence met the thought he’d directed to his sweet
slaaf
kneeling sedately at his feet. His smile curled around the rim of his glass as he sipped. {Here come our sponsors. Be on your best behavior, Captain.}

The two men
strode through the reception area, eyes lasered on Ramsey. His examination of them sharpened though his body maintained its lazy indolence.
A different breed, these two.
Their long black over-robes shifted open periodically to reveal well-toned bodies covered in gleaming black cyber-suits. The skin-hugging synthetic material was the latest advancement in a non-binding, insulating and breathable cloth.  One man, a tall blond, wore a plaited whip looped diagonally across his chest. The long lash wrapped around the handgrip, securing it. The whip popper sported a small metal barb. They strode toward Ram, two, self-assured
dominae
. A pair of lovely women, eyes downcast, glided in unobtrusive silence behind them.

The tall, dark-haired male stopped in front of Ram. “Ramsey DeKieran?”

“Even so,” Ram answered.

The amber-eyed Vxloncian offered his hand, gripping Ram’s in a steel vise of
domination. Ram returned it, unperturbed, with equally bone-crushing strength.
Like that, is it? Fine. I’ll play your macho games.
Ram felt the soft give of tendons and the shift of bones in the hand of the Vxloncian as Ram intensified his hold. A flare of awareness lit the amber depths of the other man’s gaze. His grip relaxed, as did Ram’s.

“Welcome to Vxloncia and her capital city,
Dominion. I am Vittal Lontz and this is Strom Kella, our fair city’s enforcement officer.” Ram’s eyes locked with the crystalized gray of the other black-robed enforcement officer and they nodded to each other.

“
We are both sponsors of the games.” Lontz smiled congenially. “Please feel free to contact either of us with any of your needs prior to the start of the games. We want our combatants to have everything they need to make the conflicts a thrilling spectacle for our galactic viewing audience.”

“Thank
s,” Ram muttered.

“Some of our planetary laws may seem harsh and arbitrary to those unfamiliar with our social mores,
Dominus
DeKieran.” Strom Kella held his gaze with a slight smile. “I would encourage you to abide by them strictly while you remain on our planet. There is little leeway permitted even for those not of our society. I find any indulgence merely encourages those of the inferior sex to misbehave.” The man’s cold eyes strayed down to Steffania kneeling at Ram’s feet. “It would be unfortunate for such a lovely little bird to have her wings painfully clipped.”

“We are familiar with your customs,
Dominus
Kella. I have advised my woman to remain close.” Ram smiled wolfishly. “I doubt you need bother about us.”

Strom Kella nodded. “Let us hope so.”

“I am sure
Dominus
DeKieran is tired from his flight.” Lontz held out his arm in an open gesture of invitation. “Please allow us to provide you with transportation to your villa in the gladiatorial compound.”

Ram tossed back the
last of his wine and with a nod, murmured, “After you, gentlemen.”

Sarcastic laughter filtered through his comm-disc from the demure
slaaf
kneeling at his feet. {You’ve come up in the world, DeKieran – from whorehouse to villa.}

{
I’m going to enjoy whipping your ass, Steffania.} Ram answered.

They walked out the exit doors toward a
long, sleek vehicle that hovered two feet in the air. Outside of the dark plex-glass, baking heat, dry air and intense sunlight assaulted Ramsey.
It’s the gods-be-damned Oshtesh desert all over again.
Ram watched carefully as his two sponsors activated the luxury transport’s door with a sliding hand pressure and duplicated their movements. The door to his side of the passenger compartment glided open with a soft whoosh. He slid onto a real leather seat in the cool, rich interior and motioned for Steffania to sit at his feet on the thick carpeting.

“Here, Steffania.”
He snapped his fingers and pointed to his feet.

The other two women, still silent, assumed similar places at the feet of Lontz and Kella.

As Steffania arranged herself on the thick white carpeting, Ram’s gaze ranged casually around the interior of the air-car. Soft, ambient lights cast a cool blue cast on to the white leather upholstery and the interior smell reminded Ramsey of the immaculate tack rooms in the stables on Verdantia – clean leather. Liquor decanters and cut-crystal tumblers nested into a highly lacquered custom bar set into the divider between passengers and driver. A soft cascade of liquid notes from some hidden sound source filled the air with a soothing musical background.

Ram stiffened
in an involuntary reaction to the alien feeling of rapid levitation as the sleek vehicle rose many feet in height from its stationary position and joined multiple others of similar design in a rapid, airborne stream away from the spaceport.

The vivid and utterly unfamiliar landscape passing by the windows of their vehicle pulled Ramsey’s eyes and his attention. Until now, he had never left his
sentient planet, Verdantia. Vxloncia’s odd, spiraled-stone buildings spun hundreds of feet into a cloudless golden sky. Her inhabitants thronged the canopied streets below him robed in garments of eye-punishing intensity – hot pink, flame orange, cerulean blue, canary yellow and intense purples seemed to predominate. The heavy smells of unknown perfumes, the sounds of commerce conducted in multiple, strange tongues, even this fantastic vehicle that hovered tens of feet from the ground – they all combined to create an alien world. Ram’s mind rebelled at the complexity and foreignness. There was nothing of home, here. Isolation closed him in its tight grasp. Ram shrugged off the lonely feeling. It didn’t matter. He was alone on Verdantia. But for the impossible moments he’d shared with Desiree, he had always been alone.

“
DeKieran, that is a lovely
slaaf
. Unusual coloring. Hair the color of bright flame and ivory-pale skin.” Strom Kella reached over, picked up some of Steffania’s hair and ran it through his fingers as if evaluating its quality. “Like silk and such lovely breasts. They appear to be unaugmented. Very unusual.” His hand wandered down in a slow fondle of Steffania’s right breast. “This type of skin will show the marks of a lash beautifully. Should you tire of her, I would like first option to buy her.”

Ram felt Steffania grow rigid against his leg.

“I fear you haven’t broken her sufficiently,
Dominus
DeKieran. She stiffens at my touch. But no matter. I can cure her of that quite easily,” Kella said.

Ram casually reached out and encircled
the trespassing wrist. Ram’s hand tightened viciously, closing on Kella’s wrist until the man’s bones rubbed together. “Don’t handle what is mine,” Ram murmured pleasantly while his eyes promised imminent death.

When he released Kella’s arm
with a smile, the man withdrew it, returning it to his lap, giving no hint of the pain Ram had inflicted on him.

With a nonchalant tilt of his head, Kella, answered.
“My apologies,
Dominus
DeKieran. I should have asked.”

Ram shrugged carelessly. “Yes. Next time ask. Perhaps I will say yes.”

{Thanks, DeKieran. That fucking freak-show scares me.}

{
I protect what is mine, Captain.}

Steffania paused at the street-side entrance to the grandiose Greco-Roman villa, an obvious copy from old Earth’s history books, and looked about her with amazement. A gold-veined black marble walkway arched over a long, shallow pool tiled with mother of pearl and cobalt blue stone. At each end of the pool, large fountains set into a tiled wall poured water out of the mouths of gilded lion heads. Lush plantings of fern and broad-leafed bushes with enormous red flowers surrounded the whole entryway in a narrowing fan that led to double doors of bronze set between tall, fluted stone columns. Ornately carved lanterns hung from statues of nymphs and naiads and lined the black marble walk. Steffania made a mental note to come out after sunset – the lit lanterns would be magical. The whole was a glorious, opulent, anachronistic waste of money – but who was she to scoff?

“
Dominus
, with permission, will you show me our villa so I might be able to serve you better?” {Ramsey, I need a reason to search the villa for listening devices and vid-recorders.}

Ramsey examined Steffania as she stood with her eyes appropriately downcast and grunted. “Follow me.”

Ram and Steffania toured the eight rooms of the villa on the pretext of letting her become familiar with her surroundings. In actuality, Steffania pointed out all the listening and ‘spying eye’ devices that sprouted everywhere in the luxurious quarters.
Goddamned voyeurs.
She didn’t doubt a technician, somewhere, would enjoy some vicarious sex while screening the vids of her and Ramsey. Working kept her mind off the evening to come and what Ram might, or might not, require of her.

“
And this must be the master’s bedroom,” Ram said, walking into an enormous room furnished in sumptuous style. The featured item was a platform bed furnished with costly materials and draped in sparkling gauze netting. Tiny lights glistened in the transparent cloth and a multitude of satin pillows almost obscured an elaborate carved headboard. Three pairs of doors opened onto a wide porch overlooking a private courtyard. Tiny colorful birds flitted about the overhanging trees and another central fountain burbled. Each corner of the bedroom held a provocative, finely-crafted marble statue of a woman giving sexual service to a man. Ram paused in front of a woman kneeling with hands bound, mouth open to receive the enormous, erect phallus of the male opposite her and arched an eyebrow. Seat cushions had been arranged on the woman’s flat back. {That doesn’t look comfortable.}