I was twelve and visiting a friend. Like me he was member of a cadet branch. Mine was for a ducal family in another empire. His was from a secondary cadet branch of the royal Ming family. We did not know the heir Mara was visiting or that things were going to go bad. Men attacked through the gate and killed the guards.

Rog tried to protect Mara as her guards were killed. As for me ... I attacked the men. I shoved a pistol to the side and struck into a throat with the walking stick I had just been given. I spun it and turned and lashed out and into another man’s temple. I kicked back and down and broke a knee while bringing the stick back.

I twisted and yanked the man I had just killed to the left as another man aimed and fired. He jerked and staggered as I stepped and lunged and let the stick slid through my hand. It slammed into a man’s forehead and I started to turn when a blow took me down. Everything went black and I woke to pain.

I was on a rack and beside Mara who was tied and strapped down. She was naked and several dozen men with full body markings moved around the room. I struggled when one of the men began to rape her and they laughed and another dumped poisonous insects on me. They were like the old earth scorpions in look but they were not scorpions.

They began stabbing their stingers and I began screaming as slowly their poison crept through my body. I jerked on the restraints and struggled as the men laughed and kept the insects on me or dumped others. I have no idea when Mara died as time and the constant agony blurred my mind. The men used drugs to keep me conscious and even more to make the pain worse.

Several lifetimes later blackness took me. I drifted and still I was in pain but slowly light returned. Armed men were around the walls in a quiet room with white walls. I glared as I looked around and tried to lift my arms. I struggled and glanced at them but there were no restraints. The door opened and a doctor walked in.

I shifted as I watched him and he stopped beside the bed, “James? How do you feel?”

I tried to open my mouth to speak but it was like I was paralyzed. My blood was still stinging and burning like it was on fire. My muscles felt like they had been stretched and throbbed with their own pain. Even my bones had a constant ache but all of that was not even close to the pain from the insects.

The doctor sighed and began to touch and examine me, “it is going to take awhile to neutralize the venom. We do not even know why or how you are still alive.”

It was three days before I could move and by then I realized I was free. The men that took the princess had been from a triad. Not only had they raped her, they had tortured her like me but she was hacked apart a day after they started. It was a message to the emperor and his son. They answered by hunting and killing any and every member of the triad they could find.

My torture changed me in several ways. First I was twice as strong as other men. Second I had a faster reaction than other men. Third I continued to look very young as if I were not aging. Forth I had an intense hatred of the triads. Last I was fiercely loyal to the royal family. By the time I was twenty I was an expert with a pistol, fighting stick or with my bare hands.

The emperor watched as I graduated and then summoned me. I entered his huge office and knelt and bowed and waited. He gestured and I stood and moved halfway across the room and stopped to kneel. He shook his head and gestured and I hesitated, approaching closer was a great honor. I stood and moved to three steps from his desk.

I knelt and he sighed, “James my guard commander has your request to join my guards.”

I looked at him and waited and he smiled, “I would accept you.”

I bowed my head, “thank you lord.”

He shifted, “I want you to go to the Sing academy. I would that you protect my granddaughter Lin.”

Lin was Lin Zi Jing Liang Ming. Her name was not tradition like Mara because she had not been expected to be an heir. I bowed my head again, “nothing will harm her lord.”

He gestured and I came to my feet and bowed and backed toward the door. I turned as it opened and walked out. First I needed a weapon and in keeping with my looks and where I was going it needed to be compact. The boys would wear suits and the girls mid to long skirts with white blouses.

I added a stun wand and a few more surprises and then took a flyer. I was still packed from my school and carried everything in. The few teachers looked at me like I was a student. First I went to see the headmaster and then the six guards protecting Lin. Her grandfather had told them I was coming.

Next I had to order school uniforms and looked at the classes she was taking. She was sixteen and I sighed as I realized I was back to studying. I made sure my room was close to hers and made an inquiry. I knew there were ways to jam comms and ordered a few ancient replica wireless devices, one would be linked to my comm and the other my comp.

I met Lin the next morning as she left her room. I fell in and walked beside her and she looked at me, “um ... who are you?”

The guard had left and I smiled, “James. I am your new shield my lady.”

She snorted, “you look younger than me.”

I nodded, “probably why your grandfather wanted me here.”

At first she was stiff and distant but I ignored it as I stayed with her and kept watch and reported. When an older classmate began paying her attention in the late afternoon I did not like him. I was not sure if it was jealousy or something else. She seemed to like him though and let him touch her. I even caught him with his hand in her skirt rubbing her pussy.

I stepped and pushed him back and he growled and two guards started to move. I caught a reaching hand and yanked it down and snapped a kick up and across. The first guard yelled as he was yanked to his knees and the second was flung back and into the wall. I looked at the boy, “you do not shame her.”

Her face was white as he glared, “do you know who I am?”

I snorted, “a pathetic boy.”

I turned and moved back and gestured to Lin, “lady.”

She hissed as she started to walk, “I can...”

I sighed, “I am your guard Lin. If you want that ... person to finger your pussy or even spread your legs you do not let him do it in the middle of a hall.”

She blushed, “he is a senior and likes me. His family is a distant relation and wealthy.”

I sighed, “and you enjoyed him touching you. Him being older made you feel grown up and special.”

She nodded as we turned into the hall to her room. I stopped and touched her before we reached the guards on her door, “I know you want sex. I know you think Heng is nice. Be careful where and when it happens.”

She smiled, “yes little brother.”

I watched her go to her room and went to make a report. The guard commander growled and told me to watch them closely tomorrow. The emperor did not want her associated with the Mingliu clan. He and the commander did not seem to like or trust Heng or his father Kuen. His father and clan were in a merchant clan with suspected triad ties.

That was enough for me not to like him. I snapped awake to a beeping alarm that told me the comm was being jammed. I rolled out of bed and dressed before yanking the door open. I cursed and yelled when I saw the missing guards and ran for the princess’s room. I broke the door open and found the guards dead on the floor and the princess missing.

I lifted my left arm and turned on my comp tracker. She had not known I had attached a micro tracker in her hair. Unlike the other trackers it used ancient tech and was not jammed. I spun and started to run as I pulled my weapon. I did not see the other guards who should be responding and kept going.

I trotted as I followed the signal through the school and to the gym. I crashed into the doors hard with my shoulder. They burst open and across the huge gym by the locker room door were three guards. I ran and aimed and they reacted and pulled pistols. I fired and the first went down and then a second.

The last fired but I dove and rolled and leaped and spun. My foot snapped out and his head went back and smashed into the wall. Before he began to fall I was lunging into the door and the door jam splintered. I stagged as the door flew open and Heng and an older man I recognized as his father spun.

They were missing pants and Lin was naked and on a bench in front of them. On the floor was a med instrument with her implant. I brought the pistol up as they jammed their hands into their jackets. They froze and I growled and gestured, “turn and face the wall.”

Kuen sneered, “you would not dare...”

I fired into his shoulder and he screamed as the pistol in his hand was flung across the room. His son jerked and shoved his arms up. I gestured, “turn and face the wall. Speak again and you will not live to leave this room.”

I waited and then moved forward and shoved them into the wall. I searched them both and tossed another pistol away from Heng. I moved to Lin and knelt and checked her. She was alive but asleep and I touched my comm and entered an address. The commander snapped when it connected, “about time! Why are the guards not answering!”

I looked at the two men across from me, “dead. I caught Heng and his father. They took the princess and ... they have removed her implant and were getting ready to rape her. I am using an old transmitter linked to my comm but we are in the school gym locker room.”

He cursed, “protect her at all costs. The reaction team is on the way.”

Each time Kuen started to speak I put a round into the wall beside his head. It was not just the reaction team that came. They rushed in and the jammer died and they gagged and bound the two men. I started to cover the princess but the reaction team leader gestured me back. Thirty minutes and more guards arrived and then the prince.

I knelt and bowed my head as he crossed the room and looked at his daughter. More guards entered and then the emperor and I held still. He walked to the bench and looked at Lin, “well?”

The prince growled, “she offered herself to Heng.”

The emperor growled and I looked up, “sir she is only a girl. He was older and it made her...”

He sighed, “I know James. I...”

He got a funny look and glanced at his son, “she needs a consort. One that is older and loyal.”

The prince nodded as the emperor looked at me and then looked around the room, “out.”

I came to my feet and his hand caught my shoulder, “not you.”

The guards left quickly and the prince grinned, “James Edward Conner do you find my daughter ... arousing?”

I reddened and knelt, “I would never...”

The emperor chuckled, “and if we asked you to bed her? To get her with child?”

I looked up and then back and forth, “if she were willing.”

They looked at her naked body and then at me, “take her to your room and wake her. Tell her we have chosen you as her consort. Give her the sex she craves, as much as you want.”