To The Princess Bound (14 page)

“All right,” Victory said, “Let’s go.  I’ve had about as much time out in the real world as I can handle, at the moment.”  She turned to go.

Two Praetorian were in the process of standing him up when doors slammed open on the other side of the hall and a man in black and red armor came striding through the far side, his body surrounded by the greenish haze of an energy shield.  Behind him came a dozen male Praetorian bearing the golden dragon-and-phoenix insignias upon their breasts.

Her father,
Dragomir thought,
The Adjudicator himself
.  The man was about six foot-three, but he carried himself as if he were nine.  His eyes were a sharp, arrogant gray and his blonde hair was streaked with white.

And, if it weren’t for the hazy green energy bubble around the man’s body, muddying Dragomir’s second sight, he could have saved Mercy a century of heartache by working a couple simple knots into the man’s flow of gi.

Then he realized that Victory was frozen behind him.  He could feel the fear welling up within her, and Dragomir frantically tried to wrap her in calm, wishing he could reach out and touch her.

The Adjudicator bellowed something in Imperial and never slowed in his approach, and Victory shrank back against the wall, whimpering, her terror swirling upwards despite Dragomir’s attempt to calm it.  He cursed, wishing he could get a hand free.  Physical contact was the easiest, most direct method of pass calming energy to his patients, but his hands were literally tied.

Just hold on,
Dragomir said, closing his eyes infusing her
au
with as much peace as he could. 
Whatever’s going on, you can deal with it, Princess.

The man strode up to Victory as if he didn’t even notice the way she was shrinking into a corner, dragging Dragomir with him.  The man glanced at Dragomir, then began shouting something in Imperial, gesturing at his body.

The male Praetorian behind him marched forward and, with a violence that snapped the pretty golden mermaid pin that the handmaiden had used to fasten it to his waist, yanked the sheet from Dragomir’s body, once more exposing his nakedness for all to see.

Hot shame coursed through Dragomir under the stares of so many dispassionate eyes.  The Adjudicator, in particular, made him feel as if he were a cow or a sheep up for perusal.  The man walked around him, utterly unconcerned by the way that Victory was now screaming in the corner.

Victory!
  Dragomir realized that the intensity of his shame had drowned out his feeling for her terror, and she had fallen into a full-fledged panic.  He hurried to kneel beside her—if he could just get a hand on her, he knew he could help—but was brought up short and hard by a Praetorian’s sudden grip on the chain at his neck.

Behind him, the Adjudicator barked a command.  An instant later, a kick in his exposed manhood brought him gasping to his knees.  Arcs of pain drove through his body as the Praetorian took turns kicking him, driving him into the stone floor with their blows.  Dragomir groaned and tried to apologize, tried to explain, but if anything, his words made their attack more brutal.  He heard his ribs snap, felt the explosion of pain and the sick feeling in his gut as their boots connected with his stomach.  He tried to scrunch into a ball in desperation, but with his arms stuck behind his back, he could do little to protect himself.  His face, chest, and groin were completely exposed to their assault.

And, through it all, Victory screamed. 
I’m sorry,
Dragomir thought, as he began to lose consciousness. 
I’m so sorry…

Reliving the Past

“Who told you that you could clothe the slave?” her father demanded, as Victory sank deeper into the wall, wildly trying to get a hold on her panic.  She could feel Dragomir helping, but with so many men, so close, she was starting to lose control, and they both knew it.  She started to whimper, unable to fashion an intelligible answer to her father’s question.

“My orders were for the slave to be
naked,
” her father snarled.  “Is this a
game
to you, Victoria?”  He gestured furiously at a Praetorian.  “Remove it from him.  Now.”

Victoria gasped as the first images started flooding her from within, triggered by her father’s angry face.

Cold meat, untouched on a plate, congealed in grease, smelling of rancid rot.  A furious face. 
“What, is my food not good enough for you, Princess?  Maybe if you don’t wish to eat it, you can wear it, instead.”
  The cold, rancid meat sliding down her shirt, between her legs.  Laughter at her cries. 
“Or maybe you’d like to use it, instead.”
  The feel of it rubbed back and forth, sliding between her delicate lips, until her own body had warmed it and the juices ran freely down her legs.  The feel of it in her hair, on her skin…

Distantly, she saw Dragomir stumble towards her, and, seeing his naked body, she was taken to another place, another time.  She screamed for him to have mercy, that her baby was due within weeks.

Distantly, she heard her father snort.  “What’s she saying?  She’s
scared
of that brute?  Then give her a show.  I want him groveling on the ground.  Make her understand she’s being stupid.”

Victory heard thumps and grunts, and watched as a dozen men held her down and used her, their wet scrotums slapping against her as she whimpered up at the falling snow.

She lost herself to the horror then, weeping for mercy as their heavy forms moved over her, while at the same time she was grateful for the warmth…

Victory opened her eyes sometime later, her body still shaking with leftover adrenaline.  When she looked around, she was surprised to see that she was back in her chambers, laying comfortably in her bed, the blankets wrapped around her.

For an instant, she thought that perhaps she had experienced another nightmare, that her father truly hadn’t given the order to chain her to a man.  Then she felt the hardness of the metal belt biting into her back, saw the chain loop under the covers and down onto the floor.

Frowning, Victory sat up and looked over the edge of the bed.

Dragomir was there, face down on the stone, his body a mass of ugly red bruises.  Aside from a shallow breath now and again, he was absolutely motionless.  His wrists and ankles were bleeding where the metal had bitten into his skin, obviously due to some struggle.  She stared.  Then she cried out for her Praetorian.

“I gave orders that this slave not be harmed!” she snapped.  “What happened?”

The captain of her guard, a lithe, powerful woman who had aptly chosen the name of ‘Lion’ once she finished her training, looked irritated.  “Your father’s guard, milady.  You went into shock and screamed.  The lord Adjudicator decided to prove to you that there was nothing to fear.”

“By
beating him senseless?
”  Victory was so furious she could hardly breathe.  “Bring my doctors in here. 
Now.
”

The woman actually looked relieved.  “Thank you, milady.  As much as your father’s ways are blunt and brutish…we’re all glad to see the changes the slave has brought about in you.  We all think your brother made a good choice.”

The changes?
Victoria thought, frowning. 
It’s only been a day.
  Then her eyes went wide.  “You know what he is?”

Lion smiled.  “We accompanied your brother, looking for him.  Your brother’s personal guard, and yours.”

“And you’re not afraid of him?!” Victory demanded.

“Milady,” the Praetorian said, “I believe that if he was going to harm someone, he would have done it during your brother’s beatings.  It’s why Prince Matthias was so brutal—he was testing him.  Three others failed the test.”  She nodded her head at the native on the ground.  “He passed without even a ping on the meter.”

“What happened to the others?” Victoria whispered, dreading the news.

“Your brother sent them home, milady.”

Victory froze.  “He did
what?
”

But the Praetorian bowed her leave.  “If you’ll excuse me, I will go get him some medical attention.”  Turning on heel, she jogged from the room, her heavy, steel-shod boots clicking on the marble floor.

Victory hesitantly dropped down beside the unconscious man and, after a long moment of watching him breathe, gingerly touched a hand to his battered brow.  She bit her lip.  The last time she had seen anything so gruesome, it had been on her own face, after the first man had taken her virginity on the raiders’ ship and left her naked and shivering, chained to the toilet in the tiny lavatory. 

Her eyes slipped down his back, gingerly touching the bruises along the spine. 
They could have paralyzed him,
she thought, horrified by the huge black bruises she saw there.  Her fingers moved on, and they stopped on the bands around his wrists.  She bit her lip at the crusted blood she saw there, recognizing the marks for what they were. 
He tried to protect himself,
she thought, remembering a time when she had done the same.

“You could release them, you know,” came a weak rasp from the floor.  “I’m pretty sure it’d be easier for me to shit nails than it would be to get my ass off the ground right now.”

Victory jumped and slid away from him, though only halfway to the end of the chain.  She sat there, just out of reach, watching him warily.  “I’ve got doctors coming.  They’ll give you nanos, painkillers.”

Dragomir made a wry sound into the black marble floor.  “My arms don’t hurt so much anymore.”

Victory winced at what he left unsaid.  When the doctors arrived, they lifted Dragomir off of the floor and laid him out in the bed, the relocation dragging a ragged moan from his throat.  They analyzed him, injected him with nanos, wrapped his ribs tight in bandages, and cleaned and covered any visible wounds. 

“Ribs are broken, milady,” one of the doctors said.  “Should be a simple fix, though, and the healing process will be greatly increased by the nanotech.  Bruises should fade within a day and a half.  You’ll be able to remove the bandages within a week.”  The woman nodded at Dragomir’s sleeping form.  “We’ve given him a sleeping draught, as well as painkillers.  He should be asleep for the next five or six hours.”

“Thank you,” Victory said, nodding their dismissal.  Already, on the bed, the native’s huge chest was rising and falling in a deeper, more even rhythm, and the lines of pain had faded from his face.

“I’m sorry,” she told the sleeping man, once the door had closed behind them.

“Not your fault,” he slurred. 

Victory smiled, despite herself.  “Go to sleep, stubborn cad.”

“Working on it, wench.”

She raised an eyebrow.  “Did you just call me
wench?!
”

His reply was a soft snore.

She let a slow grin play upon her lips, despite herself.  Once she was sure he was asleep, she crept forward.  Somehow, the fact that there was nothing powering the brute made it easier for her to cope with his presence, and she found her curiosity taking hold of her.  Even bruised and bloody, his body was glorious.  She reached out and traced the bandages of his ribs, gingerly feeling the rise and fall of his chest.

She remembered her father’s arrival, his bellow of,
“I’m tired of you disobeying me, girl!  I’ve told you to come to my chambers six times, now, and you’ve ignored me.  What do you think my empire must think of me, if I cannot even control my own child?”

Victory squeezed her eyes shut against the vision. 

“I see you were properly fitted with the beast.  Are you beginning to see that your fears are ridiculous?”

Victory slammed her fist into the headboard. 
I hate you,
she thought, wishing she could have had the presence of mind to say as much. 
Matt and I both.  You are a prideful, small-minded fool.

She thought of Matt and her heart ached.  She hadn’t seen her brother but once, when he had quietly slipped into her chamber after Victory realized she had somehow come to be taken back home.  She had seen his great body, the size of his shoulders and hands, and had screamed herself hoarse.

He had quickly backed away, tears in his eyes.

She glanced again at the Emp, misery welling up within her. 
He said he could help me,
she thought.  She allowed herself a little hope.  Twice today, she had received comments that she was getting better.  In less than a day, he had somehow begun to do what an army of doctors had not.