Chapter 1 #2
Sinuously, she rose, the train of her gown slithering down the steps in her wake.
With each breath she grew closer until a whimper slipped from between my lips and my cheeks burned.
It was like the torture I’d endured on Ebyd III and the agony that rippled through my veins.
Like darkness and light, like fire and ice swirling deep in my core.
I wanted to give in and yet I would have rather catapulted myself into the emptiness of space.
Cool fingertips touched my cheek and a gasp filled the room. Maker, it was my gasp, the touch zinging down my spine until my core throbbed in agony. My hands twitched, as if they had a mind of their own and wanted to slip between my legs to relieve the ache.
“Take a breath, dearest,” the woman crooned, stroking down the column of my throat before she circled me.
Against my better judgment, I did. A wave of desire rose, threatening to crash, before I swallowed it back, locking my knees and fighting off the ripples of electricity buzzing in my bones. With each moment that passed, I pushed the sensation into a box along with the pain radiating through my arm.
“That’s quite the control you have.” A hand stroked my hair and I opened my eyes to find the female staring back at me, taller even than the Louxurian male. I jerked away from her touch, surprised when the mistress allowed it, even going so far as to raise her hands.
“Twenty-six cycles old, female,” she murmured to the male who pulled a small tablet from the inside of his waistcoat. “Selhveniain, according to her brand. Pale skin and dark red hair. Vascular system is a pale green—a typical trait of her species.”
My throat clicked, brows drawing together for a brief moment before I forced them smooth. The brand on the back of my neck would tell her all those things and it left me more naked than if she’d stripped off my clothes.
“Broken shoulder…yes, that needs to be fixed. High-nutrient diet will be needed too—from what I remember Selhveniains mainly eat plant matter; look into that, would you?”
“Yes, Mistress Lunastra,” Lyrace answered, fingertips tapping against the screen.
Lunastra crouched until we were eye to eye. There was something strange in her expression, as if I was looking at a mirror. It was the hardness in her gaze that felt similar, or perhaps it was the set of her full mouth.
“You’ve illegally boarded my ship. On all accounts I should turn you over to the Federation to be returned to Ebyd III for punishment.
” I didn’t wince, even at the thought of my death.
Lunastra’s tongue clicked and her gray eyes slid down my body once more.
“However, I could use someone of your talents. You climb, yes?”
A muscle twitched in my jaw and the mistress nodded as if that had been answer enough.
She sighed heavily, running a hand down her bodice.
“I lost Aimel, my silks dancer, a quarter cycle ago and I am willing to overlook the…eccentric way you’ve joined my house if you will take up their post. Have you been trained in the pleasures of the flesh? ”
Bile rose in my throat. Several cycles ago the guards had cornered me, those pieces of salpah, only for one to lose a finger and another to be evacuated to the med bay on Ebyd I.
The only saving grace had been the cameras they’d forgotten to disable or else I’d have been executed on the spot.
But yeska labor was valuable in the Federation, so I’d been spared.
My nostrils flared with my nausea, air whistling through my lungs.
Lunastra nodded. “That’s all right, dearest. Silks can be made to be seen, not touched. Lyrace, ensure a perimeter is installed around the stages.” The male hummed his understanding, typing away again on the data pad. “It’s your choice. I can turn you over to the authorities or you can stay.”
Being turned in meant certain death, though I couldn’t say it frightened me.
No, death would have been a release from the monotony of my existence and the weariness that made my bones ache.
Perhaps I would have chosen it, if not for the silver brand on the inside of Lunastra’s upper arm that glimmered in the halo orbs as she raised a hand to brush the hair back from my cheek.
A circle with a starburst in the center—thirteen points to represent the thirteen Class One planets within the Federation.
The mark of a pleasure yeska.
“There is no such thing as freedom. Instead, it is about finding a cage in which your wings might spread. I offer you that freedom, dearest, knowing full well what it means to suffer until death becomes merely another option on a list.” She stepped closer, and her voice dropped to a whisper.
“Make enough to pay your way, to repay the debt the house will incur by feeding you, healing you, keeping you, and I promise, whatever it is you seek…I will help you find it.”
We stared at each other in silence, and I nodded.
Lunastra smiled, something like relief swimming in her stormy eyes. With a gentleness that was unfamiliar, she guided me to another nondescript door on the opposite end of the chamber that opened with a hiss.
“Lyrace will see to your needs, and in the morning we’ll begin,” she purred. “For now, rest, recover, and know you are safe.”
A trickle of unease curled through the ache in my belly.
Safety was a dream, not a reality. Nothing in this universe was done out of kindness.
Nothing was given without the opportunity to take.
And I knew that soon payment must come. This mistress—my mistress—was not as she seemed.
But for now? For now, I was willing to try anything other than stark white walls and days repeated unendingly.
I cleared my throat before turning to the mistress.
“Eleven cycles,” I rasped. “I was there for eleven cycles.”