The Invisible Ring

Chapter Three

He had almost made it, had almost gotten close enough to catch one of the Winds. If he’d had a few more seconds before the auction steward had used the Ring of Obedience to pull him down and make him easy prey for the guards and their whips, he would have been home by now.

He would have had those seconds if he had killed the guard keeping watch on the slave pen. But at the last moment, when that wild stranger inside him had surged forward intent on the kill, he had seen the same fear and knowledge in the guard’s eyes that had been in the eyes of the Queen just before her blood had covered his hands . . . and he had yanked that savagery back. His attack had stunned the guard long enough for him to escape from the pen, but the man had recovered too quickly, had been able to sound the alarm too soon.

There would be no other chance. Not after last night.

I’m sorry, Mother. I’m sorry.

“Don’t look so pretty now, do ya, twat-licker?” Pain and the guard’s sneering words brought Jared back to the present. He looked at the man—a vicious brute whose Yellow Jewel was as grimy as the rest of him—and said nothing.

The guard hawked and spat. “All you pretty boys, prancing around in your fancy clothes, acting like you was better than other men, real men, who know what to do with their spears. Well, no one’s going to want to play with you now, are they, pretty boy? ‘Cept the Queens in Pruul, and everyone knows what kind of games they like to play.” The guard grinned, showing a black hole where a couple of teeth were missing.

Jared watched the guard warily. He’d been brought back to this slave pen at dawn, forced to his knees, and then tied so securely to the four waist-high iron posts he couldn’t move at all, not even his head. He’d had no food or water since yesterday afternoon’s ration. The auction steward in charge of the controlling ring connected to his Ring of Obedience had been sending low-level pain through the Ring since his capture last night. His genitals were so tender that even a fly walking across his balls made him grit his teeth to keep from screaming.

The flies were an additional torment, buzzing around the lash wounds on his back and belly that had reopened when the guards had pulled his hands behind his back and yanked his arms up to tie the straps to the back posts.

One fly landed on Jared’s cheek. He closed his eye before the fly could reach it.

The guard stared at him for a moment, then cursed savagely. “You son of a whoring bitch, are you winking at me?” Grabbing Jared by the hair, he used Craft to call in a knife, then slowly turned the blade until all Jared could see was the sharp edge. “Well, slut, you don’t need two eyes to dig salt.”

Jared panted as the blade came closer, closer. Explaining wouldn’t help him. Neither would pleading. If he used Craft to protect himself, all the guards would be down on him and, by the time it was over, he’d end up losing more than an eye.

Just before the blade came close enough to cut, the guard jerked, stumbled back a step. He shook his head as if to clear it, then rubbed the small of his back with a fist. When he turned around, he froze and let out a soft whimper.

Jared blinked rapidly, not sure if it was tears or sweat blinding him. Didn’t matter. The guard was between him and whatever had caught the man’s attention.

During those long seconds when the guard stood frozen, Jared became aware of the silence. All the usual, small noises inside a slave pen had stopped, as if slaves and guards alike were afraid to do anything that might call attention to themselves.

Finally, the guard vanished the knife and moved away slowly, awkwardly, as if his legs had become unsteady.

No longer blocked by the guard’s body, Jared looked straight into Daemon Sadi’s cold, golden eyes.

If pleasure slaves were the aristos in the slave hierarchy, then Daemon Sadi was as far above the rest of them as they were to the slaves used for hard labor. Looking at his broad-shouldered body and beautiful face or listening to his deep, sexy-edged voice was enough to arouse most women—and quite a few men, regardless of their preference. He could seduce anything that breathed.

They called him the Sadist because he was as cruel as he was beautiful. Owned by Dorothea SaDiablo, he’d been a pleasure slave for centuries and wore the Ring of Obedience. He was also a strong Warlord Prince, and people who annoyed Sadi had an odd way of disappearing.

Jared sighed in relief when Daemon finally looked away, the bored expression on that beautiful face betraying no thoughts, no feelings. But the voice that reached Jared on a Red psychic spear thread held sympathy and understanding.

*So. You finally couldn’t stomach it anymore.*

Jared thought of the last Queen who had owned him, and the kinds of bedroom games she and her Prince brother had wanted to play. He shuddered. *No, I couldn’t stomach it anymore,* he replied. *I couldn’t stomach them.*

If Daemon hadn’t taken an interest in him eight years ago when they’d been in the same court, he wouldn’t have survived this long. Pleasure slaves tended to become emotionally unstable after a few years of serving in the bed. Daemon’s lessons had helped him stay detached from what he was ordered to do, or what was being done to him.

Even that detachment hadn’t been enough that last time.

*The bitch deserved to die,* Daemon said, as if killing a Queen was so commonplace it wasn’t worth more than a casual remark. Which, for Sadi, was probably close to the truth. Then his tone changed, and he sounded like a teacher who was mildly annoyed with a favorite student. *But you could have been more subtle.*

The woman next to Daemon tugged on the sleeve of his black, tailored jacket. She seemed confused to find herself so far away from the amusements and the merchant booths. Compared to Daemon’s looks and Hayllian coloring— golden-brown skin, glossy black hair, and gold eyes—she looked bleached and plain. She mumbled something and tugged again.

Daemon ignored her.

Jared couldn’t hear the words, but he heard the whine in her voice. His muscles tensed. He held his breath.

She spoke again, but her whining was cut off by Daemon’s low, vicious snarl. She quickly stepped away from him. Once she was safely out of reach, she raised her voice. “I could use the Ring.”

Daemon smiled, a cold, brutal smile.

The guards exchanged nervous glances and shifted their feet.

*It seems my Lady requires some entertainment,* Daemon said. There was something beneath the bland tone that made Jared wonder if the Lady wasn’t going to be very sorry she’d made that threat.

*May the Darkness embrace you, Lord Jared,* Daemon said as he offered his arm to the Lady and started to walk away.

*And you, Prince Sadi.* Jared replied.

They were out of sight when Daemon’s last words reached him. *That guard’s going to come down with a mysterious fever. He’ll recover, but he’ll never regain enough strength in his limbs to resume his duties. What use do you think a man like that will have in a place like Raej?*

Jared shuddered, grateful Sadi had already broken the link between them. He owed Daemon a great deal, but there were things about the Sadist he preferred not to know.

Another fly landed on his cheek.

Jared closed his eyes, and tried not to think. Tried not to remember. And failed.

When he opened his eyes again, the day had waned to dusk. At any moment, the bell that signaled the end of that day’s auctioning would ring. The Blood Lords and Ladies who came to buy preferred to do so in harsh sunlight that didn’t hide flaws that wouldn’t be as apparent when a naked slave was displayed in muted candle-light or, better yet, flickering torchlight.

He saw the guard standing outside the pen, watching him. Not one of the usual brutes. The badge on the clean uniform jacket indicated that this was one of the guards who hired out as an escort. It was a fixed rule at the auction; Ladies were required to hire two of Raej’s guard escorts to help with any slaves they might purchase. Since the man was alone, his partner was probably guarding the slaves that had already been purchased.

Which still didn’t explain why the man was wandering around near the pens that held the most-condemned males. It still didn’t explain why the bastard was staring at . . .

Something crept through the air. Something tantalizing. Something intriguing. A psychic scent that made his heart speed up and his muscles quiver. A scent that made the wild stranger inside him strain toward it, wary and eager— and hungry.

A Queen’s scent.

Jared looked at the empty space beside the guard escort. Except it wasn’t empty.

Despite feeling certain of what he would see, he looked straight at her and still almost didn’t see her. She was gray, and stood so still she blended into the dust and the waning light and the taste of despair.

No. No! Not that one.

He began hoping, desperately, that the auction bell would ring. Then, maybe, if the Darkness was kind, she wouldn’t return in the morning, wouldn’t come back to stare at him with those hard gray eyes.

There were a few courts where being a slave was almost tolerable. There were others where every command abraded a man’s soul.

In the slave quarters, stories and rumors were fearfully whispered in the dark. Warnings and advice were passed along. Because of that, the slaves had a saying: the bite of a lash was better than being owned by Dorothea SaDiablo; being owned by Dorothea was better than dying in the salt mines of Pruul; but dying in the salt mines was better, far better, than being touched by Grizelle, the Gray Lady.

No slave who went into her Territory ever came out again. No slave survived being owned by the Gray-Jeweled Queen who was standing outside the pen, so silent and so still, looking at him.

Fear swelled inside him until it overwhelmed all the rest of the day’s torments. Tied to the iron posts, he couldn’t turn away, couldn’t even look down since the wide, tight leather collar kept him from moving his head. Isolated, he couldn’t blend in with the other slaves who clustered on the other side of the pen. He was pinned, alone, physically and emotionally naked beneath that gray stare.

She terrified him. The only advantage he’d ever had was that the Queens who had owned him hadn’t worn Jewels that could threaten his inner web. But the Gray Jewels were darker than the Red, and a Queen who could tear apart his inner barriers and shatter his inner web as easily as she could tear apart his body wasn’t a woman he wanted to get close to. In any way.

But the wild stranger, that beast that had been so angry and so eager to kill, now wanted to crawl to her and expose its belly in an act of complete submission.

That terrified him even more.

“Lady, there’s nothing here of interest. These males are unmanageable, unfit for anything but hard labor.”

Hearing the undercurrent of worry in the man’s voice, Jared focused on the guard escort standing next to Grizelle. The man had reason to worry. A hired escort who failed to protect the Lady in his charge would probably find himself on the auction block the next morning.

Ignoring the escort, Grizelle withdrew one hand from her robe’s wide sleeves and pointed at Jared. “That one.”

Jared’s chest clenched so hard he couldn’t draw a breath. Hell’s fire! Even her voice was gray!

And she wanted him.

No no no no no!

“That one?” The escort sounded shocked. “Lady, that one killed the last Queen who owned him and attacked a guard last night, trying to escape. He’s going to the salt mines unless someone buys him for a killing sport.”

Listen to him, Jared thought fiercely, trying to make her feel the words without risking a direct link. I’m tainted, twisted, past any hope. I’ll fight you with everything I am for as long as I can, and I’ll hate you long after that.

The finger didn’t waver. The gray eyes didn’t blink.

As he focused on the finger pointing at him, nine years of pain and fear began to crystallize into deadly, chilling hatred. He’d once believed in service and honor. Now all he believed in was cold hatred and rage. He was a Red-Jeweled Warlord from Shalador. He was Blood. He’d fight her, and die in the fighting. That was better than cringing and cowering while she tore him apart piece by piece.

The wild stranger howled in distress and desire, fighting against the very rage it should have embraced, shattering it almost before it formed.

“That one,” the Gray Lady said again.

You will not have me, Jared thought as he watched the reluctant approach of the auction steward who had been summoned. I will not yield to you. Even if I can’t do anything else, I can still do that much. Will do that much.

When a price was finally agreed upon, the steward bowed to Grizelle, then gestured to two of the guards inside the pen. “We’ll clean him up for you, Lady,” he said. His pompous smile died beneath that steely stare. “I’ll have him and the papers ready in . . . an hour?”

“Thirty minutes.”

The steward paled. “Of course, Lady. I’ll see to it personally.”

Offering no response, Grizelle and her unhappy escort walked away.

They gave him no chance to fight. Not that he could have with the way his cramped legs screamed when the guards hauled him to his feet. They attached two chains to the wide collar and kept his hands tied behind his back. With a prissy smile, the steward increased the level of pain coming through the Ring of Obedience until Jared’s already unsteady legs buckled and breathing took all of his concentration.

The short walk to the small building where lower-class slaves were delivered to their new owners took forever and ended too soon.

The wash-down room contained a pump and half barrel, a wooden table that held a large chest, and two iron posts positioned on either side of a drain.

Pain shot through the Ring at the same moment the guards untied his hands. By the time Jared could think again, his wrists and ankles were cuffed to the posts. One guard pumped water into the half barrel while the one who’d wanted to cut his eye rummaged through the chest. Jared’s gorge rose when the guard turned around and held up a wide strip of leather that had buckles on the ends and a leather ball sewn to the center.

“Open your mouth, pretty boy,” the guard said with a sneering smile as he came toward Jared. “You know how to do that.”

Jared clenched his teeth.

Vicious pleasure filled the guard’s eyes as he held the gag in front of Jared’s mouth. “Open your mouth, or I’ll break your teeth.”

The steward appeared in the doorway between the rooms and huffed with annoyance. “We’ve no time for this. She’ll be here soon. Besides, he’s already bought. If there’s any fresh damage, the bitch will demand compensation.” His voice shook a little, leaving no doubt about the kind of compensation the Gray Lady would demand.

Another flash of pain came through the Ring of Obedience. Jared kept his teeth clenched and tried to ride it out, but it didn’t end, didn’t end, didn’t end until he opened his mouth in a breathless scream.

With a satisfied grunt, the guard shoved the gag into his mouth and buckled the straps behind his head.

The wide leather collar was too thick and stiff to yield to the pressure of bone, so opening his mouth had forced his head back. His tongue worked relentlessly to keep the leather ball from sliding too far back. His stomach twitched, threatening to respond forcefully if he choked. And his mind . . .

It was during his third year as a pleasure slave, serving in a Black Widow’s court. She wasn’t Hayllian, but she’d been a protégée of Dorothea SaDiablo and had relished the lessons on how to cripple the male spirit. He remembered what it felt like to lie on his back, tied hand and foot to the bed, wearing a gag like this one. Already dosed with safframate, a vicious aphrodisiac, he’d had no control over his body’s merciless need. He’d lain there, helpless, while she played with him and rode him until he screamed.

Something had twisted inside him that night, and he’d felt the first flash of savagery. But it had taken six more soul-killing years before his father’s training and the ingrained honor and respect Blood males felt for the feminine gave way to hatred strong enough to let him fight back. Six years between that night and the night that savagery had broken free and he killed the Queen and her Prince brother. But two years ago, he’d secretly rejoiced when he’d heard that that Black Widow had played one game too many with the Sadist—and had lost.

A slap on the belly brought him back to the wash-down room and the current source of pain.

The guard bared his teeth in a smile. “Since you ain’t going to the salt mines now, the least we can do is bring a little of the salt mines to you.”

The other guard grinned as he opened a large sack and poured coarse-grained salt into the half barrel of water. Using Craft, he raised the half barrel and guided it across the room.

Jared closed his eyes as the half barrel floated toward him. He ignored his quivering body.

He would make a brutal dive down into the abyss until he reached the full strength of his Red Jewels. He would gather every drop of strength he had. And as he dove, he would place a Red circle around the building to form a psychic boundary. Then he would unleash all the power he had gathered. That Red strength would hit that boundary and turn back on itself. Even if someone survived the initial unleashing of that much dark power in a small space, the backlash would finish the destruction. They would all die— and so would he, because he wasn’t going to hold back any of that Red strength to shield himself.

I’m sorry, Mother. I’m sorry.

He dove into the abyss.

The wild stranger rose to meet him, smashed into him, stopping his descent.

Damn you, LET ME DIE! Jared screamed as he tried to slip past the part of himself that had become his enemy and reach his Red strength. Let me —

The half barrel of salty, frigid water flooded over him. Jared’s muscles locked around his lungs. The open lash wounds burned. He couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe.

With a scream of rage, the wild stranger dove back into the abyss, going so deep he could no longer feel it, could no longer find it.

Sagging, Jared felt the pull in his shoulders as his arms took his weight. The plan he’d had a moment ago to destroy himself became less than a memory. The past nine years of slavery pressed down on him until he thought his shaking body would snap under the weight.

He wasn’t broken. His psychic power was still there, but, somehow, the wild stranger had taken away the will to use it.

I’m a Shalador Warlord. I am Blood.

The words sounded pathetic and empty now.

The guard removed the gag, pulling out strands of Jared’s dark hair that had gotten caught in the buckles.

Jared absorbed the new pain, idly wondering if a soul could bleed to death, if that’s why he felt so weak and hollow.

He was dimly aware of the guards untying him, half dragging him into the next room, then cuffing him to another set of iron posts. The steward appeared in front of him and said something that sounded sharp, but the words were murky smears, and he couldn’t hold on to them long enough to understand them.

Someone removed the wide leather collar.

His chin sank to his chest.

His mind drifted until fingers gently lifted his chin and he found himself captured by hard gray eyes. They looked into him as if his inner barriers were completely crumbled, and there was nothing he could call his own—no thought, no feeling she couldn’t examine and discard as a worthless trinket. He cringed as memories of his family kept trying to surface. He didn’t want her to have his memories of his younger brothers, his aunts and uncles, his cousins, his father. His mother. No, he didn’t want her to have his memories of Reyna, especially not the last memory of her standing there, bleeding from heart-wounds his brutal words had caused.

The gray eyes still held his, but the fingers drifted down his shivering body, brushed over the hair at his groin, gently circled him like a different kind of Ring, and finally circled the Ring of Obedience. He felt the tight band of gold expand until he felt nothing at all.

Turning slightly, she flicked her right hand toward the wooden table in the room. The guards’ startled gasps didn’t completely muffle the other sound—like a heavy coin spinning, like a child’s hoop that finally loses speed and circles round and round, lower and lower until the ground claims it.

“Lady!”

The shocked exclamation meant something, but Jared felt too empty to react. His body hurt so much it didn’t even register the usual discomfort that came from the Ring of Obedience—the discomfort that effectively kept a man’s attention focused on the threat of pain.

“Hell’s fire, Lady, Ring him!”

The psychic scents of the males in the room stank of fear.

Jared frowned and wished his thoughts weren’t so fuzzy. Ring him?

He slowly realized it wasn’t a heavy coin on the table, but the Ring of Obedience. The one he’d worn for the past nine years.

Before he could even try to shake off the emotional lethargy and physical weakness, to comprehend what it meant, Grizelle’s fingers closed around him again and squeezed lightly. He gasped as pain shivered along his nerves.

Light flashed from her fingers, blinding him. A clap of thunder shook the building. The unmistakable feel of power filled the room.

Grizelle stepped back and calmly stared at the nervous guards, the shocked escort, and the sweating, hand-wringing steward. “You have nothing to fear,” she said. “He wears my Ring now.”

The steward pointed a shaking finger at Jared’s groin. “B-but, Lady, there’s no Ring.”

“Ah,” Grizelle said. There were so many nuances in that small sound, so much ice in the calm smile. “But there is. He wears the Invisible Ring.”

Jared’s heart began to pound. The Invisible Ring?

The ghost of a memory drifted just out of reach.

The steward chewed his lip. “I’ve never heard of such a Ring.”

Jared had. But how? Where?

“The witches in my family have been using it for generations,” Grizelle said. She gestured toward the Ring of Obedience lying on the table. “It’s ten times more powerful than that little toy.” Then she paused. “Would you like a further demonstration?”

The men hastily assured her there was no need.

Jared closed his eyes. Hell’s fire, Mother Night, and may the Darkness be merciful. Ten times more powerful. Ten times more painful. How was he supposed to survive that?

He wasn’t.

No one survived being owned by Grizelle. And now he knew why.

He let his mind drift again, no longer interested in what was happening in the room. More senseless smears of words. Female anger boiling up like a violent storm on the horizon. Whimpers. Hands untying him, walking him to the final room. He stood where he was placed, passive.

Ten times more powerful, and he couldn’t even feel it. Maybe he was numbed by too much pain. Maybe it was too subtle to feel after so much agony.

If only he could remember what he’d heard about how it worked, or why it was different from the Ring of Obedience.

Then again, maybe he should be grateful that he didn’t remember.

The door opened behind him and the escort, who had stayed in the room to keep an eye on him, snapped to attention. “Lady?”

Damn. Something had happened while his mind had drifted. The escort’s voice held cautious fear, a familiar tone that meant a dark-Jeweled witch’s temper was one careless word away from exploding.

“The clothing you requested will be here any moment,” the escort said. Jared heard the man swallow. “Is there something else, Lady?”

It took all of Jared’s self-control not to turn around to see what she was doing. It took all of his concentration to identify the quiet sound of a lid being unscrewed from a jar.

“I want to look at those wounds,” the Gray Lady said. “They need to be properly cleaned and this healing salve applied. I’ve plans for this one. I don’t want him dying before I get any use out of him.”

Her voice made Jared’s skin crawl. Her psychic scent unnerved him. Even without the wild stranger’s presence, it produced a kind of lust in him that went beyond the body’s desires, the kind of lust a dark-Jeweled male felt in the presence of a dark-Jeweled witch. It made him crave her touch, made him want her hands on him.

He hated her for that most of all.

The escort hesitated, then said, “I can take care of it, Lady.”

Relief flooded Jared when Grizelle left the small room. It would be better to feel another man’s rough hands than have those gentle fingers touch him again.

When the guards delivered the clothes and the healing supplies a few minutes later, Jared’s world narrowed to a fierce craving for water. He thought of asking the escort if he could drink from the basin—he would have drunk anything at that moment, no matter what had been added to the water to clean the wounds—but the man’s angry growl killed the words before they could form. As he suffered the sting of warm water and cleansing herbs while the escort washed his back and belly, he wondered if Grizelle had known what kind of torment this would be or if she simply didn’t care how long he’d been without water.

Jared endured the cleaning in silence, but he gasped when the escort smeared the healing salve into the lash wounds on his back. It felt icy after the warm water. It also quickly numbed his skin.

Released from a little more pain, he started remembering the advice Daemon Sadi had given him the year they had spent together.

Daemon had called it balls and sass. If a male went into a court cringing, for whatever reason, and regained a little strength or showed a little temper, it would be regarded as defiance by the Queen and the witches in her First Circle, and as a challenge by all the other males who feared losing their place in the court’s pecking order. However, if a male went in with balls and sass, forcing the Queen and the other witches to remember that the danger of a dark Jewel couldn’t be dismissed just because a man wore a Ring and was called a slave, he was treated more cautiously, faced fewer challengers among the males, and was thought of as a chained predator instead of as prey. In some courts, it meant the difference between surviving or not.

“I can do that,” Jared croaked when the escort started smearing salve on the belly wounds. He wasn’t sure about that, wasn’t even sure he could stand up much longer since he was quickly reaching his threshold of physical endurance. Balls and sass were a fragile shield, but, right now, they were all he had. “I can do that,” he said again.

“Shut up,” the escort snarled as he hurriedly applied the salve.

Jared studied the grim face, the shadows in the eyes that avoided his. The escort was a Warlord who wore the Purple Dusk Jewel. How did he survive looking at the bruised, naked bodies of his Brothers? How did he survive looking at the ones who had been maimed or broken or shaved? Did he go home to a lover or a wife he felt some affection for? Did he have children he cuddled and played with and loved? Or had he picked up a witch at the auction one year, one already broken and barren, whom he mounted without considering her feelings or well-being? What did he think of the males bought and sold here? Had he ever looked up one day and seen a man he’d called a friend standing on the auction block?

Ah, the shadows in the eyes. The worry behind having to escort someone like the Gray Lady around the slave fair. Look well, Jared thought as the man finished applying the salve and stepped away. Look at the price you may have to pay for one error in judgment.

As if the thoughts had been sent on a psychic spear thread, the escort looked Jared in the eyes. Seconds passed in strained silence. “You’re nothing but a pretty mouth, a dangle for the Ladies to play with,” the escort snarled.

Jared smiled savagely. “I’m a Red-Jeweled Shalador Warlord. I’m stronger than you’ll ever be, can unleash power you can only dream of. And I’m still here.”

The escort’s jaw tightened. His breathing became harsh. “Get dressed. Your dangle’s for private viewing now.”

The clothes had been dropped on a rough bench next to the small table that held the basin. Jared forced himself to look away from the basin full of dirty water, but not soon enough.

With a fiercely pleased look in his eyes, the escort used Craft to vanish the basin. “You may wear the Red, but you’re still a slave, you’re still Ringed. I might not know the power you wielded when it was yours to command, but I’ll walk out of here a free man, have a cold dipper of water whenever I want it, have a tankard of ale once I’ve seen the Gray Lady safely onto a Coach, and tonight I’ll mount a woman like a man’s entitled to. And you? You would have gotten down on your belly and licked the bottom of my boots for a sip of fouled water.”

“I won’t deny it,” Jared said. “But you, free? For now, maybe. The only difference between service and slavery is a circle of gold. If the Red can be chained, how long will the Purple Dusk stay free? If the right amount of gold marks changed hands tomorrow, how long do you think it would take to turn the handsome escort into a handsome slave?”

The escort’s face flushed a dull, angry red. He raised a fist.

Jared didn’t speak, didn’t move. He just glanced at the door leading into the hallway and smiled knowingly. He watched the escort fight to hide the clashing emotions, saw the moment the man realized he wouldn’t be able to justify the “discipline.”

Lowering his fist, the escort spat out words like they were gristle. “In five minutes, I’m chaining you and taking you out of here.” He flung open the hallway door but stopped in the doorway and stared at Jared with burning eyes. “I hope she cuts you apart a piece at a time.”

“I imagine she will,” Jared said, after the escort slammed out of the room. By force of will, he managed the couple of steps needed to reach the rough bench. Spreading the shirt, he sat on it carefully, grateful his shaking legs didn’t have to support him for a minute.

Jared, if you’re going skin-swimming at the pond, remember to spread the towel on the log before you sit on it or you’ll have splinters where you least want them.

Where’s that, Mother?

Ask your father.

So he had. Belarr had studied his son for a minute, muttering something about why couldn’t they have had one girl so he could return the favor. Then Belarr had sighed and explained what he thought Reyna meant. That’s the way Belarr always phrased it: I think what your mother means is . . . As if, despite being a strong Warlord, he felt the need to hedge when it came to explaining a woman’s words, especially the words of the woman he’d married.

Sighing wearily, aching in ways that hurt deeper than physical wounds ever could, Jared pulled on the coarsely woven trousers and slipped his feet into the poorly made leather sandals. He picked up the scratchy shirt but couldn’t bring himself to pull it over his head. Taking a careful breath, he turned toward the full-length mirror attached to the room’s back wall. In the building where pleasure slaves changed hands, the entire back wall was a mirror. He understood the reason for that. He didn’t want to think about why they’d put a mirror here, where it didn’t matter if a slave looked well-groomed when he emerged.

His fingers shook as he lightly brushed the buttons on the trousers’ fly. Psychic sense, physical sense . . . he just couldn’t feel the Invisible Ring. There was no way to tell how fine-tuned it might be, no way to know where the shifting boundary was between what was permissible basic Craft and what would bring agonizing punishment.

“Balls and sass,” Jared muttered. Hard to judge the risks when there were no reference points. But he just couldn’t pull that shirt over his head without doing something to protect the wounds. He’d listened to men scream when a shirt that had stuck to lash wounds was pulled off their backs, tearing off the fresh scabs with it. He’d seen what those men had looked like when the wounds finally healed.

Basic healing Craft. A thimbleful of power. That’s all he needed to create a tight protective shield around his back and belly that would keep the shirt away from his skin.

Taking another careful breath, Jared created the shield and waited.

Nothing. No surge from the Ring, no angry footsteps in the hall.

Swallowing hard to push his heart back down his throat, Jared pulled on the shirt and studied the man in the mirror.

He wasn’t dressed for an aristo outing, but even so he was a good-looking man, tall and well built, with that golden Shalador skin—not brown like the long-lived Hayllians or fair like other races, but sun-kissed, gold-dusted. A pleasing shade when combined with the dark-brown hair and brown eyes of the Shalador people.

Except his eyes were the rare Shalador green—eyes that could be traced back through the bloodlines to Shal, the great Queen who had united the tribes into one people.

Reyna’s eyes.

He was the only one of the three boys who had her eyes.

He had been willing to destroy himself, but now that he was still alive, he wanted to survive. Sweet Darkness, he had to find some way to survive long enough to get home, long enough to talk to Reyna and take those words back.

Balls and sass. It was the only weapon he could safely use. He was wringing himself dry, squeezing what was left of his physical endurance, but he had to last until they reached the slave compartment in the Coach, had to make Grizelle believe he was still a male to be reckoned with. For a little while longer, he had to hide the fact that he was nothing more than a hollow man.

Raising his trembling hands, Jared ran his fingers through his hair. It was a bit shaggy now, but with a little Craft, shaggy could be altered to bedroom disheveled. The Gray Lady was an old woman, but he was a bed-trained slave who had a few sweets he could offer that might entice her, might distract her, might help tip the scales to his advantage while he tried to figure out how much control this damned Invisible Ring had over him.

His stomach churned at the idea of encouraging the Gray Lady to enjoy him. But if it made her lower her guard, it might be possible to slip away and ride the Winds to Shalador.

Without warning, the escort opened the door and stopped short, unable to hide his surprise at the transformation of the naked slave he’d left into the Warlord who turned away from the mirror and smiled at him.

Pleased that he’d managed to unsettle the man, Jared walked toward him and held out his hands as if bestowing a favor. “If you’re going to chain me, get on with it. The Gray Lady’s waiting to dance.” He hoped the escort would mistake the exhaustion in his voice for boredom.

“She didn’t specify chains,” the man said grudgingly.

“No, I didn’t think she would. She strikes me as a discreet Lady, and chains tend to call attention to themselves, especially when the sound they’re making becomes rhythmic. Don’t you think?”

The escort’s lip curled in a sneer. “I’ve never worn chains.”

“I wasn’t implying that you had worn them.” Jared waited for the insult to sink in and then shrugged. “Or that you needed them. I just thought that since you earned a living restraining people, you might know a few interesting positions that aren’t considered common in the courts. But perhaps not. Things like that are a bit like mounting a woman dog-style. It isn’t to every man’s taste.”

Fury blazed in the escort’s eyes. “You know what I can do to you?”

“Not a damn thing.” Jared bared his teeth and added softly, “Come on. Try it. Let’s see if this Ring really can hold the Red.”

“Is there a problem?” Grizelle’s voice settled over both men like a cold rain.

The escort reluctantly stepped into the hallway. “No, Lady.”

“Then what’s the delay?”

Jared gave the escort a smug smile, knowing it would infuriate the man because there wasn’t any way he could respond to it.

Time to play the last act.

Mother Night, don’t let my body fail yet.

Jared stepped forward, forcing the escort out of the way. He bowed to Grizelle, making sure the bow was exactly what Protocol dictated as proper for a Red-Jeweled Warlord to make to a Gray-Jeweled Queen.

If the Warlord wasn’t a slave, that is.

The escort growled in anger.

Grizelle stared at him, but Jared thought he caught a flicker of amusement in the hard gray eyes.

So she liked balls and sass. Thank the Darkness.

Draining the little psychic strength he could summon in order to project the feel of a sensual man eager to please, Jared offered his right hand, palm down.

Grizelle hesitated a moment before lightly placing her left hand over his and allowing him to escort her out of the building.

Jared bit back a grin. The escort was now trailing behind them like a resentful, forgotten puppy.

It was full dark by the time they hired a pony cart and headed out of the auction grounds. Instead of going directly to the official landing place, they took a side road that circled around the low, flat-topped hill until they reached the ticket station, and the Coaches and drivers that could ride the Winds.

“Wait with the others,” Grizelle said, as Jared helped her from the cart. She didn’t bother to look at either of them as she walked toward the ticket station.

Jared held on to the cart, hoping the escort didn’t notice how much he needed to lean on that support to stay on his feet. He wasn’t sure his legs would get him to the Coach before they buckled.

“I don’t know where the others are,” he finally pointed out.

“This way,” the escort growled.

As they walked toward the man’s partner, who had been guarding the other slaves, Jared glanced over his shoulder and saw a messenger boy hand a slip of paper to Grizelle just before she reached the ticket station. The boy ran off immediately, not even waiting for the usual coin.

Feeling a warning prickle between his shoulder blades, Jared stopped and watched her read the message.

So still. So silent. So gray. Nothing about her seemed different, so he didn’t understand why he instinctively opened his first inner barrier and sent out a delicate Red psychic tendril. Even if her inner barriers hadn’t been stronger than his, the tendril was too delicate to probe even surface thoughts, which meant there was less chance of it being noticed. But it would be able take a sip of her emotions and give him some warning about her temper.

He wasn’t prepared for the blast of fear that raced back through the tendril and crashed into him.

Something had happened. Something had changed.

The fear hadn’t been there during the ride here. He was sure of that. Hell’s fire, he’d touched her, sat beside her. Even she couldn’t have hidden feelings that strong while there had been physical contact between them.

The message, then. The mes . . .

As he watched Grizelle tuck her hands into the sleeves of her robe and walk into the ticket station, his waning endurance finally gave out. The world became fuzzy and slow.

So hard to walk, despite the hand on his arm leading him. Words began smearing again, mashing together and stretching out until they became a language of nightmarish shapes. Bodies appeared in front of him, out of nowhere. Someone tugged on his arm. He stopped walking. The smells of blood-bright fear and sickly brown sweat oozed around the word shapes.

Water.

Why did that have to be the one word that still made sense?

“She’ll be taking . . . west-going Coaches?”

He thought that was one of the guards speaking, but couldn’t be sure since the voice kept fading in and out.

“Bound to . . . Territory’s west . . . Tamanara Mountains.”

“That’s what . . . figured . . . brought the rest . . . here.”

Except they were walking again, endlessly walking, while the escorts swore under their breath and their blade-sharp anger cut into him.

Where were his inner barriers? Where . . .

Someone pulled at his arms.

“Ssiiitt.”

His legs folded under him.

A gray voice. The word “water.”

A cup at his mouth. Water trickling past his lips. He held it for a moment, savoring the wetness, before he swallowed. Then he tried to grab the cup and gulp, but hands pulled it away from him.

“Sslloowlly.”

He obeyed. It was so important to obey, so important that this female voice that wasn’t gray didn’t take away the water.

Finally enough.

Ballsansass. That was important, too, although he couldn’t remember why.

He slid sideways. The water had melted his bones. He hadn’t known water could do that. Whiskey could, if you drank enough of it, but water? Who would have guessed?

Then he was melting and sliding, melting and sliding, sliding, sliding away into the safety of the night, into the sweet Darkness.