“I’ll still give it the old college try, motherfucker.”

“I have received seventeen offers for you, fierce one,” he said, now wiping at her throat. Beads of water fell away, cutting an itchy path between her breasts to her belly. “More coin than I have ever been offered for any other prize. More coin, to say truth, than I knew some of these men even held. But for now, you remain my Eshiqi. So. What shall I do with you?” He swished the rag through the water, wrung it out, and put it between her thighs, gazing meditatively into her eyes as he scrubbed the raw well of hurt he’d used all morning. “Let us play a game.”

Amber looked away, staring into the wall until her eyes hurt. Meoraq was coming. He couldn’t be that far away now. He’d find her (and never mind that he’d never found nicci never mind that at all this was different he was coming and he’d find her) and all she had to do was live long enough for him to get her out of this. She could do anything for one day, right? Right. Suck it up, little girl.

She looked at him.

“I was not always the man I am now,” he told her. His hands were gentle, always gentle. “There was a time I too stood in the sight of God, a time when I sought nothing greater than to serve in His name. A moment’s doubt…” He withdrew, placed the rag in the bowl and the bowl to one side. “…and that life was ended. If it had not, I would be the steward of my father’s House. I would have a woman who was my own alone. I often wonder what that would be like. So let us play a game.”

He untied her ankles, turned her around and unfastened her wrists from her elbows. “We will play a game I like to call ‘Zhuqa’s House’,” he said, helping her to rub feeling into her numb, cramping limbs. “I admit that I have played before and have some advantage over you, but I trust you will learn quickly and make as formidable an opponent as you did in battle. I will come home to you, my Eshiqi, and you will play that you are my happy woman.”

She spat laughter at him, unwise as that might be. She wanted to live, she did, but her ability to suck it up had limits and that was well, well beyond them.

“The woman of my House, who kneels at my side in meek obedience, her outstretched hand open at my foot.”

“You can make me be here, you son of a bitch, but you will never make me like it. Fuck you.”

“Who opens herself to all the fires of lust Gann can give me and pretends a loyal woman’s pleasure in her man’s desire.”

She shook her head, tight-lipped.

“Who drinks from my cup when we share our meals and unfastens the armor I don with solemn duty each day. It’s a simple game,” he said with a careless flick of his spines. “And in the playing of it, you may note my obedient woman does not require binding.”

Amber turned her face away and stared into the far wall, ignoring him.

He waited.

So did she.

“It is not the only game I play,” he said at last. “Merely that which I have most fondness for. The other game—” He rose and casually knotted a hand in her hair, yanking her forward onto her knees and dragging her toward the door with her first startled screams of pain just whooping out of her. “—I call ‘Zhuqa the Warlord’. It, too, is a simple one. In it, I am master of a band of ruthless men, much like those above us even now.” He opened the door and flung her out into the hall. She banged into the wall and fell, but couldn’t right herself fast enough. He had her by her ankles next, pulling her over the filthy stone and speaking loudly, but still calm, always calm, to be heard over her howls. “In my game, I have a number of slaves who I provide to these men as whatever amusement they wish to take. For example.” He heaved her around, swinging her completely off the ground (used to do this with nicci didn’t i airplane we called it do me airplane amber) and letting go so that she crashed and slid into the first crossways, rolling and wailing to land at the feet of two curious guards.

“For example,” said Zhuqa, striding down the dark hall toward them. He ignored their salutes and hunkered down to catch Amber’s chin and force her eyes to his. “It might be the day in the game of Zhuqa the Warlord when I say, Uruul?”

“Sir,” said one of the guards immediately.

“Get your cock out.”

The second guard backed up a little, but whatever Uruul felt about this order did not make him hesitate. He shucked his breeches, slipped a finger into his slit and out came the dark thrust of his cock. He wasn’t ready, was dry as sunbaked brick, but it was there and it was hard.

“And then I would say,” said Zhuqa, not even looking to see if he had been obeyed, “Uruul?”

“Sir.” The word was a grunt of some effort. His finger was still in his slit.

“I am going to count to six, and when I say the number six, you are going to put your cock in that hole and fuck it until you cum three times.”

“Yes, sir.”

“He’ll be the first, Eshiqi, and once it starts, it will not stop. One,” said Zhuqa quietly. “Two.”

Amber rolled shakily onto her belly, choking on sobs that were still more shock than pain.

“Three. Four.”

She put her hand next to his foot.

Zhuqa looked at it. “Palm to heaven.”

She turned her wrist. Even that hurt.

Zhuqa grunted. He stood up. “Put your cock away, Uruul. Stand your watch.”

“Yes, sir.” Spoken with real relief. The second guard was staring at him with something like admiration as Uruul fastened his breeches.

“I’m a simple man,” said Zhuqa, looking only at Amber as she struggled to right herself. “And those are really the only two games I know. Which one are you going to play, Eshiqi?”

Another woman would have spit on him. Another woman would have made him slap her in chains just so she could use them to throttle him. Another woman would never have needed someone like Meoraq to save her.

Amber got up and followed him back to his room. Zhuqa held the door until she’d limped through it. He did not slam it. He was not, she saw, angry.

“Zhuqa has come home,” he said. “How do you greet me, woman?”

She wiped her face on her arms a few times, took a stabilizing breath, then faced him. Put her arms around him. Leaned her cheek against his chest.

“I can tell you have never played before, but you are trying and I appreciate your efforts. Tomorrow, I will put you to work with the other slaves so that you can see better how this game is played.”

She nodded listlessly. Maybe Meoraq would be here by then.

“Still, it pleases a man to see his woman try. Come here, Eshiqi.”

She went, not daring to look at him and not knowing whether it was to keep him from seeing the murder in her eyes…or the tears.

He took her hand, put it on his belt. He gave no orders.

“Grim as Gann Himself,” he murmured, fingering her hair as she undressed him. “You will have to work at that. I don’t mind if you hate me, as long as you hide it. Play the game, Eshiqi, and remember a woman’s greatest happiness is to serve her man.”

“I’ll be happy when you’re dead,” she said. Her voice broke on every goddamned word.

He bent to graze his teeth along her shoulder when she began her kneading motions. It was the only time she faltered, thinking he meant to bite her, and it wasn’t the pain she feared so much as the scar it would leave.

“Easy, little one,” he murmured, his voice thick and strained. “I take no pleasure from your pain. You will carry no more scars while you stand in my favor. And when you do not, scars will be the least of your concerns.” His next words became an inarticulate hiss as she found the slick nub of his clitoris-like sa’ad and they were his last effort at any kind of speech for a long time. He buried his brow against her shoulder, abandoning sight to only feel. He touched her when she touched him, his rough hands lightly scouring at her hip, her ribs, her thigh. He was gentle.