The Slave Palace: Wulf and Locke (Kingdom of Slaves Book 1) Read online

  Wulf always swam longer and harder than Locke. His youth and pent-up energy needed to vent somewhere. For all his protests, he had been the first one in the water and the last one out.

  The clean chlorinated water scented the air along with a faint perfume of fall accompanied by leaves on the wind and dusty breezes. Small white clouds scudded across a fairytale blue sky.

  Wulf pulled himself from the water and Locke could not take his eyes off him. His arms bulged. He came up like a merman from the sparkling depths, water rolling over his hair and down his sides, chest and legs as he lifted himself to his thighs, up and over the lip of the pool, then to his knees and quickly stood.

  Still shy, he turned away from Locke, shaking his mane of hair which, when wet, looked like sheets of wavering brown honey. He grabbed a towel, dried himself cursorily, and laid it on a lounge chair two lounges away from Locke.

  Normally, Locke insisted Wulf remain close to him at all times. Wulf obeyed without having to be reminded. But today was different. Things had changed. Wulf had learned new things about himself. It always happened with slaves. Anger. Depression. And denial. Not always in the same order. But all happened before they accepted their new lives. Some took longer than others, but they all went through it.

  Wulf was a more difficult case, but he would get through it, too. Locke had infinite patience, but where Wulf was concerned, he wished it was quicker. The man infatuated him to the point of obsession. Even when apart, Locke couldn’t stop looking at him through cameras day and night. He paced himself, but it proved more difficult than he’d anticipated.

  Wulf lay back, hands crossed over his groin. A typical pose. Modest. Inhibited. But also wise in protecting the genitals from sunburn.

  Locke held back his smile. He wanted to smile a lot these days. Wulf, despite his offended manner and protesting glares, stimulated him. It wasn’t simple physical attraction, though that was the initial draw. It was mental as well. Wulf was a prize, someone with conviction, technically not a criminal, either. He was a prisoner. But he had been an upstanding citizen… simply in the wrong country.

  War brought down casualties. Wulf was one of them.

  After half an hour baking in the southern sunlight, Locke took Wulf, despite his dissenting stare, to the front of the massive estate to tour the sculptures by the Palace entry way.

  Wulf said nothing, but did a lot of reproachful breathing. But as Locke watched him, he saw Wulf could not help but look.

  More than looking at the sculptures, Wulf gazed at them for long minutes, his face taking on a state of grace. He would have denied it if Locke had told him this in so many words. Locke could have shown him video of his rapt expression, and Wulf would probably still deny, insisting Locke read him wrong.

  Singles. Couples. Groups. Some of the sculptures out in front of the Palace were massive displays of feasts, operas, dances and orgies, all frozen, all made of live bodies eager to present themselves as art.

  When Wulf approached them, many of the sculpture’s eyes moved to look upon him, as if gazing back at yet another work of art. If Wulf noticed, he did not react. He merely gazed. His muscles twitched.

  It was during these times that Wulf seemed to forget his outrage, his new status, his nudity. He became more himself, more the man Locke wanted to know.

  That night, at dinner, Wulf said, “I am making no progress. Nothing matters. Tomorrow, I ask you to take me to back to the training room. Do you what you need to do to me. Force me to obey, or whatever. I’m tired of you pretending to show me any of this means anything more than it is, non-consensual sexual gratification for the wealthy and privileged.”

  “Well, yes it is about sexual gratification mostly for the wealthy and privileged. But not non-consensual, since every slave signs a consent form.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “I know that.”

  Wulf was silent for a moment. Then he said, “Is that why you haven’t touched me?”

  Not answering his question directly, Locke said, “Things went a little wrong when I took you to the training room that first day. I will decide when you go back.”

  “It doesn’t matter. You’ll do what you need to do to turn me into a perfect slave.”

  “Perhaps.”

  Wulf let out a quick breath, set his tray aside and stood. “I’m tired.”

  “It’s early.”

  “I want to go to bed.”

  Locke watched him move to the bathroom as if to shower. Or brush his teeth.

  How badly Wulf seemed to want to control the things he no longer could. He might have made a very good master. But that would never ever happen for him. Not in Avilan.

  Locke decided it would benefit both of them to turn in early.

  Standing at the bathroom door threshold, looking at the offended look on Wulf’s face as he put down his toothbrush, Locke said, “I will allow us both extra sleep this one evening.”

  “And tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow we will see if you are ready for the training room. Maybe. Maybe not.”

  “I don’t care anymore,” Wulf said, staring down at the sink.

  “Yes, it must seem that way. I know.”

  “You think you know me?” Wulf almost whispered.

  “More than you think,” Locke said. “More than you think.”

  Wulf’s eyebrows came together, creasing the skin above his nose but never managing to mar his beautiful complexion, or his handsome visage.

  Locke turned away. He needed to do something else this evening to take his mind off Wulf. It was getting to be an obsession.

  He was on leave, a vacation, but that didn’t mean his stacks of paperwork went away. He decided he would use the extra evening hours to tackle them.

  *

  Malik came toward Locke on the upper level hallway leading to the wing of master apartments.

  “Locke! Where’s your ever-present golden shadow? Giving up early for the night?”

  “My paperwork is piling up. Besides, Wulf needed the break.”

  “I thought you were on vacation. Giving in to him, then, I see.” Malik’s grin widened. “Worried about our bet?”

  “Not in the least.”

  “Well, then, how is he? In bed, I mean.”

  Locke lowered his eyelids and looked at Malik through his lashes, wondering if he’d heard this impertinent tone from Malik all these years but was only noticing it now.

  “You’ll never know.”

  “But for our bet, I’ll have to know the details. I’ll have to see how he performs, of course.”

  “He will perform when and how I tell him to. And not for you. I own him, remember? He’s mine.”

  Malik, still smiling as if he hadn’t a care in the world, said, “A tad territorial, aren’t you? I like it. I haven’t seen this side of you before.”

  “The bet was about taming him, not bedding him.” Locke stared into Malik’s face, trying to see something deeper in him, and failing. He’d called Malik his best friend, but somehow this bet had changed things.

  “Oh, and now you’re defending him. Splendid! I love it. I could see at the auction that this one affected you. I wasn’t sure how deeply, but now—now I see. It’s wonderful.”

  Locke frowned; Malik’s tone made everything less a compliment and more a joke. In the past, he’d taken a word such as “wonderful” as a compliment, but not today. Not this evening.

  “Well,” Locke said, turning away. “I’m off for the night.”

  “Yes, and good night to you, too.” Malik took a step back. Stopped. “Oh, one more thing. Uh… the bet was about a ten day makeover—into a pleasure slave. With you, Eminent Master, as his trainer. That was the bet. Just saying, you lose if he doesn’t perform.”

  Locke froze in mid-step. Turned. He took a deep breath. They’d been friends for a long time, and Malik was often glib, clever and ridiculous—a fun guy most of the time. But now Locke stared at him with a sudden realization that Malik was the type who enjoyed other
s’ discomfort.

  He was a bit of a sadist, and many excellent masters had traits of sadism which made them good at their jobs. But Malik, he now realized, had made his friendly bet when they were both drinking, trying to alleviate their stale jadedness in attending up to a hundred slave auctions a year.

  That he could obviously see Locke had a fondness for his new slave, it appeared to give him all the more pleasure to see that cause him to lose the bet. That was not the desired behavior of a friend.

  Or, Locke chastised himself, maybe he was being too sensitive. His feelings, lately, had been all over the place.

  Locke said, jaw stiff, “Do you think the bet is what I even care about?”

  Malik revealed white teeth as he gave an exaggerated shrug. “I don’t know, do you?”

  “No, Malik. I’ll be clear. I could give a shit about the bet.”

  Malik laughed, and Locke’s quick mind began to redefine Malik’s character from one moment to the next.

  “We’ll see,” Malik said.

  As Locke walked away, he wondered why he had suddenly felt so furious. Malik was not the enemy. He’d known him for years. They’d gotten along fine. They’d even trained slaves together. They both had very different techniques to get their jobs done. Malik was the more physical one, Locke the more cerebral. But that had never seemed to matter.

  As Locke turned down the corridor that led to his suite, he thought about Wulf again.

  When was he not thinking of him? But more specifically, he focused on Wulf’s behavior, how he’d hit that second wall that came upon all slaves after they breeched the anger-wall. Depression. Or maybe it was denial. The two reactions in humans were connected.

  Humans pretended not to care because caring and losing hurt too much. And then there was the hurt, the pain of knowing your previous life was over, shut away. The saying: You can never go home again was literal for slaves. They started new lives. They became, at worst, objects, things, and at best, companions for masters the Palace paired them with in the outside world once they were ready to be sold. If owners and slaves fell in love with one another after the sale—even better. But no matter what happened to a slave after they signed their consent forms, their lives did indeed start over. For better or worse, it was a new beginning.

  Wulf had asked for the training room, which he hated, because he wanted to get it all over with. He didn’t want to feel. He had not liked any idea that Locke might be trying to get to know him or befriend him. And Locke could not blame him.

  Wulf was different. As a One-Night Thrall, he had been labeled dangerous. And then there had been no consent. That fact alone stacked the odds against Locke as a trainer, and against Wulf as a man who had been thrust into an alien nightmare.

  Locke’s body quickened as he thought of Wulf’s more unique and special obstacles in facing a new life. He liked that about Wulf, that he wasn’t like everyone else. Wulf was powerful and without guilt. He had truly committed no crime. He was a captured enemy. That all by itself was rather alluring.

  If for no other reason, Locke wanted him on that count. Wulf was a force to face down. An equal. He’d not waited for an order to return to the training room. He’d asked for it, figuring out how to take power back into his own hands. How Locke loved him for that challenging personality.

  The beauty, as irresistible as it was, only complimented that higher spirit, that fighting will in Wulf.

  He’d used the word magnificent to describe him so many times already, and he would use it again. For this man was a feat of nature that went uncontested in Locke’s mind.

  He almost turned away from the door of his suite to head back to his office. He wanted to spend more hours watching his slave, as he had every night.

  But, no. Tonight he would try to back off. Reclaim some of his own strong demeanor which Wulf’s presence leached more of every day.

  He would get some paperwork done, and he swore to himself to avoid the lesser surveillance on his own suite computer.

  Tonight he would be a master only. An Eminent Master. He would do his job, get some paperwork done. He would distance himself from both his personal feelings and his new acquisition’s feelings.

  Tomorrow was another day.

  Chapter Fourteen – Wulf

  Into the night, distant lights flickered in a city unknown, beyond a wide window and below the park of the Palace, down the grassy hill past great, concrete walls and iron gates, lights and more lights glimmered and glared, everything big and small at once. Everything was beyond Wulf’s reach, displacing him in time and space.

  In the glass, his dim reflection greeted him. All he was had been reduced to this, a silhouette upon cold panes. An unclothed man alone with nothing to call his own.

  The room smelled of flowers from the body wash he’d used in the shower. He took showers often. Trying to get clean. He could not forget the torment of the touches in the warehouse and at the auction. The indignity. The degradation. And in the military, when in the field, showers had been a luxury almost unheard of.

  Though he had not yet been abused at the Palace, Wulf’s state, naked and facing a life of depravity, made his body feel different, not his own, a costume he could not escape.

  It bothered him—had all day—that Locke would not take him to the training room now that he had asked. He was agreeing to go! Was that not enough?

  But while Locke allowed him to choose his own meals most of the times, he was onto him about this. He would not allow Wulf to make any of the bigger decisions about his fate.

  Wulf wanted to lose his mind, get through the actions and motions required of using his body as a sex tool. If he faced all that, he could put his fears to rest and never have to make decisions about it again. And maybe, just maybe he could seduce his way out of his predicament.

  Thinking about sex—when it would happen, how it would be—was too hard. It was getting him into trouble. He had to be with Locke all day long, feel his dark-clad, strangely warm presence nearby. See him as he slid naked into pools, hear him as he spoke in his bass timbre that set Wulf’s bones rattling, and wakened a weird, hot flame just below his navel.

  If that wasn’t bad enough, when Locke left him each evening, Wulf could not get the man out of his thoughts. He thought of him while bathing, while shaving, while trying to sleep. Locke’s face would soar about his thoughts, offering a strength of command that Wulf’s body inadvertently responded to, and an unwavering source of power that eclipsed all else, including the looming personality of the Palace itself.

  It was conditioning, Wulf told himself. Stockholm Syndrome. He was forced to rely on the master for all his needs, so he looked to him for everything else beyond that.

  It was that and nothing else. It had to be. Locke was an expert. He gave Wulf the illusion of having some choice in things like meals and even this evening tonight off, but it was still a sham.

  Wulf wasn’t ignorant. He could see a bigger picture. He’d been forced into roles his whole life by a culture that demanded from him a service that involved violence and war. He’d accepted that with grace. He’d been told all his life it was the right thing to do.

  Now the players had changed, and the culture. The uniforms and rules might differ, but they were still uniforms and rules. If he was smart enough to see this, why should he be surprised that one life led to another involving extremes of lapsed freedoms?

  He’d seen something in Locke’s eyes that told him Locke had similar thoughts.

  He glanced up and around the room. He knew cameras were everywhere. Was Locke watching him even now?

  He sighed aloud, the room echoing his breath, the air stilling again. Whatever the reason, the man Locke would not leave his thoughts. And the small stone of heat lodged in his abdomen would not cool.

  *

  The room was dark, but the lights from the city spilled their glitter onto the tables and chairs, and left jagged shadows on Wulf’s bed.

  Something felt different. Wulf’s senses flar
ed. He sat up, the blanket sliding down his chest.

  “Ah,” said a voice, and a clicking sound came from Wulf’s right. A tiny orange light burst upon the shadows.

  A male silhouette all in black stood about six feet away from his bed staring him. He lifted the flame to his lips, lit a cigarette, and the flame went out. A dot of thinner orange light poked the air.

  Wulf heard a puff of breath and smelled tobacco.

  “Wulf is your name, yes? Such a strong and powerful name. And now you are awake,” said the silhouette.

  Not Locke. Someone else. A stranger.

  Wulf’s instincts tightened his muscles. The hairs on his body stood up. He was not frightened at first, for he had no trouble defending himself physically.

  But the collar shifted on his neck, reminding him of the constant ache of it, as well as its purpose. If Locke hadn’t turned it back on…

  He could not know for sure. Or if Locke had engaged the collar, was it on low as he had promised Wulf? Even a low charge would hurt. He had no experience with it, no experience of the lesser pain, only that to risk any episode with the collar sent his blood racing in terror.

  The collar left him nothing. It virtually emasculated him.

  Fear threatened. He could only hope that maybe Locke would be watching even now in the middle of the night.

  “Wulf, I can feel your tension from here.”

  “Who are you?”

  “My name is Malik.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I can go wherever I wish. I am a master.”

  Smoke curled into Wulf’s nostrils. He could not see the essence, but the cloying scent was strong.

  “You are not my master.”

  “No.” There was a hint of laughter in that response.

  “It is the middle of the night. Locke does not allow anyone in here past eleven.” Wulf saw the time on a clock by the bed, but automatically reached for his phone. He could call Locke. He never had, but the phone was there to reach him if necessary.

  “Oh?” Footsteps. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you. I have control of your collar.”