The Breaker's Concubine (20 page)

himself that sometime soon he would make her wear them while he took her repeatedly.

At the far end of the arena, a large portion of the stands was sectioned off by a shimmering

wall of white. The wall flexed and moved, and he realized it was some form of energy shield.

“What’s that?”

“The empress,” Melania said in a low voice. On either side of them, the boxes held well-

dressed spectators who drank from etched glass goblets held on trays by their servants. He

became conscious of many people openly staring at them as they whispered to each other.

Melania’s voice interrupted his attempts to read their lips and figure out what they were saying.

“She’s behind that shield to help protect her from assassination attempts.”

A man dressed in a navy blue robe sneered at Devnar, and he lowered his eyes to the

ground to keep the man from seeing his snarl. He had to behave. Had to keep from drawing any

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dangerous attention. Melania’s last words rolled through his mind, and he frowned. In a voice

barely above a whisper, he said, “Who wants the empress dead?”

She shrugged, but the anxiety rolling off her increased. The warmth of her breath tingled in

his ear as she leaned down and whispered, “There are elements of our society that wish to place

their own house on the throne. Other groups wish the regulators to have more power and the

royal houses less. Being the empress is a dangerous privilege.”

“All the more reason you shouldn’t give me to her,” he whispered back. He regretted the

pain his words caused her, but pressed his case. “Help me, Melania.”

She wrapped her hands around his leash and pulled his head up until her lips brushed his

ear. “We are being watched. If you care for me, please stop trying to get me killed.”

Anger washed through him and blended with his frustration. Stubborn woman. Worse yet,

she was probably right. He tried to keep his head lowered but still scanned the audience. A

disconcerting number of people watched them carefully. They weren’t even trying to be

circumspect, instead openly staring and pointing at their box. All the attention made him

increasingly uncomfortable, and he wished they had never come here today.

“Why are they looking at us?”

“Lord Mithrik made a point of singling you out. They are all wondering if it would earn

them political points to see you dead or their property.”

He grunted in response and tried to ignore the crowd. Melania, ever aware of his needs,

cupped his cheek and turned his head to look down into the area. On the black sand below, the

acrobats left to scattered applause. Lime green lights flashed through the stadium, and Melania

sat forward with a low hiss.

“What is it?”

“Death sport,” she spat out in disgust. “A group of criminals will fight to the death, and the

last man standing gets a pardon from the empress.”

Doors opened in the pit of the arena, and a dozen men came out. Some wore bits of armor,

while others were bare except for a loincloth. Above the arena, a giant hologram showed the

participants in detail. They were armed with all manners of weapons, and Devnar found himself

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leaning forward, straining against his leash. His heart gave a great thud, and a high ringing filled

his ears as rage burst inside his mind in an incandescent blast of white-hot heat.

His men were down there.

The sight of Ikel and Bolin lanced through him, and his blood boiled with anger and

shame. He had failed them. While he was falling in love with Melania, they had been suffering.

Welts covered their bodies, and they looked like they hadn’t bathed in a long time. He had sworn

before the Goddess that he would rescue them, and look how they had suffered. Melania’s anger

and fear washed through him and fed his fury until his mind switched over to full battle mode.

Rational thought gave way to a surge of emotion, and his view of the world focused down to

rescuing his men and eliminating any threat to his mate.

“Novice,” Melania said in a panicked whisper and tugged at his chain.

“Ikel and Bolin are down there!” His voice rose into a shout, and gasps came from the

boxes next to them. Down in the arena, Ikel and Bolin squared off against a group of four other

men. A sword flashed, and Ikel barely managed to dodge it before another man tried to sweep his

feet out from under him.

“Novice, attend!”

Panic and fury roared through their bond and combined until he saw the world through a

mask of rage. “Those are my men!” he roared and jerked the leash out of Melania’s hands. “I

have to save them!” He started to climb the wall when a bolt of pain from his collar dropped him.

Her fear clawed at his stomach, but all he could do was focus on the hologram of Bolin crushing

the head of his opponent with his spiked club. Ikel lay at his feet, unmoving and covered in

blood.

Memories of growing up with Ikel, comforting each other as they went through warrior

training, and even sharing a woman or two, flashed through his mind. Bolin wasn’t faring much

better; he was still standing, but blood gushed down his body from a wound over his eyebrow.

Devnar couldn’t let him die on the black sands of the arena for the amusement of a bloodthirsty

crowd. He focused his rage, his disgust, his despair and blasted it into Melania’s mind.

Melania’s face paled as he sent all his emotions pouring through the bond, trying to make

her understand, trying to make her feel what he was feeling. She stood, then wavered on her feet,

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and he grabbed her before she fell. With a low moan, she fumbled for her bracelet before he

jerked her arms away, keeping her from restraining him.

A concerned shout came from the box next to them, but he ignored it and forced Melania

to look at him. “You have to do something. Please help me!” He shook her and screamed as

agony radiated from his collar. Confusion rode quickly behind the wave of debilitating pain, and

he wondered how she managed to shock him without touching her control bracelet. His numb

hands fell from her arms as he slid in a lump to her feet, his nerve impulses firing at random and

sending hard sparks of torment through his nervous system.

Screams came from around them as he tried to lift himself from the ground. The door of

their box hissed open, and Lord Mithrik’s voice snapped through the air like a whip. “Seize him

and the breaker.”

“My Lord, please—he doesn’t—” Her words clamped off to muffled screams, and Devnar

tried to make his arms work. A burly guard dressed in dull green leather had her gagged and

handcuffed in his arms.

Lord Mithrik raised his voice as she struggled. “You are hereby charged with treason for

smuggling an off-worlder onto our planet.”

The crowd gasped, and shouts of “traitor” rained down over them. One of the guards

stripped off her control bracelet, and another bolt of agony from his collar made him slump back

to the ground. The crowd roared as something happened in the arena, but all he cared about now

was his mate.

She was in danger; he had to rescue her.

Forcing his stunned muscles to cooperate, he pushed himself off the ground and made a

weak lunge at the guard holding Melania. He was easily dodged and brought flat by the collar

again. His body was on fire with pain. It felt as if he were being roasted alive while nails were

pounded through his bones.

A boot flipped him over, and he stared into the blank face of Khilam. The man stroked a

hand over his goatee and spat on Devnar’s chest. “Filthy off-worlder. What would you like done

with him, my lord?”

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He prayed to the Goddess for the strength to save Melania. The twitching of his nerves

made him flop on the ground like a fish out of water, and he tried to roll his eyes to find her. All

he could do was moan, and he heard Lord Mithrik say in a cold voice, “Take her away. I want

him executed, and his body burned.”

Rough hands dragged him to his feet, and he struggled weakly. Khilam stepped in front of

him and gripped his hair, forcing his face up. “Say good-bye to your whore.” The last thing he

heard before the collar knocked him out was Melania’s anguished scream and the roar of the

crowd.

* * *

he moaned. Bolin needed to shut the hell up and let him nurse off this hangover in peace. Slow to

respond, his eyelids felt like they weighed a thousand pounds. Bolin’s blond hair came into

blurry view, but his back was covered with blood and black sand.

As he struggled to remember what they had drunk in order to get to this filthy and painful

state, he carefully rolled over on his back to stare at an unfamiliar ceiling. The air tasted…odd

here. None of the scents of animals or growing things. Cleaned until it had almost no scent at all.

“Devnar’s fault or not, he can’t be associated with you. He almost ruined everything,”

another man replied in a shout. That voice also triggered a memory—sensual lips framed by a

dark goatee. He tried to remember while staring at the dark ivory ceiling. His limbs ached,

further distracting his mind.

“Well, if you had just told him what was going on, none of this would be necessary.”

Something rattled, and Bolin continued in a softer voice. “Surely there was a better way to test

his breaker’s loyalty to the empress. I told you what would happen if you tried to separate them

and they were bonded.” Breath puffed out of someone’s lungs in a hard
oof
as Bolin continued.

“It’s your fault she’s nearly catatonic and being held in some shithole prison. Even worse, she

believes Devnar is dead. For her, that is a fate worse than death, and she has no one around her to

explain what is going on. You better hope she is as smart and strong as you say, or her mind will

break, and for Devnar all will be lost.”

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“All the more reason we had to make sure she wasn’t in on Lady Grenba’s plans. If what

you said about bonding was true, he would have lied to keep her safe.”

Lady Grenba. That name rolled through his mind like a foul fog. Dark skin, ivory dress,

beautiful face with lips covered in blood.

“You also didn’t need to have his woman whipped in public. He’s going to be furious

when he finds out.”

“We had to do something. If we didn’t show the regulators we were going to punish her as

an example, they would have taken her.”

“She’s so tiny,” Bolin complained as his voice moved closer. “The prince always did like

his women small and fragile.” His voice grew hard. “Lord Adsel knew exactly what kind of

woman would arouse his interest. Lucky for us, he didn’t consider she had the heart of a warrior.

I thought she was going to kill that guard she broke free from.”

Tiny, fragile…his woman. Devnar closed his eyes tight and chased the memory as the

confusion began to clear. He had been somewhere watching his men fight. There was a woman

with him—a woman he loved. Long hair that wrapped around his body like silk, eyes as blue as

the sky—no, one eye of that startling blue, while the other eye was the color of brown velvet.

Melania. The gentle burn in his chest wasn’t an illusion; he was bonded.

“Where is she?” His roar sounded like the croak of a sick kitten.

“My prince!” Bolin gently helped him roll his head to the side and anxiously examined

him.

“Bolin.” He swallowed and tried to work some saliva down his dry throat. “Where is

Melania?”

“She’s safe, for the moment.” Khilam moved behind Bolin and jumped back when Devnar

tried to lunge at him. Sadly his launch was nothing more than a lurch followed by a painful groan

and ending with him rolling on his back and fighting not to puke. They must have really fried his

body with that last blast from the collar.

He managed to growl out his threat without passing out. “You prick! Where is she? What

have you done with her?”

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“Easy,” Bolin said in a gentle tone and carefully pressed Devnar back to the bench he was

lying on. Voices came from outside the doorway, and Lord Mithrik entered and took in the mood

of the room with one quick glance. His shoulders straightened beneath his bronze robe, and the

small muscles around his mouth grew tight.

“I told you she isn’t a traitor,” Bolin yelled at Lord Mithrik, then swallowed audibly when

those dark hazel eyes rested on him. The silence allowed Devnar to regain some of his mind, and

he decided to see if there were any weapons around. If things went to shit, he was taking Lord

Mithrik with him. Bare walls, smooth furniture bolted to the ground, and even the mattress he lay

on was sewn into the frame. This room was a prison in the most literal sense of the word.