Chapter 14

Gedric lingered at the railing as evening deepened to full night, the sky dotted with stars which ducked in and out from behind high clouds. The deck had finally fallen silent, all the slaves now with those who would have them for a night of fleeting pleasure. The only sailors left were those on watch who had not draw first lots against the limited number of slaves.

Gedric turned from the railing and glanced at the men on deck. One glance at their faces told him they were not best pleased to have missed the first draw. His face twisted into a small frown. They would get their chance, far more than they had any right to expect.

He dismissed the frown when he wondered if it were more than he had any right to expect as well.

He turned towards his cabin, and his jaw stiffened. Resentment and anticipation both vied for influence over his emotions. The thought of a true Oceanus-bred slave stirred his loins in a manner he had not experienced for some time yet reminded him of what he had sought to escape.

Was this what Vortas was trying to do, force the haughty, overbearing Noble the Lord Admiral was so sure was buried inside Gedric to come to the fore, just so Vortas would have a convenient target to present to the Urisi? Or was he looking for a scapegoat to cover what may have been the Lord Admiral's flawed logic in deciding to go rogue in the first place?

Gedric's nose wrinkled as if something foul-smelling had been placed under it when he realized he was projecting his doubts as to his own motivations upon the Lord Admiral.

He stepped towards his cabin and hesitated once more. Why should he be so privileged as to receive the one Oceanus slave in the lot? He had checked with that intolerable Mandas fellow; she was indeed the only one.

What exactly was his fleet supposed to be rebelling against again? The destruction of an order he himself had abandoned?

"Blazing hellfire," Gedric muttered when the stirring below his waist would not abate.

He had considered rejecting this slave anyway, but when he could no longer recall the last time he had shared the intimate company of a woman, superior ideals gave way to baser needs.

He drew himself straight and marched towards his cabin.

Amanda glanced out the tiny window for the fourth time since she had been taken to what she had assumed was Gedric's quarters. The window looked out over the open ocean, the waters a deep violet deepening to featureless black as the last of the twilight hastened towards night.

She was disappointed by the appearance of the room. In her hope to recapture the essence of life back in Oceanus, she expected something bigger, something more opulent. Instead, it was not much bigger than her quarters at the Manor had been.

She sat up straight in the chair, unfettered for the first time in a season, save for the collar about her neck. Her fingers slid along its circumference, a gesture she had last done an eternity ago. A short, quavering sigh passed her lips when she could no longer feel the point where the halves had come together.

She forced herself to drop her hand, first to her thigh, then to the side. Her legs were parted, her pussy still oozing, her lust still hot and liquid. She avoided touching herself through sheer force of will despite the intense ache in her swollen folds. It was the longest she had ever gone with constant arousal and no relief.

The sound of the door startled her to her feet.

Whatever misgivings she felt about the room dissolved when her eyes fell upon the Fleet Captain as he stepped inside and closed the door. He carried himself with a regal bearing very much like a Noble Lord, tempered only by the subdued look in his dark eyes. Those eyes now scrutinized her with an evaluating gaze which reminded her of her first training session observed by Roquan. He had been as silently critical as she imagined this man was now.

And where the thought of Roquan would have moved her to tears before, now it prompted her to action.

She took a few measured steps forward, keeping her gaze as muted and deferential as possible. She stopped two arm's length from him, paused, then slowly dropped to her knees. She spread them apart and settled back on her feet, her pussy glistening, and lay her hands on her thighs, palms up. She lowered her head.

She shuddered, and a renewed surge of heat swelled her already straining pussy. For a dangerous moment, she trembled on the brink of tears anyway. Just that simple gesture of Oceanus-bred obedience had swept a tide of memories and emotion across her mind, and she struggled to remain anchored to the here and now.

Silence followed in the wake of her momentary loss of control. Had he seen it? Or was he simply surprised to have seen perfect Oceanus slave protocol?

Gedric finally stepped away from the door, the timbers creaking under his boots. He stepped to her side, then behind her. She felt a light touch on her shoulder and gave a tiny flinch.

"You are trembling. Why?"

Gedric voice seemed muted, as if he were afraid his words would carry too far beyond the cabin. Amanda opened her mouth to reply, and for a moment she was at a loss as to how to express herself as two worlds collided in her head. "I am anxious to please you, Master," she finally said, stumbling over the pronoun.

Gedric turned away, and Amanda heard a resigned sigh. "Or more accurately, you are afraid of what will happen to you if I am not pleased."

Amanda said nothing. She had not been asked a direct question.

Gedric stepped away from her. She heard the creak of the bed frame. "You fear the retribution of your owner should I report I was unsatisfied with you." She heard a slide of leather, and one of his boots thumped to the floor. "Is that true?"

Amanda hesitated, listening to the cadence of his voice more than the words. "No, Master."

A pause, then another slide and thump. "Indeed?"

Was that a question? She struggled to remember how much initiative Oceanus slaves were allowed to show. "I have been given no threats, Master," she said even as she recalled Norlan's parting words to her and her fellow slaves.

"Then what compels you?" When Amanda did not reply immediately, he said, "I asked you a question, slave."

Again, this was not what she had expected. Despite the harshness of the words, his voice quavered slightly, as if they had been forced. "Yes, Master, but I am not sure I understand it."

She heard a jingle of buckles and a slide of cloth. She dared flick her eyes up and saw his pants crumpled about his feet. "Let me put it this way, then: what motivates you to please me?"

Amanda understood, and her heart both soared and ached. "Because I wish to please you. It gives me pleasure to give you pleasure, Master."

Her words had once been truth, and she gambled she could recapture it that night. When he paused after he had stepped out of his pants, she held out some hope. It was clear to her he had expected to be presented with a slave broken to the Urisi system and was proven wrong.

When Amanda realized what she had just voiced in her own head, she once more felt moved to tears, but out of joy. She had not completely lost herself after all.

His shirt fell to the floor beside his pants. He strode forward and crouched beside her. "Are you quite sure of that?" he said in a softer voice with a hint of amusement.

She saw the movement between her thighs, his fingers extended. Her surprise delayed her reaction another crucial moment. No, control. Control! CONTROL!

Yet this was a skill she had not been called upon to perform, and her sexual muscles would not tense properly at first. When his fingers squished into her sopping pussy, she gasped as she rocketed up and over, her orgasm exploding against his hand. Her muscles then moved of their own accord, clenching his digits as if not wanting them to leave. She trembled as she resisted the urge to hump, yet her hips slid forward anyway, burying his fingers in her hot and tight cunt.

Suddenly, his presence was gone, and she was left gasping and dripping onto the floorboards.

"And that was entirely of your own doing?" Gedric said, his voice more curious than anything else.

"I-I ... n ... no, Master," Amanda gasped, struggling to speak against a climax slow to fade. "I was given ... g-given a drug ... all Urisi slaves are ... but I still told you the truth, Master."

A long pause, the only sound that of Amanda's still labored breathing.

"Slave," said Gedric in a gentler voice. "Look up."

Amanda raised her head. She swallowed as her glistening eyes swept up his body. He had disrobed down to his underthings, a sort of off-white tights which covered him from the waist down. His broad chest was bare. Along one side he bore a lingering, jagged scar, the skin slightly puckered and rough. A more recent scar from a burn slashed across one shoulder.

Her eyes flicked back down. The tights outlined his manhood in sharp relief as it swelled against the stretchy fabric.

"Do you still wish to please me, even after your 'reward?'" he asked. No admonishment colored his tone; it was a simple, honest question.

"Yes, Master, I most certainly do."

"And you look upon me now as if you truly desire me."

"Yes, Master, I do," Amanda said, her voice dropping back to its more even and gentle cadence.

Gedric considered, then shook his head. "I'm not sure you really do."

Amanda gave him a stricken look before she could properly quell her reaction. She took a closer look at his face and wondered if he had been serious or merely teasing her.

Gedric stepped forward. "Stand up."

Amanda rose, stumbling in her haste. She averted her eyes, sure she had somehow destroyed what chance she had to impress him. Instead, he cupped her chin and gently lifted her gaze to his again.

"You are not at all what I expected."

Amanda's mouth opened as if to reply, then snapped closed.

His hand left her chin and alighted on her shoulder. She did not flinch, but she did tense, giving Gedric a moment of pause. His hand left her shoulder, fingers trailing in a light caress down her arm.

Amanda's lips parted. Her eyes darted towards his hand.

"No," Gedric said. "Look at me, slave. Look into my face."

Amanda locked her glistening eyes with his dark and intense ones. His fingers left her arm and slid down her hip, light and pleasant against her smooth skin. She let out a slow breath as he reached her thigh, which quivered in response to his touch.

His hand slid behind her thigh, then trailed up, over the curve of her buttock. Her next breath emerged quavering and husky as his fingers squeezed the supple flesh.

He lay his other hand flat against her belly. As the first hand pressed more firmly into her rear, the other slid up and over her breast, cupping it, jiggling it, playing with it. A breathy moan passed her lips. The nipple throbbed with her thumping heart, begging for the touch he had yet to bestow. Instead, he appeared to avoid it, only brushing the edge of the areola.

"You grow excited," Gedric said in a softer voice. "Unless they now make your entire body respond to the lightest touches."

"No, Master," Amanda moaned.

The hand on her rear rose up her back until his fingers combed through her long hair. Amanda shuddered, her next breath let go as a husky sigh, her eyes dark and smoldering.

And now she beheld a moment of genuine surprise in his.

He stared into her eyes for what seemed an eternity, Amanda shivering with desire less the drug and more her own. For the first time in a long while, she wanted to have sex, as opposed to a means just to satisfy an artificial arousal.

"What is your name?" Gedric asked.

That simple question made Amanda's eyes liquid, and she blinked away the tears before they could trickle down her cheek. "Amanda."

For a brief moment, blazing anger burned in Gedric's eyes. Amanda understood and did not waver, for she knew it was not directed at her. She had seen the shock in his face at her initial reaction to his question, which made it all the harder to keep her composure now.

The anger vanished as quickly as it had come, replaced with a sudden lust which surprised her, as if he had been holding back all this time and only now allowed himself to express it.

Gedric withdrew his hands and stepped back. Amanda looked on as he grasped the edge of his tights and pulled them down his legs. She let out a slow, husky breath as his manhood bobbed thick and erect, tinged purple in its need. Amanda's heart raced, and her pussy tingled of its own accord.

Gedric discarded the tights on the back of a chair and took Amanda's hand. "Come to my bed now, Amanda," said Gedric in a low voice of unabashed desire. "And show me how much you remember of your Oceanus training."

Mandas stepped out of the dingy carriage, uttering a disgusted noise as he found some unidentifiable crumbs clinging to his tunic. He brushed them off with a look of regal disdain and tapped his cane against the bottoms of his boots to loosen the detritus he had picked up from the grimy floor. He stopped and heaved a sigh of chagrin when he saw the narrow, winding path ahead was covered in mud.

"And there is no other way to this dock at all?" Mandas called out.

"None, guvnor," the carriage driver drawled. "That be it."

"And they do their business here?"

"'sroight."

"Ridiculous. No one could haul any cargo here through this miniature swamp!"

The driver sniggered. "Well, now, guvnor, I figger they deal in less, ah, tangible goods, aye wot?"

Mandas frowned and turned towards the driver. "And you are sure no one followed us or knows I am here?"

"Unless yew told 'em, guvnor. I ain't gonna tell, not after wot yew paid me."

"Yes, and that better have been worth it!"

The driver shrugged. "Ain't my lookout if yew can't get wot yew want from 'em. I'll wait 'ere for yew, guvnor. Oh, an' if yew take more than two candlemarks, I gotta charge extra."

Mandas fumed and stalked away, then regretted it when his boot sank into the muck. He pulled it out with a disgusted noise and picked his way down the sloping path towards the beach. The lanterns along the side of the carriage behind him and the pale glow of weakly phosphorescent moss growing on rocks placed to mark the edges of the path provided only a meager light.

The sea roared in his ears, and he shivered at the touch of the clammy air as he stepped onto the beach. He could barely see anything until a flickering torch appeared at the far north end, mounted against an outcropping of rock which rose and became a high ridge beyond the end of the beach.

He followed the light until he came to a tiny pier, a weatherbeaten old schooner anchored beside it. Several men sat around a fading campfire outside of a crumbling shack. As Mandas approached, one of the men looked up and slapped his companion on the arm, pointing. The second man stood up, the fire briefly silhouetting his swollen gut.

Mandas wrinkled his nose as the man approached, as if expecting to smell something foul. All that came to him was the smoky odor of the fire and the fishy aroma of the remains of their dinner. Mandas wanted to recoil anyway; the man's unkempt beard reminded him too much of Norlan.

"Yeah?" the man barked as he stopped a dozen arm lengths away.

Mandas drew himself straight and tried to maintain a regal bearing. "Do you speak for the Ollo independent merchant clan?"

The man smirked, displaying several misshapen teeth. "Huh. Guess ya could say that. Just call me Riddon fer now. What's it to ya?"

"I have need of your services."

"Information or cargo?"

"Cargo, of a sort."

Riddon raised a bushy eyebrow.

"Two people. An Oceanus naval officer and a slave girl."

The merchant snorted. "You jokin' or sumthing?"

Mandas frowned. "Are you saying you can't do it?"

"Naw," Riddon drawled. "Jus' don't see the likes of you shellin' out that kinda platinum."

"Are you implying a member of the Royal Court would renege on a debt?"

The merchant snorted. "Naw. I'm jus' sayin' yer all cheap."

"I assure you I will pay whatever you demand."

"An' jus' what do ya want us ta do with 'em?" His lips twisted into a lascivious smile. "Heh, well, we'd know what we'd do with the slave girl, sure's right about that."

Mandas sneered. "Spare me your peasant sexual humor. You need only get them away from shore and rendezvous with another ship which will take them to Oceanus. And no questions asked."

"An' that's it?"

"Let's just say I don't want any Royal Navy entanglements."

Riddon's eyebrows rose. "Heh, well, that's the trick, ain't it? Yeah, that's gonna cost ya. Ten thousand platinum."

Mandas stiffened and managed to hold his tongue before it could deliver a retort he was sure would destroy the deal. He forced himself to take a slow, deep breath. "Ten thousand, then."

The merchant looked almost disappointed, as if he had been spoiling for a fight. "Huh."

"I do not have an exact day and time for you yet," said Mandas. "You will have to be available to pick up your 'cargo' with only a day or two of notice."

Riddon nodded. "Yeah, we can do that. But ya gotta pay up first. In advance."

"You will have your money. Do we have a deal?"

The merchant considered. He glanced towards his cohorts for a moment. "There's one way I can cut the price for ya. Let us keep the slave girl. I'll reduce the price ta seven thousand if ya let us keep her."