“…and Vetchoft will assist the staff today. Assisting the students will be Zikef, Le, Nors, Diwl, Riwson, Neblii, Fadne…”

 

The slave master’s voice droned on as he continued to read names from his notes but Neblii stopped listening once her name was spoken. Her heart flipped and her mind tuned out all other sounds and thoughts.

 

She had been assigned to the students several times in her five months (by her best estimate, although she wasn’t sure why she bothered trying to keep track) as a College slave, she reminded herself. The chances of it being this one particular student were slim. She struggled to show no emotion as the slave master finished reading and the majority of the slaves shuffled off toward the kitchen.

 

She went through the same experience every time she was chosen for a student. Fear gnawed at her belly as the slave master went down the line of remining slaves, looking at the clipboard and then touching each collar in turn and murmuring something. Each slave disappeared and he moved to the next one. Her fear increased exponentially the closer he came, until she was certain her heart would beat so hard it would crash through her chest and onto the floor. Which, come to think of it, would be far preferable to this maddening anticipation. She wanted him to hurry up and get it over with but at the same time never wanted him to reach her.

 

The slave master was three people away. Then two. Then one. Then he stood in front of her, looked at his paper, and reached toward her. She clenched her teeth to keep from crying out as she felt his fingers push into the collar, heard his murmured voice say, “S 7177.”

 

Then, with the slight tingle in her neck that she had come to recognize as the only indication of the magical deluge that went with collared teleportation, she was in his room.

 

Merks’ triumphant shout reverberated through Neblii’s soul and she quivered, locking her knees to keep herself from collapsing on the spot.

 

“Finally!” His laugh grated over Neblii’s nerves like a physical scratch. “You’re all mine now, bitch! That damned orc can’t protect you anymore!” An imperious gesture. “Get your ass over here!”

 

Bright terror seized her and her mind tried to think of something – anything! – she could do to forestall the inevitable, but her legs, the traitors, remembered what to do and dragged her forward. It wasn’t a large room – not much larger than the one she shared with the other slaves – but the few steps to cross it felt like a mile.

 

This is how far you’ve allowed yourself to fall, she berated herself as her legs stopped her before her Master and she bowed her head. She remembered her first meeting with Merks and his friends, how she had held them in distain. They had had no power over her; she had been under the thumbs of true masters of torture and despair. They were just children playing a game.

 

Now, though, every part of her keened as he reached out, grabbed her chin, forced her head up and spat in her face. She yowled when he grabbed her nipple and twisted it. He shoved his face into hers with a maniacal sneer.

 

“The best part is, you’re mine forever. Perhaps you thought you just need to get through this day, then you’d be free of me until some unlucky time in the future. But no – now that I have you, I’m not letting you go. Kneel, bitch.”

 

She did, almost gratefully because she wasn’t sure how much longer her quavering knees could have kept her standing. Master turned away for a moment, then turned back holding a slave collar. From all appearances, it was exactly the same as the one she already wore.

 

“This is an invention all my own. Like it? Hope so, because you’ll be wearing it for the rest of your life.”

 

Master grabbed her hair and yanked her head back, then let go so he could place his collar around her neck just above the old one. It made a soft click as it snapped into place. Then another click and the first collar came off. He tossed that one into a square receptacle by his student desk then grabbed her hair and yanked at her head again (though she hadn’t moved it from where he had left it).

 

“This collar is just like that one except I have removed the part that makes you go back at the end of the day. And if you have any hope that someone will wonder about your absence and come looking for you, forget that as well. As far as anyone will know, you tried to run away and ended up falling off the cliff into the ocean, never to be seen again. I have been preparing for this day for a long long time.”

 

He leered into her face, then yanked up on her hair, forcing her to stand. He gestured and murmured, “Ne lyoph,” and chains with manacles appeared, two dangling from the walls and two from the ceiling. “Let’s start where we left off, shall we?” He gestured, shoved her forward, and she stumbled two steps. “You know what to do.”

 

Neblii shook as she straightened herself and turned toward her Master. Her arm reached out toward the first manacle but she couldn’t get herself to finish the move. It was like her arm had been frozen in place.

 

Master stepped forward, his face darkening in anger. “Move it, slave. Lock yourself into those manacles or I will take out your other eye. You don’t want to see what I’m going to do to you, anyway.”

 

Another step. He loomed over her, eyes blazing, a dark scowl on his face. Staring into his frenzied eyes, something in her shifted.

 

No. Not again.

 

When she had first broken, had succumbed to Borkul, she had thought about just allowing herself to be killed. Wasn’t death better than this kind of life? At that time, some voice in her head had convinced her that she had to survive, no matter what. But now…now, she knew better. She would take the peace of death over whatever sort of “life” Merks offered. Though it would cost her her life, she was done being a slave.

 

As Merks reached for her, Aithne brought her foot up as hard as she could. It connected with his crotch and his sneer turned into an expression of pained surprise. He let out a wheezing grunt and bent over. Aithne grabbed the closest thing at hand – a heavy glass disk with writing she didn’t take the time to read – and brought it down on his head with all the power her fear and hatred and anger could conjure. A hollow clonk! split the air and he collapsed to the ground as blood trickled out of a rapidly growing bump. The disk was surprisingly solid and did not break. Aithne tossed it to the floor and stepped over his body.

 

She had to get out of there, out of the college. A challenge considering she didn’t know where in the college she was and, even if she did know, she didn’t know her way around. She cursed herself for relying on teleportation – she should have taken advantage of Urag’s leniency to go to the kitchen and other places she needed for her chores on foot so she would know her way around.

 

She rifled through his room until she found his clothes (they were lumped in a corner, not hung up or in drawers) and threw on a much-too-big robe and yanked on a pair of much-too-big shoes, pulled the hood over her head, and headed for the door. A thought occurred to her just before she got to it and she smiled and turned around.

 

Her old collar was still in the container; she fished it out then stepped to Merks, stripped him of his clothes (in a fortunate twist, he only wore an outer robe – no trousers, underthings, or even shoes, no doubt in order to get his dick into her without encumbrance), and locked the collar around his neck. She thought of sending him straight to the slave room but that would be too much of a clue to someone that something was amiss, and she would need all the time she could get. She gave his chest a pat, stood, then couldn’t resist kicking him in his exposed balls again before heading back to the door.

 

On the way there, she spotted a knife in a pile with other dirty dishes and snatched it up on a desperate whim. She still had a collar and could still be summoned back. If she hadn’t found a way to remove the thing before then, she needed another alternative. A permanent one.

 

She gripped the knife in her palm, blade pointed up and resting against her wrist, and let the too-long sleeve of the robe cover both as she cracked open the door and peeked out. No matter what happened, she was done being a slave. One way or the other.

 

Next Chapter

 

Previous Chapter

 

Start at the Beginning