The Invisible Ring (6 page)

Tomas’s grin faded. His face paled. He scrambled to his feet and bolted for the door. The jerky movement and the fear that now filled his dark eyes told Jared more than the fading bruises on the boy’s bare arms, more than the old scars on the stick-thin legs that poked out of a pair of ragged short pants.

And he realized what the boy’s diminished psychic scent meant. Tomas was a half-Blood.

Having too much psychic strength to be landen but not enough to be Blood, half-Bloods were outcast bastards, wanted by neither society. If the Blood sire thought the unclaimed offspring showed potential, the child might be taken in and raised as a servant, maybe even trained to become an overseer for a landen village. Most of the time, half-Bloods became the slaves that looked after, and were used by, Blood slaves.

And sometimes there was no one cruder than someone who was, himself, enduring cruelty.

Cursing under his breath, Jared followed Tomas.

The bathroom had two toilets, three sinks, and two bathtubs. There were no partitions to give anyone the illusion of privacy, but at least the toilets were better than stinking privy holes.

Sighing with relief, Jared took care of business and tried to ignore the boy standing next to him. Tomas might have learned fear in the slave quarters, but the boy was just too brash to have learned caution.

“You ain’t wearing a Ring,” Tomas said in a hushed voice.

“It’s invisible,” Jared replied curtly, hoping that would end it.

“You sight shield a Ring so people don’t know you’re a slave, you’ll get your back whipped off for good.”

Jared clenched his teeth at the honest concern in the boy’s voice and pulled the chain to flush the toilet. “It’s not sight shielded, it’s invisible.”

“Well, I can
see
that.”

How could he explain something he didn’t understand himself? “It’s an Invisible Ring. It’s like the Ring of Obedience, but stronger.”

Tomas’s eyes widened. “You have to wear something
stronger
than a Ring of Obedience? You that dangerous?”

“I guess so.”

“As dangerous as the Sadist?”

Jared started to say something reassuring, but there was no fear in the boy’s face, just a held-breath excitement. Aristos had good reason to fear Daemon Sadi, but not young half-Blood boys. So he said solemnly, “He taught me everything I know.”

Tomas looked at him for a long minute, his mouth silently forming the word, “oh,” and Jared realized he couldn’t have presented better credentials to reassure the boy he was a “safe” male.

That grin that seemed to be Tomas’s natural expression flashed again.

“You’ll be wanting a bath. We’ve got hot water and everything.”

As Jared watched the boy dart around the room preparing a bath for him, the full import of their surroundings finally hit him. He wandered over to the tub that was already half-full of steaming water. “Why are we in the guest servants’ quarters?”

“ ‘Cause the Lady took one look at the slave quarters and threw a polite icy fit.”

Jared scratched the back of his head. Hell’s fire, he was looking forward to getting clean. “How does one throw a polite icy fit?”

Tomas tugged on his earlobe and scrunched up his face. “Well, like the Lady did, I guess.”

That told him a lot.

Tomas turned off the water. “In you go,” he said, waving the wash sponge at Jared.

“Yes, Tomas,” Jared said meekly.

Tomas hesitated, as if wanting to be sure that the adult male he was ordering around really was teasing him. Then he grinned and dropped the wash sponge into the water.

Jared settled into the tub, closed his eyes, and groaned in pleasure. After soaking for a couple of minutes, he opened one eye and looked at the boy kneeling beside the tub. “So what did she do?”

“Well, the innkeeper was pleased enough at first to have a Queen staying at his place, even if it
was
the Gray Lady. He told her his servants would get her slaves settled into quarters, but she insisted on seeing them before she’d go to her own room. So he showed her the slave quarters and she said, no, they wouldn’t do.”

“Were they that bad?” Jared asked. Pleasure slaves were usually quartered together in a comfortable “stable” or in tiny rooms adjoining the main bedchambers so they’d be close by to indulge their Ladies’ whims. Since they were also kept fairly isolated from everyone except the court and each other, he really didn’t know what was considered normal slave quarters.

Tomas shrugged. “Looked like any other as far as I could tell, although the privy holes did stink something fierce. But the Lady said she wasn’t going to have half of us coming down sick with a chill or worse by trying to sleep with no blankets and nothing but bars and broken shutters over the windows.

Now, anybody could have told her you don’t seal up slave quarters tight

‘cause breathing the stink would make us sicker than fresh cold air, but the innkeeper just eyed Thera and Polli and told the Lady if she just eased the Rings a bit, the males would keep the females warm enough, and with their blood heated like that, they wouldn’t even notice the cold.

“Well, the Lady just looked at the innkeeper until he started to sweat, and she said, mild as if she was asking for a cup of tea, ‘Have you ever seen what happens to a man’s balls when you freeze them so deep they’ll shatter if you flick a finger against them?’ You could tell he thought she was bluffing, but he was sweating, too. Then one drop of sweat rolled off his chin. It froze before it hit the ground and bounced up like a little hailstone. And she just kept looking at him. I thought he was going to mess his pants.”

Having experienced that hard gray stare, Jared understood the man’s discomfort all too well.

“So right away he offered these quarters,” Tomas continued, handing Jared the soap. “Thera and Polli made up a bed for you, and Randolf and Brock carried you in. The Lady fussed over you for a bit and kept muttering to herself about whether the damage was permanent. After she approved the food the servants brought, she went back to the inn.”

The Lady fussed over you
. Jared soaped the sponge and started washing.

In a way, it made sense. Badly scarred pleasure slaves weren’t as valuable—

except to witches who were aroused by the evidence of pain inflicted—and a healing man didn’t perform at his best. But something in Tomas’s voice told him that, even without knowing about the Invisible Ring, the others had realized that the Lady considered him different from the rest of them, and they weren’t sure what to think about it ... or about him.

He wasn’t sure what to think about it either.

“Course, Blaed’s going to be relieved to find out you’re a pleasure slave,”

Tomas said. “The way Thera tore into him, I don’t think he wants to stiffen anytime soon, and he’s been worried that the Lady would want to be pleasured and he hasn’t had much training. Not like you, being trained by the Sadist and all.”

Jared bit his tongue and concentrated on washing his legs.

Tomas frowned. “Course, you don’t need a stiff dangle, do you? They say the Sadist never gets stiff, and he’s the best there is.”

At a lot of things that were better left unmentioned.

Jared resoaped the sponge and started scrubbing his arms and chest. He didn’t want to talk about Sadi, and he didn’t want to think about pleasuring the Gray Lady. “Why did Thera tear into Blaed?”

Tomas shook his head. His voice filled with cautious admiration. “That Thera. When she gets pissy, she gets a look in her eyes that can singe your ball hairs.”

The sponge stuttered to a halt. “That’s a colorful way of putting it,” Jared finally choked out.

Tomas tugged on the sponge. “I’ll wash your back.”

“No!” He didn’t need this boy to act as his slave, and knowing too well how it felt to be at the mercy of someone’s whims, he didn’t want anyone else feeling like that because of him.

“I’ll be careful,” Tomas said quietly.

Thrown off stride by the boy’s sympathy, Jared released the sponge. He’d forgotten about the lash wounds. Feeling no pain as Tomas washed his back, his hands gently explored his belly where the whips had cut him. It felt tender, but that was all.

“Don’t know what the Lady did, but you’ve healed up just fine,” Tomas said. “Didn’t even scar.”

Tomas’s cheerful efficiency made his heart ache. Too knowing for someone so young, here was this boy reassuring a grown man that he hadn’t scarred when his own small body looked like a battlefield.

Tomas deserved better than to be condemned to a life like this. Then again, they all deserved better.

Needing a distraction, Jared said, “Tell me about Thera and Blaed.”

“Well, you see, none of the beds were made up, though there were clean sheets and blankets folded up on the mattresses. Thera started right in ‘cause Cathryn—”

“Cathryn? I thought the other one’s name is Polli.”

“The Lady bought three females,” Tomas explained patiently. “Thera, Polli, and Cathryn. Thera’s a broken Black Widow. Breaking her might have taken her Jewels, but it sure didn’t dull her temper. Polli’s a broken witch. I think it made her soft-headed and skittish. Cathryn’s just a Blood female, too young for breeding yet.”

Jared ground his teeth. Just the thought of a Blood female being used as an aristo broodmare as soon as she became old enough to bear healthy offspring made him sick. Oh, they weren’t broken like more and more strong witches were, but that was because they didn’t have the inner power for more than basic Craft to begin with, and only unbroken females could produce more than one offspring. “How old is Cathryn?”

“She’s little. Nine maybe. You want to hear about Blaed or not?”

His breath hissed between his teeth. “I want to hear.”

“So Thera started making up beds. Polli was making up a bed, too, but she was moving slow, like something was paining her. Then Blaed walked over to Polli and said something to her, and the next thing you know, she had her back to the wall and she was screaming that she didn’t have to spread her legs, it was her moontime, and she didn’t have to spread her legs during her moontime.

“Before Blaed could say anything, Thera grabbed an apple from the bowl the servants had brought and threw it at him. Blaed’s got good reflexes. He couldn’t dodge it, but he managed to take it on the hip instead of in the balls.

“So there’s Polli having hysterics, and Cathryn’s crying ‘cause she’s scared, and Thera’s screaming at Blaed, and Blaed’s rushing toward Thera while she’s reaching back for another apple, and Randolf and Brock are trying to jump in before it gets really nasty. And then the outside door burst open and the Gray Lady was standing there.

“The males all stopped cold, and I hushed Cathryn, but Polli was still wailing about her moontime—Hell’s fire, even
I
could tell that whatever was paining her, it wasn’t that— and Thera was still screaming about heartless pricks who couldn’t keep their pants buttoned and holding that apple so hard she was squishing it to pulp.”

Tomas jumped up. “You soap up your hair. I’ll get a bucket of clean water to rinse with.”

Jared soaped his hair, muttering all the while about the dire things that could happen to boys who got too bossy. The only response he got was a bucket of water poured over his head before he was ready.

Sputtering, he climbed out of the tub and grabbed a towel from Tomas. “If you don’t finish the story, I’ll throttle you.”

Now certain that he could ignore remarks like that, Tomas just grinned, grabbed another towel, and gently patted Jared’s back dry. “Turns out Blaed was just trying to be helpful. He noticed how Polli was moving and thought she shouldn’t be lifting the mattress to tuck in the sheet.

After he explained that to the Lady, looking so scared I thought he was going to faint, she fixed a brew to settle down Polli. Then she looked straight at Thera, and said, ‘Courtesy should be rewarded, not punished.’ And then she looked at Blaed, and said, ‘Remember that not all scars are visible.’

“After she left, we all ate and took baths. None of the males wanted to get near Polli, in case she had another fit. Didn’t want to get too close to Thera, either. So all the females and you and me stayed on one side of the room and the rest of the males stayed on the other side.” Tomas looked at Jared and shook his head. “And you slept through the whole thing. Matter of fact, you slept through all of yesterday, too. Come on, they left some food for you.”

Disturbed, Jared silently followed Tomas back into the main room. Had the Gray Lady been talking about the lash wounds when she’d wondered about permanent damage? Or had she sensed the hollowness inside him?

Now that he was no longer in pain or exhausted, he keenly felt the loss of whatever it was the wild stranger had taken with it. He knew, with absolute certainty, that he had no chance of getting free of the Invisible Ring without it.

“You still feeling bad?” Tomas asked.

Jared shook his head and sat down at the table that had one covered plate, a plate of toast, a cup, and a small pot of coffee.

Who had put a warming spell on the covered plate and pot of coffee? Polli, who sounded like she’d had her spirit as well as her inner web broken? The sharp-tempered Thera? Either of them would still have enough strength to do something as basic as this.

But when he touched the plate, he knew it had been neither one of them.

Running his finger around the plate’s rim, he found the spot where her finger had touched it, felt the ghost of the spark of power she’d used for the warming spell.

That she had done it at all spoke of concern and caring.

It made no sense.

“You’d best eat,” Tomas said, pouring the coffee. “We’ll be leaving here soon.”

Jared picked up the fork and began to eat, reminding himself with each bite to eat slowly. He couldn’t afford to have his stomach reject the meal in front of him just because he’d gulped it down, especially when he didn’t know when he might get the next one.

While he ate, Tomas told him about the other slaves. Besides Thera, Polli, and little Cathryn, there were nine males, including Tomas and himself: Blaed, the pleasure slave; Thayne; Brock and Randolf, two former guards; a mind-broken male named Garth; and Eryk and Corry, two boys about Tomas’s age.