The Breaker's Concubine (13 page)

She glanced at her bracelet, and her face paled at whatever she saw there.

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Chapter Seven

“Devnar, attend.” Her voice was as cold as he had ever heard.

He crossed his arms in a display of defiance he knew was useless. Pain lanced through him

and brought him to his knees. His head roughly jerked as she fisted her hand in his hair and tilted

his face toward hers. How he wished to reverse their positions, to be the one demanding

obedience.

“I don’t care if you hate me, I don’t care what you think about me, but I will not allow you

to sabotage your chances with the empress.” The chime sounded again, and her lips tightened.

Behind her cold mask, he saw bright and shiny fear in her eyes. “Lady Grenba is calling, and you

will be a polite and dutiful slave at my feet when I answer.” Her grip tightened until sparks of

pain shot from his scalp. “If you’re not, she will take you away and give you to another breaker.”

He growled at her but nodded and gripped his hands together as his wrist cuffs snapped

with a metallic click. As angry as he was at her, the thought of being handed over to the bitch

who had been part of his capture made him sick.

Quickly fastening her leathers, she brushed her bracelet and the far wall turned opaque,

then filled with the image of Lady Grenba. Dressed today in a shimmering ivory velvet gown

that highlighted her deep brown skin, she idly stroked the hair of a bald and chained man

kneeling at her feet. A wave of bile surged in his stomach as he saw the cruel metal device

attached to the man’s testicles. An elaborate cage with little golden weights stretched the skin of

his sac until it was almost tissue thin. Despite his obvious discomfort, the man sported an

impressive erection.

“Lady Grenba, how may I serve?” Melania kept her voice carefully neutral, but her hand in

his hair loosened its grip, and she stroked him gently.

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“Breaker,” Lady Grenba said with a sneer. “I’m checking on my property. How goes his

training?”

“Very well, your ladyship.”

Lady Grenba examined him closely from the screen, and he had to lower his head to hide

his disgust. “Ready him for public display.”

Next to him, Melania tensed and shifted so she stood in front of him, partially blocking his

view of the screen. “Your ladyship, I don’t think he is—”

“I didn’t ask you what you thought, Breaker.” The man at Lady Grenba’s feet shivered at

her tone, and the weights on his testicles clanked together. “He had better outshine every novice

there, or I will give him to a breaker who knows how to serve.”

“Yes, your ladyship.” Though the words were perfectly bland, Devnar watched Lady

Grenba’s eyes narrow with anger as Melania stepped slightly in front of him so that her bottom

pressed against his shoulder, but he could still see the screen Her slender frame had no hope of

blocking him, but she was definitely trying to shield him. On the screen, the lines around Lady

Grenba’s mouth deepened as her lips twisted into a snarl.

“You think you can protect him from me?” Lady Grenba rose from her chair and moved

toward the screen until her green eyes filled it, blazing with anger.

“No, your ladyship.” Despite her words, she didn’t move from in front of him. Part of him

was appalled his woman was putting herself in danger for him, and the other part took her

defense as a sign of her caring.

Lady Grenba’s voice dropped to a croon. “Do you think to shield him from me? Do you

wish he was yours to fuck and cuddle?” Melania didn’t answer, and she continued with a cruel

smile. “You do, don’t you?” Laughing, Lady Grenba clapped her hands with delight. “Oh how

delicious!”

A tremor ran through Melania’s body, and he gently pressed his shoulder to the back of her

thigh. It was all he could do to comfort her, but he couldn’t let her suffer like this. Her shaking

stilled, and she traced the tips of her fingers over his forehead.

“Bring him to the Volsun Arena tomorrow morning. The empress will be there to watch

the fights, and it will be the perfect opportunity to whet her appetite for the prince.” Lady Grenba

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used the tip of her slipper to nudge at the cage on the man’s testicles, jerking a groan of pain

from him as he fought to keep still. “Are you enjoying him, Breaker?” The question was said in

an idle tone of voice while she toyed with her slave, but even Devnar didn’t miss the undertone

of laughter.

Melania’s hand stroked over his cheek and the tips of her nails rasped over his stubble.

“My pleasure is of no consequence. I live to serve.”

“Mhmm, yes. You would do well to remember that. I would hate to see one of our favorite

breakers servicing every worker with a silver coin to buy her cunt.” As she said this, Lady

Grenba watched him and smirked as he snarled at her.

Pain from his collar sliced through his body as Melania pushed him to the floor with her

boot, then shouted, “How dare you!”

He trembled with the effort to keep from screaming. Lady Grenba’s cruel laughter floated

through the room. “You will present yourself to Pimina for punishment after the arena, Breaker.

Perhaps that will inspire you to keep your slave under better control. If he fails at attracting the

attention of the empress, you will return him to me.” Devnar rolled his eyes to the screen but

held his tongue. Melania looked as if she might come apart, and he couldn’t save her if she did.

Melania’s reply might as well have been a scream for all the anger in her words. “Yes,

your ladyship.”

The man at Lady Grenba’s feet let out a long scream like a trapped rabbit as Lady Grenba

leaned over him. His face was lost in the sweep of her black hair as she kissed him, and Melania

tried to shield his eyes from the screen. Before it blanked out, Lady Grenba raised her face to

them with a hideous smile and spat out pieces of the male slave’s lips. His high screams echoed

after the picture went blank.

Devnar pushed himself to his knees with a groan and braced himself with one hand against

the floor. Trying to gather his scattered thoughts, he felt the anger from earlier drain away as the

screen went opaque and the chime sounded again. Bile rose in his throat, and he wanted with all

his heart to hold Melania, to promise her he would kill their enemies and keep her safe. Lady

Grenba would fit right in with the slave raiders of his planet. Hell, as sadistic as she was, she’d

probably end up their queen.

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Melania stared down at him, her lips pressed into a thin line. He tried to find the words to

apologize, but she shook her head and placed her hand over his mouth. “This is my fault. I

pampered you too much and forgot my duty. If you don’t capture the empress’s attention, I know

what Lady Grenba will do to you, and I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy. I will do

anything to keep you from her.” One tear spilled down her cheek, and she gave him a sad smile.

“After the arena, I will ask that you be assigned to another breaker. I’m sorry I failed you, my

prince.”

He tried to grasp her, but she darted away and ran out the door before he could move. She

couldn’t leave him; the very thought drove a wedge of despair into his stomach. He tried to tell

himself he only cared because she was his link to escape, and his stunned mind tried to think of a

way to salvage this situation. The door slid open, and an older woman dressed in a long gray

gown snapped her fingers. He didn’t resist when, with a disapproving frown, she motioned for

him to follow her.

Steam billowed from the open doorway of the groomers, and the woman stopped him from

entering with a finger pointed into his chest. “I don’t know what you did to the Mistress, but she

is sobbing her heart out right now. You should be ashamed.”

Devnar gaped at her and managed to say, “I should be ashamed? She’s the one keeping me

here against my will, forcing me to do”—he hesitated and actually blushed as the old woman

raised her eyebrows—“things that I don’t want to do.”

The maid glanced down the hallway behind her, then lowered her voice, “Do you have any

idea how lucky you are that you got her as a breaker? She is far too kindhearted for an off-world

barbarian like yourself. We’ve heard about you people, raping and pillaging your way through

the galaxy, abducting women, and treating them worse than the lowest whore.” She raised her

hand against his face and shook her finger at him when he tried to interrupt her. “Most breakers

would have tortured you into submission long ago, but the Mistress always tries to use pleasure

instead of pain. Almost every person in this household has been saved from an abusive owner by

the Mistress, and I won’t have a fool you—”

He was getting really tired of women calling him a fool. Crowding into her personal space,

he backed her against the wall and growled down at her. “What business is it of yours what

happens between us, servant?”

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She grasped her hands in the front and tried to stare him down. “We know that if she

manages to make you into something suitable for the empress”—the disbelief in her words made

him snort—“she will have a chance to have a concubine of her own. She deserves the chance at

happiness fate took from her when it cursed her with those eyes.”

“I want her to be
my
concubine. I want to make her happy.” He tried to gesture with his

hands, forgetting they were bound. Behind her, his skinny groomer wandered into the doorway

and watched him with narrowed eyes.

The maid’s shoulders dropped, and she shook her head. “You really don’t understand

anything about us, do you? Having a concubine is her only chance at ever having a child and a

family of her own to love. She can’t have a child with you. We are all sterilized at birth. That’s

the way it has to be so we don’t repeat the overpopulation that helped destroy our planet tens of

thousands of years ago. Only the empress can grant us the right to bear children. The Mistress

can’t even marry for fear of passing on her birth defects.”

Devnar gaped at her in shock. “What are you talking about, her birth defects? Melania—

the Mistress is perfect. So she has two different-colored eyes, who cares? Her heart and soul are

as strong as any warrior’s.”

The maid gave him a considering look before carefully saying, “Novice, it is not just her

eyes. Her body did not develop like a proper woman’s. She has no curves and lacks the height

that our people prize in their females. Every single birth is carefully planned so we only pass on

the best possible chances at survival to our next generation. The Mistress is considered rather

ugly by our standards of attractiveness, however beautiful her heart and soul are. That’s why she

was given up at birth.”

The ache in Devnar’s head deepened as he tried to wrap his mind around what the maid

was saying. Being forbidden to marry, to have the love of a mate and family struck him as

horrific. And for someone as naturally caring and loving as Melania, it must have been hell on

earth. “Wait, if having a child is such a privilege, why did her parents give her away?”

The man that served Devnar as his groom stepped out of the doorway leading to the baths.

“They didn’t really have a choice. Her cursed eyes slated her for life as a whore in a worker’s

brothel from the moment it became apparent they were flawed. By giving Melania up to the

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regulators to be used as a servant, her parents were given permission to have another child, one

they could hopefully keep.”

His words hit Devnar like a blow. “That’s atrocious.”

The maid lifted her nose and gave him a cold stare. “That’s reality, Novice. Didn’t you

ever wonder why being a concubine is such an honor? It is one of the few ways anyone from the

servant class can be assured the chance to have a child. Otherwise it’s a random lottery, with a

one in a hundred chance that you’ll be picked if you have the right genetics.” Her hands fluttered

before her as she spoke. “We are a long-lived people; three hundred years is not unheard of. Can

you imagine how many children one pair of people could have in three hundred years? What

livable space we have would be gone, and we would destroy the planet a second time and finish

our race off for sure.”

Devnar’s groom crossed his skinny arms. “And for someone with the Mistress’s

abnormalities, having the empress accept you as a concubine will be the only chance she will

ever have to bear a child.”

She searched his face with a pleading expression. “It is known you belong to Lady Grenba.

If the Mistress fails with you, the lady will punish her in ways you cannot imagine.”

His stomach clenched into a hard knot at the memory of the blood dripping down Lady