The Slave (Free Men Book 1)(17)

"Apologise, Tam," Master snapped, and I immediately complied. "Kai, come here. Bring the stool."

I shifted sideways between Master's legs to face Kai, who brought the stool to the side of the chair.

"Sit next to me so you can see."

Master took the book, the old, thick pages parting with a familiar stiff  rustle. "Can you see it? Good. Tonight, I'll read. You follow the  words."

Kai nodded briefly, curled in on himself upon the stool. I rested my head on Master's thigh to listen to the story.

It was a children's book, filled with Granthian folk stories. It had  been given to Master in his childhood, and he had used it to teach me  how to read, my attention captured by dashing tales of knights and  princes. Master began now at the beginning, speaking slowly, moving his  index finger over the pages so Kai could follow the words.

I sighed happily and settled, remembering countless other evenings spent  in the sanctuary of Master's room listening to him read. Since I'd  learnt to read to myself, we'd fallen out of the habit, and I hadn't  realised until that moment how much I'd missed it.

"Tam? Tam!"

Large hands shook me, and I grumbled, burrowing deeper into my soft  pillow. The pillow shifted, somebody laughed, and what seemed like  several pairs of hands began to prise me out of my warm bed. Except I  wasn't in bed.

With a start I woke, realising with a touch of embarrassment I'd fallen  asleep with my head in Master's lap. Kai laughed when he saw I was  awake, resuming his attempts to lift me. Turning my head, I saw a dark  spot of what could only be my drool on Master's groin, and I cringed.         

     



 

"Was I asleep for long?" I asked, letting Kai help me up.

"Not very." The smile Master gave me was warm and genuine. "You must have needed the rest."

"It won't happen again," I said, but he took my hand and petted it, reassuring me.

"You didn't disturb us," he said. "I'm not angry."

Still, I blushed.

"Go on." He dropped my hand and gave my backside a gentle smack. "Off to bed, both of you. It's late."

Indeed, it was. Outside the sky was dark save for the luminous rings of  the planet, already halfway across the horizon. The fire still crackled  in the grate, although it looked freshly-stoked, and I assumed Kai had  built it up before waking me.

I hesitated, unsure if Master was really sending me off to bed without  attending to him, but he made no move to keep me by his side.

"Master?"

"Yes, Tam?"

"You don't want me to stay?"

"Not tonight." His smile was warm enough I knew he wasn't angry with me.  "Go with Kai." He indicated my fellow slave waiting in the doorway, and  reluctantly, I left.

"Why did you ask him if you could stay?" Kai asked the moment we were out of earshot.

"He might have needed me," I said, not expecting him to understand.

"Let him ‘need' his right hand," he said scornfully, proving me right.

"It's not only about sex," I snapped as we reached his door. A guard stationed in the corridor motioned him inside.

"Then explain it to me."

I refused to meet the eye of the smirking guard as I bundled Kai into his chamber.

"Your friend," I hissed. "Were you jealous of his hand when he touched  himself? Didn't you long to take its place, worship his body with your  own?"

Even in the darkness of the unlit room, I saw Kai's cheeks redden.

"But it's more than that," I continued. "Even if he wanted nothing from  me at all, I would still have taken pleasure from his company. I love  him."

"So you keep saying," Kai grumbled.

"You could learn to love him, too," I insisted. "Has he treated you badly since you came here?"

"No." The admission was petulant, grudging, and Kai sat on his bed with his arms and legs crossed like a sulky child.

I sat beside him, sinking into the soft down comforter Master had given him from his own bed.

"How long was I asleep?" I asked to change the subject. I could no more  force Kai to understand why I loved our master than I could force him to  accept his new life with us. It had taken me long enough, and I was  only a child when he purchased me. I couldn't begin to imagine how  difficult the transition must be for Kai.

"A couple of hours? We finished the story. He told me he taught you to read the same way."

I nodded slowly. "That's how he was taught."

"Do you...." He picked at an invisible thread. "Do you think I could really learn?"

"Why not?"

"Why would he bother, though? What use can it be to him if we can read or not?"

"Why does it have to be useful?" I countered.

Kai snorted.

"Maybe it is. I read to him, sometimes. And I read to myself when he's not here."

"Is he away often?"

"During the day. He has duties to attend. It gets lonely," I admitted. "Since the mistress left-"

"Why did she go?" Kai asked curiously.

"It is not my place to ask."

"You were bought for her?"

I nodded.

"Then why didn't she take you with her?"

"I was never hers, not really. It was no secret I preferred him.  Besides, she took most of the rest of the household with her. She didn't  need me."

"And he did," Kai guessed.

I smiled. "I hope so."

We lapsed into silence. Kai tucked himself under the covers, and a  moment later I joined him. His comforter might be soft and warm, but the  rest of the room was bare stone and bitterly cold. Our breath showed in  the damp air before us, and I thought longingly of my own chamber  through the next door, of my plush rugs and furs and my beautiful  canopied bed.

Kai budged over slightly so we didn't touch under the covers. I  understood his skittishness, although I wished he wasn't so. He came  from a land where men weren't supposed to touch, and that must have made  even the most innocent contact seem sexual. I was a tactile creature,  and Master encouraged his slaves to be affectionate with one another. I  had been raised in a household never short of someone to hug or pet me  or hold my hand. Since my mistress had taken the majority of the house  slaves with her when she left, I'd missed the simple, comforting contact  we'd shared most of all. I still had Master, and he still called me to  his chamber and fussed over me, brushed my hair, or simply let me curl  up against him through the long evenings, but he was absent for much of  the day and left all alone in the compound, I had often felt lonely.         

     



 

In Kai I hoped for a companion, someone to whom I could turn during  Master's many absences and seek comfort. It didn't need to be a sexual  thing, however hard Master pushed us in that direction. Truthfully, the  idea scared me a little. As attractive as I found Kai, as intrigued as I  was by the possibility, I had never slept with anyone other than Master  and part of me felt I would be betraying him to do so, even if it was  with his blessing. I wanted him to be jealous, to want to keep me pure  for himself. I didn't understand why, after I had been his and his alone  for so long, he now wanted to share me with another, even if only  another pleasureslave.

"I should go." I made to move, realising I was probably making Kai  uncomfortable. It's not as though my loneliness was his fault. I wasn't  his responsibility.

"Do you have to?" he asked.

"No, Master hasn't forbidden it. I only thought-"

"Do you ever disobey him?" Kai asked roughly, a sulky edge to his tone.

I smiled, remembering. "I have done, yes."

"What happened?"

"I was punished, of course. The same as you would have been in the army."

That cut off a dissident grumble before it really started.

"You're too quick to judge," I said with a trace of reproach. "You think  everything about my life you don't like is the fault of being a slave."

"Isn't it?"

"No." I touched his arm and withdrew. "The only difference is money."

"And your ability to leave," Kai protested.

I smirked. "You mean you could have left the army whenever you wanted?"

"Well, no. But eventually!"

"That's not freedom," I said softly. "It's an illusion of freedom, and they used it to keep you obedient."

"What would you know about it?" Kai demanded, and I swore he was  sulking. The truth was always an unpleasant thing, but Master had never  been less than honest with me, and I didn't know how to be any other  way.

"I was not so young I don't remember some of my life before I was  brought here," I said. "I had freedom once. True freedom, not some pale  illusion."

"What was it like?" Kai asked.

I shrugged. "I don't know. I had nothing to compare it with."

"But you do now. You can't have gone from that life to this and not seen a difference."

"Oh, it's different." I laughed. "I'm just not sure it was any better."