Page 2 of Galaxy Games Four-Book Box Set (Galaxy Games)

2

Punishment

T itan

Master uses his wrist-comm to call Baston, his head guard. I haven’t been ordered to move. I assume my position between Mistress’s spread legs is more to humiliate her than me.

A moment later I’m escorted into Master’s huge bathroom at the point of Baston’s laser pistol. I’ve been in this room before when Master was out of town. The luxurious bath was almost worth the price I had to pay for it. At least the sexual favors Mistress forced me to perform were on a clean, albeit shaggy, furred body.

Today, I’ve been hauled into this room for an entirely different purpose.

Master exchanged his ceremonial sword for a nine-tailed whip. I haven’t been beaten as punishment since I was fifteen. I fought back after I was abducted. As much as a fifteen-year-old can fight against a cadre of guards equipped with whips, shock-sticks, and lasers.

Those days are long gone. I’m too smart to fight a battle that can’t be won.

“Step in,” Master seethes, pointing with the butt of the whip.

Beatings are bad enough when they’re administered dispassionately, but at the hand of an angry husband? This is going to be bad. If I were a normal person, I’d be panting in fear, but I’ve faced death dozens of times in the arena. I came to terms with my mortality a decade ago.

The sunken bath is eight by eight, with spigots on three sides. I’m directed to the back wall, a floor-to-ceiling mosaic in shades of blue with two frolicking sea creatures on it.

“Face it. Hands over your head.”

As far as I can figure, there’s only one reason he’s forced me into the bath. Master wants my blood contained for easy cleanup.

I’d always known my life would be short. That fact quickly becomes painfully clear to a gladiator. On more than one occasion, I nearly died in the arena.

I assumed I would have breathed my last breath years ago on the sands of the arena. I never pictured being whipped to death in a bathroom.

My fears are confirmed when Master methodically removes his business suit piece by piece, neatly folds them, and places the pile on the dainty chair where Mistress sits to apply her makeup.

He’s a fastidious male with a good head for making money. He has a knack for hiring gifted trainers. His gladiators often earn the largest purses in any match.

His penchant for greed is only surpassed by his viciousness. That he’s stripped to his bare skin so he doesn’t get my blood spattered on his nice clothing? This does not bode well for me.

“Baston, get me the whip with the spikes. The plating on his back is so thick he won’t feel it with a regular whip.”

“Are you sure, Sir? He’s the best gladiator in your stable. That whip might disable him for his next match. Besides, the one in your hand will prolong his pain.”

I never would have thought the head guard would lobby in my defense. The expression on Master’s face must be intense if Baston is trying to minimize the beating.

Master pauses, perhaps considering the cost-benefit ratio of maiming or even killing me versus the pleasure he’ll receive by taking his anger at his mate out on me.

He must have decided against the metal spikes, because with little warning, the leather thongs sing as they slice through the air just seconds before they make contact with my thick flesh plating. It takes a beat before the pain sizzles along my synapses, arrives at my brain, and gives me the full impact of the stroke.

No sound escapes my mouth, but I inch my hands to the showerhead above my head and grip it tightly. Locking my fingers together, I vow to hang on and not let go unless I slide to the floor, unconscious or dead.

“Gilina! Where are you going? His punishment is the lash. Your punishment is to stand right here and watch.” His words are thick, clumsy, as if he’s so deep in the well of anger his mind has lost all higher function.

Focusing all my attention on the tile in front of my nose, I block everything else out. I flip through all the shades of blue in my mental dictionary: cerulean, lapis, opalescent, azure, teal. I’m so busy in the depths of my personal thesaurus I haven’t been counting his strokes. It’s only when I hear my guttural moan of pain that I realize the beating has been going on for a long time.

I trained in the hot sun hours every day, was beaten during sparring matches, and almost died during real matches. I learned early how to ignore pain, but this? This I cannot disregard.

The lash administers fiery spikes of agony that run along my nerve endings and flare in sparks behind my eyes. My jaws hurt from clamping them together. My shoulders are pulling out of their sockets because my knees buckled long ago and all my weight is hanging from my hands on the showerhead.

I focus all my mental energy on breathing and standing. I can think of nothing else.

Flecks of my red blood spatter the wall. Master is grunting with the effort of his task, but his strokes haven’t lost their power.

I’ve seen many beatings in my life. I know exactly how shredded a back looks after twenty lashes. Although I haven’t been counting, I think I’ve received at least twice that number.

“Katann! Enough! You don’t have to kill him.” Is that Mistress trying to reduce my punishment?

I wish she hadn’t said that. It will fuel his jealousy, enrage him, and spur him to keep going even though his arm is tiring.

I lock my knees and breathe deeply as Master pauses to argue with his mate.

“Perhaps you’ll remember this the next time you want a gladiator cock between your thighs,” he seethes.

“There’s another way, Katann. The show. The Game.”

I’ve honed my senses through training, or maybe the hype about me is right. Perhaps I have heightened perceptions. Although I’m facing forward, I know behind me his arm has fallen to his side and the whip’s thin black straps dripping with my flesh and blood are dragging on the tiled floor.

“The show,” he elongates the words, his tone is thoughtful.

“Two birds?” Mistress says. “One stone? Why waste good fighting flesh? Let the planet see what happens when a gladiator misbehaves in the house of Hahn. Although we don’t need the paltry fee that goes to entrants’ next of kin when they die, the show will get a boost in the ratings because one of its producers has an entry in the game. I apologize. I was selfish. But let’s find a way to turn a profit on this, shall we?”

“What about the interviews, Gilina? Unless he’s killed in the first wave, the producers will interview him. What will he say when they ask how he earned those fucking stripes on his back? I don’t need your indiscretions to damage my sterling reputation.”

“Look at him. If he wasn’t holding onto the showerhead, he’d be slumped in a heap in the tub. Look at all the blood,” she says. “Do you really think he’ll survive the first wave? Don’t forget, if he does survive the first wave, his flesh heals fast. All his species do.”

The whip falls to the floor and he steps out of the tub.

My brain did its job keeping the pain at the edges of my awareness during the thick of things, but now that the onslaught has stopped, all my senses are coming back online. Fiery agony skates along my skin, not just the shreds of my back, but everywhere. My pain receptors have gone berserk, randomly flashing me signals of torment from my fingertips to my nose.

Master is on his wrist-comm with his production studio, his mate at his side. I’m not forgotten, standing in a puddle of my blood in the bathtub. I’m certain Baston still has his laser pointed at me.

It takes me a moment to unlace my fingers and several more for the blood to rush back into them. Slowly, I let them fall to my sides. I’m suffering now that I’m thinking more clearly, and even though I try to keep standing, my knees finally give out and I slip to the floor.

The tiles under my cheek are blessedly cool and wet. They were dry when I stepped in. I must be lying in a pool of my own blood.

I wait, eyes closed, for Baston’s laser blast, but it doesn’t come. Through a fog, I listen to Master’s barked instructions into his comm.

“He’ll be there in two hours. Put him in the lineup.”

He makes another call, instructing his assistant to place a 25,000 credit bet on my demise within the first five hours of something called The Game where I’ll be battling lowlifes for entertainment.

His final call is to his family physician. “He’ll need medi-glue, plas-film, and a strong painkiller… injectable.”

Beat me, dope me, and then send me into combat with the roughest scum in the galaxy for a life and death battle. I’d bet against myself, too.