Chapter 12
Talarin turns and leaves the Med-Bay without telling me to follow. I fall in behind him, watching the folds of his robe swish around his ankles.
Fuck, but he’s tall. Well over seven feet in flat sandals. And it isn’t only his height. Aurelians are dense. Even Talarin, lean and lithe, must weigh more than five hundred pounds, the fibres of his muscles thicker and more tightly corded than a human’s, as though stone truly runs through him.
Somewhere along the passage, I realize that even without a leash, I have kept myself exactly one leash-length behind him.
The muscle memory is already beginning to form.
Every step reminds me that my feet are soft and weak because of him. My hands curl into fists, but the movement only makes me angrier. My short nails no longer dig into the smooth, too-soft skin of my palms, and the image of that perfectly groomed strip adorning my sex makes my blood boil.
We enter the dining hall. It is cool despite the morning sunlight, and only a few embers glow inside the broad hearth. Three enormous cushioned chairs face it, deeper and more comfortable-looking than the leather ones in their study.
Mero and Arrek lounge in two of them with cups of coffee, as though nothing has changed. As though they do not have a collared, naked woman in their home.
They do not even glance at me when I enter, although both men’s nostrils flare slightly above the rims of their cups.
Then Arrek looks. Just a quick glance, running from my neck to my breasts before settling on my slit. Infuriatingly, his lips curl into a smile.
“Enter your cage, pet,” Talarin says.
I cross the room, lower myself onto my hands and knees and crawl through the little door. The bell at my throat tinkles as I enter.
“Good girl.”
Fuck.
I hate when he calls me that.
Talarin closes the door and secures the external lock, then disappears into the passage behind us.
I settle onto the folded fur, draw my knees against my chest and wrap my arms around them. I look past the men and through the deep-set windows towards the sunlit terraces.
There is nothing for me to do except watch them and listen to their conversation.
Arrek has changed into heavy leather boots, faded blue work trousers and a thick checked shirt I recognize from watching him in the forest. Its sleeves are folded back over his powerful forearms.
Mero wears dark trousers and a close-fitting black knit shirt, fastened at the throat with three polished clasps.
At first glance, their clothes seem like regular work clothes.
But the longer I study them, the more details I begin to notice.
The checks of Arrek’s shirt meet perfectly across every seam, with pale shell clasps set into the folded cuffs.
Mero’s dense black knit follows every impossible line of his chest and shoulders without pulling anywhere.
The quality is impeccable, every piece perfectly tailored to their massive proportions, probably by an expert on Colossus with centuries, if not millennia, of experience.
“I’m going to cut back the overgrowth along the south wall, beside the lower vineyard,” Arrek says.
“That’s a losing battle,” Mero replies.
“I know. The wind keeps carrying the seeds over the wall.”
It isn’t the wind. The weed spreads through pale runners beneath the soil. Every time Arrek cuts it back, he leaves broken pieces behind, and each one grows into another plant. He needs to wait until the ground is wet and pull the entire web out at once.
I could tell him.
I’m not allowed.
For once, I enjoy that.
“Fucking shame about Marten and Renalis,” Arrek says. “Lain was on track to become the youngest captain in two hundred and fifty years.”
“You can rise quickly when Aurelians are dying like flies,” Mero says. “We lost too many good men in that war.”
Arrek takes another drink of his coffee and nods. “It’s good he didn’t wallow. He found another way to remain useful. He’s a fair one.”
Mero looks towards the sun beyond the windows.
Talarin returns wearing a martial Aurelian robe.
Its light fabric is cut to allow quick movement in a fight.
It suits him. While the almost-familiar work clothes worn by the others only make them look more alien, Talarin seems...
complete in the light robe, the black belt carrying his Orb-Blade hilt within easy reach of his hand.
He carries several books against his chest with his left arm, and I realize that even here, his right remains close to his weapon.
“I’m off to the city,” he says. “Did either of you want anything from the markets?”
Arrek looks at the books. “Those are very dear to you. I would feel bad asking for trivialities.”
A rare warmth enters Talarin’s expression. “It has been a long time since we’ve had trivialities.”
Arrek looks over at me. “Stand.”
I release my knees and rise inside the cage. Mero and Talarin look over too. A moment ago, I might as well not have existed. Now all three pairs of grey eyes are fixed upon me.
“Turn.”
I swallow and slowly turn beneath their gaze.
“What’s your favourite colour, girl?”
I hesitate. Just as I open my mouth, Arrek speaks again.
“Actually, never mind. Get her a nice pink collar. One with a bell that makes a beautiful sound.”
My mouth closes. Frustration burns through me.
“It is done,” Talarin says.
He exits into the courtyard with the books. A few moments later, a low hum travels through the limestone. Beyond the windows, their Reaver rises into the morning sky. It is the first time I have seen the warship move since they arrived.
Mero rises from his chair and snaps his fingers. “Down, girl.”
I glare at him, then lower myself onto my hands and knees.
He unlocks the cage and clicks his tongue twice. I crawl through the little door and stop in front of him.
“You’ve been a very good girl. You’ve done everything we’ve asked. If you don’t cause any trouble on our walk, I’ll give you a nice treat.”
“Stand.”
I rise and search his face, trying to understand him.
Does he even see me as human? Or has every human woman he has ever known been some harem woman begging for his cock or trying to seduce him? I cannot tell whether he is deliberately humiliating me, or whether this is simply how he sees my species.
Mero clips the leash to my collar and turns, drawing it against my neck. Arrek watches me, bemused. It takes everything I have not to snarl at him. Then I realize even that would only make him laugh.
Again, my hands close into fists, and I am reminded of their new softness. Everything feels so fucking unfair.
I can’t believe this is my life.
Mero leads me through the archway and into the courtyard, keeping the leash short. He walks slowly, taking my human legs into account.
The first things that catch my eye are the two stone staircases rising along the inner face of the wall beside the main gate.
I am stunned.
I have seen them a hundred times, but they were always simply part of the courtyard, never something I considered. Before, the problem was getting in. The outer wall is so slick and smooth that my climbing spike never made the slightest indentation, no matter how hard I struck the stone.
Now the staircases are a way up.
A way out.
Except that once I reached the top, I would still have to get down. The outer face is perfectly smooth, without a single foothold or anything I could use to descend.
And that drop. That terrible drop...
Mero continues walking, and I follow behind him. The limestone is beginning to warm beneath the morning sun. It feels good against my newly tender, sensitive feet.
We turn towards the pool. It looked long from my perch in the forest, but up close it seems enormous. The water is clear enough to see deep beneath the surface, and the bottom still looks impossibly far below.
Mero stops and looks back at me.
“You’re a good swimmer. You had to be, to fool Arrek with that river trick.”
I glance at the pool but do not respond.
“The fourth time we chased you, how did you get away? We have a bet on it.”
“Are you commanding me to answer, or are we making conversation?”
Mero raises one finger. I stop without thinking, and he turns to face me.
“Conversation. You know what the contract says. You are under no obligation to answer.”
“I don’t get it.”
“What?”
“Why are you acting like any of this is normal?” I hold out my hands, indicating the leash, the collar and my naked body.
Mero takes his time. His slate-grey eyes travel slowly over me before returning to my face.
“There is no shame in your body or what you want. On this planet, this is normal. Many women enter harems. Some sign contracts as pets or harem women. Others serve as household servants without sexual terms. You would be shocked by agreements darker than anything written in yours. This would not raise an eyebrow.”
He says it so calmly that I realize, for him, having a naked young woman on a leash is the most natural thing in the world.
“Tell me how you escaped, truthfully, and I will remove the leash for the remainder of this period. You will, however, remain within my sight.”
I lick my lips, considering. One hand rises to touch my collar.
“All right.”
I think back.
“The fourth time... That was when Arrek nearly caught me beside the vineyard.”
I point upwards.
“Up?”
I nod. “I climbed an ash tree and stayed there for four hours while all three of you searched for me. I kept thinking one of you would catch my scent. It was a long four hours.”
Mero laughs.
“What’s so funny?”
“That’s what Talarin guessed.”
I think back to those breathless hours in the tree, my heart pounding in my chest while I did not dare move. It was Talarin’s gaze that kept lifting, flicking over branches and leaves, but never finding my spot.
Mero unclips the leash slowly, coils it and slips it into the pocket of his trousers.
“Walk with me.”
Mero turns and continues beside the pool. I follow, then jog several steps to catch up with him. Deep, clear water stretches along my left.
There is nothing pulling against my collar now, nothing deciding exactly how much distance I am allowed to put between us. I walk at his side as though I am his equal, waiting to see whether it rankles him enough to order me back into place.
If it does, he gives no sign.
“We don’t age like humans,” he says. “And I don’t just mean how long we live.
The older we get, the slower we age. Some Aurelians let themselves become ancient rather than passing the torch and entering the cryo-bay so their next iteration can be born.
It was that spirit of weakness that let the Old Ways rise. ”
It comes out of nowhere.
Now I know what is constantly on this one’s mind.
“You fought in the Civil War, didn’t you?”
Something changes in his slate-grey eyes. His gaze remains upon me, but it seems to travel somewhere very far away.
“We’re just making conversation,” I say, a little more gently. “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”
Mero laughs. “I can’t tell if you mock me.”
The path curves away from the pool towards a broad fruit tree growing beside the wall. Beneath its branches, an enormous bench has been carved into the stone, facing the training ground.
Mero sits.
“Sit with me.”
“Is that a command?”
His face hardens. Beneath his dark trousers, his cock shifts and begins to swell.
“Sit.”
He pats the bench beside him.
The conversation is over.
For a moment, I am not sure how he expects me to sit. The bench was built for an Aurelian, and if I lowered myself normally, my feet would dangle above the ground. Instead, I climb onto it and fold my legs beneath me, sitting cross-legged.
The training ground is a darker square of stone set into the pale limestone below us.
I watched them once or twice.
Or perhaps it was a few times.
It felt wrong in a way that watching them swim did not. Like I was intruding upon something... personal.
From my perch, I watched as Mero and Talarin fought for nearly twenty minutes without either giving ground.
Every thrust, every parry left me entranced.
Their blue-black Orb-Blades moved so quickly that sometimes I could follow only the light.
They seemed like extensions of their bodies, sparks and lightning flashing whenever they met.
Then Mero found an opening.
His blade swept towards Talarin’s neck, and I thought I was about to watch his head come off.
The blue-black energy vanished at the final instant. Only the dark inner blade struck him, its edge dulled before it touched his skin. Talarin reached up begrudgingly and touched the mark already forming against the pure white of his neck.
Then they went again, and they went again, until their bodies were soaked with sweat beneath the summer sun.
It feels so long ago and yet not long at all.
Mero’s enormous hand settles upon my head.
His fingers move gently through my hair, and I freeze. I do not know whether to pull away or remain still. I do not know what to do with the fact that it feels... almost good, that my first instinct wasn’t to flinch.
“I’m going to take you inside and continue your training,” he says. “If you’re good, tomorrow I’ll let you swim.”
Training.
“And don’t worry, pet. I can smell when you like it.” His fingers continue stroking my hair. “I will only command you while your slit is slick.”
I gasp and pull away from him, even as a shameful tendril of heat curls between my legs, even as my soft skin feels far too sensitive.
“On my lap. Now.”
I clamber awkwardly across his lap. The instant I do, he stands.
I gasp. One enormous arm slides beneath my knees while the other closes around my back. He turns me effortlessly, cradling my naked body against the dense black knit of his shirt.
To him, a hundred and six pounds might as well be a feather.
Mero carries me back through the archway and into the dining hall.
Arrek is still beside the low fire. The moment we enter, he sets down his coffee and rises. His grey eyes move over my naked body, cradled in his battle-brother’s arms, and his mouth begins to curl.
Then his nostrils flare, and I know he tastes my shame, my humiliation and, worst of all, that tiny, traitorous tendril of aching need.
“Who’s a needy little thing?” he asks, his voice dripping with dark promise.
Mero holds me firmly against him. His hands feel impossibly hard against my newly softened skin, every point of contact almost unbearable.
Then he lowers me until my bare feet touch the limestone.
“Are you going to be a good girl?”
I look up at him. His cock throbs against the front of his dark trousers, the fabric pulled tight around its enormous length.
Then I look towards Arrek. He has hardened as well, his erection straining beneath his faded blue work trousers. The cruel gleam in his eyes tells me the only thing he wants more than my obedience...
Is for me to disobey, so he has an excuse to turn my ass red.
I nod, my fear spiking, and with it, my need.