Nine o'clock.

The seventeenth Ahn according to the Gorean chronometer which sat on the night table beside her bed. She could hear the gears working inside of it. Turned her head and saw the tiny hand moving in what most mortals who had seen regular clocks would say was counter-clockwise. She yawned and stretched out under the luxurious black satin covers when the door opened and a slave girl entered.

Like clockwork.

For a moment she could swear the girl was wearing a lettered shirt which would have identified her as some type of cheerleader if it were anyone else looking at her but Tara did not know the difference and had looked away almost as soon as she looked her way.

She hardly ever looked at the slaves in the past and never longer than a few seconds at most.

They were cattle.

Animals.

She hated them.

"What is it, girl?" she says, almost annoyed that she was being disturbed though it was time to get up for work anyway and it was par for the course having them around, serving her as they did Brutin and his men despite the fact that she had said many many times she did not want them anywhere near her.

They reminded her of her past as had the events of the last few weeks. Brutin's return. Her parents, the DeAusters, and Rissa coming to talk to him at the tavern.

Even Anubis came to pay his respects and it is he who had been monopolizing her thoughts lately. She swings her legs over the side of her bed and stands, naked, in front of the slave. Why couldn't it be him instead? She could be attending to his needs instead of the slave standing there wanting to attend to hers.

"Master said you could show us his ways," the slave girl remarked with her head down.

Her eyes narrowed then. "Brutin would not say such a thing. He forbids me to act like a slave. You can get your tongue cut out for lying, girl," she says with a sneer and proceeded to get dressed.

"Master Philodus said so, Mistress, not Master Brutin," the slavegirl said quietly in response.

"Whose collar do you wear?" she asked as she drew the kimono about herself and tied it off on the side.

"Master Brutin's, Mistress," came the monotonous response.

"Then you can start by learning this. When referring to your owner you say 'My Master', never his name as it is generally understood who owns you and if it is ever in question or doubt all anyone has to do is look to yer collar," she said with a shake of her head. "You are not allowed to say his name unless he says so."

"Yes, Mistress," she said and her head dipped even further.

Tara looked at her then. She was indeed wearing a lettered shirt. To her eyes it was inappropriate garb for a slave even though she did not understand the meaning of the shirt itself. When did she ever see cheerleaders?

"How many of you now are there?"

"Three of us, Mistress."

"Good. I'll be in the great hall. Go get the other two and meet me there in a few minutes," she said, walking out of her chambers and into the halls. She started to walk and then threw her finger up in the air.

"Girl," she said plainly.

"Yes, Mistress?"

"Come naked to the hall. If I'm to teach you anything we are going to have to start from scratch," she said and walked in the great hall's direction.

She thought she heard a giggle behind her.

She produced a gold coin then and handed it to the blonde with a warm smile.

The slave girl took it from her hands and looked it over with a twinkle in her eye which only died when Tara leaned forward and slapped her across the face. The slave cried out in surprise, as did the two others and the gold coin fell to the floor.

"What did I do wrong??!" she shrieked holding her face.

"You touched it. Slaves are not allowed to touch money with their hands. You are not allowed to have money of your own and if you need to give money to your Master you are to carry it with your mouth," she explained and sat back on her heels, smiling again. "Now pick it up off the floor!" she screamed and all three of them jumped.

The blonde again reached out for it and she slapped her hand.

"I don't know how!" she cried in frustration.

"I just told you how! With yer mouth! Like so," she said and bending forward at the waist, her hands moving behind her, she closed her mouth over the coin on the floor and sat back up. Using her tongue she flipped it so it was laying flat in her mouth and then she pushed it out between her teeth. She spat it back out on the floor and pointed to it.

Tara knew she was making it look easy but she had learned the hard way herself. Between Savior and Kain, she was lucky she had skin left on her back because of all the hard lessons she had had to endure at their hands. Picking up money with one's mouth was nothing! Wait until they had to dance without picking their heads up past their Master's waist!

"Each of you will practice this because if you ever touch money with your hands you could very well be killed. No man is going to slap you as I did. Remember this lesson, girls, for if you make a mistake it could be fatal. A friend of mine, long ago, had her throat cut right in front of me for daring to touch money. I would not want to see the same happen to any of you."

The girls looked at her with contempt then.

"Watch yer eyes as well or shall I slap each of you to get this message across?"

They shook their heads quickly.

She placed two new gold coins on the floor so that each girl had one to practice with and stood up.

"I will be back in a few moments. When I come back we will see how each of you are progressing. Make me proud, lovelies!" she chimed and walked out of the room.

When the blonde recovered from the psychological blow she sighed.

"Were you ever his slave, Tara?" she asked carefully.

"Nay," she answered softly and smiled.

"Why not?"

"Because I am forbidden to *be* Kajira," she answered.

"I do not think I understand. Before you said you were a slave and now you're saying you cannot be one?"

She nodded. "It is because of my being enslaved by Kain that Brutin decreed I can no longer be one. It caused a rift in our relationship, what I did. To this day if I mention it or he should see the brand he frowns. And since seeing him frown makes me frown, I make damn sure I do not disobey him."

"What would he do if you disobeyed him?"

Tara blinked. Since she had only ever disobeyed Brutin twice and each time was different in circumstance, she could not be sure but she answered her anyway.

"I suppose he would not speak with me which he knows upsets me greatly. We are so in tune with each other, I often refer to us as soulmates although I know I will never be anything but his secretary, never his wife. I love him completely, any way. If I am slave to anything it is making Brutin happy, keeping his affairs in order, and seeing that he is safe from all harm."

This made the girls smile.

"How did you come to work for him instead of being his slave?"

"I was sent to kill him," she said with a tiny grin at the corner of her lips. It was not, by itself funny, killing Brutin but remembering how that night went down, the first night she met him, made her heart swell.

The girls gasped, the blonde seemingly more offended than the other two. "You what!"

She put a hand up. "I did not try to kill him. I was sent to kill him. Big difference there."

"You just walked up to him and told you were going to kill him?"

"Certainly not," she chuckled.

"Then what did you say to him?" she asked, her eyes widening.

She looked up to her, her own eyes widening in the retelling and she broke out in laughter anew.

"I said 'Lord Brutin, my name is Lady Tara Anne Rynieyn LeVey. It is my understanding you do not have a secretary. Hire me.'"

The girls laughed. "And what did he say after that?"

She stopped laughing but the smile was wide there on her face.

"He said 'Of course' and the rest is history."

Brutin felt his head go back against the cool wall behind him, his back to the wall. He had been listening in to Tara and her teachings of the slaves but the rock and the bunny had sent a pit of despair through him. He closed his eyes and suddenly the memories came rushing back in to him.

Tara had gotten herself enslaved and he had thrown her out, cast her out as surely as a father would disown his daughter for being the opposite of everything he had ever taught her.

He had his own problems, people insinuating themselves into his life to soak up his fame if not his fortune. He had become a celebrity with what he did and who he was and at first like minded people joined him but the more popular he got, the more infamous he got, the more sycophants showed up trying to leech the life right out of him.

So when Tara experimented and was claimed by another, and that man had the audacity to throw it in his face, the face of the one who had given that man a home, had taught him, had provided for him Brutin had cast her out, better to learn the hard way and have those illusions shattered, she would come back eventually. And she had, after a small period of time she had come back to him, none the worse for wear and he had stopped his killing spree.

He had killed so many back then, every bad apple in his own back yard, every so called wannabee slaver who thought grabbing a woman and slapping her around made him a man and a slaver had died at his hands.

He had thought the blood would make him feel better and it had until that last victim, that last betrayal, the last person in RhyDin he thought would betray him had been brought to justice.

He had removed his sword from her belly, the bright red blood splashing out between her two hands which were incapable of stemming the tide of her life as it flowed from useless fingers.

He had knelt down and put her head in his lap and brushed her hair aside as she gasped through the pain and looked up at him, her face paling as the blood rushed down to her wound to seek the open air.

"You have a weakness....like us..." She had forced through the pain and he had merely shook his head at her, sad it had come to this. He never stopped massaging her face, making those last few moments of her life now ending at his own hand as pleasant as he could for her, there was no malice, it just had to be.

"I have no weakness." He had replied, a simple fact, no pride, no boasting.

"....you..." her face relaxed from the pain, so far gone now that she felt none, she was nearly gone. "...love....like us..." she managed to say weakly and he had smiled to her and shook his head. He cradled her for her last winch of pain, her last sob, her last breath, her last shudder, her last gasp, her last moan. No, he did not love, he had tried that once and it hadn't worked out.

But was he not cradling the head of a murdered lover by his own hand for having repeated that mistake? He had trusted her and she had betrayed him and now she was dead. History repeated itself.

But she had been right all those years ago, she had seen what he himself refused to see until just now. It was hard to swallow the proof of misdeeds, harder still when they were your own.

He opened his eyes to see her ghost staring at him, that smile on her face of indulgence and pity that she had used right up to her betrayal of him. She blinked as he sighed coming to grips with the situation.

"You were right." He admitted and the ghost nodded to him, confirming her dying words. "But you were also wrong." He replied and the Ghost blinked. "So she did not betray me as I had betrayed her but after I killed you I knew my daughter and she never betrayed me. I have known love without betrayal and now I know it still." He said and the ghost shook her head in denial. "My so called weakness has given me a gift for myself, but at what cost?"

He stood up and narrowed his eyes at the Ghost. "I have bequeathed a curse to RhyDin but I am not in control of those fools who pat themselves on the chest and say they are slavers or that they think they know how the world works. They are fools." He said and pushed off the wall, the ghost reached out a hand to stop him, silently pleading but even had she been solid, he would have ignored her. As she lost her hold on his memories she faded back into the past where she belonged, his lesson learned.

"Good bye Candy." He remarked off handedly and pushed through the door to join Tara and the girls just loud enough so that Tara with her back to him could hear him enter.

He stood there staring at her for several seconds, the time passing by ever so slowly, so much had transpired in their past and they had survived so much against so many odds it was pitiful and yet it seemed the most telling damage to be survived had been dealt by each other.

"Tara." He started but closed his mouth. He steeled himself and walked over to take her by the shoulders, looking down into her eyes. She was a tiny little thing, a wisp of a woman and yet to discard her out of hand would lead to a swift death. "Kain Locke was a good employee. When Alyssa was my first girl and the talk of the Red Dragon Inn and her mouth was constantly getting her in trouble I sent Kain to baby sit her, pull her out of trouble, kill those that would harm her and ultimately punish her. He had a cruel streak, cold, remorseless. He was a killer incarnate." He spoke the words and realized he was opening a wound he had forgotten he had. He turned away from her to hide his features and desperately wished for his bay window.

"When I had finally run up against a man that thought he could put me out of business by murdering my girls and had finally gotten his hands on Alyssa Kain went crazy and tracked him down, saved Ali and then when it appeared this foe of mine was scared of nothing, Kain sodomized him and then slit his throat. Kain was the end of the story, a proper finish to those problems that I could not solve any other way." He could remember back over the years to all of those faces as surely as he had seen Candimoon standing before him moments ago. Their faces haunted him.

"He shone like a bright star among my Tarns before they were called Tarns. Demon, Ashe, Dave, they all held their sparks but Kain had no limits and always got the job done regardless of the cost to anyone. And if it bothered him I never knew about it, he was always tight lipped and I wondered if he loved Alyssa all those years ago, wondered if he hated me for keeping her in bondage and to this day I do not know if she ever served him but in my heart I hoped she did, he deserved it." He sighed and smiled inwardly, his reminiscing had almost derailed his point but he would not shirk his responsibility. Not to her, ever.

"But Kain left my service because he thought he could do what I did just as well as I did. He did not ask for leave, he did not ask for instruction. He thought he did not even need to stand back and watch me to learn little tidbits of this and that which could help him later as he came to grips with his new life as a slaver." Brutin turned to look directly into Tara's eyes.

"No. He was caught up in the stories of me, what I did to my girls behind closed doors intoxicating to him and fueled by the inhuman things I asked him to do in my name. And he left to do this recipe he had formulated in his head by himself without benefit of friends or peers to help guide him. But he was no slaver, he understood nothing about it, had no inkling of what it meant. His trade was cruelty and death and he had no concept of what it was I did. There was no way he could compete with me had I let him walk away unscathed." He made sure at this point to look her in the eyes, a quick glance around to room to make sure no one had entered to interrupt them or witness this breach of decorum.

"I had problems the moment he left, he abused and mistreated, he killed and punished. He was just as I feared him to be and he cut a swath of destruction through the community, the imbalance of what he was and what he did effecting everyone. And then he took you." His words started to spindle down into a whisper as he resisted the urge to reach out and touch her.

"It almost killed me..." The whisper a wistful remembrance of pain and disbelief.

"I knew what I had to do, what must be done. But I was weak and I hesitated. I should have killed him, I should have stormed his home and slew him and burned it to the ground, killed everyone that worked for him and then salted the earth it had stood upon to remind people that to each has he is and no other. But I did not. I could not kill him. So I began killing his friends and his compatriots. I killed those that did business with him and I killed those that sold girls to him. No one around him could survive doing business with him and all the while I kept my machinations a secret so that his feelings would not be hurt. Even then I could not bring myself to confront him directly and tell him this was something he could not do. Slaving was beyond him, beyond understanding. But he had you and perhaps secretly I had thought you would temper his cruelty." Now he turned to look back at the wall, his bay window down the hall and away from him and his need to lose himself yet again.

"When you came back to me I tried desperately to ignore that you had even left because I did not wish to think of what you had been subjected to while you were away and if you were hurt by it, then I was satisfied to think that this had been your punishment for your foolishness just as I had been punished in losing you." He glanced down to his shoes, the hand made leather a cold sheen in the light amid the carpet.

He looked up as his own words sunk in and he laughed. He had spent centuries not saying the words about to pour out of his mouth. "Kain was a failure as a slaver, he lost reputation switching professions because as a murderer he had in abundance what was needed to do the job, but as a slaver he would always lack the one skill most given and seldom seen. To truly be a good slaver above all other things one must include love." There , he had said it, may the Kurii develop heartburn as a people.

"I declared you should never be slave again because I feared that some other fool would grasp at you and subject you to his idiotic ideal of slavery and again you would be someone's punching bag. I could not bare it. I barely survived the first one and so many people did not. So much blood..." He recovered himself suddenly, he would not allow his failures in life to overshadow his message to her. "...if a slaver, a real slaver came to me and wanted you I would have allowed it, because then you would have had what those idiotic droolers lacked. But the real slavers respected me and stayed away from you out of course and I realized too late that I had made you to suffer yet again."

He let his shoulders slump. What was he trying to say? Was he coming clean now after all of these years to clean his own conscience or was he trying to explain things to her? Was he doing this for himself or for her? It just needed to be said.

He gripped himself and felt the wash of shame as he let his humanity show through. He pushed himself away from the wall and ripped open the door, he had had enough, he needed to escape, even if was from himself. "I am sorry...."

He slammed the door behind him.

But she had remembered despite Ashe's threat to the contrary. He had never been given permission to slay Kain. None of the boys had. It was a forbidden subject at the SA for some time. Ashe held a grudge. To some extent even Nok did too and there was rarely a day where he tolerated her let alone liked her but in kidnapping Tara, Kain had made a serious error in judgment. Wolf, while annoyed, was indifferent to the situation. He felt so long as Tara was back, there shouldn't be a war but should a war present itself he would participate, guns blazing.

She was like their little sister. Her position as Brutin's secretary, while certainly a bonus, did very little to affect their opinion of her. She had had to work her way up in their eyes like any other woman in their world. She may not have worked the hardest but over time she grew on them. None of them could deny her that.

With Nok it was the creation of Arthur that softened his resolve to obliterate her and although he still chased her and threatened her with death and doom around every corner, after the voodoo doll came into being, Nok started to let her have a head start each time.

With Ashe it was that she had chosen him to be her guard although Brutin had actually voiced the words. Ashe knew it was Tara's doing. She got whatever she wanted and she had picked him. He took the job seriously, sometimes too seriously, but no one could ever say he was a slacker where it concerned her safety. What Kain had done was not only a slight against Brutin but to Ashe as well. It wounded his ego, his manhood. As a Tarn it was his job to provide protection. As Tara's bodyguard, he was never to let any harm come to her and somehow she had been. He did not understand how.

With Wolf it was the fact that she had asked him to be her date for the Valentine's Day dance at her summer camp and on occasion they would have casual sex with no strings attached. And when they played poker even though she was very bad at it, he let her win because he had a soft spot for the little Cockroach Killa.

Each of them had a special relationship with her though none of them could compare their feelings for her to her bond with Brutin. It was because of this they could not understand why Brutin did not react to her kidnapping nor did he even look at Tara when she had brought to his office, naked, bleeding and collared. Nok suspected Brutin, would, in his own good time, make his feelings known and Wolf agreed with him.

But Ashe, he took Brutin's silence as an affront to what Tara represented to the Association, to them all. Ashe was not the type to mull things over. He was a brute and was made for quick-fixes to problems. Whenever someone had to be dispatched immediately Ashe would be sent so not being able to punish Kain ate away at him and although Tara tried to smooth things over, Ashe was furious with Brutin all the same.

"Tara?"

She jumped at the sound of the slave's voice and turned around. There were tears in her eyes and it was killing her to appear so weak in front of them. Brutin's words had hit home hardest. She would have preferred his silence, anything, over what had just transpired.

"What is it girl," she said trying to affect at being annoyed rather than face up to the fact that the memories Brutin had drummed up were just too painful to bear.

"Did you?"

"Did I.....what?"

She was blinking now. He had slammed the door. Someone would die yet this day. She frowned, wondering who would lose their life for her carelessness.

"Did you temper Kain's cruelty as Master had hoped?"

The question horrified her and she brought her hands swiftly up to her mouth. Falling to her knees, she began to sob.

The slaves exchanged worried glances. The blonde reached out to her first, not knowing what else to do. "I am sorry, Tara."

Bent over with her forehead pressed to the floor, she began to choke as the tears continued to flow. Few things could make her cry like this.

Kain was one surefire way to do it.

"Nay, girl, I made it worse. I was its kindling. I was his conquest, his One and he was......my monster," she breathed through her tears and rose up to sit back on her feet.

Her arms, crossing, went up to her breast as her head tilted back completely. She took a deep breath, her lip trembling again as her eyes closed in the anguish of the moment.

"But, God forgive me, how we, loved, one another," she whispered and began to rock back and forth.

Brutin stood in front of his bay window, arms clasped behind his back and frowned. How many times had he derided parents for the behavior of their children while he enslaved on, the other or both? He had enslaved them for their pride and their lack of self preservation. Yet when he was guilty of the same crime people perished.

The crime of course was that he endured.

He knew now that he could not die.

A fantastic statement on it's face but his frown did not soften.

"I cannot die because I am the Scourge. I am pain and suffering incarnate, and I shall plague mankind for all of their days. I will know neither joy nor happiness. I will never be content without another paying for my pleasure. And the things I touch shall turn to ash." He spoke firmly through the window pane to garden before him. It was newly restored, fresh and green and he absently wondered who had suffered to make it so.

"Are you sure this is something we want to be starting?" Vizier stood behind him fidgeting. The man was an accountant with magical skills and secretly Brutin did not like him nor trust him. But he needed him. Brutin listened but did not turn around, he didn't need to see him to know that like Candimoon he was being plagued yet again by ghosts. Vizier was dead.

"There will be a lot of resistance from the people." Hesse said excitedly, his hand rubbing subconsciously at the pommel of his sword. "When we put down the uprising we can fuel our coffers from their sorrows." He said breathlessly as if he mentioned the assignation of a lover to come.

"What I propose no one has ever done before but it will work because I have sat in that dark dirty tavern and seen what happens, you people have no understand whatsoever about your very natures. You are sick and unhealthy. Your men dream of lives they cannot have and your women pine for the men who need not dream but do." Brutin spoke to the garden, reciting from memory.

"I don't understand why I have to be the leader, I don't know what I am doing!" Vizier complained but Hesse only laughed and looked at Brutin. At the time Brutin had looked at Hesse, returning the smile. He would not turn to face ghosts, they no longer belonged here. This was not their home, it was their tomb.

"Because I am clearly a threat, if I take charge these damnable heroes will rise up and meet me before we have a chance to set ourselves. I need you to be the face of the organization, Hesse, you need to distract these heroes and kill as many as you can, that will allow me the freedom to enslave without interference." Brutin spoke his part with his eyes closed now, he was standing in this same room but facing inwards, the world before him and his dream unfulfilled.

"I think this is a good idea, everyone has a right to make money and if it involves mayhem..." Hesse grinned like a boy, he was a Peer of the kingdom and his first thought should be his people. Brutin had looked at him and grinned. Oh yes, he certainly was giving them first consideration all right. There were not enough torches in RhyDin to burn the city down to Hesse's tastes.

"Then we shall do it." Vizier proclaimed and Brutin remembered he had smiled broadly. Accountant and murderer in tow he was ready to begin.

"I had my tools, someone to hide my actions and other to count my money. It was the perfect plan and according to them, it was all their own ideas." Brutin spoke to the roses in the garden again.

Hesse stepped up to Brutin's left and Brutin gave him a glance, sure enough, just like Candi he could be seen through, a ghost from his past, fueled by guilt. "I died before you really got things running smoothly. Damn anti-slavers. But you avenged me." Hesse said simply.

"It was a mistake to try to conform to Ranger's ideals of guilds and their rules. The Anti-slavers trapped us and I could not get us out. I apologize for that, I miscalculated." Brutin admitted and Hesse nodded.

"None of them survived, that is all that matters." Hesse said and then faded away, nothing more to say. Brutin turned back to the garden and knew what was coming next as Vizier stepped into view on his right, glancing out the bay window.

"I remember when you had demanded this be installed." Vizier glanced at the workmanship. "I was so proud of you when we got the Association running properly, we made more money than you can ever hope to spend, things went according to plan, why do you seem so unhappy?" Vizier asked him and Brutin grinned. Vizier was a ghost, he was speaking from Brutin's own mind, a small attempt to make himself feel better.

"Because once I consolidated I no longer needed you." Brutin admitted.

"Yes, and we had our little bidding war to see which of us was the better slaver." Vizier filled in and Brutin nodded.

"But you never left your office, you had no idea what you were doing and you were going to lose anyway, this was the way we set the rules so I could 'legally' gain control of my organization." Brutin said and Vizier gave him that tight lipped smile.

"Still, I never knew you were armed, and I was surprised when I looked down and saw the blade." Vizier said wistfully and Brutin nodded.

"I did not want to chance you calling up your magic." He replied and Vizier shrugged.

"Why did you murder me?" Vizier asked and Brutin sighed.

"I do not like magic." He said firmly and glanced around the garden. Vizier for his part nodded as if that explained everything and faded away into memory where he belonged. Brutin slumped against the glass, his forehead soaking in the coolness as his left hand steadied himself.

He had built the worst organization with the most evil intentions on a foundation of suffering and death. He had everything to show for it and lacked for nothing. He even had warmth and love, things he had never thought he would enjoy and certainly didn't deserve.

Yes, he had been betrayed by those he had helped form and sheltered, but were they any more guilty than he was? Indeed, did they have the foresight to commission the large bay window and garden now splayed out before him in all of it's glory the day after their betrayals?

Mercifully most of his betrayers did not live long enough to truly suffer. Not like he had, no, for he had obtained everything at the cost of nothing.

Because Nothing was all that remained inside him.

"Seems Lord Grimm's got more time on his hands these days than ever before," Kain said and rolled the disembodied head toward the girl on the floor with the flaming red hair.

She looked at it but said nothing. Instead she chose to keep brushing her hair, stroke after stroke, without pause.

"Say something, Tara," he said with a sigh and sat down in the chair beside her.

"I have nothing to say to you, Master," she responded and he seized the brush from her hands. She let her hands drop to her lap and sighed.

"Tell me why Lord Grimm cares about a slut like you," he growled and threw the brush on the floor next to her.

"If I told you, you would not believe me," she replied and picked up the brush.

"If you do that again, I will break it," he warned.

"Like you are going to break me, Kain?" she came back at him.

He raised his hand.

She rolled her eyes.

"Perhaps if you were not such a sanctimonous fuck, I would be more agreeable toward you," she offered.

"Perhaps if you would pay more attention to me than you do my brother, I would not need to be as heavy-handed with you as I have been," he grinned.

"He is my father-in-law," she answered suddenly and looked up at him.

His eyes narrowed. "Lord Grimm? What son of his claims you as his wife?"

"His name is Soulights, the firstborn LeVey son."

"And this husband of yours, where is he that he does not seek to reclaim what is his?"

"Likely on a battlefield somewhere cutting someone's head off," she said, smirked and gestured to the head on the floor.

"I am told Grimm sent a woman to deliver that message," he said and nodded to the head. "One of my guards. Found it tacked to the front door."

"Silk, she is his Second, an' that will be the start of what is to come if you do not return me to the Slaver's Association," she huffed.

"Tell me, what do I have to look forward to next?"

"Next, word will reach Sonyia's ears that you have taken me. You were not in Rhy'Din when The Black Widow became Second of the Slaver's Association nor were you around to see her become one of Brutin's lovers. She is Silk's sister an' I am like her daughter," she said with a grin of her own, "an' when the might of both the guild houses of FOES and Darkness of Death come to break down yer door, you will perhaps change yer mind about me."

"And then?"

"And then my Uncle Charles an' his brother Bard, who run Murder Incorporated will likely get in on the action."

"And then?"

"And then, when my husband returns from his wars, he will come for you himself."

"And then?"

"There won't be a then, then, Master," she blinked.

He leaned forward and grabbed her by the hair and it was a rare thing for her to do but she did not resist.

"And why is that my pretty one?" he asked up against her neck.

She fell forward against him, moaning.

"Because you have never felt the kiss of his blade....it only ever gave one person a second chance in this realm," she whispered as he brought her in his arms to his bed.

"And who might that person be?"

She unzipped his pants and dipping her head down, grinned triumphantly.

"Me."

Tara snapped her fingers to get the Horde's attention. Obviously by the look on their faces she had been misunderstood and now she would ease their minds.

"I meant to envision this mop as the man you live to serve. The one for whom you would do anything just to please him. I will show you how but first, " she said and looked to Philodus then.

He put his hand up, understanding and left the great hall.

She smiled and looked back to the Horde. "I think people learn best by demonstration so here goes," she said and knelt in Nadu in front of the mop. "You must believe that the mop is him, not an inanimate object. This will be just one of your many talents. If you can do this, every man will want you, not one of them will resist your charms."

A change came over her then as her eyes fell on the mop again. Her hands lifted up to it as if pleading with it, her neck rolling from side to side. The Horde watched, captivated by the sight. At first she heard their gasps and then the sound became distant enough where she no longer heard it. She was transfixed on that one thing which was causing her to act this way. Bending backwards, her arms still extended, she felt the back of her head hit the floor but her eyes never moved from the mop. She drew a breath, her back arching further and ran her hands up along the sides of her. Her head whipped from side to side and when she cried out the blonde leaned forward first.

"What is she doing?" she asked the brunette.

"Falling in love, just like she said," came the reply with a snicker.

"Yes, but with who? The mop?"

"No, the man she envisions the mop is. Aren't you paying attention?" the brunette asked with a shake of her head.

"Of course I am. I just would like to know who he is who has such sway over her," the blonde replied, gawking at the spectacle still with a slack jaw.

"I don't know if now is a good time to ask her."

"No, I'll wait til she is finished."

"I gotta get me one of those," said another of the Horde, pointing to the mop.

They all giggled and watched as Tara writhed around on the floor. She was in her own world now. Acting on impulse. Unbidden.

"I hear footsteps. Should we stop her you think?" said the worried brunette.

"Yes, let's. If Master returns and sees her carrying on this way she may get in trouble," said the blonde who was by now also worried.

"Mistress?"

Tara's concentration broken, she flipped over on her belly and slammed her palms down on the floor. Her breath was ragged and her eyes were wild.

"What!"

"We hear someone coming, Mistress," the brunette explained and blinked at the look in Tara's eyes.

"Oh," Tara said and sat up, brushing her hair away from her face and looked around as if unsure of her surroundings.

"That was very impressive, Mistress," the blonde said with a bright smile.

"Hear! Hear!" another said in agreement.

Tara shook her head, panting harshly and squinted as sweat dripped in her eyes.

"Mistress? Are you alright?"

"Where is he?"

The Horde exchanged confused glances. "Who, Mistress?"

"Anubis."

The brunette frowned. "Master Anubis was not here, Mistress. It has just been you here with us. No men have come in."

"He was right there!" she shouted and pointed to the mop, angrily. A doubletake and she blinked at the mop. "Wasn't he?"

The blonde shook her head as did the rest of the Horde. "No, Mistress. You were showing us something and apparently it worked."

Tara's head fell forward and she sighed heavily. "God help me, I'm seeing things 'gain."

"You will begin training the slaves for House ABYSS tomorrow, " Savior said from his throne, his fingernail tapping against the golden chalice.

"Yes, Master," Tara said and kneeled.

"Was there something else you wished to say?" he asked when she lingered on the floor, showing no signs of getting up.

"Master, I do not think I can train your slaves."

"Why is that?" he asked with a curious expression.

"I do not think I have the proper knowledge," she replied, looking up at him.

"Nonsense. You work for Brutin. There is no better teacher than he and you seem to have picked up quite a bit during your time with him."

"I don't belong in any of this," she said and gestured to the room. "I should have never gone to the Slaver's Association. It's all Mordread's fault. I belong leading a guild or armies in one. Not as some secretary to a slaver and slave to another," she said and nodded to him.

"Do you not believe in destiny, little one?"

"I do."

"Then stop fighting it. Trust in what you know and work with that. I do not expect perfection but I know you well enough by now to know you will expect nothing less from the girls on my chain."

"Thank you, Master," she said with a smile and stood up.

"Tara?"

"Yes, Master?" she said and turned around.

"You will sleep in my bed tonight," he said and cleared his throat, obviously unsure of his own words.

She blinked.

"Does that bother you?" he asked, the stern tone returning to his voice.

"No, Master, it is jus' we have never..."

"Yes, I know," he said and fidgeted a bit. Since Savior never squirmed she thought this amusing and grinned.

"I did not think you looked at me that way, Master."

"It is impossible not to. You parade around in those skimpy outfits all the time I honestly don't know why you bother with clothing at all," he said with a smirk.

"Then I shall come to your chambers naked, Master," she said with a snicker.

"You see? You have the knack for understanding even the vaguest of commands. It is why Brutin chose you, why I chose you," he said with a dark grin.

"I am going to go take a bath now, Master."

He nodded and she thought she heard him sigh with some measure of delight.

"I won't be long, Master," she said and lifted her shirt up over her head.

He sat forward in his throne to watch her. "The bath is not in this room, girl. What are you doing?"

"What I do best, Master," she said and stepped out of her skirt.

"And what is that?" he hissed and now she could clearly detect his satisfaction, evident in his voice and expression.

"Teasing," she said with a giggle and ran out of his chambers to head for the baths, leaving a trail of her clothing, like breadcrumbs behind her, should he decide to follow.

Which he did.

And they never made it back to his bed that night.

Philodus twirled the collar around his finger.

"Let us talk about why it is you ran out of the hall so quickly," he said.

Tara reached under her desk and pulled a black coffee pot up from the floor. It was from the Krups line and it had seen better days. The wire was frayed, the plug at the end was long gone, the carafe cracked in several places and someone had drawn a smiley face on the face of it in yellow marker. She set it down on her desk. Philodus gave it a curious look.

"It makes blackwine on its own," Tara explained. "They call it a coffee pot for coffee," she said, drawling the word out, "is blackwine."

"I see," Philodus said and tilted his head a little as he looked to the smiley face.

She took responsibility. "That was my doing. You see Nok loved this thing. Both of them were inseperable for a time and if I'm not mistaken the man most likely slept with the damn thing he loved it so much," she said and reached out to caress the carafe, knowing somewhere, wherever Nok was, he would appreciate her doing this for him.

"You seem to get sidetracked," Philodus said.

She blinked. "What do you mean?"

"I had asked you why you ran out of the hall and you have shown me this instead," he said and nodded to the coffee pot.

"But this is the reason why I ran out of the hall, Philodus," she said with a baffled expression.

He shook his head. "Then I must say I do not understand."

"My first week here I made the mistake of touching this coffee pot," she said with a laugh as she remembered Nok's reaction. "The second week I was here, I accidentally pulled it out of the wall when I was cleaning around it. And during the third week I broke the carafe here when I tried to make a pot of it," she said pointing to one of the cracks in the glass. "Nok almost killed me. Boss had to step in to save me from him," she said with another laugh.

"This man tried to kill you for what was, essentially, an accident?" Philodus asked with a blink.

"Yes," she said with a nod, "because I touched it without permission and because I was interfering in something I should not have which is what I am trying to point out to you about me training those slaves, Philodus."

"I understand, however, you were asked by me to train the girls. You did not take it upon yourself," he said.

"Ahh, but you see, Brutin had asked me to make the pot of coffee that day," she said and lifted a finger.

Philodus blinked again. "I have never seen him drink blackwine," he said.

"Neither have I," she said with a smile.

"This Nok sounds unstable," he said with a nod, convinced.

"He was. The point, Philodus, is that it was a test," she said.

"Explain," he said.

"Boss wanted to see if I would go ahead and make the coffee even though I had been told several times not to touch it while Nok was of the opinion that he had already told me not to touch it and that my place here was clear which is to say that Brutin did not hire me to make coffee. He hired me to be his secretary," she said with a firm nod.

"Then you failed the test?" Philodus asked, clearly confused by what she was saying.

"No, I passed it with flying colors and failed it miserably," she said with a bright smile.

"That is a contradiction. You cannot fail and pass a test, simultaneously," he said with a snort.

"I could if there were two tests," she said while leaning closer to him, the smile changing to a grin.

"You are...perhaps.......very strange, Tara Rynieyn," he said.

"But I am efficient nonetheless," she replied and tossed her head up high.

"Why must you anger him, Tara?" asks the First Girl, who stretched out next to her on the bed and opened the jar of salve.

Tara's nose wrinkled at the smell. She had handled the stuff herself, many times, had looked at it as one of the many tools of the trade but still could not get used to it. The smell was not unlike raw garbage to her senses.

"Piss off," she replied and glared at the far wall in front of her. She was hugging a pillow to her breast, going over the last hour or so in her mind. After Kain had finished beating her, he had taken her right there on the floor. And in front of the other slave looking in the mirror no less. Not that the other slave had noticed. She was obsessed with the mirror and even though Tara knew the girl could see the reflection of Kain and her in the mirror--him behind her, determined. She in front of him, also unmoved--she did not think the slave was paying attention to them. She was too far into the self-examination phase to care that the Master was using one of his prettiest slaves and not her. Had it been any other time she may have reacted with a facial expression at the least, if not a jealous sneer.

But not this time.

Her back hurt but not as badly as it would have had she been mortal. The salve was useless as her body healed itself though she allowed the other slave to apply it to her back just the same. It gave them something to do when they were not preening themselves for Kain. She felt the coldness of the salve. The soft, gentle touch of her fingers. Heard the other slaves murmuring how she was going to get herself killed one day with the way she behaved.

"There, now, that is better," said the slave attending to her back. "How do you feel?"

Tara turned her head to look over her shoulder at her. "Peachy," she sneered. "Get away from me."

The First Girl frowned. "I would not bite the hand that feeds you, Tara. Remember, when Master is not around I am in charge. I could correct you for that," she said, suddenly feeling the need to reaffirm her position on Kain's slave-chain.

Tara rolled over on her belly so she should look at the other slave better. "I would like to see you try to correct me," she said.

The First Girl slapped her across the face.

Tara slapped her back. Harder.

Watched as the other slave fell off the bed and cried out in shock. She was faster than the other girl, by a longshot. She could move ten times faster than these slaves and she used this to her advantage. In the time it took a mortal to blink, Tara had the First Girl up against the wall and held her there by the neck. The other slaves began to scream at her to let her down. Some threatened they would tell the guards or even Kain himself but she did not respond to them.

Instead she was studying the First Girl who was desperately trying to free herself from her grasp and doing more choking than anything else.

"Come on, correct me," she said, taunting her. "Let me see what you got, slut."

"Tara!" a man's voice screamed behind her. "Let her down this instant!"

It was Jeremiah. She released the First Girl who then fell at her feet and held her throat, crying. Turned her head to look at Kain's brother. He motioned for her to come to him which she did.

As soon as she was near him the other slaves descended on the First Girl and tried to comfort her. Jeremiah grabbed her by the arm and took her out of the room.

"Masters do not normally interfere in the squabbles of slaves," she said, reminding him of the ways of dominant men.

"You were choking her. I'd say that goes beyond a mere squabble," he said with a sigh.

"I did not kill her."

"You could have. What were you thinking, Tara?!" he said as he dragged her along.

She grinned. "Of the many ways in which I have erred since coming here, Master," she said and thought of that mirror.

She would have to break it.