Total pages in book: 40
Estimated words: 36875 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 184(@200wpm)___ 148(@250wpm)___ 123(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 36875 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 184(@200wpm)___ 148(@250wpm)___ 123(@300wpm)
“I understand.”
“What do you understand?”
“Uhm. I understand that I am supposed to always be by your side.”
“And that wandering off without permission, being out of my sight in this traitorous nest of vipers will earn you great punishment.”
“Yes. I get that.”
“Good. I will not tell you again.”
* * *
Manik
I wonder if she knows how pleased she looks when I tell her off, how pink and squirmy and generally mischievously pleased she appears. This human is going to be mine forever. I decided that the moment I took her that I would always keep her. She is my pet, my lover, my one and my only.
“I get it,” she says, trying not to giggle because she thinks I don’t want to see her being so terribly pleased at her own subjugation.
My lust is rising, but before I can act upon it, we are being interrupted by a bowing, scraping, useless fucking official whose name I refuse to remember.
“Your highness, I have great news.”
I grunt. A smart man would know that having entered my chamber without my permission is grounds for death, but this moron keeps talking.
“We have prepared a great feast in honor of your return, and we have declared a vacation across the nation.”
“Oh, I am sure the starving peasants whose homes and fields have been turned into factories will be absolutely thrilled to hear they’re getting a vacation from miserable starvation. Take the food you were going to serve at this dinner and give it to the people. Serve them. Not me. Now get the hell out of my sight.”
The noble scurries away. I make a mental note to have him sent to the poorest part of the country. Those who attempt to curry my favor will lose it. They cannot be trusted. None of them can be.
“You’re so fucking sexy when you’re being king,” Lyssa beams.
“Oh, you think so?” I gather her in my arms. “I think you just like to witness domination in the hopes it will come to you too.”
“Maybe,” she smiles.
“There’s something I need to do,” I tell her.
“Oh. Is it me?”
I chuckle. “Yes. But there’s a twist.”
Her eyes light up at the idea of a carnal twist. She is a kinky little thing, more capable of handling hardship and rough handling than most. She will need all her capacity for drawing pleasure from pain and satisfaction from humiliation in what I have planned.
12
Lyssa
“Are you sure this is really necessary?”
I am nervous. And I am naked. This is a punishment for doubting my place. And it is another of Manik’s lessons for his subjects. Now that he has an entire planet to dominate, he is more intense than ever.
“It is absolutely necessary. And I think you will enjoy it. You have some twisted desires locked away in that pretty human head of yours. Submit to me, and you will feel no pain. Fight me, and I will make more of an example of you than ever.” He looks down at me with those flashing golden eyes. “You are my pet,” he reminds me. “Forever. In all things. And as you are trained, so will my subjects be.”
Manik has taken me into a very grand hall where he has told everybody he intends to make an announcement on the future of the planet. There are thousands of his richest, most powerful citizens present, thronging the hall. Some of them seem pleased, others look outright scared. This world has been in chaos and I doubt they trust Manik to…
“DIE!”
A loyalist to Enchante rushes at Manik from the curtains at the edge of the stage. He is wearing the uniform of a server, and he has the kind of mad intensity in his eyes that marks the actions of a zealot.
Manik kills him so casually and so easily it is almost like it doesn’t happen at all. One moment the assassin is rushing with a knife, the next he is lying on the ground with a broken neck.
A couple of servants rush in and sweep the body away. They seem disturbingly practiced in the act. The crowd seems barely affected. I can only imagine what typical assemblies are like on this world of particularly volatile and warlike aliens.
“Hear me well!” Manik announces.
The assassination attempt distracted me from my human nudity for long enough that I didn’t feel the flushing shame and the light tug of the collar. Manik has brought me before his people as a captive trophy. He tried to prepare me for this moment, but I do not think you can be prepared for finding yourself bared and exposed to an entire hall of aliens.
There’s a hush in the hall, a sort of general low-level terror. This is the effect Manik has on others. He’s never really had it on me, not for long. I have become comfortable with his monstrous capacity for complete and total violence because I know in my gut he would never turn it on me. They cannot be so certain.