House of Moons 3: The Slave Read online

  House of Moons 3: The Slave

  Kara Fey

  All Rights Reserved.

  Copyright ©2005 Kara Fey

  No part of this e-book may be reproduced or shared by any electronic or mechanical means, including but not limited to printing, file sharing, and email, without prior written permission from Changeling Press LLC.

  ISBN (10): 1-59596-092-9

  ISBN (13): 978-1-59596-092-4

  Formats Available:

  HTML, Adobe PDF,

  MobiPocket, Microsoft Reader

  Publisher:

  Changeling Press LLC

  PO Box 1561

  Shepherdstown, WV 25443-1561

  www.ChangelingPress.com

  Editor: Maryam Salim

  Cover Artist: Bryan Keller

  This e-book file contains sexually explicit scenes and adult language which some may find offensive and which is not appropriate for a young audience. Changeling Press E-Books are for sale to adults, only, as defined by the laws of the country in which you made your purchase. Please store your files wisely, where they cannot be accessed by under-aged readers.

  Chapter One

  “You’re naked, and the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. You glare at me as I chain your hands above you and your ankles apart. I wrap black silk around your eyes. Your pussy opens when I force you to your knees. You beg me not to touch you, but I do. I shove my cock into your mouth until I’m deep in your throat. I watch you suck me in the wall mirror until I come. Then I play with your pussy until I’m hard again and you’re sobbing. You’re totally exposed and dripping wet when I kneel behind you. I rub your cunt and ass with warm cinna oil and slide three fingers inside you. I twist your nipple with my free hand. I leave my fingers inside you and pump my cock into your ass. You’re so fucking tight, I think I’m gonna die. I slam into you so hard I lift you off the floor. Over and over. I last a really long time. Your tits are bouncing. Your head’s thrown back in surrender. I watch in the mirror while you scream for more. Beg for more…”

  Not fucking likely. Chains and an ass ride were not her idea of a good time. But she was the Slave Empress. Every man’s fantasy come to life -- for an exorbitant price. She wouldn’t disappoint this one, either. Memories of their night together would be more vivid, more real than anything he’d ever truly experience. And it would all be an illusion, a dream born of magic.

  A memory implant.

  The man at her feet continued to speak, was under compulsion to tell her his darkest desires. Try as she might to pay attention, so the correct memories would be embedded, her mind continually wandered. Time was running out. Her cousin Zira’s murderer was here. She could feel his presence. After four moons of setting the trap, of openly enticing him and his insidious sexual appetites, he’d finally arrived on Tantra-9. The Slaver Station. None set foot in this section of space unless they bought, sold, or were for sale themselves. Playing here was a very dangerous game. One wrong move and she wouldn’t be pretending to be a slave.

  Heavy breathing brought her back to the present. The man before her was sweating and spent, in more ways than one. A soft laugh escaped her when she saw the proof of his exertions had landed on the floor at the tip of her white silk slipper. Sweat ran down his temples and meandered through the smattering of dark hair on his muscular chest. Men. They were surprisingly simple creatures, with an astonishing array of perversions. None of which she ever cared to indulge. Once Zira’s murderer was brought to justice, she intended to enter the Order. A life of peace and solitude appealed to her, or at least the idea of it. Chaos and political intrigues awaited her at home. A royal princess was expected to play their games. But she had a surprise in store for them all. Let someone else have the crown and the nightmares that came with it. Someone ultimately more suited to bringing peace to their war torn planet, peace between the House of Moons and the Antheans.

  Calling upon her power, she repeated, nearly verbatim, everything the man had just said to her. His cock rose again at her words, but she just smiled and continued until the memory implant was complete. Then she issued her standard last commands. “Get dressed and return to your rooms. Sleep until tomorrow. You will remember staying here most of the night. You will leave this station upon rising and never return. Any slaves you have at home will be offered freedom and a fair wage in my honor. You will never hurt a woman, or take one against her will. The mere thought of doing so will make you ill. And if you ever meet a man who goes by the name of Specter, you will tell him I’m waiting for him.”

  The last slipped out automatically, but she suspected the one she hunted was already here. Specter’s name whispered through the station like a great wave of evil had awakened to welcome him.

  When she’d arrived on Tantra-9, full of hate and rage for her sweet cousin’s killer, it had been easy to be strong. More often now, exhaustion dogged her steps, the sensuous nature of her deception lured her, tempted her to indulge herself with some of her customers. Not all of the men who’d knelt naked before her had repulsed her as they ought. And that alarmed her on an elemental level. Even now, an unmistakable wetness coated her thighs as she watched her latest victim walk from the room.

  Something twisted inside of her, warped and shifted each time she exposed herself to their desires, something alien to her nature. In the darkest shadows of her soul, she speculated how it would feel to surrender, even as her heart and mind forbade it. The dichotomy of needs was unexpected, unwelcome, and wearing her ragged. The battle between her body and her spirit raged constantly.

  The last few nights, her dreams had been strangely erotic and she wondered if her bodyguard, Lizard, could be slipping Ozera Potent into her food or drink. The powerful aphrodisiac controlled the slaves. Shudders took her body again, punishing her for the use of magic. She ignored it and entered her private chamber. Lying down, she waved a hand and lit her candles. If Lizard drugged her, it would cost him his life. So, why didn’t she simply place him under her spell and compel him to answer?

  Hands twisting subconsciously in the soft, honey-colored sheets, body still shaking in aftershock, she wondered… was she more afraid he’d poisoned her, or that he hadn’t? She’d discovered nothing new during her daily walk of the station. Everything in her tensed, expecting trouble. But what? No one knew she was here. No one but her brothers.

  Or so she believed. Perhaps she’d underestimated her enemies…

  Sleep was a long time coming.

  * * *

  Darkness and pulsing lights. Ripened sweat. Semen. Sex. The smells assaulted him, roiled around in his head until it pounded and in his stomach until it churned. He hated this place. Always had. Always would. Yet, here he walked again. But this time, he was not hunting a criminal, he was hunted. This time, he was here for a woman. A princess. A fucking sorceress so powerful the whole planet feared her and her family. Hers was the one life he’d sworn to protect. And failed. That failure haunted him, called him here to save a young woman the world already believed to be dead.

  The long dark corridor surrounded him, a cocoon of death. Lights flickered on and off like a drunk who jerked awake then drifted to slumber over and over again. A red doorway beckoned to him in challenge, a test of his loyalties and his oath. The woman behind this door had gotten in his way today, prevented him from rescuing his young charge. He couldn’t allow Kamara to get in his way again. However, a lifetime of training wouldn’t permit him to abandon her to her fate either, no matter how stupid her actions.

  Dressed in black from head to toe, Tobiath, Crown Sentinal Z-4, drifted like a wraith on slaver station Tantra-9. All the detection grids and security measures meshed traditional technology with magic. The defense systems read the magical energ
y fluctuations of all living things, detected the presence of that brand of power. He walked and no one saw him. He watched and none noticed his presence. He infiltrated spy rings, executed criminals, hunted the truth… and no one remembered his face. Here, he was less than an insect, less than a ghost. An Immune.

  Spy and assassin for his government, he was immune to magic. And so he moved, flowed, drifted anywhere and everywhere. Unseen. Forgotten.

  Enough. Talking to himself was a habit he’d adopted long ago. He had no one else. Left on the steps of Judgment Hall as a baby, abandoned and feared by his parents for his gift, or lack of, there’d been no other option for him but the Crown Sentinals. The elite unit welcomed those like him, rare souls born without names. Or magic.

  Now the nameless ones hunted him for a murder he didn’t commit. Not that it mattered; none of the others had ever been able to catch him.

  Soft and sure, his black boots glided over the cold floor to her door. Kamara. Princess and royal pain in his ass. She’d nearly blown everything for him today, by revealing herself to the enemy in that ridiculous 5-S mask. Now they would know where to find her. Now he had to protect her and delay his mission.

  No one saw him, nothing gave him away. The vid monitors remained dormant, waiting for a surge of magic that would activate them. Illusion wrapped around everyone on board with an unrelenting grip. Its force flowed around him, through him, and he knew what each spell or energy mass was meant to do. He saw the spells as shadows on the walls, transparent shades of reality that flowed through him, kissed him like butterfly wings, teased him with a lingering touch before abandoning him to the truth. That was the curse of immunity. Magic flowed through him, moved within his soul and flowed out to rejoin the universe, leaving him behind. Bereft Magic touched everything, made it appear more beautiful, more vibrant. Perfect and appealing. He bore witness to facts, ugly and forgotten. He felt the cold metal, instead of illusionary fantasy rugs, beneath his feet. The stench of canned air filled his nostrils despite the freshening spells, and he walked straight to her chamber, in spite of the warding spells meant to lead all others away with false trails and hidden magical traps.

  Immunity meant he walked in a world of shadows and dreams no one else saw, or even more disturbing, that everyone else believed to be real.

  Magic. The word alone made his gut churn and his jaw clench. So easy to get around. To avoid or manipulate those dependent on its power. Magic created a reality he could not live in, a place his entire society dwelled in, used, loved, and schemed within. He was an aberration. A freak. Someone they could not hide their true selves from. Hated and feared by all he knew, he could not regret the freedom immunity gave him to exist in a different world. But he could grieve the loss of a so-called normal life, could still feel the pain that had nearly crippled him as a small boy, pain buried so deeply he’d begun to think he could no longer feel.

  Feeling had come raging to life when he’d awakened one morning as a hunted man. Magic had betrayed him yet again. And he could not battle, could not defeat, and could not reverse the sorcerer’s spell to prove his innocence. But he could find the person responsible and make him pay.

  Illusion and sorcery were the two crutches his people lived on. Both made them complacent. Weak.

  Vulnerable. He opened the door to the Slave Empress’s chamber and slipped inside the darkened room undetected.

  Reality told another story. Scrutinizing the perimeter of the dark room, he grimaced. Air smelling of rot and decay filled his lungs, just as it did everywhere else on the station. Huddled and dying in one corner was the little princess’s attempt at growing a small Spirka bush. Each broad yellow leaf was covered with a sheet of needle-sharp projections, but its core, if torn open, lay succulent and sweet. The plant’s likeness adorned every courtroom in Judgment Hall, a metaphor for the pain of guilt and the sweetness of truth. The struggling plant seemed oddly out of place on the station, like a tropical bird trying to survive on arctic tundra, or like the princess and heir selling herself as a slave.

  Old and barren, the walls and ceiling beams were a dull, metallic gray marred by a red flow of rust growing and spreading like fungus throughout the station. The room was surprisingly empty. Other than the small white chair spelled to look like a throne, Kamara’s domain was bare.

  Where were her servants? Her guards? Her host of cloying maids that he’d been told followed her around at court giggling and acting like idiots every time they saw an available male? Where was her Sentinal? Why was she here? And why had she wandered the station in a 5-S holographic mask, exposed to his enemies? Surely she knew there were others who would see through her disguise. He’d decided to come back for her later, after he’d completed his mission, but the royal idiot forced his hand. If he didn’t take her now, the other would. She’d be no use to him dead. No use at all. And that just wouldn’t do.

  Continuing on, he saw the door to her private chamber along the opposite wall. An elaborate illusion of climbing white roses protected her. As did the newest surveillance equipment.

  Solid and warm, he pressed his palm to the entry grid. The flow of energy passed through him as always, sensing nothing but body heat and the leftover magical imprint of Kamara’s own palm. Quiet as the breath flowing into his lungs, the door slid open and he crossed into her private lair.

  Chapter Two

  Reality tilted. In this small space, there was no magic. The lack stilled his heart and nailed his feet to the floor. Here, three true candles burned, and carried the light scent of wildflowers through the air to his nostrils. The small flickering flames provided the only light in the room.

  Kamara lay asleep on her side draped by sheets that wrapped around her like warm liquid honey. A small, ornately carved wooden headboard rested against the far wall. Her bed was shoved into the corner farthest from the door, draped in honey-colored satin sheets that pooled on the thick black rug lying on the floor beside her. In a small dark cylinder at the foot of her bed sat another Spirka bush, this one young and fragile, a new seedling that would fit in the palm of his hand. Her walls were bare. A vid terminal rested atop a six-legged table in the far corner, her connection to the outside world. A three-tiered shelf of glass held several blasters and a semi-circle moon dagger. He paused for a moment to inspect the weapons. They were all outdated so he left everything but the dagger, which he slid beneath the leather strap holding his own knife to his thigh. If he were lucky, he could take it back to his ship and analyze the deadly microbots that usually coated the weapons. The last few times he’d tried to dissect their technology, the little bastards had fallen apart after just a few hours in his presence. If he could harvest the micro-machines and reprogram them, he’d have a sinister and elusive weapon to add to his arsenal. The Moon Warriors claimed not to use magic, but his effect on their weapons suggested otherwise.

  Examination complete, he turned to the sleeping beauty. The candlelight cast her face in soft shadows. Her thick eyelashes sparkled, as if moisture lingered there. Tears? Perhaps. Something tightened in his chest at the thought, made it harder to get air into his lungs but he ignored it and continued his study. Long, elegant fingers gripped a deadly looking silver blaster in one hand as she slept. Soft and inviting, black curls framed her face and feathered across the smooth pillow. Regal and refined, her cheekbones were high, her lips pouty and perfect. Tobiath knew her face well, knew that if the delicate eyelids opened they’d reveal chocolate-brown eyes and an insatiable passion for life.

  Why did it have to be her? Why not any one of the other twenty cousins? The ones he didn’t want to tie to a bed and ravish. No matter. He didn’t have the time. Every moment here was a precious moment lost.

  Tobiath placed the blow tube to his lips. Swift, silent, and free of magic, the drug-filled needle flew across the room and imbedded in her shoulder. Wordlessly counting to ten, he waited, then crossed the room and gently pulled the blaster from her limp grip. She’d sleep like a baby for a couple of hours. Then she woul
d be livid.

  Tobiath smiled and threw the royal over his shoulder. Soft breasts tortured him where they pressed into his back through her thin satin gown. He stood for a moment to make sure the injection had shut down most of her magic. The drug attached to the receptors in a magic user’s mind, breaking their connection to the universal power. Once the old-fashioned medication flooded her system, he held her close and used his gift to absorb the rest of her power and send it back into the great void. Wouldn’t do to be seen kidnapping the heir to the throne. Of course, he didn’t really need to worry about anyone from home looking for her. She’d taken great pains to disappear without a trace. What else could a gentleman do but ensure her success?

  * * *

  Knots twisted in her stomach like a mass of angry worms even before she woke. Instincts flared to life and screamed at her to flee. She didn’t move. Barely breathed. Something wasn’t right. Gone was the soft glide of satin against her cheek, the comforting aroma of her candles, replaced by cool cotton and the tangy sweet odor of chemical air freshener. This was not her room, not her bed.

  Lead weights, her limbs refused to move without supreme effort. The unfamiliar lethargy pushed her to waken faster. Swirling deep, anger stirred the magic within her back to life.

  Straining to hear, Kamara held her lungs frozen and listened. An odd ticking noise drifted in the room, quiet but steady, and nothing else. No hum of engines, no whir of air purifiers, no keening cries from distant sex chambers. Where was she? Without question, she was no longer on Tantra-9.

  As if in answer, a door opened behind her, then slid closed with a distinct click. Should she feign sleep or face her fate? Images of all the men she had watched the last few weeks flashed in her mind with alarming clarity. Their faces filled with lust, their bodies jerking before her like half dead fish as their cocks responded to the memories she fed to their minds. Like a criminal line-up in her mind, they haunted her, sneered at her, pawed at her sanity and her flesh. If one of them were her captor…