Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 85108 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 426(@200wpm)___ 340(@250wpm)___ 284(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85108 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 426(@200wpm)___ 340(@250wpm)___ 284(@300wpm)
Thrax wanted to lie again—he wanted to hide his shameful past. But looking at his partner’s worried face, he knew he couldn’t do it. Andi was right—he owed her an explanation—even if he had to dredge up his ugly past to give it to her.
“Fine.” He sighed heavily and ran a hand over his horns. “I’ll tell you. When I was a younger male—about a year before I came of age—my friend Braze and I were out for our first interstellar run and we were captured by slavers.”
“You were?” Andi’s eyes went wide. “That’s awful!”
“That’s not even the worst part,” Thrax told her. “They took us to the Flesh Bazaar—the auction house that specializes in slaves of all kinds. It’s where a lot of Yonnie Six Mistresses get their new bodyslaves. My friend, Braze was taken by Mistress Sweetwater, who eventually let him go. But I was bought by Mistress Stoneheart and she took me to her home on Yonnie Six. You see, she trains male bodyslaves for other Mistresses and sells them. So that was what she did to me—she ‘trained’ me.”
Andi’s eyes narrowed.
“Trained you how?” she asked quietly. “What did she do to you, Thrax?”
Thrax felt like he’d swallowed a lump of ice and it was sitting there, unwilling to melt in the pit of his belly. His throat was dry as dust but he ignored the Thirst that was now raging inside him.
“She trained me to please her, of course,” he said harshly. “And to serve her sexually. She made me submit to her in every fucking way you can imagine. She tied me down and teased me—played with my cock without ever letting me come.” The words seemed to stick in his throat but he made himself continue. “She made me crawl for her—beg her for any kind of sexual favors she was willing to grant.”
“What?” Andi sounded horrified, but Thrax couldn’t look at her. He kept his eyes averted as he talked.
“You heard me,” he said harshly. “I was young…impressionable. I hadn’t even reached my full growth yet—I was only what your people would call a ‘teenager’ when she first took me. I had never even been with a woman before that. So I guess you could say that the Mistress was my first…in a way.” He laughed harshly and rubbed the small of his back.
“So she molested you,” Andi said softly. “That bitch!”
“She molded me into what she wanted—a male who was submissive to her in every way,” Thrax growled. “Do you know how shameful that is on my home world?” he demanded, looking at her at last. “A male being submissive?”
“It’s not your fault,” Andi protested. She put a hand on his arm but Thrax shook it off.
“It is my fault. I wasn’t strong enough to resist,” he growled. “I tried at first but she fucking tortured me. Kept me tied down and restrained for days. Then the first thing she did when she let me free was to brand me—to mark me as hers.” He rubbed his back again where the tattoo ink barely covered the old branding scars. “I was her property to be bought and sold.”
“Thrax, I just…” Andi shook her head. “I can’t believe you’ve never told me this before. I thought we knew everything about each other!”
“I’ve been trying to forget it for the past twenty years,” he growled, glaring at her. “It was like living in one of the Seven Hells. If I was ‘bad’ I got the pain whip or the pain collar. She beat and tortured me fucking daily. But it was worse when I was ‘good.’”
“It was?” Andi asked faintly.
He nodded.
“Do you know what she would do if I was a ‘good boy’ at the end of the day? She’d let me taste her pussy—never as much as I wanted to—just a taste to tease me. But I would do fucking anything, just for that taste. Anything at all to please her so she’d let me go down on her.” He ran a hand over his horns again, feeling his insides twist with shame. “Kindred have a biological need to taste their females, you know—she used that against me. Perverted it into something sick and twisted.”
“Thrax, I’m so sorry.” Andi’s voice was soft and tentative. “She tortured you—abused you.”
He shook his head and looked away.
“It was a long time ago now—twenty fucking years since I escaped from that bitch. I should be over it.”
“Well, you’re clearly not.” Andi came to stand in front of him. “Look at me,” she said. But Thrax couldn’t. He kept his eyes down—he didn’t’ want to see what the woman he loved thought of him now.
He rose from the bed and rubbed his eyes. His fingers came away black from the elaborate eye makeup that he’d been wearing for hours now.