Page 16 of Xel: Broken Bond

CHAPTER EIGHT

XEL

Despite my fears about sleeping too late without an alarm to wake me, I was actually awake long before my master came to fetch me. I’d slept well for the first half of the night, exhausted from a day of too many twists and turns. But then I’d woken in the early hours and been unable to fall back asleep, too anxious about making a good impression on my new master, and too confused about what he expected of me. His behaviour yesterday evening had been a mess of contradictions. He’d told me earlier in the day that he thought dimari were good at cooking, but then relegated me to merely chopping vegetables, as had been the case in the hotel kitchen. He’d asked me if I did anything interesting in his absence; a clear indication that he didn’t want to have to bother with worrying about my schedule.

But then he’d asked me to sit and watch the wall screen with him. That single request had been more friendly and more intimate than anything my old master had asked of me in three whole years, and I’d relished the opportunity to spend more timewith him. And I’d made it as clear as I could that I was available for his pleasure, if he desired to use me.

But he’d merely gone to bed instead.

But that didn’t mean I had to meekly abandon my attempts at seduction. The city was pleasantly warm this time of year, and I’d gone to bed wearing nothing but a pair of boxer shorts. My master was going to come and wake me this morning, and I had every intention of allowing him to catch me in a state of undress. Which was why I hadn’t got up yet, despite having been awake for hours.

After years of training, flirting came naturally to me. Seduction was an art, and during my training, I’d been taught how to use my skills to entice all manner of visitors to my master’s house to want to sleep with me. Some masters offered their dimari for free, to impress important guests or to lure visitors into returning. Others hired them out as a paid service, and in that case, it was often the dimari’s role to be something of a walking advertisement, tantalising visitors with a hint of the pleasures they could enjoy, if they dared to part with some of their hard-earned credits.

In my previous role, neither had been true, and I’d floundered for a time, until finally realising that my purpose was to satisfy the management staff, and nothing more. Given how long I’d spent training, the realisation had been quite a let-down.

No, that was inappropriate, I scolded myself, shutting off that line of thinking. I existed to serve my master. Whatever he wanted, I would provide. It was not my place to pass judgement on his orders.

But while my old master had been rather perfunctory in his desires, mynewmaster had given me no hintat allabout what sort of bedroom services he might enjoy. Cleaning animal pens and cooking dinner was all well and good, but any domestic servant could have done that for him. So surely, with the righthints and motivation, I could entice him into something a little more carnal in nature?

Sure enough, as I was propped up on a couple of pillows watching the sun slowly light the leaves of the tree across the garden, there was a knock at my door. “Xel? Are you awake? It’s time to get up.”

I smiled. I kept quiet, waiting for him to open the door and come inside, then get a good look at my mostly naked body. I was not vain by nature, but my trainers had taught me how to make the most of the body I had been given. Daily workouts had been replaced with a vigorous work schedule, but the net result was the same – lean, toned muscles that could be used to tempt and entice an unsuspecting prey.

“Xel?” my master called louder. “Are you awake?”

Was he serious? He wasn’t even going to come in?

“I’m awake,” I replied, attempting to sound sleepy, as if I’d just woken up. By the stars, how was I supposed to seduce him if he wasn’t even going to come into my bedroom? I huffed in annoyance and got out of bed, dressing hastily in a clean set of my work clothes. The uniform was a dull beige colour, both shirt and pants, designed to blend in and minimise the amount of attention we drew from the guests at the hotel. I had the fleeting thought that it would be nice if my master decided to buy me some clothes that were a little less boring. But I quashed the idea a moment later. Who was I going to impress, anyway? There was no one here but the animals and a handful of staff, and if my days were going to consist of shovelling animal manure, then that hardly warranted a keen awareness of fashion.

I slipped into the bathroom once I was dressed, splashing water on my face and brushing my teeth, and then I joined my master in the kitchen where he was rapidly downing a cup of coffee. He smiled as he saw me, then pushed another cup of theliquid towards me. “I made you some coffee,” he said casually. “Like I said, we’ll have breakfast in about an hour.”

I stared at the cup and blinked, and I was suddenly profoundly grateful for the seemingly throw-away order my master had given me yesterday; to inform him if he ordered me to do anything that was likely to harm me. But even so, outright refusing my master anything was quite the challenge. “Um… are you aware, sir,” I began, stuttering a few times, “that caffeine is toxic for Vangravians?” He’d assured me that he had no intentions to harm me. But would he be true to his word?

My master’s eyes opened comically wide. “Oh, shit,” he blurted out, hastily reaching for the cup and pulling it away from me. “Sorry. I didn’t know. Um… yeah, you shouldn’t drink coffee.” I smiled, both amused at his minor panic and relieved that he honestly hadn’t intended to harm me. “Is there anything else you’d like? Herbal tea? Fruit juice?”

I had no idea what the appropriate response to that would be. I didn’t want to ask him to prepare anything, nor make him wait while I drank it. “I can wait until breakfast,” I said, for lack of a better answer, and my master nodded.

“Right. Okay, well, let’s get going, then.” He headed out the front door, leading the way down the road and towards the reception building, then off to the left a little as the path split in two. “The good part about this job is that Rendol 4 has some fairly strict animal protection laws,” he said, his tone conversational, though the information seemed important. “All animals need to be microchipped, and anyone who abandons an animal is firstly fined a hefty amount, and secondly banned from ever owning an animal again. And animal cruelty generally means jail time. The Parliament does not mess about with animal welfare.

“But that doesn’t mean there are no ownerless animals at all. There are always random things that can go wrong. Peopledevelop terminal illnesses. Some people die in unexpected accidents. Relationships break down, people lose their jobs… so no matter how careful people are, sometimes there are still animals that end up homeless.

“And the Parliament is very careful about licencing breeders. No one’s allowed to breed more animals without a licence, and the number of licences each year is carefully controlled, based in part on how many animals are in shelters waiting for homes. Full shelters means fewer breeding licences.”

I couldn’t help but smile as I listened to his voice. Given how stilted the conversation had been yesterday, it was a delight to hear him speak so freely now. And with such enthusiasm. This was clearly a subject he was passionate about, and I resolved to learn as much as I could, in order to better understand his desires.

“We’re about half-full at the moment,” he went on, as he unlocked the door to the building that he’d said yesterday was the cattery. He turned on the lights, and instantly, a chorus of mews and yowls filled the air.

Until I’d come to Rendol 4, I’d never seen a cat before. One of the kitchen hands had shown me some videos of them on her comm, amazed when I’d told her I didn’t know what it was. They, along with dogs, had originated on Earth, the human homeworld, and been brought to the Alliance planets as pets. The Wasops had a creature called a soova that had been brought along for the same purpose. They had a similar body shape to a cat, but were about twice the size, and they had horns on their heads and vivid blue and black stripes over their bodies. I wondered whether there were any here at the shelter… but I refrained from asking. My previous master had not liked me asking questions, and since this new master was his nephew, it was likely that he held the same opinion.

“Hello Sylvester,” my master greeted the first cat in the row. It came to the front of its cage and rubbed its head against the wire. “Yes, you’re a sweetheart,” he crooned, slipping his fingers through the bars to rub the animal’s head. Was it ridiculous that I was suddenly jealous of a cat? What I wouldn’t give to have my master’s fingers running throughmyhair like that…

“No, Midnight, you cannot bite my fingers,” he said to the next cat, when it performed a very similar display of head-rubbing. “Watch out for this one,” he said to me, pointing to the jet black cat. “She’ll try and convince you she’s as harmless as a kitten, and then turn around and try to bite your finger off. Yes, I’m onto you,” he added, nodding vigorously at the cat. “No, you can’t bite me.”

I followed him up the row, paying attention as he greeted each animal in turn. They each had a card hanging on their door, and I assumed that their names and some of their basic information – age, sex, and so forth – would be written on it. But until I got a comm to translate for me, I couldn’t read the information, and so memorising their names was the best I could do.

As it turned out, there were indeed some soovas in some of the cages. One of them came to stand at the front as we wandered past, staring up at me with glowing violet eyes. I’d never seen one in person before, so I bent down in front of the cage. “Hey there. Aren’t you beautiful. Are you going to come and say hello?”

The soova stared at me, perfectly motionless… then suddenly gave itself a shake and let out a chattering sound. It rammed its head into the wire of the cage, making my master chuckle. “That means he likes you. They tend to headbutt things that make them happy.”