Enslaved Read online

  Just then the hailing frequency sounded from his viewscreen.

  “What the hell?” he muttered again. Flipping on the screen to take the call, he was confronted with a blonde haired female and a male with long, dark red hair who looked Kindred.

  “Thrace S’ver?” the male said, addressing him. “Greetings, brother. You don’t know us but we know you. And we’re here to help.”

  Chapter Thirty-three

  “Please, no more,” Trin whispered through dry lips. “Please, High Priestess, I feel so weak.”

  “You are weak or you would not have allowed a male to penetrate you.” Betina, the high priestess gave her a disgusted look from under the elaborate headdress she wore. It was jet black, like her long robes, and encrusted with rubies the size of Trin’s thumb.

  Trin wondered listlessly if her mother’s money had helped pay for the elaborate head gear. If so, she had made a sizable investment into one of the ugliest articles of clothing Trin had ever seen. It had stiff folds on either side and was peaked in front, coming to a point like a bird’s beak which cast the priestess’s sallow, narrow features into shadow. Her beady eyes glinted from the darkness, raking Trin with a judgmental stare that made her feel naked.

  As a matter of fact, she was naked—abject humiliation was part of the ritual she was undergoing in an attempt to cleanse herself from the male influences she had allowed to enter her body. But being naked wasn’t nearly the worst part of the experience so far. Not nearly.

  Trin passed a hand over her eyes, trying not to remember…wishing she could forget…

  Her mother had been waiting to meet her at the front door of their domicile when she came home to Zetta Prime. She hadn’t even allowed Trin to enter the house for fear she would contaminate it. Instead, she had taken her straight to the Temple of the Goddess of Judgment, a vast, gray building with tall, imposing walls and numerous hooded priestesses roaming its echoing halls in bare feet.

  The high priestess, Betina, had taken one look at Trin and dragged her to the inner sanctum of the main worship hall to stand before the huge, frowning statue of the Goddess of Judgment.

  “Strip her!” the high priestess had ordered and two gray robed priestesses had complied, tearing Trin’s clothing from her body and leaving her standing there naked and shivering in the echoing chamber.

  “Oh Goddess of Judgment,” Betina intoned, looking up at the tall, frowning statue. “One stands before you who has been Defiled. She has allowed a male to enter her and in so doing she has become unclean.” She pointed a finger at Trin. “Admit your sin!”

  “I…” Trin’s voice had come out as a croak. “I…forgive me, Goddess—I have sinned. I have…allowed a male to…to penetrate me.” She took a gulping breath. “And…I enjoyed it. I…I’m so sorry. Please, forgive me.”

  “She enjoyed it!” Betina sucked in her breath in horror.

  “I…could not help it,” Trin mumbled. “I could not…could not stop the pleasure I felt when…when he was with me.” She looked up at the statue which seemed to scowl at her in anger. “Which is why I ask for forgiveness.”

  “Forgiveness cannot be had simply for the asking.” Betina’s beady black eyes narrowed. “It must be earned with sacrifice. Only through pain and mortification of your body and spirit can purification be achieved.”

  “I understand,” Trin said humbly. “I will do whatever is necessary.”

  “Prove it.” The priestess pulled something long and silver out of her flowing robes and handed it to Trin.

  Trin looked down at the pair of heavy, blunt sheers that lay in her palm and then back up again at the priestess.

  “What—?”

  “Cut it off.” Betina motioned to her hair. “Cut it off as a sign of your humility and your devotion to the Goddess.”

  “All…all right.” Trin had always considered her hair one of her best features but she lifted the heavy sheers without hesitation and began to cut. She couldn’t see what she was doing so she knew she must be making a mess of it. But that didn’t matter now—all that mattered was making up for what she had done.

  I deserve it, she told herself as long strands of her thick black hair drifted down around her bare feet. I have to pay for what I did and this is the only way.

  Her head felt lighter and the cool breeze sweeping through the echoing worship chamber chilled the back of her neck when she was finished and handed the sheers back. She hoped that standing naked before the Goddess and cutting her hair might be all she had to do, but she was wrong.

  The ritual was just getting started.

  After her hair was cut, Betina brought out a stone chalice, so large and heavy she had to hold with both hands. Strange markings were carved around the outside and the inside of it was stained an ominous reddish-brown.

  “What…what is that for?” Trin had asked hesitantly.

  “Now you must bleed for your sins,” the priestess told her. “Bleed the evil from your body and give your blood to show your remorse.” She withdrew a long, curving ceremonial dagger with a jeweled handle and pressed it to the inside of Trin’s elbow.

  Trin stifled a gasp as the blade bit deep and watched as her blood overflowed and poured in ruby rivulets down her arm and into the stone goblet. After a while, she began to get dizzy and wondered how much blood she had to give to atone for her sins. She felt weak and shaky when the deep cup was finally filled and one of the lesser priestesses bandaged her arm.

  But she still wasn’t done.

  “Bring me the hrakka,” Betina demanded. One of the other priestesses disappeared for a moment. When she returned, she held a long handled instrument with four sharp, parallel claws curving from its end.

  “What…what are you going to do with that?” Trin asked, eyeing the needle sharp claws in dismay.

  “As you have allowed defilement and impurity to enter into you, so you must be marked on the outside to show your evil,” the priestess intoned. As Trin tried not to flinch, she dragged the sharp claws down her arms and legs, over the tops of her breasts, her belly and buttocks—even her cheeks—scoring and scratching every inch of Trin’s body with long, bloody welts that stung and ached fiercely.

  Trin tried not to cry out but the pain was intense. She shifted uneasily and the priestess slapped her hard across the cheek.

  “Hold still!”

  “I’m trying,” Trin whispered through gritted teeth. “The pain…”

  “The hrakka’s claws are treated with an acidic agent to increase pain and suffering.” She gave Trin a cruel smile. “They will leave permanent marks so that all who see you will know what you have done.”

  “What?” Trin looked at her wildly. “But my mother said, she told me that only you and she would know what…what I did!”

  “That was before you admitted to enjoying your defilement,” the priestess snarled. “Such disgusting sin cannot go unpunished. Now everyone who looks at you will know that you allowed yourself to be defiled by a male. The marks of the hrakka will tell them!”

  Trin wanted to cry but she refused, raising her chin instead. Maybe the priestess was right—maybe she did deserve to have everyone know what she had done—to be marked permanently for her sins and her shame. And yet…had it really been so bad? She couldn’t help remembering the feel of Thrace’s strong arms around her, the way he had whispered her name and said that he loved her. They hadn’t been hurting anyone—was what they had done really so awful?

  I committed sacrilege against the Goddess, she reminded herself sternly. I have to pay the price.

  But even so, the next step of the ritual was almost more than she could bear.

  Betina led her out of the back of the temple, into the gardens—a vast space covered in withered purple grass and surrounded on all sides by high, gray walls.

  There, stamping and snorting, were two familiar figures. Trin’s heart sank as she saw one of the lesser priestesses holding the bridles of her beloved pets, Swift and Silk. When they saw her, they tossed thei