The Breaker's Concubine (5 page)

blind desire to find the perfect mate and conjured images of battle to turn his mind from sex.

“Hello, Novice.” Her voice was deep and husky instead of the high pitch he expected from

such a small and delicate woman. Rather than acknowledge her, he selected some grapes from

the bowl and began to eat them. Her unusual eyes followed the movements of his mouth, and he

spit a seed at her feet.

The faintest quirk of her firm pink lips showed her amusement at his insult. With a bored

look, she pointed to her feet. “Attend.”

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Ann Mayburn

Yawning, he wandered over to the window again and steeled his body against the warning

buzz of the collar. Before he made it three steps, pain shot through him and brought him to his

knees. With a groan, he strained to lift his head as her small feet moved across the carpet and

stopped in front of him.

“I don’t know what your past trainers let you get away with, but you will obey me.” She

tipped his chin with the toe of her boot, and he glared up at her. No emotion on her face, but the

spice of her musk flavored the air. “Do you understand?”

Knowing he was being foolish but unable to stop himself, he jerked his head away and

snarled at her. Her perfectly arched eyebrows rose in surprise before she purposefully let her

finger hover over the control bracelet. His anger gave him the strength to curve his hands into

fists like he was going to attack her. The only warning he had was the flash of regret on her face

before another searing bolt of agony had him flat on his back at her feet.

As he panted, he struggled to hide his smile. She didn’t like inflicting pain and would

hesitate before punishing him. In the future, he could use that against her to help him escape.

“Devnar.” He at once hated and loved the way his name sounded in her husky voice. “My

name is Melania, and I am your breaker.”

Not wanting to spend the rest of the day writhing on the floor, he propped himself to his

knees and glared. “That’s
Prince
Devnar, you bitch.” Her soft chuckle raised the hair on his

arms. “What the hell is a breaker?”

Using the toe of her boot again, she pressed it on the back of his head and forced his face

to the ground. Anger surged through him, and he fought against the urge to flip her on her back

and force her to acknowledge him as the dominant. As long as he wore the slave collar, he had

no choice.

“I am going to break you of your useless and stupid pride keeping you from fulfilling your

potential as a concubine.” Her tone made it obvious she actually thought she was doing him a

favor.

The pressure of her foot lifted from his head, and her delicate hand stroked back his hair

from his cheek. He fought the arousal her touch brought him and gritted his teeth. Her hand in

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23

his hair tightened; then she quickly released him and stepped back. Even with his head pressed to

the carpet, he could smell the surge in her desire.

He turned his head and watched the shine of her boots as she strode over to the mirror wall.

She tapped on the glass twice before saying, “Have him washed and brought to my stables.”

In a show of defiance, he pushed himself from the floor and stood despite the lack of

strength in his legs. His muscles shivered, but he refused to stay on the floor any longer.

Amusement was evident in the slight curve of her full lips as she examined him. “Also I want his

nipples pierced.”

“What?” he barked out and fisted his hands together.

“Your nipples.” She moved to stand in front of him and ran her delicate fingers down his

chest. “You have lovely nipples, and I want them pierced.” Watching him carefully, she ran her

fingertips over each nub, and they hardened beneath her touch. He squeezed his eyes shut and

tried to think of something other than the sensation of her working him with gentle pulls. Being

so aroused by his enemy humiliated him, yet he couldn’t pull away from her touch.

“Look at how hard they get,” she whispered against his chest. “How they respond to my

touch.” The musky scent of her lust assaulted his instincts, and blood rushed to his cock in a hard

throb. He forced his eyes open and glared at her. She could make his body respond, but she

couldn’t make him enjoy it.

“They get hard when I take a shit too. Don’t flatter yourself.”

Now she did smile and gave his sensitized nipples a hard yank. “Does your cock get hard

when you defecate? Will we have to experiment with someone sucking you while you empty

your bowels?”

His jaw dropped, and she turned her head slightly at the
hiss
of the door opening. She

released his body and stepped back with an appreciative murmur as she unabashedly stared at his

erection. His self-disgust grew as his cock throbbed and grew harder beneath her gaze. Too bad

his prick didn’t care about his mental distress; it wanted to bury itself in that breaker’s hot cunt.

Two servants appeared in the doorway and waited with impassive faces. He ignored them

as much as they ignored him while they escorted him out of the room. Even if he managed to

overpower them, his collar crippled his body with agony as soon as he reached a door or window

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Ann Mayburn

he wasn’t authorized to use. He’d made that painful discovery the first day he’d landed on this

polluted rock.

After passing through a series of archways and rooms, a final door opened, and he was

quickly hustled into a waiting transporter. Even the threat of his collar couldn’t stop him from

planting his feet and attempting to get a look at something other than walls. He turned his face to

the sky and tried to catch a glimpse of blue. All that met his gaze were the dirty, gray-green

clouds that seemed to constantly shroud the sun.

A daily bath in artificial sunlight kept him healthy, but he missed the scent of growing

things and the warmth of true light. His people spent most of their time outdoors among the giant

trees and vast inland lakes of his world. To be kept in a small room day after day had come

closer to breaking him than any other mental tricks his captors had tried.

A snarl escaped his lips as they shoved him into the small pod, but the door closed before

he could do anything more. The walls went opaque, and he lurched as the transporter began to

move. The padded seat cradled his body as he closed his eyes and tried to keep the image of

long, brown hair and pink lips out of his mind.

* * *

Melania’s estate, watching her eat dinner. The metal cuffs around his wrist were held against the

wall by powerful magnets, spreading his arms at his sides but not high enough to impede his

circulation. A man who had identified himself as Devnar’s groom had washed every inch of him

until he had been cleaned in places even his most ardent lover hadn’t explored. The groom had

added ankle cuffs as well when Devnar called one of the maids every foul thing he could think of

after she had pinched his ass.

His nipples still throbbed from where they had been pierced, but the cellular reconstruction

cream was doing its job and healing him rapidly. The gold rings glinted in the subdued lighting.

As a maid walked past him, her full skirt brushed his legs and he snarled at her. To his disgust,

she didn’t even flinch or disturb the bottle of wine she carried to the table.

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25

Soft music played in the background, and a jungle of plants lined the walls. The tall trees

reaching toward the dark skylights made his heart ache for his home. He attempted to shift into a

more comfortable position in his shackles and resumed his glaring at Melania.

A gold mesh loincloth covered his groin, but it left little to the imagination. His hair was

now back in a tight braid that hung over his shoulder, and his skin had been oiled until it

gleamed. Even his body hair had been waxed and groomed until he barely recognized himself.

Raising the last bite of her dinner to her mouth, Melania sighed and patted her lips with her

cloth napkin. Despite himself, he was fascinated by her. Every move she made was with a grace

and control that turned a simple meal into an erotic dance.

Though she hadn’t acknowledged him once, he still felt she was putting on a show for his

benefit. Too bad it was a wasted effort. Yeah, the pressure in his balls wasn’t from watching

those pink lips wrap around the fork and suck the food off. Not at all.

“Tell me about your home world, Prince.” Her mouth parted as she raised an etched

wineglass to her lips, and he had a sudden mental image of those pink lips parting to take his

cock down her slender throat. She regarded him over the rim with open curiosity as he tried to

banish that thought from his mind.

Unsure of her motivation, he lifted his lip in a silent snarl. “It’s better than this piss hole

you call a planet. Why you waste your time guarding this polluted hunk of rock is beyond me.

Who would want to invade a world where you have to live beneath domes to survive?”

Gently placing the wineglass back on the table, she toyed with the stem, and her eyebrows

drew together. He was amazed at how easy she was to read. She didn’t try to hide any of her

emotions from him…or she was a far better liar than he thought.

“How do your people live?”

“Why do you care? I’m a prisoner to fuck and punish.”

She crossed her slender legs and leaned back into the chair. Her foot tapped an irritated

dance in the air, though her voice was still calm. “I’ve never met an off-worlder before.” She

hesitated, and the tempo of her foot picked up. “My education did not include lessons about other

worlds.”

With a snort, he jerked at his bonds. “Why would they bother to educate a whore?”

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Ann Mayburn

Oh, that made her mad.

Her full, pink lips grew narrow, and her foot stopped, the tip pointing at the ceiling.

“Obviously you know no more about my culture than I do about yours. I am a breaker, a trainer

of concubines.”

She went silent again and stroked her fingertips over her lips. His gaze followed the

progress of her finger, and he wished it was the head of his cock pressing against that soft flesh.

What would it be like to have her mouth wrapped around him? Would she swallow his seed, or

would she want it to cover her face?

He startled as she rose from her chair, jerked out of his daydreams by the liquid flash of

her leather beneath the subdued lighting. He bit his tongue and willed his body not to respond to

her. She was the enemy, a bitch like the rest. The soft roll of her hips as she strode across the

pale wood floor toward him set his teeth on edge.

“You are my novice, and you should be thankful for the chance to ever serve a royal

house.”

“I am a prince. I am no one’s whore.” He raised his chin and stared down his nose at her as

she slowly walked past the edge of the table, trailing her fingers down the polished wood.

“No, you’re a lucky fool.” Her scent saturated the air as she gave him a look of disapproval

that, strangely, hurt his feelings. He must be losing his mind. Only a crazy man would give a shit

about what his beautiful, soft, and delicious adversary thought about him. “By all rights you

should be spending your days in the zanthin mines with the rest of the thieves and murderers.”

“I’m not a murderer.” He ignored her snort. “The only men I’ve ever killed were on the

field of battle in honorable combat.” Why was he trying to defend himself to this slut? Why

should he care what she thought of him? The fact that she was the first person to treat him with

any hint of kindness since his capture didn’t mean she wasn’t here for the purpose of making him

a compliant slave.

As he grappled with his confused feelings, she leaned close enough for her breath to warm

his chest. So tiny he could crush her with one hand. The mental fantasy of hurting her didn’t

bring him any of the pleasure it used to when he’d dreamed of torturing his other trainers. His

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27

lust refused to be turned to battle rage and deepened as her heat moved over his exposed skin like

the sunlight he craved.

“Your people like to fight?” The sensation of her breath caressing his skin made the hair on

his arms stand on end.

“No one likes war. We fight to protect our people, to keep our territory and women out of

the hands of the southern rebels.” He tried to shift away from her fingertips as they traced the

ridges of his abdominal muscles. Little sparks of pleasure followed her touch, and his cock

twitched with interest.

“Then our people have something in common.” She pressed the soft pads of her fingers

into the hard curve of his hip bone.