Enslaved Read online

  For now.

  * * * * *

  Rivin Tragar of the Verrak stared at his target through narrowed eyes.

  She appeared to be crying.

  Why—he had no idea. It wasn’t really his business. His business was to kill her. And that had been his business since he had first agreed to take this contract from the strange Dark Kindred who called himself “Two.”

  So why hadn’t he done it yet?

  Tragar had no answer to the question.

  Well no—that wasn’t exactly true, he corrected himself. He hadn’t killed her yet because he wanted to know what she was capable of. When Two have convinced him to take the contract, he had hinted darkly of a female with hidden depths—a monster buried just below the surface that might burst through her mild exterior and leave a trail of blood and destruction in her path at any moment.

  A monster like that was right up Tragar’s alley. He preferred to take targets who were dangerous and could give him a good fight. Even better if innocent lives might be at stake. In fact, when he’d seen that this female—this Emily Brooks—worked with younglings, he’d almost taken her out from a distance at once, even though it wasn’t his usual way. Better to break his personal protocol that than risk young, innocent lives.

  But he’d delayed—stilling the itchy trigger finger on his sonic rifle for two reasons. The first was he preferred a fair fight. Unlike some of the other Verrak, he didn’t take targets at a distance. He took them somewhere safe and secure and let them choose their weapon and fight him face to face—let them die with honor. No matter what heinous crimes they had committed, everyone deserved dignity in death. That was Tragar’s belief, anyway.

  The second reason he didn’t shoot, was that he saw the way Emily interacted with the younglings. During his first observation one of them had fallen, scraping a chubby knee on the hard walkway that ran between the school buildings. The young one had run crying to Emily, her knee seeping blood, her eyes awash with tears.

  Here we go… Tragar’s finger had tightened on the trigger. Surely the sight of blood would bring out the ravening monster Two had sworn lurked in the innocent looking girl’s breast. He was ready to shoot her down the moment she went for the youngling’s throat.

  But instead of going feral—becoming a thing of teeth and claws and appetite—the girl he had been sent to kill gathered the youngling into her arms. She dried the little female’s tears and said some words of consolation—too low for Tragar to understand though he had been studying her language for days now.

  The little female had quieted, obviously feeling safe and comforted in the arms of Tragar’s target, who still showed no signs of attacking. Gradually, his finger had loosened on the trigger and then he had put down the rifle altogether and just watched.

  Gods, it reminded him of Kallah…the way she was with Jalex when he hurt himself…

  No! Tragar had pushed the memory away. He took a deep breath. I do not allow my past to dictate my present or my future. There is no then. There is only here and now. There is only the target.

  It a Verrak saying—a necessary reminder since most of those in his elite brotherhood came from a background of loss and sorrow. But though he repeated it to himself over and over, he still hadn’t been able to kill Emily Brooks. Not then and not now, ten days later.

  He studied her—watching her wipe at her eyes with a hand that trembled. Why was she crying? What had agitated her so? For a moment he imagined holding her against him and asking her what was wrong. It was foolish of course—a fantasy that could never come true. But there was no denying she would be pleasant to hold.

  She had a lush body hidden beneath her shapeless garments—he could tell. It was a shame she didn’t wear clothing that showed her shape but just the outline of her curves was tantalizing. Not that he was supposed to be looking at her that way—she was only another target, after all. Still, those full breasts and rounded hips…

  A burning sensation in his left arm brought him back to reality. It was the narsh—the mark of the Verrak—given to him when he first passed the trials and took the oath. Tragar looked down at the thick black lines criss-crossing his muscular arm from shoulder to wrist. The narsh burned to remind him that he had a job outstanding—a commission as yet undone.

  Tragar ignored it. He was used to doing so. He never took jobs with time limits on them, preferring to take his time and get every detail exactly right.

  I just need to know her, he argued with himself. Need to find out what’s so special—what makes her dangerous before I pull the trigger.

  And so he watched…and waited. Soon, he would kill her soon.

  But not…just…yet.

  Read on for an excerpt from

  Mastering the Mistress , available for preorder here.

  Kaylee looked at her new body slave with more than a little trepidation. She hadn’t planned on getting such a large male—or such a wild looking one. Despite the slaver’s reassurance that he was tamed and trained, the look in those pale green, gold-ringed eyes made her think otherwise. But he didn’t say a word of protest as the lumpish security Crangs led him out to the fancy space flyer her Aunt Jamelda had left her, along with everything else in her will.

  Kaylee had wanted to let him ride in the front, strapped into one of the passenger chairs but Lyra had put her foot down. Slaves belonged in the cargo hold until they were properly broken, she said, and she was determined to be certain this Havoc male was perfectly trained before she trusted him out in public.

  The whole training ritual made Kaylee nearly as nervous as owning a slave in the first place. Lyra claimed he had to be broken to her will, whatever that meant. Kaylee wasn’t looking forward to the process of trying to “break” such a large male in any way.

  She sighed as she thought back to her life just a month ago. She’d been living in relative obscurity on the other side of Yonnie Six, working as a shop girl in Tulga, a little town without much to recommend it. Still, Kaylee had been raised there and she’d been perfectly happy until her mother died about a year ago from an incurable wasting disease. She’d grieved a long time, missing the kind and gentle woman who raised her. Then she’d taken stock of her life and realized she wanted more—more of what, exactly, she didn’t know. But she did know she wasn’t content to live the rest of her life in Tulga.

  Luckily, just at that moment fate took a hand. She got word that her great Aunt Jamelda, her mother’s only living relative, had just passed away in a freak cliff jumping accident. Jamelda had been seventy-six at the time and well past her prime but in all her pictures, she didn’t appear much older than Kaylee’s own age of twenty-three. Either she had wonderful genetics or she was addicted to enhancement surgery. Whatever the cause, it seemed she liked living life to the fullest and when Kaylee had learned that she had inherited a fortune, and a mansion in Opulex—the capital city of Yonnie Six—she had decided to follow her great aunt’s example.

  Unfortunately, living up to her great aunt included keeping up appearances. Kaylee had felt completely lost the first time she came to a society function. It hadn’t helped that everyone there had ignored her entirely, even after the head body-slave had announced her as the heir of the great Jamelda.

  Kaylee had wandered around feeling lost until Lyra had come up to her. Since she was the only one who was kind enough to speak to her, Kaylee had latched onto her quickly. Her new friend had kindly explained that her clothing was all wrong and her lack of a body slave was a social faux pas which couldn’t be excused under any circumstances.

  Kaylee had invited Lyra back to the mansion her great aunt had left her and led her from room to room as Lyra’s eyes grew wider and wider. She had decided on the spot to make Kaylee her new “project” and together they were changing her image from that of a poor, timid girl who didn’t know which way was up to a sophisticated woman with the world at her fingertips.

  The first step had been clothes. Looking down at the too-short skirt she was wearing, which barel