To The Princess Bound (4 page)

Keene had to laugh.  “Permanent.”  Seeing his son was going to make no move to obey, Keene retrieved his glass of wine—also imported—and took a sip.  He peered into the deep crimson liquid, considering.  If there was one thing that Keene enjoyed, it was a psychological puzzle.  “You say she’s afraid of men?” he asked.

His son straightened and gave him a sneer.  “Wouldn’t you be, in her position?”

“No,” Keene said, setting his glass down.  “And no daughter of mine will be allowed to entertain such ridiculous fears.”

Prince Matthias’s mouth dropped open.  “Not
allowed
…?”

“Go to the stables,” Keene said, his powerful mind already made up.  “Find the biggest, most fearsome brute you can get.  Affix a belt to Victoria’s waist and chain him to it.  Naked.  Make her drag the beast around everywhere she goes.  Hobbled and restrained, of course.  That should make her realize her fears are unfounded.” 

His son flushed red, fury starting to bubble within his green eyes.  “I told you she was
raped
!”

Keene frowned and wiped a blemish from the edge of the glass.  “Make the chain eight feet long.”  He went back to his paperwork.  “Oh, and stop allowing food to be brought to her room.  If she wishes to eat, she will emerge and face the world.”

“She needs time to
heal,
” his son sputtered.

“You said yourself she’s had two months.  And that there’s been no sign of recovery.”

“Yes, but she screams—”

Keene snorted.  “I’ve raised four children.  If I’ve learned one thing from the experience, it’s not to humor a child having a tantrum.”  He motioned at the door.  “Go see to it.  She’s to wear her new slave until she overcomes her fears.  However long it takes.”

In the silence that followed, Keene could feel his son staring at him.  He looked up.  “That’s a command, Matthias.”

“Some days, Father, I hate you.” 

“Not surprising,” Keene said, returning to his figures.  “Royalty isn’t allowed the luxury of familial endearments enjoyed by most commoners.  It is one of the drawbacks to being royalty.”

Matthias whirled and stormed from the room, slamming the priceless door behind him.

Keene shook his head, amused, and dipped his quill for another calculation.

Victory sat in a corner of her bedroom, arms wrapped around her knees, shuddering at the sound of booted footsteps against stone in the hall outside.

Here he comes,
she thought, trying to fight down the animal panic that was beginning to claw at her throat.  Father was going to chain her to a man.  For days,
months
… 
Oh gods oh gods…

Sure enough, the door opened and four Praetorian women stepped inside, a monstrously big man hobbled between them.  He was easily six and a half feet tall—a hulking brute whose head almost hit the door jamb as he shuffled inside.  His ebony hair had been shaved down to his scalp, and had an odd streak of white—
scarring?
—along his right temple.  His muscles rippled when he moved.

He was naked.

When her eyes found that place between his legs, open and exposed, terror hit her like a surge of lightning.  Victory whimpered and tried to crawl further into the wall, but the metal ring around her waist only ground into the marble.

Oh no,
she thought, trembling, as the House Praetorian located her huddled in the corner of her room and moved closer. 
Oh no, no, no… 
Pulled between the four women, the man kept his eyes on the ground, away from her.

Knowing what they planned, knowing she
had
to stop it or it would kill her, Victory forced herself to her feet, her entire body trembling.  “Praetorian, as the Adjudicator Potentiate, I order you not to do this.”

The women only hesitated a moment, glancing at each other nervously.  Then one of the black-clad women uncoiled a heavy chain, and in horror, Victory realized that one end was already hanging from the man’s metal collar, dangling against his broad, brown native chest.  Seeing that, it took every ounce of willpower Victory had to keep her voice steady.  “I am the next Empress of this planet, and I’m
commanding
you to stop.”

“Sorry, milady,” the Praetorian said, sounding sincerely apologetic.  “It was the Adjudicator’s orders.”  When the Praetorian woman reached for the band of metal her father’s smiths had sealed around Victory’s waist, her nerves finally failed her.  Letting out a terrified cry, she tried to bolt.  Two of the four House Praetorian lunged and caught her, then held her easily as the woman fed the chain through the loop in her belt. 

As the tether rattled against the titanium band encircling her hips, Victory felt the world shift, felt herself on a cold dirt floor, naked, hands bound painfully behind her back as a huge form grunted over her.  A huge form much like the one standing before her, with similar brown, sun-darkened skin and long, lean face.  Feeling the Praetorian retrieve the flash-welder from her pocket and start sealing the leash binding them together, Victory whimpered and clung to the women holding her, putting them between herself and the native.  “Please don’t leave me with him,” she whimpered.  “Please.”  Her breath was starting to burn in her throat, and she couldn’t seem to get enough air.

“I’m sorry, Milady,” the Praetorian woman said.  Her words sounded genuine, even anguished.

They’re going to leave me alone with him,
she realized.  With it, came a new wave of horrible sensations.  She could feel their big bodies moving against hers, hunched over her, their fingers probing, penetrating.  Their demonic faces were wet with sweat, her thighs wet with their remains.  She felt her own anguish welling back up from within, her own terror choking her through the gag.

Shivering all over, Victory caught the man watching her.

It was only for a second, his deep blue eyes flickering across hers before he quickly dropped his gaze back to the floor, but it was enough to break what little hold Victory had on her body.  She lunged and fought like a wild thing, biting and clawing, screaming curses as she tore at the House Praetorian that held her.

She might as well have been battering statues.

The women efficiently finished welding the chain in place, then released Victory, bowed, and turned to go.

Seeing them retreat, Victory went utterly still, her terror ratcheting up another notch.  So terrified she couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, she managed, “Wait!”  She found herself suddenly frozen in place, with the stranger between her and the door.  “Please don’t…”  she swallowed, hard, forcing out the words through bile, “leave me…with him.” 
Oh gods, please, no…
  She swallowed again, fighting a building animal terror that was clawing its way up from within.  “Please.”  It came out as a barely-controlled rasp, and she hated the way it sounded like begging.

One of the House Praetorian slowed and gave the huge slave an uncomfortable look.  “Your father’s orders, Princess.  The Adjudicator says at least a couple weeks.”  The woman licked her lips, looking up at the slave’s massive frame.  “Just endure for a couple weeks and I’m sure your father will tell us to take the brute back to the stables.” 

A couple
weeks
?
Victory’s startled mind screamed.  She’d die.  She couldn’t survive a
day
, let alone a
week
.

But then the woman bowed and followed her brethren from the room, passing by Victory’s scowling personal Praetorian on the way—four women wearing the symbol of the Phoenix-and-Egg, instead of the House Phoenix-and-Dragon—and bowed again before yanking the door shut, leaving Victory alone with the looming stranger.

Though she had spent the last five days preparing herself, only eight feet from his massive body, Victory sank against the wall in terror, her breath speeding up in her chest. 
Oh gods,
she thought, drawing the chain tight as she tried to crawl backwards across the wall. 
Oh gods oh gods.

As soon as the chain went taut, and she got a feel of just how
close
the man would be to her, permanently, something within her snapped and Victory began scrambling like a wild thing, tugging and pulling, panting, screaming as her mind evaporated in terror.

The man stepped forward, loosening the chain.

Victory’s entire world narrowed to the line that had slackened between them.

“Stay back!” she screamed, clawing to get back to her feet, a hand up between them.  “Stay
back
!”  She started backing away, looking for some weapon, some tool.

“Sorry,” he whispered to the floor. 

The sound of the native tongue drove a nail through Victory’s chest.  She sank to the floor, remembering what happened when those sounds were made.  She was once more chained to a post, exposed to the elements, begging for food or clothes, hoping the man who brought them didn’t want something in exchange.  Whimpering, she drew her knees up to her chin and wrapped her arms around her shins and started to shiver. 

“Please don’t hurt me,” she whimpered, watching the scene in her mind.  “Please, please, please…”

To the Princess Bound

So this was why he had been taken from his home at gunpoint.  They wanted him to serve a royal woman.  Naked, humiliated, Dragomir stared at the floor with bitter resignation as the black-clad Praetorian led him into the room.  He knew what they would want him to do, and he despised the thought.  He’d heard of similar things happening all over Mercy.  The Imperials looked upon the Mercerians as little more than animals, and abducted them from their villages at a whim.  It had probably been his size that had attracted Imperial attention.  Most Mercerians were much smaller, care of cold winters and wartime malnutrition, and Dragomir had stood almost a head over most of the men in Sodstone.  With the Imperials taking millions of slaves throughout Mercy each day, Dragomir might as well have painted a neon target on his back and danced through the front lines—sooner or later, they were going to find him.

Hopefully, the royal woman would grow tired of him and he could somehow find a way home.  With the Imperial invasion in full force, there was much sickness in the Silversand Mountains.  The village of Sodstone needed its healer. 

Besides, as long as Life was going to stubbornly keep him alive despite his wishes, Dragomir wanted to get back to Sodstone to meet this soul that had been teasing him across the end of that massive link.  A woman.  In pain.  It had been almost a month, now, and he felt no closer to meeting her than he had when the connection had knocked him out of his chair.

As they led him toward the woman huddled against the wall, he kept his eyes down, as he had been told to do between the beatings leading up to this.  The man’s blazing green stare still haunted him. 
You will do exactly as she tells you, instantly, without hesitation.

But Dragomir had been close enough to feel the man, and his green-eyed tormentor had been in great anger and pain inside, so much of it leveled against Dragomir that it made no sense.  In between lashings, he had snarled dire warnings of what would happen to him—and his village—if he hurt her in any way…

…and then he had told Dragomir to help her.

Dragomir was still bitterly puzzling through that when the Praetorian tugged him to a halt about six feet from the jewel-clad woman on the floor.  As he stood there, tense, he blinked when he felt the fear feeling washing off of the royal woman in cold,
rama
-clenching waves.