for those who could be bought and sold at the whim of their owners.
It had given Najir great satisfaction to buy the new slave out from under the Baron. Normally, he didn’t like to draw attention to himself, his reasons good and many, but he’d known the instant he had seen the white-haired male on the auction platform that the Master of House Drakoulous must have him. If for no other reason than that he was by far too superbly savage to tolerate any other master in the city. Certainly not the Baron. The price was high, but he wasn’t concerned with that. His Master would have paid twice as much and better.
Najir reached the gates of the grand estate of Drakoulous and they were already opening for him, the guards recognizing him on sight. Najir broke into a loping run as he hit the main drive, following it up the hill for a good distance before finally reaching the mansion itself. The pneumatic gates were automatic here, scanning his retinas without his even stopping. Access was instantaneous as he crossed the front gardens and lawn, entering the main doorway after yet another scan. The technology was standard, every home and shop capturing the identity of its patrons automatically.
Najir cut directly through the grand foyer, exchanging a brief greeting or two with staff and servants as he passed them. He hit the main stairwell, taking the sweeping mosaic steps all the way to the top floor where he knew his Master would be hard at work, earning the money that kept the household in such comfort and esteem. He finally came to a halt at the wide double doors leading to the main offices.
“Enter, Najir.”
Najir smiled and did exactly that, throwing open both doors and advancing. Hearing his entrance, the Master of House Drakoulous rose from her table and faced him as he dropped to a single knee and bowed his head.
“My Lady.”
“Najir,” she greeted him, rounding her worktable and reaching out to stroke fingers through his hair. “You are bursting with news, I see.”
“Yes, my Lady. I have found what you have needed for so long.”
It took her a moment of thought and a lightly crinkled brow as she considered his meaning. Najir couldn’t resist a chuckle, and he knew it was the cause of her instant understanding. She drew in a soft, shocked breath and took his face between her hands. Searching his eyes, she demanded, “Tell me! Tell me everything!”
Najir did so quickly, leaving out no detail of the auction and its central commodity. He watched with great pleasure as his description of the new slave made her pupils dilate with excitement. To his surprise, she also dropped to her knees and threw her arms around his neck, hugging him so tightly he couldn’t resist wrapping his arms around her supple body and hugging her in equal measure.
“You brilliant boy!” she praised in a whisper against his ear. “And better still that you set Majum back on his ass in the process. He must have been livid!”
“Positively,” he assured with a chuckle.
She quickly stood, drawing him up to his feet as well. “That alone makes our new addition worth each and every precious stone. When does he come to me?”
“Any minute now, my Lady.”
“Oh, Najir,” she whispered fast and hot, her dark eyes dancing with delight. “What a wonderful time this will be! I can tell you are looking forward to it as well. You will enjoy having a companion, I think.”
“I enjoy seeing you take great pleasure in things,” he countered, reaching out to stroke thick fingers down the length of her throat. She smiled, purring softly in pleasure at the familiar and favorite touch.
“Hold on to that idea,” she told him with a promising wink. “I have much to do if I am going to work on our new friend immediately. I wasn’t expecting this wonderful fortune and I am completely unprepared!”
“I’ll go to the living quarters and see to preparations there,” Najir said before she needed to instruct him. He knew what needed to be done and she would easily trust him to do it. “Shall I arrange for anything special?”
“No. Just see that he is situated with great care and left in total stasis until I’m ready. I will prepare the rest myself. Now go. Hurry!” She laughed in delight, clapping her hands together as she turned back to her workstation. Najir paused for only a minute, grinning as he watched her run both hands over her gloriously curved hips, whispering softly to herself of her plans.
Then he hurried off to do her bidding.
2
“That fucking bitch!”
The resonant roar was punctuated with a mighty crash as the Baron Wheyn Majum grabbed up the nearest piece of furniture and flung it into a wall clear across the room. The table shattered into splinters and glass, spraying a kickback of debris for several feet.
The Baron’s guard, Captain Hyde Sozo, watched his employer pitch his fit with darkly amused eyes, though he knew better than to show any other outward signs of his humor.
“What bitch would that be, sir?” he asked, although he already supposed he had a pretty good idea.
The Baron turned on Sozo in fury, jerking an indicative finger toward the guard. “That highborn whore is going to regret the day she thought to send a slave to spit in my face on her behalf!”
“I assume the auction didn’t go well?” Sozo ventured as he hitched a hip onto the corner of a nearby writing table. He swung his leg absently, the hilt of the frizzon blade tucked into his boot catching and refracting light again and again.
“She sent that blond, muscled confection of hers to the auction house so she could buy a new toy for herself, while publicly cutting me in the process,” Majum growled as he marched angrily to his desk and broke open a smoking blot, taking a deep draw on the hand-rolled combination of herbs and narcotic. “Damn but he was a prize, Hyde! Never have I seen anything like it. Drakoulous’s confection comes damn close, but he doesn’t have the bellcat eyes this one had. And this new one was bigger. Rougher.”
“Impossible to bring to heel?” Sozo queried archly, knowing very well what it was that pleased his boss.
“He would have cut his own throat before obeying me,” Majum agreed with dark avarice in his black eyes. “I knew it the minute the auctioneer said he’d fought free of the stasis field more than once.”
The captain laughed out in sharp disbelief. “That’s impossible. Unless the Rhou has been buying substandard equipment or forgetting to calibrate before using it.” Sozo shrugged a shoulder grudgingly. “Still, even then it’s an impressive trick.”
“So you see why I was willing to pay a pretty price for him,” the Baron remarked as he watched the guard captain reach for the decanter resting on the table he was using, filling glasses for them both. “And now she has him! Gods, what a matched set they will make if she breaks him alongside Najir. I’d like to punch a fist through her conniving skull.” Majum’s leather glove creaked as he fisted a hand violently for emphasis.
Sozo caught up both glasses and crossed to hand one to the Baron. “I always wondered how she got that first barbarian under her control. Remember his auction? He’d already killed one of the assistant handlers. You wanted him bad, too.”
“Don’t think I don’t remember that,” Majum spat after tossing back half of
