Surrendered Read online

  He waited for a count of ten, although it was killing him to leave her alone in a room full of strange males, and then walked into the place himself. He wasn’t sure where Neh’sa had gone but he’d be damned if he’d leave her there with no protection.

  A dozen pairs of hostile eyes greeted him. The men sitting on the benches look tired and worn down and Thorn couldn’t help noticing that most of them appeared to be injured in one way or another.

  A male with thinning red hair and stooped shoulders hurried up to him.

  “Now then, what can we do for you, Brother? What seems to be your problem?”

  “What is this place?” Thorn growled. “What’s going on in here?”

  “Don’t you know, Brother?” asked one of the men sitting on the benches nearest to him. “It’s a free Mercy clinic – run for those of us as don’t have Mistresses—or don’t have ones who cares enough to treat us when we’re ill.”

  “And for those of us as have Mistresses that like pain play and don’t care to treat the injuries afterwards,” growled another male. “See?” He turned around showing the marks of what appeared to be a savage beating on his narrow back. Perfectly parallel bloody marks marched in neat orderly rows from the top of the shoulders, just below the thick black pain collar he wore, all the way down to the small of his back.

  Thorn was taken aback. “Your Mistress did that to you?”

  “Aye, that she did,” snapped the other male. “Mistress likes the cane. And if I could but get this Gods’ damned pain collar off, I’d take that same cane and lay it across her pretty face. Then we’d see who needed medical attention.”

  “No point thinking about that,” the male beside him pointed out. “You’d be captured and have your balls cut off before you could even lay a hand on her.” He winced and shifted uncomfortably on the bench he was sitting on. “Now my lady, she favors the rod for her dirty work. Fucked me for nigh on in hour t’other night, using bigger and bigger rods to do it until I thought I’d split in two. I’m still fucking sore.”

  “Now then. now then…” The male with thinning red hair, who had first approached Thorn, said nervously. “You lads know well enough we’re not meant to speak ill of our Mistresses here. The Mercy clinic is a place for healing, not fomenting rebellion.”

  “And why is that, Perchin?” the male with the bloody back demanded. “Because some rich Mistress runs it? She doesn’t give a damn for us—she just wants to soothe her conscience.”

  “Because the whole clinic could be shut down if you’re heard talking like you’ve been against your Mistresses,” the man with red hair who was apparently named Perchin said sharply. “We’re beneath the notice of the Yonnite Magistrates for one reason only—nothing but healing comes out of here. No bombs or blasters or rebellions. But if that changed—if even one plot could be traced back to our waiting room, well…” He shrugged his skinny shoulders. “We’d be shut down in a heartbeat and then where would you go for chill packs and soothing salves and healing when your Mistress gives you the rod or gets too happy with the cane?”

  The two males muttered angrily at this but Thorn could see they saw the sense of Perchin’s words. There was no more open talk of rebellion although he could tell why there had been in the first place. What in the Seven Hells was wrong with some of the females here, using and abusing their slaves in this way?

  To be honest, it was no more than what he had expected when he had first volunteered to be sold as a slave on Yonnie Six. But after days spent with Neh’sa, who could be strict but was always careful to treat him with respect, the apparent abuses and cruelties perpetrated by some of the other Mistresses on their slaves couldn’t help but shock him.

  Speaking of his Mistress, where was she?

  “I’m looking for Mistress Neh’sanna,” he told the red-haired Perchin. “I think she went in the back. I’m her body-slave,” he added before the other male could ask.

  Perchin frowned. “Her body-slave? But Mistress Neh’sanna never brings her slaves here.”

  “I brought myself,” Thorn snapped. “This neighborhood isn’t very fucking safe and I didn’t like the idea of her being out here alone. Now are you going to take me to her or am I going to go find her myself?”

  The male raised his hands in a placating gesture.

  “Very well, I’ll take you but you must be quiet. She and Doctor Matmon have just started a very long and complicated surgery. A group of resistance fighters set off a bomb and injured a great many innocent bystanders.”

  “I’ll be quiet—just take me to her,” Thorn said.

  “This way.” Perchin took him through a doorway that led to a much larger treatment area. Everywhere Thorn saw curtained off areas and males being treated for injuries, large and small. Then they came to a smaller area which was more enclosed.

  “These are the surgical suites,” Perchin told him. “You can’t cross the sterile field but you can watch through the viewing window as Doctor Matmon operates.”

  He took Thorn into a small, dark room which held several industrial sized sinks with foot pedals to work them and some hand irradiators as well. There was a long rectangular window on one wall and through it Thorn could see the same male with long dark hair who had called Neh’sa on the viewscreen during Thorn’s first night at her domicile.

  The male, who must be Doctor Matmon, was draped in a pale green surgical gown and his long hair was held neatly in place in a club at the back of his neck. He was wearing a mask over his face and working busily on a patient who lay stretched out on the table.

  Neh’sa, dressed in a similar outfit, was standing across the table from the male with a look of intense concentration on her lovely face. Thorn saw the same pale pink glow he’d observed several times before emanating from her hands.

  The healing touch, whispered a voice in his brain and he understood that she was helping to heal the patient on the table as surely as the male surgeon was.

  “Many of our patients wouldn’t survive without the Lady Neh’sanna’s touch,” Perchin remarked, his voice soft and reverent as he watched through the window. “She founded and funds this entire clinic and she comes in as often as she can to help, too.” He looked up at Thorn. “You’re lucky indeed to have her as your Mistress.”

  “Yes…” Thorn cleared his throat. “Yes, I guess I am.”

  “The only difficulty is in keeping her from doing too much.” Perchin sounded worried. “She pours so much of herself into this place and sometimes at the end of the night, she looks so tired—all used up, almost. Especially if it’s been a heavy surgery night.”

  Thorn didn’t like the sound of that. He well remembered the gray cast to Neh’sa’s face and her extreme weariness that first night when she’d come home to him.

  “Why does she do it?” he asked. “Do you know?”

  Perchin shrugged.

  “Not really. Some say it’s to salve a guilty conscience but I don’t believe that’s true. Lady Neh’sanna is a just and fair Mistress and doesn’t mistreat her slaves—well, I’m sure you could tell more about that than I can.” He looked up at Thorn expectantly.

  “Yes, she’s fair,” he said shortly. Though Neh’sa had steadily pushed his limits past anything he would have believed would be possible for him, he didn’t feel she had treated him cruelly. It was more like she was opening a door to a part of him—a part he hadn’t even known existed before she bought him.

  Thorn still wasn’t quite sure how he felt about discovering this new part of himself but he couldn’t wholly blame Neh’sa for it. After all, if it hadn’t been inside him in the first place, she wouldn’t have been able to make him aware of it.

  “Anyway,” Perchin went on, “some also say she funds the clinic as a memorial to a former body-slave who died tragically.”

  Thorn felt his heart lurch.

  “A body-slave that died? She must have cared for him a whole hell of a lot to dedicate an entire clinic to his memory.”

  “Some say she di