“Shut up, you sick bitch!”
He roared the insulting command just as his body burst the confines of his control. Orgasm ripped through him like razor wire, tearing him apart from pride to penis. He came so hard that his semen jetted across the floor several feet, long viscous streams at first and then harsh spitting globs as his glands tried to obey the irrational demands of the stimulant he’d been fed. Vejhon’s vocal outrage as he climaxed growled off the high ceilings of the room, and then came the inevitable low groans of agonizing pain as his cock tried to spit out fluids that were no longer available. It stood out from his body, still rock hard and jerking torturously, remnants of cum dripping from the open slit at the head.
Had he not been tied hand and foot, he would have fallen to his knees by now. None could stand up under this kind of painful bodily betrayal. Even Hanna could not remain stoic, giving herself away by biting her lip and curling her brows in sympathy. When it finally ended for him, he gasped hard for breath, pulling his head up and catching her in the compassionate expression for a second before she recovered herself. He was bleeding at every single manacle point, a testament to how he’d fought against himself. His failure, she knew, was utter humiliation for a man of his type.
It had been the same for Najir. He had been the first rare bird she had found captured, and now she had another. Najir had found another. He had looked at this man and seen himself all those years ago. Seen him as Hanna had seen Najir the day he had been auctioned off like a prized thoroughbred pet. What she had described to Jhon had been what she had seen Najir suffer through that day. Hand after hand touching and stroking him, mouth after mouth sucking at him and licking him. Some seeing how far they dared to go in public. Only, Najir had not been in stasis. He had been awake and aware as the stimulant and a dozen men and women buyers raped him of his will and control. Then the flesh peddler had injected the second stimulant and the crowd had delighted in the ferocious explosion of his ejaculation and his outcry of anger that accompanied it. Hanna knew her neighbors, her fellow nobles, and she knew that some of them thrived on that kind of pain from others…that terrible kind of suffering.
She was not one of them.
4
Najir watched through the transparent wall as Hanna quietly went about dampening a towel and cleaning the floor herself. He knew she would never allow a servant to come into that room to witness any part of what she was being forced to do. Just as he knew she wouldn’t touch Jhon just then, even to clean his body or wounds, because the stimulant that had ravaged him would make him scream if he were touched too soon.
Najir’s handler at his auction had not been so thoughtful.
The memory made the muscles between his shoulders bunch and tense and he fought off the chill it left behind. Najir knew why Hanna must take the new male through these paces, because he understood Vejhon about as well as he did himself. Oh, there were sure to be differences between them, and in truth he was hoping there were broad differences in their makeup, but the inured basics of pride and denial were very much the same. He realized that a wall of pure fury had been blocking all reason and logic in the warrior’s mind. The betrayal of his freedom would have kept him balking, deaf to all attempts to gain his trust. Hanna had been forced to inject him harshly into reality, and Najir understood that better than anyone.
He watched Hanna replace the hateful ring in its box. Jhon was fully occupied with catching his breath and coping with the relief that was coming as the stim wore off. There was no longer room for anger within him after such an ordeal. Najir knew his Hanna would take no pleasure in Vejhon’s defeat. When she spoke, though her voice seemed steady to her captive, Najir—who knew her so well—heard the sadness underlying her tone.
“This is what you would have known every single day, as often in the day as your owner pleased, had you been bought by another. I haven’t the heart to play evil to the extreme of the Baron who nearly walked away with you before Najir intervened and bought you out from under him. The Baron’s predilections are…monstrous. Few survive his ideas of intimacy.” She took a deep breath, sighing soft and long on her exhale. “Sleep. Eat. Bathe. And think over everything you have learned today, my proud one.”
She turned on her heel and left the room. A moment after the outer door closed tight behind her, a second pneumatic hiss let her into the private observation room where Najir stood. Their eyes met and an instant expression of compassion rippled across her features. She must have seen something in his features that revealed the pain he’d felt when reliving his past experiences through Vejhon. She hurried up to him, enfolding him in her soft, reassuring embrace, drawing his head down to her graceful shoulder.
“Shh, dearest,” she soothed him, her magical calming fingers stroking through his hair. “It is over now.”
“He will hate you now. As I hated everything after that.”
“But he is just as sharp as you. I can feel it in him. It is part of his beautiful power. He will slowly put the clues together as his emotions ebb from their high of hatred.” She nuzzled Najir’s cheek and he felt her smile. “He won’t understand what comes next. He will be baffled at first, but it will all come eventually.”
Hanna released him so she could turn back to the wall looking into the room. Vejhon would never know he was being observed through solid stone. No one but Hanna and Najir had the code to activate the technology it used, or to get into the private room itself. Hanna moved to the control panel set into the stone and her fingers quickly tapped out a command. Inside the room, the metal bands binding Jhon to the stone wall sprang open and, finding himself suddenly and unexpectedly released, he fell forward onto his knees and hands.
Hanna had no desire to watch what would follow, so she deactivated the viewing wall. It was as though she and Najir had suddenly been sealed off alone together in the long room. The dismal little place had been built by an unsavory relative long ago, so he could spy on his guests and whomever else he wanted to in a measure of comfort. It ran the entire length of the back wall to the large suite, with several portals available for best viewing perspective. Back then it had been kept in great comfort with many amenities close at hand, including lounges set before each window so one could recline as they took in their sport.
Now the old, age-worn lounges were all that was left, the walls and floors stripped bare of everything else. The environmental systems kept dust away, but the room still echoed of neglect. Hanna had not used it before or since the first week of Najir’s residence in her home, all those years ago.
The room had darkened considerably as the light from the other room was cut off from them. Najir felt Hanna touch him through the material of his shirt, her fingertips stroking over his pectoral muscle as she sidled up close to him. His heartbeat jumped up in speed as her lush figure snuggled up along his side and her mouth reached to brush his neck.
“Weren’t you holding a thought for me?” she asked, her whisper sultry sweet against his skin.
Najir smiled into the dimness above her head.
“Tart,” he taunted her. “You’re just horny because you got a good feel of that impressive cock of his.”
“So?” she asked, shamelessly shrugging a shoulder. “Are you telling me you didn’t get hard just watching me stroke that impressive cock?”
She had him there, and she knew it. Unlike Vejhon, Najir knew her intimate touch had been meant as a lesson and not a violation. Watching her bestow her caresses had triggered a flurry of sensory memory and longing. Hanna followed up her speculation with a foray of fingertips down along the front of his pants, easily encountering his quickly developing erection. She chuckled wickedly when he snapped his tongue at her in a silent scold for her audacious manipulations.
“You are shameless and insatiable,” he accused in a growl against her ear that sent shivers of delight down her body.
“And horny,” she reminded him huskily. “My pussy is soaked just from