Her shouting was what had woken him, bringing him out of the nightmare of reliving the old pain. But while she had apparently forgotten it, the images lived on in his own memory. Images he had tried to bury, memories he had kept under lock and key for more years than he cared to admit.
It’s all right. It’s over, he told himself uneasily.
Except it wasn’t. Here he was, a slave all over again. And this time by his own choice. What had he been thinking to accept the collar a second time? And of his own volition!
I’ll tell you what you were thinking, whispered a little voice in his head. You were thinking that you weren’t ready to leave Trin yet and this was the only way to stay with her. That’s what you were thinking. You weren’t considering any possible consequences. Anything that might happen to you because you chose to travel this road again.
Thrace told himself not to be a fool. Though it was true he had actually chosen slavery this time, Trin was a far cry from his old master. She wasn’t wantonly cruel and she didn’t delight in his pain or subjugation. In fact, she treated him more like an equal than a slave. And he was certain she would never put him through what his old master had done. She would never hurt him that way.
She was more likely to pierce his heart by leaving him after this deal was said and done than she was to penetrate his flesh in any way.
If she wanted to though, would I let her? Could I? Thrace shivered at the thought. The idea of anyone doing that to him again made a mixture of emotions rise inside him—anger, fear, hurt, shame… They threatened to swamp him, to overwhelm his senses until he wanted to weep and rage and kill the male who had hurt him in the first place.
But you could only kill someone once. After that, you had to deal with what they had done. And their death didn’t erase the horrors they’d committed when they were alive—that fact he knew only too well.
Stop it, he told himself roughly. Stop bringing up the past. Just bury it again and forget it. It’s over and done with and it’ll never happen again. I was young then—weak and tied up—defenseless. I’m a full grown male now and no one…no one will ever be able to use me that way again.
Brutally, he shoved the images from the dream and the emotions they brought up, under the surface of his mind. He concentrated instead on the girl in his arms—the one he would die to protect.
The one he had already lost his heart to.
* * * * *
Charlie woke with a start, coming out of the strange trance-like state she had fallen into when she touched Stavros. Of course, she’d touched him because he was in another one of his trances.
Ever since the time they’d made love after he came out of a particularly long trance, she had somehow gained a mental connection as well—not that she wanted one. Of course, hers wasn’t as bad as his—he was still seeing most of what Two did and none of that was very nice. Charlie, however, had somehow become connected to Trin, the girl from Zetta Prime who had bought the Havoc male, Thrace as a slave.
“Are you all right?” Stav was looking at her with concern. They were sitting together on their bed, having just finished making love, which was when the trances most often seemed to occur.
“I think so.” Charlie shook her head and ran a hand through her blonde hair. “I just had a bad one though—Trin had some kind of a nightmare. Only it wasn’t just a nightmare—it was a memory and I shared it.”
“Really?” Stavros looked uneasy. “Tell me about it. Because I think I know what caused it.”
“You do? What?”
“Just tell me what you saw.” He made a motion with one hand. “Ladies first, right?”
Charlie sighed. “All right. Well, it was weird. Trin was definitely the one having the dream but she was dreaming about Thrace. It was his memory. Of…something that happened to him when he was younger. It upset her a lot.” She rubbed a hand over her face. “Honestly, it upset the hell out of me too.”
“What was it?” Stav asked gently. “Just tell me—you’ll feel better when you do.”
“He was being…well, there’s no pretty way to dress it up,” Charlie said grimly. “He was being raped by his old master—back the first time when he was a slave.”
“What?” Stav asked blankly. “But I thought that Trin established he wasn’t a slave before she bought him.”
“He wasn’t at the time she bought him—but he was captured by slavers before. Back when he was just a teenager. He and his dad were both taken and his master…” Charlie shivered. “He must have been a horrible man. He kept demanding that Thrace say some kind of oath—I think swearing his loyalty or something.”
“And did he?”
“You know Thrace. Of course not.”
“No, of course not. That male will bend for no one—other than Trin, that is,” Stav said thoughtfully. “I wonder if she knows that he loves her.”
“You think he does?”
“Why else would he willingly go back to being a slave just for her? Especially if he was one before and such horrible things happened to him?”
“You’re right,” Charlie said. “It’s the prophesy, you know. A free-born male, Too proud to bend his knee, Enslaved of his own will—that’s Thrace.” She was quoting the words Two himself had told them—the prophesy was the reason he believed he was invulnerable to any attack by the Kindred.
“It also says ‘Against his will set free’” Stav pointed out. “How do you explain that?”
“I don’t know.” Charlie shrugged. “Maybe it hasn’t happened yet. But I think we can tell why Two is so interested in Thrace and Trin.”
“Other than the fact that he’s tracking them for B’Rugh, you mean?” Stav asked. “Or he was before he took that side trip back to the Dark Kindred home world.”
“I wish you could’ve seen what he did there.” The idea made Charlie uneasy.
“I wish so too,” Stavros said soberly. “But ever since, he hasn’t come near Trin or Thrace. He’s been spending time in a ship—just orbiting Yonnie Six.”
“I wonder how he tracked them there in the first place?” Charlie murmured.
“Well, it is the only place where there’s a demand for Jaxite crystals,” Stav pointed out. “And we know he has ways of tracking people.”
Charlie remembered the tiny, furry creature Two had used as a spy—seeing through its eyes to know where she and Stav had gone during their trip to save Earth from the Dark Kindred.
“That’s true,” she murmured. “You think he planted one of his spy rats on their shuttle somehow?”
Stav shrugged. “Who knows? It’s possible. Anything is possible with Two.”
“True.” Charlie sighed. “Well, he obviously knows where they are. Which makes me worried—what’s going to happen to Thrace and Trin?”
“I don’t know—I pray to the Goddess they will be well.”
Charlie stretched, trying to get rid of some of the tension in her shoulders.
“I guess it’s weird to talk about them like we know them. But since we’ve been seeing all these different pieces of their lives, I kind of feel like we do. It’s like…our own private soap opera playing out right in front of us.”
“With some important pieces missing,” Stav pointed out. “What did Two do when he visited his home world? What is he up to now, orbiting Yonnie Six? And what part of the future did B’Rugh See for him?”
“I guess we could go after him and try to find out,” Charlie suggested although the idea of seeing Two face-to-face again made her stomach twist into knots.
Stavros shook his head. “No. I have the sense that we were given this link to Trin and Thrace and Two to observe, not to act. I think the Goddess will let us know when and if we should get involved.”
“Well, you started seeing them first so I guess you know best,” Charlie said. “Although you never did tell me what caused Trin’s bad dream.”
“It was what I saw in my own vision. I couldn’t see much because the room was dark but there was some kind of control panel. It had a row of vid screens and one of them was showing Trin and Thrace’s room,” Stav explained. “They were sleeping peacefully to start with. Then I saw a hand—I think it was a male hand—turning a knob on the panel. After that, a kind of black, swirling mist filled the area above their bed. Thrace breathed in a lot of it—more than Trin—but after that, she was the one who started thrashing around and moaning.”