Surrendered Read online

  Still, it was often enough, especially with Matmon, who was a skilled surgeon, at her side. Neh’sa felt very lucky that she’d been able to attract him to Yonnie Six in the first place. Her planet certainly wasn’t the most welcoming to males from other places. Or males at all for that matter.

  But her head surgeon had seen the need and had been willing to come, for which Neh’sa was grateful. It was important to have a male in charge of the place because anti-female sentiment ran so high, especially in the slave classes.

  Of course, Neh’sa didn’t blame the males who came to her clinic for their hatred of females. They were a repressed and subjugated sex and the majority of Mistresses on Yonnie Six had no idea of the proper treatment and care of the submissive male.

  Neh’sa had been working for years to try and correct the ignorance and cruelty she saw all around her, but some days she felt like things were going backwards. Like today for instance – with Lady Wraith’neck and her huge Clopsian. What a travesty! What was she going to do about the charges the other Mistress planned to bring against her?

  Before she had much time to brood on the matter, they came to the main surgical suite.

  “He’s already sedated,” Matmon told her. “He got caught and dragged under the wheels of a carryall. Even if we can save him, his spinal column’s been crushed. He’ll need a permanent stimulator implanted if he’s ever going to walk again.”

  “Let’s just worry about saving him first,” Neh’sa said. “And I’ll pay for the stimulator myself if you’ll put it in.”

  “Of course I will my Lady.” Matmon made an abbreviated bow and then led the way into the operating suite. “Come – let us save him.”

  The boy who lay on the operating table was a street urchin – he wore no collar or bracelets or marks of ownership of any kind. His little legs were twisted and mangled and there was blood so much blood… Neh’sa caught her breath at the sight of it. No matter how many awful injuries she saw, they were always worse when the victim was a child.

  “I’m afraid this is going to take a while,” Matmon told her. “If you could please scrub in and stand on the left side of the table. I’ll be working on the right, if you can apply your touch while I do surgery?”

  “Yes of course.” Neh’sa nodded quickly and went to the scrubbing station. She quickly scrubbed in and irradiated her hands, getting rid of all germs and bacteria, before putting on a tight fitting set of second-skin gloves and going to stand beside the tiny crumpled form on the operating table.

  Matmon joined her quickly. Hooking an OPTi wire loop over one eye and choosing his instruments carefully, he looked up at Neh’sa.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  Neh’sa nodded wordlessly and closed her eyes doing her best to draw from the reserve of inner strength which she had already used much of today. This was going to be a long night—she just prayed to the Goddess they would be able to save this small life.

  Chapter Nine

  Thorn knew he should get up and go to bed but somehow he couldn’t make himself do it. A strange lethargy had taken hold of him and all he could do was sink further into the couch and stare at the dying embers of the thistle-fire which burned blue and green and purple as it crackled quietly on the hearth.

  His earlier brain fog seemed to have lifted but it had been replaced with so many contradictory thoughts he almost wished it hadn’t deserted him. Again and again his mind went back to the scene in Neh’sa’s training room. The way she’d touched him…taken him…

  Gods! Thorn squeezed his eyes closed briefly. He could still feel her in him, stroking him, opening him, making him come. Before this mission, he’d thought of penetration as just another form of torture to be endured. But now…well, maybe it might not be so bad.

  Then he thought of the thick black phallus he’d seen Neh’sa wearing in the holo-image Commander Sylvan had showed him of her when they were planning the mission.

  Did he really want that inside him?

  I can take it if I have to, he told himself grimly.

  Yes, but what if his new Mistress somehow got him to want to take it? There was no shame in enduring torture—he’d done it many times. But he’d never begged for it—never opened himself and asked to be taken, asked to be fucked…

  Stop it! Thorn told himself sharply. Just fucking stop it! What’s wrong with you anyway? You’re acting like you’re really her body-slave—like you’re here for the long term and you know that’s not true! The ceremony at the Library of All Knowledge is coming up soon. The minute that happens—the minute you get inside and get a copy of the Hive information they have stored there—you’re gone. Greed’lik will be waiting to pick you up and Mistress Neh’sanna won’t have any idea where her precious new slave went. So stop acting like this is forever—it’s not and she’s not. You’ll be back to the Kindred Mothership with the intel before you know it.

  The pep-talk should have made him feel better but somehow it didn’t. Nothing seemed to help or to draw his mind for long from what had happened in the training room.

  She took me and I let her—I gave it up willingly. Hell, I enjoyed it—best orgasm of my life. What’s wrong with me? What must she think of me? Why do I care what she thinks, anyway?

  But somehow he did. Though he had known her less than an entire solar day, Thorn found he cared desperately what his new Mistress thought of him. He felt connected to her as he had never felt connected to any other female in his life. Which was foolish, considering what a short time he’d known her. But still—he couldn’t shake the feeling that they were somehow entwined.

  He couldn’t help wondering where Neh’sa was now—with that male who had appeared on the vid-screen? Who was he, anyway? Her lover? Would she take a male lover? She had appeared to speak to him as an equal. But no males were equal to females here on Yonnie Six. So who was he?

  Endless questions looped inside his brain and the fire burned down to smoldering embers. Thorn began to feel cold—chilled to the bone—but he had no energy to get up and feed the fire or even find a blanket to put around himself.

  Shivering, he closed his eyes and for a time drifted into a thin, uneasy sleep.

  He dreamed and saw his new Mistress standing over a bloody table, her eyes closed as she concentrated hard on something. Thorn didn’t know what it was but somehow, in the dream, he knew this was a matter of life and death.

  Her hands were emitting a soft, pinkish glow and he knew that if he touched them, he would feel the same healing warmth he’d felt flowing through his own body when she’d bathed and dressed the wounds he’d gotten from the razor-gravel.

  The touch, whispered a voice in his head that didn’t sound like his own. She has the healing touch. But when she uses it, she gives of herself and it drains her…

  Thorn could see the weariness in her eyes, the hollowness in her lovely cheeks as she poured herself into whatever lay on that bloody table. It was killing her to give so much and yet she kept giving—depleting herself—driving herself to the point of exhaustion and beyond…

  Then the scene seemed to change and he saw her on the street—no, in an alley. She was nearly staggering with weariness, all alone in the dark, dangerous place. An easy mark—prey ripe for the plucking for any predator who just happened to come along. Gods, why was she out there undefended?

  Because you didn’t go with her! whispered an accusing voice in his head. Because you sat on the couch and stared at the fire like an idiot instead of insisting on going with her, on protecting her!

  He woke with a start, worried about Neh’sa. A glance at the expensive indigo crystal chronometer on the wall showed she’d been gone for hours. Was she all right? Why had he let her leave and go into the Goddess alone knew what kind of danger all by herself? He ought to be out there protecting her right now.

  Though his body felt stiff and cold, and his limbs didn’t want to move, Thorn forced himself to get off the couch and go staggering towards the door. He would wake up the butler and demand