LITMIR.BIZ

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him again, and he had remained awake while the vast majority of other Opiri had taken the Long Sleep.

      In all those years, weary of bloodshed and battle, he had lived alone, making no contact with the other Bloodmasters still roaming the earth. Since the Awakening, he had maintained a solitary existence within the Citadel, devoting himself to study and intellectual pursuits.

      That had directly led to his choice to treat his property with decency and avoid unnecessary conflict. It was simple logic that one’s life ran more smoothly without such complications, and he despised any alteration of the Household routine.

      Now, merely because of her arrival, Trinity had completely unsettled it. “My lord?”

      Cassandra, dressed in a sheer sleeping shift, her eyes heavy and her hair tousled, stood in the doorway to his bedchamber. She had never looked more beautiful.

      “Come in,” he said. “Wine?”

      “Please.” Cassandra glided toward him, the diaphanous fabric sliding over the lush curves of her body, concealing and revealing naked flesh with every step. Smiling seductively, she lifted the glass of wine he poured and watched him over the rim of the goblet.

      “How may I serve you, my lord?” she asked, her full lips stained red with the wine.

      Before she could answer, she set down her glass, undid a tie at her neck and let the shift fall into a foamy puddle at her feet. As he had expected, she clearly had no objection to sharing his bed again after only six hours.

      He had never asked her why she had been Deported, but she had been both experienced and unafraid when he had claimed her. She had told him more than once, when they were entangled in the bed and the barriers had fallen, that he was a superb lover.

      Without waiting for his suggestion, she climbed onto the bed. She seldom required any foreplay, and she seemed far more eager than usual.

      Because of Trinity, he thought. She believed she had a rival.

      Refusing to think on it further, Ares began to shed his clothes, hardly aware of what he was doing. When he joined Cassandra on the bed, he wasn’t thinking of her at all. It was not her hips he caressed as he positioned himself behind her, not her lovely back or the elegant lines of her neck.

      “My lord,” she said, squirming to entice him. “Please.”

      He rolled off the bed, leaving her looking after him in confusion. He dressed with his back to her.

      “I have no need of you now,” he said, more roughly than he had intended.

      “My lord?” she said. “How have I displeased you?”

      He forced himself to look at her. She seemed very small, very vulnerable, all her sophistication and provocative manner gone as if she had shed it along with her shift.

      “It is not your fault,” he said, belting his tunic. “Go to your room, Cassandra. I have asked enough of you today.”

      Cassandra stared up at him, tears leaking from her eyes. Ares had never seen her cry.

      “How long will it be my room?” she asked, clutching the sheets tightly above her breasts. “I knew this was going to happen ever since I saw her. She’ll have my place, won’t she? You’ll send me to the harem, and I—”

      “Silence,” Ares snapped. “You will do as I tell you. Go to your room.”

      She climbed down from the bed, dragging the sheets with her. “I know you,” she said, her voice trembling. “She can only cause trouble here. Why did you fight for her?”

      “You would be wise to hold your tongue, Cassandra,” he said.

      “I know she excites you, but she’ll never let you have her the way you want her.”

      “She is a serf. She will obey me.”

      “But you don’t want it that way, do you?” she laughed bitterly. “She isn’t afraid of you. She’s not afraid of anything. You could take her if you wanted, but you expect her to come crawling to you and beg. You never had to do that with me.” She took a step toward him. “There is something wrong about her, Ares. If you can’t see it...”

      All the tension in Ares’s body seemed to explode out of his skin. He strode to Cassandra and grabbed her wrist. The sheets fell to the floor.

      “I have given you every privilege,” he said. “Every comfort, the highest status a serf can possess. But you will not speak to me this way, Cassandra. You will never challenge or question my decisions again.”

      She stared down at his hand on her wrist. He let her go, sickened by the look of despair on her face.

      “I have no wish to cause you pain,” he said as gently as he could. “Trinity will live in the harem quarters. Her value to me is in her knowledge.”

      “You are generous, my lord,” Cassandra said, bending to pick up the sheets. Ares got to them first and stood holding them in his hands until she took them and covered herself again. “I shall never forget your kindness. May you always find what you seek.”

      She walked through the door to her room, the sheets sweeping behind her like a train. Her parting words rang in Ares’s ears.

      They made no sense to him. Had he not just told her that Trinity would never fill her role in his life? Yes, he wanted his new serf, and badly. But it was all part of the experiment to test Trinity...and himself.

      Wasn’t it?

      * * *

      The next morning—or what passed for morning in this city of perpetual darkness—Trinity woke to the sense that she had been asleep far too long. She kicked the sheets away and rolled off the bed, instinctively ready to fight.

      But there was no one here to be afraid of, not even Ares. She was already in a position that would make it much easier to do her work, as long as she didn’t goad Ares into the kind of jealous possessiveness he’d briefly displayed when he’d shown her the city.

      I intend to keep you, Trinity, he had said. You will never hold any secrets from me.

      Little did he know just how well she was keeping them.

      She yawned, sat down on the edge of the bed and glanced at the ornate clock on her bedside table. It was just past 5:00 a.m. She’d fallen into a fitful sleep not long after Ares had dismissed her, though it had still been early in the evening and only ten hours since Ares had claimed her.

      Just before Trinity had given into exhaustion, Elizabeth had brought a selection of sleeping shifts, loose tunics and pants and another gown from Abbie. She had informed Trinity that she was to remain in her room until Ares summoned her, but had seemed relieved that Trinity appeared well and unafraid in her new surroundings.

      As if for the first time, she glanced around the room. It was luxurious, with attractive paintings above the bed, a small Persian carpet and furniture that might really be Louis XVI. Several dozen books stood on a small shelf against one wall. A dresser, supplied with various kinds of makeup and skin lotions, supported a large mirror. A side door led to a private bathroom.

      Fully awake, Trinity went to shower and prepare herself for her second day as Ares’s serf. She sat in front of the mirror and, ignoring the facial enhancers, combed out her hair and pulled it behind her head. She didn’t intend to make herself look seductive; she had to play this out carefully, because Ares was bound to make the next move in their “game.” The one he’d told her she couldn’t win.

      She put on the serf’s tunic, pants and slipper-like shoes, tying the tunic with a colorful sash that marked her “uniform” as slightly different from the ones she’d seen most of the other serfs wearing. The neckline of the tunic was low, exposing her throat,

      All the better to bite you with, my dear, she thought, still dizzy in the midst of such contradictory feelings. She thought she might actually have to lie down again.

      Someone

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