The Breaker's Concubine (3 page)

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Ann Mayburn

the next day saying he had received a tip about a Kyrimian ship loaded with zanthin, Devnar had

leaped at the chance to prove Lord Adsel wrong and save his people.

“Do you think Volun betrayed us?”

Devnar rubbed his face. He wanted to believe his best friend had nothing to do with this,

but right now anything was possible. “I-I don’t think he did. But we can’t rely on a rescue. We’ll

have to work on freeing ourselves.”

“It shouldn’t be too hard. Did you see those pretty-boy guards?” Ikel lifted his chin to an

arrogant angle. “I’ve never heard of them engaging in open battle, always running back to the

safety of their planet. They must not know how to fight.”

“There’s a good reason people don’t want to fight them,” Devnar added in a soft voice.

“I’ve heard stories that they chemically neuter their captives. That they burn out the sex hormone

receptors of their brains before using them as slaves on their moon trading posts.”

“What?” Bolin pressed his legs together.

Ikel made a choking sound and cupped himself. “They won’t do that to us, right? I mean,

the way that bitch was looking at your cock, I thought she’d mount you right in the hallway.”

“I knew I should have stayed home.” Bolin slumped against the wall and slid down until he

sat on the floor. “My mother wanted me to be a carpenter, but did I listen to her? Noooo, I had to

go with the prince in search of women and glory.”

“That’s not going to happen to us.” Devnar tried to put all his confidence as their

commander and prince into his voice. “That bitch wants us intact for some reason. Use your

heads, stay alive, and make them pay. I will get us out of this. On my honor as a prince of Jensia,

I swear it.”

His words visibly lifted his men’s spirits, and he gave each a press on their shoulder before

moving to the other side of the small room. Leaning back against the cold metal bench of the

cell, Devnar prayed with all his might for his Goddess to give him the strength to get through this

and seek his revenge.

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Chapter Two

Melania Ophrim peered through the one-way glass and watched the man on the other side.

His long, black hair hung thick and shining to the curve of his well-muscled shoulders. An

elaborate tattoo covered the back of his right thigh and buttock. Scars traced over his body in no

discernible pattern, and she wondered where he had been a worker.

The small viewing room had a few comfortable chairs pressed up against the far wall, but

she chose to stand. Usually these rooms were used for training purposes, to watch a novice

perform the skills they would need as a concubine without being intrusive. The one-way glass

glowed with a running tally of statistics about the man standing on the other side, everything

from his heart rate to the amount of pheromones he expelled with each breath.

“This is why you called me back from my vacation? He doesn’t look like he needs my

help.” Her own reflection, dim and ghostly, superimposed over his. Long and straight, her light

brown hair framed her heart-shaped face. The result of generations of careful breeding, she was

beautiful enough to have been selected as a concubine and had the burning desires of that class.

Unfortunately the flaw of having one blue eye and one brown eye marked her as unfit to

breed with royalty. That might have been overlooked due to the quality of her bloodline, but

when her body attained womanhood, she had none of the lush curves or height that were

considered the epitome of female perfection. Instead her breasts barely swelled at all, and her

hips and bottom remained narrow and uncurved.

She was lucky to have not been sold at puberty to a whorehouse of the worker class.

Instead her instinctual sensuality and iron self-control were used to help train those who had

been given the great honor of being a concubine. That control now kept her pulse from racing at

the disruption of her much needed downtime.

Unlike trainers, a breaker was forbidden orgasm with those they trained. Usually given

novices who couldn’t orgasm and enjoy themselves either because of abuse or shyness, a breaker

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Ann Mayburn

needed all their compassion and skills focused solely on the novice. To seek their own orgasm

would distract the breaker and turn the focus from the novice’s pleasure to themselves.

Because of this, all her sexual frustration was bottled up until she spent weeks in a sexual

frenzy with willing males trying to soothe the need for release. Not having an orgasm with her

novices usually wasn’t a problem. She specialized in helping novices and concubines who had

been physically abused by careless Masters and Mistresses to heal enough to find pleasure in

making love again. The man standing with his back to them had enough scars to have been

abused, but their placement and shape didn’t appear to be the result of torture.

More than that, the arrogant tilt of his shoulders and the way he carried himself spoke of

great inner strength and confidence. There was none of the cringing, the effort to hide in the

corner of the room that she associated with someone in need of her special skills. If anything, he

radiated a dominance that brought an unwelcome flush of heat through her body. When she did

have the luxury of indulging herself, she always chose males who were dominant and

commanding. The giving up of control was as much of a rush for her as the actual sex.

Her gaze followed the curve of his waist, lingering on the heavy muscles of his thighs and

the strength of his calves. Those muscles weren’t shaped for beauty, but for physical labor. Was

he one of the lucky workers who had won in the Arena and earned a chance to become a

concubine?

Pimina moved next to her and crossed her arms in an uncharacteristic display of nerves.

The head trainer of the Snowbound Pleasure House had been training concubines for over three

hundred years. Melania examined her closely, noting the tightness of her still-full lips and the

way she rubbed her fingertips against her elbows. They both wore the skintight black leather

suits of trainers, but Pimina’s had gold embellishments on the shoulders and Melania’s had a hint

of purple shimmer.

“You’re my best breaker, and Lady Grenba requested you personally,” Pimina said and

glanced down at her. Small, even for a woman, Melania was used to people underestimating her

because of her size and her ethereal looks. As a breaker, she counted on it.

Melania’s lip curled in disgust at the mention of Lady Grenba’s name. “I’m surprised the

lady”—she spat the word out—“would want me anywhere near one of her novices again.”

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Not looking at her, Pimina needlessly flipped through various viewing screens, bringing up

different angles and charts of the man in the room before her. “Yes, well, she seemed impressed

that you were able to rehabilitate her last novice enough to be resold to another Mistress.”

Hot and bitter, anger burned in Melania’s gut as she remembered the months it had taken

to rebuild the shattered man. With a sweet and submissive nature, he had suffered greatly at Lady

Grenba’s hands. A known sadist, she had hurt him and tortured him until he was almost

catatonic. She and her trainer claimed they had no idea he wasn’t a masochist and professed

ignorance that he wasn’t enjoying himself. Melania later learned the novice was kept constantly

drugged so he was aroused, and gagged so he couldn’t protest. She wanted to tell the regulators,

but Pimina had warned her Lady Grenba would get a slap on the wrist while Melania would be

signing her death warrant. Both she and the novice would be long dead before Lady Grenba

came to any kind of trial.

Only the intervention of a kindhearted maid had alerted the trainers to his situation. He was

given to Melania to heal, and Lady Grenba had escaped punishment by virtue of her royal blood.

The maid had been punished for her intervention—nothing the regulators could have disciplined

Lady Grenba for, instead, a horrible “accident” that left the maid maimed. She now worked for

Melania after being removed from Lady Grenba’s tender care.

“I spent months helping him to relearn the pleasure, the joy of service. Months holding him

as he screamed and begged for death.” She shuddered and took a deep breath. “Lady Grenba

tried to have me sold to a whorehouse when I recommended to the regulators he not go back to

her.”

Silence settled over the room, and the air was thick with tension. Beyond the glass, the

man turned to stare at them, and a slight smirk lifted his lips. Rough and masculine, his features

held none of the carefully bred perfection of her people. It was almost shocking to see someone

who wasn’t faultless. Even at rest, his cock was long and thick enough to please any woman.

The edge of his firm upper lip lifted in a sneer filled with contempt. He said something in a

dark and fluid language the computer had to translate for her to understand. “
Conversion from

Jensian to Kyrimian: I’ll cut off your heads and shit down your throat.
”

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Ann Mayburn

The offensive insult made her heart stutter in her chest as shock instantly slicked her body

in stinging sweat. He switched to trader language and repeated the insult in words she could

understand.

That wasn’t any worker; in fact, he wasn’t even of the same race. “Oh my Gods, he’s an

off-worlder. Pimina, we have to get him out of here! If the regulators find out—”

Pimina snapped, “Breaker, attend!”

The words of training sliced through her panic, and she sank to her knees with her palms

turned up on her thighs. Legs pressed tightly together, she lifted her shoulders with a smooth

indrawn breath and released a great deal of tension with her exhale. Hundreds of hours spent

meditating in this pose did their job and helped her focus past her emotions.

“Better?” Pimina asked with a small smirk.

“Yes. Please forgive me for my unworthy display of panic.”

Holding out her hand, Pimina helped Melania to her feet and said in a gentle tone,

“Forgiven.”

Melania leaned so close to the viewing screen, her breath fogged the glass. She stared at

him in equal horror and fascination. “What is he doing here?”

“His name is Prince Devnar, and Lady Grenba captured him when he tried to raid her

ship.” Pimina waved her next question away. “That’s not important. You are to train him and

teach him the ways of the concubine.”

“What? It is forbidden to train an off-worlder!” Most of the men and women who came

through their pleasure house for training were willing volunteers, eager to earn the title of

concubine and live the rest of their lives in comfort as beloved and treasured companions of their

Master or Mistress.

A woman of her race was lucky to bear even one child in her lifetime. The royal houses

married for power but chose their concubine for love. To sully the royal line with an off-worlder

was treason, and the regulators would punish anyone who broke the law. Shaking her head,

Melania backed away from the glass. “Pimina, we can be executed for smuggling him onto our

world. Even if Lady Grenba brought him here.” Her voice rose to a hysterical pitch. “This must

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be a trap; she must be trying to set us up. The regulators could be on their way here right now

to—”

Pimina’s long fingers tapped the viewing screen and called up his file. Melania gasped as

the glittering crest of the empress shone before them, and Melania automatically dropped to her

knees. Pimina’s voice came out in a strained whisper. “His training is a royal decree.”

Pimina opened his file on the viewing window, and Melania rose on shaky feet to read

over the information. Everything in her own training told her instructing an off-worlder on how

to be a concubine was wrong, blasphemy even. Regulations were very clear and strict on the sin

of allowing any off-worlder onto Kyrimian soil.

The royal seal shimmered on the viewing glass, reminding her of the ancient videos of

insects called fireflies that once inhabited their world before the Burning Times. Following the

pattern of sparkles, she quickly came to a decision. If the empress had ordered it, she had less

than no choice. Everyone knew even the regulators didn’t dare go against the will of the empress,

let alone a lowly breaker.

Pimina said in a dry voice, “His initial review has been a great disappointment. The only

way we could get him to perform was to use heavy doses of an aphrodisiac, and even then he

would refuse to orgasm.”

Despite her fear and confusion, she couldn’t help but be intrigued. “Any idea why?” The