I felt sick to my stomach.
“The king?” I said, astonished. “He’s a trafficker?”
“No. He is a man who likes it when the women he fucks cry and scream when he’s rough with them,” Master answered with a shrug. “Our queen has a backbone, and he doesna like that when it comes t’his playtime, so I made a deal with him. He was eager t’agree t’my terms because I’m the only slaver who has made a home on Terra. Isn’t that somethin’?”
The more he spoke, the more scared I became. Master … he was reinventing himself on a new planet with a new system to live under. I shouldn’t have been surprised that slavery was allowed to continue once the law got something out of it in order to turn and look the other way.
“How did you reach here? Ealra is still a ways away from Terra.”
“Credits, Mud,” he snipped. “Terra’s docks are filled with engineers and new craft parts. I had an upgrade t’me warp drive and outer shield. It took me hours t’reach this planet. Hours.”
“But why?” I almost cried. “Why not just forget about me, Nicah, and the baby?”
“Because you three are mine.” He pulled us to a halt and pulled my body against his. The twin moons light shone down upon his face. “I knew ye’d be on this planet once I awoke and found ye gone. I knew Nicah already made it to their craft. Ye think I’d let ye go when I own ye?”
I shook my head. I thought he was dead. If I’d known he was alive, I knew he would have come for us. He wasn’t the kind of man to let anyone one up him, especially his slaves.
“Yer in a fancy getup, but don’t think for one fuckin’ second that ye aren’t the slave ye are, Mud.” He suddenly slapped me across the face. “I’ve been kind t’ye yer whole life because yer me bastard but no more, ye’ll be treated like every other bitch I own unless ye do as yer told.”
The pain of his slap was masked by the shock I felt at his words. He’d said he’d been kind to me my entire life because he sired me … fucking when? He had abused me every way but sexually since I was a child. He’d kept me trapped in a pen with a mother who he had killed.
“Where is Nicah and Asia?”
“Asia?” Master repeated. “That’s the brat’s name?”
“Where are they?”
I sucked in a sharp breath when Master’s hand reached for my head and fisted a handful of hair and twisted until I felt blades of hair being ripped from my scalp. I whimpered when his hand covered my mouth.
“Ye’ve changed,” he said to me. “Yer different, did they treat ye well? Give ye independence and make ye think ye had yer freedom like your mama always wished ye had? Don’t worry, I’ll beat it out of ye once we’re home.”
I was home.
He dragged me by the head when he began walking again, and only minutes later, we came to the edge of the Endless Forest that stretched all around Royal City. It was already dark out, but right at the forest’s edge, it was almost like a wall of black shooting up into the night sky.
“No.” I came to a dead stop. “There are beasts in there. They’re killers.”
Borak came to mind. They were stealth creatures that had the ability to camouflage and hide in plain sight while they stalked their prey. A borak is what killed Ezah’s lost female, Kovu. They were just one of hundreds, if not thousands, of deadly creatures who called the Endless Forest home.
“If ye fuckin’ move it, we won’t be in the open any longer than need be.”
I thought he meant for us to enter the forest, which terrified me, but when he let me go and moved towards a huge bush, I blinked. I watched as what I thought was a bush turned out to be fallen leaves and branches. Master removed them one by one until a small craft was visible.
“This isn’t your craft.”
“A spare.” Master jumped down from the nose of the craft. “Bought it for short-haul trips like this.”
He removed an object from his pocket, and the second I heard the cry of a baby from the craft as the ramp lowered, my heart jumped.
“Nicah! Asia!”
“Stay put,” Master demanded. “I mean it, Mud.”
“We’re okay!” Nicah shouted from inside the craft. “Do as he says, Levi. Please. He’ll hurt Asia if you don’t.”
“I will,” I hollered. “I promise.”
“Get aboard.”
“Master,” Levi cried. “Please! Reconsider. This is our home now.”
“I’m yer home, bitch!” The coward of a human lunged across the space between us and whacked his hand across my face. “Ye taught ye could run from me? ME?”
I found myself flat on my back seconds later.