Twisted: Brides of the Kindred 23 Read online

  “Mistress?” he murmured again, stroking her cheek gently with the back of his hand.

  Nikki bit her lip. Oh God, how embarrassing! He probably thought she was going crazy.

  “I’m fine, Malik. I just had…some issues to work out. Maybe you’d better put me down, now,” she said, struggling to sit up.

  He helped her up but seemed strangely reluctant to let her go. He just kept rubbing her back in long, soothing strokes and looking at her searchingly—which made Nikki extremely nervous.

  “Honestly, Malik—I’m fine,” she said.

  “Yes, Mistress.” He placed her gently on the couch beside him and looked at her. “Do you wish to have a refreshing bath in the soaking tub while I go to fetch your clothing for the evening, Mistress?

  “Yes.” Nikki sniffed and sat up straighter, grateful that he was dropping the subject of her mini breakdown. “Yes, thank you, Malik—that would be lovely.”

  “Very well.” He inclined his head to the vast marble tub of steaming water that stood in one corner of the bathing suite. “Shall I carry you over to the tub and put you in it?”

  “That won’t be necessary—I can walk,” Nikki said gently. “But thank you for offering. Just…” She cleared her throat. “Just please make sure no other men—er slaves—come in here while I’m washing, okay? I’d like some privacy.”

  “As you wish, my Mistress. I will post the privacy sign on the door.” He nodded gravely and headed for the doorway. He gave Nikki a long, searching look before bowing and closing the door behind him, leaving her to her own devices for the first time since she’d woken up in the tub of blood and found herself in this weird world in the first place.

  Chapter Eight

  Malik shook his head as he walked down the hallway leading to his Mistress’s main wardrobe room. That couldn’t be the real Mistress Hellenix back there—there was no possible way. Unless the bump she claimed she’d taken on the head had given her a concussion and changed her personality completely, he must have left a different woman from the one he knew so well back in the bathing suite.

  He had thought he would test her and so he had—pushing her farther and farther deliberately to see how far she would let him go. And she kept showing him over and over that she wasn’t really herself.

  The real Mistress Hellenix would never have asked for the other bathing attendant slaves to leave—she preferred to have an audience at all times—it was one reason she owned so many slaves. She also never would have allowed him to penetrate her—not even with his fingers. And most of all, the real Mistress Hellenix would never have curled up in a ball on his lap and cried as though her heart was breaking.

  Malik squeezed his big hands into fists when he remembered her moment of weakness. In all the long cycles since the Yonnie Mistress had bought him, he had never seen her shed a single tear. She laughed a lot—a cruel, bitter sound that was most often heard during her torture of her slaves. But he had never once seen her break down and cry—had never seen her so intensely emotionally vulnerable as she had been just now.

  Many males would have been put off by the display—would have sought to distance themselves from the extreme outpouring of emotion. But Malik wasn’t one of them. He was a Kindred, which meant he had an inherent desire to protect and defend and comfort females. Seeing his formerly cruel and heartless Mistress in such a defenseless position made his heart squeeze in his chest in a way he didn’t like at all.

  For years he had desired her body while despising her soul—a dichotomy that nearly tore him apart at times. But at least his emotions hadn’t been involved in their twisted relationship—only his libido. He couldn’t afford to start having tender feelings for his wicked Mistress now. Not when he was so close to achieving his goal and restoring his home world. Not when she was due any day to get an invitation from the Knower—the AI that had wiped out all life on his planet—to tour Uriel Two and have a look at the facility that produced the SORs, the Simulated Organic Replicants.

  If Mistress Hellenix visited Uriel Two, which was normally closed to all organic humanoid lifeforms, he would be with her. And then he would get his chance…

  Don’t let her move you, he told himself sternly. It doesn’t matter that she cried for the first time—it’s probably all some kind of cruel hoax she’s playing. Don’t let her get under your skin—you’ll regret it!

  He knew it was true but he couldn’t help remembering the soft, heartbroken sobs that had come from her or the way she had clung to him as though she was drowning.

  No—stop it! Malik tried to push the memory from his mind and concentrate on something other than the feel of his Mistress lying helpless in his arms.

  It wasn’t just Mistress Hellenix’s behavior that had changed—it was her speech patterns too—the new way she talked to him, he thought.

  For the past three cycles she had ordered him here and there, never once saying please or thank you or apologizing when she was in the wrong. She treated Malik more like a thing—a clever appliance that was able to dress her and bathe her and give her a massage and make her come—no better than a living sex toy. But now she was so polite—so courteous to him in a way she never had been before. It just didn’t add up.

  And what about the way she had reacted to his touch? Mistress Hellenix’s normal reaction to sexual stimulation was an almost bored indifference. She would often order Malik to lick her pussy while she had a glass of wine or just before bed at night to relax her but she never moaned and gasped and gave herself to his touch with total abandon as she had just now on the massage table.

  Malik suspected that she was jaded and needed rougher treatment to get her off than he was willing to provide. That was where Ugger came in—the Dexian slave was often allowed to manhandle their Mistress in ways that turned Malik’s stomach. He couldn’t stand any kind of rape play—not when he believed to his core that a female was to be cherished and cared for, not hurt or taken against her will. As a consequence, Mistress Hellenix often allowed Ugger all kinds of sexual freedom with her body and forced Malik to watch as a punishment for his unwillingness to participate.

  Such treatment was worse than if she’d used the pain collar on him, to Malik’s way of thinking. Though he despised her, he couldn’t help feeling possessive of his cruel Mistress. He had pleasured her too many times—had tasted and touched her too often—not to feel that she belonged to him in some twisted way as much as he belonged to her. Of course, she would doubtless laugh at such an idea and probably give him a jolt from the pain collar to punish such presumption.

  Or maybe not…He couldn’t imagine the woman he had left back in the bathing chamber—the one who had reacted so strongly to his touch and had cried in his arms—doing such a thing. He remembered her big, dark eyes, fringed thickly with wet lashes, looking up at him as he held her. Gods, she was so beautiful it hurt his heart! Could she really be changing—becoming a whole different person somehow?

  What was happening to his Mistress? And what would be the outcome of her strange change?

  Malik honestly didn’t know.

  * * * * * *

  Nikki floated blissfully in the large hot tub that Malik had called a soaking tub. It had bubbling jets that felt wonderful and the water was almost, but not quite, too hot.

  After the long massage, the intense multiple orgasms, and the emotionally cleansing cry she’d had, she felt all wrung out but in a good way. In fact, for the first time in ages she felt at peace.

  There was no point in being worried about the future, she told herself. The few brief flashes she’d gotten from Mistress Hellenix seemed to indicate that the alien dominatrix was handling things in Nikki’s life, at least for the moment. And there was no way she could get home for several days. So for now, she should just enjoy living a life of luxury and ease—God knew she’d never have anything like it again once she got back to Earth and her family.

  I need to store up all the happy memories of being pampered I can while I’m here, she told