The Slave (Free Men Book 1)(8)

I lay still, listening as his breaths evened out in the quiet room, as  his movements stilled and his grip loosened in sleep. I felt every part  of him against me, keeping my skin super aware of him. My poor erection  had almost entirely deflated; my groin throbbed as though it were on  fire. I eased out of his embrace, careful not to wake him. I tucked him  in, and it seemed as if he frowned a little when I placed a kiss on his  noble brow before leaving for my own bed.





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I couldn't sleep.

I lay awake, staring blindly up towards the ethereal folds of the thin  white muslin that hung from the canopy of my bed. My arsehole stung, my  balls ached, the places where Master had scratched and bitten swelling  and itching. My body felt like it was on fire, flames radiating outwards  from my groin.

I squirmed as his semen began to leak from me, the sensation somewhere  between a tickle and an itch. I covered my face with my hands as my  master's juices slowly absorbed into the sheets of my pristine bed. I'd  tried to clean up before retiring, smearing the worst of the oil and  spunk away, but even the touch of my fingers, busy with utility, had  been almost too much to bear. If I were not to disobey his orders by  mistake, I had to stop.

A sound reached me through the stifling layers of misery and self-pity,  the same thin wail that had soaked into my room the night before. A  flash of irritation surged through me. What had Kai got to cry about? It  was followed immediately by a flood of remorse. This was only his  second night. He'd lost everything, and here I was wallowing because I'd  not been allowed to come for two days. I really was a selfish pig.

I rose, brushing aside the thin muslin. I wrapped one of my blankets  around me as my skin tightened in the chill night air and padded into  the corridor. Kai didn't hear the key turn in the lock, but as I stepped  inside and closed the door, he fell silent. I squinted in his  direction, a pale shadow curled on the low mattress, a negative, an  inverse reflection in this black and empty room.

A new sound reached me as I knelt beside him. His teeth were chattering.

Of course, he had destroyed his bedding and been forbidden more. He  clung valiantly to the thin robe I had given him at the slavemarket-a  whole lifetime ago, it seemed. The material was soft silk and no use to  him once darkness fell and the air grew cold. Without a word, I  unwrapped the blanket from my shoulders and wound it around us both.         

     



 

Kai's body was like ice: all sharp, protruding points which burnt with  cold. I pulled him closer to warm him, belatedly remembering as our skin  connected that I was nude. He, however, still wore his loincloth. It  would have to suffice.

He remained rigid in my arms as I tried to rub some heat into him, but  he didn't push me away. His breaths were quick and light, sour against  my face, and they paused and stuttered with alarm when, in my brisk  ministrations, I passed over some sensitive spot.

I handled him with the rough care of an exasperated parent: brief, quick  movements that held no sexual overture-indeed, I didn't think of sex at  all. He trembled violently, fine hairs and goose bumps raised all over  his skin. I rubbed our feet together, tangled our legs, swiped my palms  down his back and up his chest and along his arms. I pressed us close as  lovers, thumbed the tears from his cheeks, and cradled his head against  the crook of my neck. His breath was hot and damp on my clavicle, and  his hands were tight fists lightly brushing the base of my spine.

Slowly, slowly he calmed. His limbs acquired the looseness of  almost-sleep, and we settled more comfortably. Still, neither of us had  spoken a single word. I kissed the top of his shorn head and drifted off  to the rhythmic tug of his fingers twisting in my hair.





CHAPTER SIX





I awoke cold, stiff and uncomfortable. I grumbled, still half-asleep and  my eyes tight shut, groping for the cover and dragging it up around my  chin. The resistance from the blanket was my first reminder that I was  not alone, and I snapped my eyes open, for half a second forgetting I  had entered Kai's room, my heart pounding in expectation of seeing  Master sleeping beside me, as I had craved for so long.

Emerald eyes stared back. He was awake, curled on his side and looking at me, practically nose-to-nose and perfectly calm.

"You look disappointed."

I pulled back a little to see him more clearly. "No," I said. "Just forgot where I was for a minute."

"I was looking at your tattoos. I didn't mean to wake you."

I rolled the shoulder I wasn't lying on in half a shrug. "We need to be up soon, anyway."

"Where did you get them?" He reached out, boldly tracing the procession of blue dots that marched across my collarbone.

"My brother made that one." I wet my dry lips with my tongue.

"Is he a slave, too?"

"I wasn't born a slave," I snapped, suddenly defensive. "He was killed."

"I'm sorry."

"So you should be. It was your army that did it."

His eyes widened, and he recoiled from me. I missed his touch immediately. "My army?"

"Rebel troops. Deserters. It doesn't matter now."

"They killed your brother?"

I smiled bleakly. "They killed everyone-everyone except me. I was carried off to the slavemarket instead."

He frowned, his gaze dropping to focus somewhere between us. "I'm sorry."

"It wasn't your fault." I smiled, touching under his chin so he looked at me. "It was a long time ago."

"So, did your brother do all your tattoos?"

"Most." I pushed the blanket down to expose my chest and traced a thick  swirl around my pectoral. "My middle brother did this one."

He reached out to touch the old inkstain. "Didn't it hurt?"

"Not really. You get used to it. This one was the worst-it tickled." I  indicated a long band of colour that slid along my flank to my hip.

He brushed his fingers over it, and I quivered, still ticklish.

"I like the way it moves." He smiled at me, a sudden flash of white teeth.

"Master likes it, too."

His smile faded.

"I wonder what it would be like, sometimes, not to have them. Not to  always stand out or have to cover them up if I leave the house." I  appraised his unmarked skin candidly. It was a shade or two lighter than  Master's, or darker than my own. The colour of warm caramel like I used  to be before Master forbade me spending so long in the sun. He worried  it would damage my skin, and I had long since faded back to my natural  milk-white.

There was a ring around each of Kai's biceps where his clothing used to  prevent him from catching a tan, and a small scooped line at the base of  his neck just below his collar; the shape of his army fatigues. I  touched that line, reaching out slowly so he had time to anticipate my  movement. He shied a little, his expression wary, but held still as my  fingertips connected with his satiny skin.

"Perhaps we're all marked," I murmured. "We all wear the evidence of our  past lives on our bodies somewhere. At least your marks will fade."         

     



 

"Is that what you want-to forget your past life?"

"No." I drew back, folding my arms together between us. "Do you?"

His face betrayed his flurry of emotion. "I don't know."

"Give it time."

He nodded. "That's all I have now, isn't it? Time." He laughed humourlessly, and I frowned.

"What do you mean?"

"This is it for us, isn't it? Unless we get sold, we'll be here every  day until we die-isn't that what you've been telling me? No use hoping  or planning for the future because we don't have one. Not anymore." His  eyes suddenly shone too brightly. "There was so much I wanted to do … ."

A weight settled in the pit of my stomach as I looked at him, suddenly  vulnerable and afraid and filled with a bone-deep sadness I didn't know  how to heal. I had been taken and sold before I was old enough to  nurture aspirations of my own, and even if I had been more Kai's age, I  came from a nomadic race of simple people. All those things Kai dreamed  of-a career and wealth and physical possessions-were meaningless to my  tribe. It was no loss to me to have forsaken them. There were no words  of comfort, nothing I could say to make all of this better for him.

I swallowed thickly around the lump in my throat. "I'm sorry."

He blinked. "It's not your fault. You're the only one who's been kind to me in days." He laughed bitterly. "More than days."

"Your …  friend. In the army," I began tentatively.

"Maal."

"Did he know?"

"That I loved him?" He shook his head. "No. I never got a chance to tell him."

"What happened?"

His face closed down. "I don't want to talk about it."

"Do you think he would have loved you back?"

"I don't know." It was barely a whisper, more the soft movement of his lips. "Even if he had, it would not have been permitted."