Enslaved

  “Now…” Betina stepped forward, wearing rich black robes and the ugly, ruby encrusted headdress that made her look like a huge bird of prey. “We are called together today for a Ceremony of Sacrifice. Let the Defiled One come forward.”

  Trin stepped towards her, head bowed, her arms clasped nervously over her breasts. She felt as if every eye in the temple was boring into her, as though everyone, with the exception of Becca and Charlie, was thinking what a horrible person she was, what a disgrace, what a shameful, disgusting embarrassment to all of Zetta Prime.

  “I am here, High Priestess,” she said in a low voice. “I am…am ready to make my sacrifice to the Goddess.”

  “Very good.” Betina gave her a cold look. “Attendants, bring forth the sacrificial implements.”

  Two lesser priestesses brought forward a small stone pedestal and set it before Trin. On it were a short, sharp knife, a heavy cleaver and a long silver needle.

  “Choose,” Betina told her. “What will you give to the Goddess to show your remorse?”

  “I…” Trin’s mouth was suddenly dry, her heart pounding. Though she had been trying to reconcile herself to the sacrifice all night, now that the moment was at hand, she felt sick and faint.

  I can do this, she thought and forced herself to take a step forward, closer to the instruments of pain and sacrifice. I have to do this. I have to.

  Her hand hovered over the three instruments, pausing first over the needle…then the knife…and at last settling on the cleaver.

  A finger, she thought, hefting it in one sweaty palm. My little finger on my left hand. It shouldn’t be too hard to chop off. The blade looks really sharp…

  “Stop!” The voice from the back of the cavernous sanctuary startled everyone—even the high priestess.

  “Who dares interrupt the sacred Ceremony of Sacrifice?” She looked up, her black eyes narrowing in anger.

  “One has come who offers to take the Defiled One’s punishment.” It was a greater priestess speaking—one who was ranked only a step below Betina herself, Trin saw. She wore the deep purple robe of her station and behind her came another hooded figure—a huge, silent shape cloaked in scarlet.

  All around her Trin heard the priestesses whispering among themselves.

  “A scarlet robe—a scarlet robe!”

  “It can’t be! They wouldn’t dare to bring one here—not here to the inner sanctum!”

  “It must be—no other may wear the scarlet robe.”

  “But here? Before the statue of the Goddess?”

  Trin had no idea what the scarlet robe symbolized but she could tell from the size of the figure and the sheer breath of the shoulders beneath the robe that it could not be female. Not a female from any planet or species she knew, at least.

  “Renish, what is the meaning of this?” Betina demanded, addressing the greater priestess. “How dare you interrupt? How dare you bring a scarlet robed one into the inner sanctum of the Goddess?”

  “I could not help it, Your Holiness.” The greater priestess shrugged. “He invoked the Law of Transference, saying he wished to take the blame of the Defiled One upon himself.”

  “He—she said he!” ran the whispers through the ranks of the wide-eyed lesser priestesses. “The greater priestess has actually brought a male into the inner sanctum!”

  Betina’s eyes narrowed further, her nostrils flared and her lips became a thin red line. When she spoke, it was with barely controlled rage.

  “And who is this male who knows so much about our laws?”

  The person beneath the scarlet robe threw back his hood and Trin saw him clearly. Thrace.

  “It’s me,” he said simply, looking at Trin. “It’s me, Trin—I came for you.”

  Trin felt as though her heart had somehow lodged itself in her throat and it wouldn’t go down no matter how hard she swallowed. Thrace…here in the temple…how could it be? He was wearing his black leather pants and the red cloak but something else caught her eye as well. The slave collar Lady Tam-tam had given them—the one with the silvery-blue gems in it—was still visible around his strong throat. He had never taken it off.

  “I…I told you not to follow me,” she croaked.

  He shrugged, his broad shoulder rolling.

  “Forgive me for disobeying, Mistress, but I had to come.”

  “Enough speech!” the high priestess declared. “Male, you say you wish to take the Defiled One’s shame upon yourself?”

  “I do,” Thrace said firmly.

  “And do you understand that the shame requires a sacrifice?”

  “I know that too.” He nodded. “I am fully prepared to—”

  “Wait!” Trin’s mother was suddenly pushing her way to the front of the crowd of assembled priestesses. “Wait!” she cried again, her eyes flashing. “Are you actually allowing this? This male—he is the very one who…who defiled my daughter in the first place! He should not be here no matter what law he invoked—he is male.”

  Thrace took a step forward and looked at Trin’s mother.

  “I know how your people feel about males,” he rumbled. “It’s not much different from how my own people, the Havoc, feel about females. We take a vow when we reach maturity never to bond with a female—never to give our hearts and souls and tie ourselves to one. But your daughter, Trin, overcame my reservations and my determination not to bond. She did that with her bravery, her loyalty, and her compassion. She could have let me die in the slave auction at the Flesh Bazaar but she didn’t—she saved me. For that and for all that she is, I love her and I belong to her.” He touched his collar briefly. “I am hers and I would do anything for her.”

  Trin felt like weeping at his speech.

  “Oh, Thrace,” she whispered thickly. “It’s too much…you shouldn’t have come. I…I don’t deserve such devotion.”

  “Yes, you do.” He looked at her fiercely. “And I’m here to prove it.”

  “Disgusting,” Trin’s mother pronounced before stalking back to her place at the back of the sanctum. But the assembled lesser priestesses seemed to have been affected by the big Havoc’s words. The soft murmurs Trin heard from them sounded almost sympathetic. Several of them had their hands pressed to their hearts and were looking back and forth between herself and Thrace. Clearly they had never heard such eloquent, impassioned speech from a male before—or even believed it to be possible.

  “Enough!” Betina’s voice was steely. “Let us get on with this. You, male—as I was saying—if you agree to take the Defiled One’s shame upon yourself, you must offer a sacrifice. Specifically an eye or an ear or a finger of your choosing.”

  “I’m aware,” Thrace said softly, looking at Trin. “I am more than willing to make the sacrifice if it will clear Trin of all blame and shame and enable her to live a normal life.”

  “A normal life, you say?” Betina gave a harsh caw of laughter. “There is no normal life for a Defiled One. Not after everyone knows she has been defiled.”

  “But will a sacrifice on my part pay for her sin?” Thrace demanded. “Will you at least tell her she’s forgiven and absolve her of guilt?”

  Betina’s voice was grudging when she answered. “The rules of the Goddess do say that a willing sacrifice pays for the defilement.”

  “Good.” Thrace lifted his chin. “Then do it. I’m ready.”

  Trin, who had been unable to make her mouth work during this exchange, finally found her voice.

  “Thrace,” she whispered. “Thrace, no. You can’t do this for me—I won’t let you.”

  He looked at her, his silver-blue eyes blazing.

  “Anything for you, Mistress,” he murmured. “Anything—even this. Especially this. I cannot see you maimed when I can take the hurt on myself instead.”

  “Very well,” Betina snapped. “Let us get on with the ceremony, then. Bind the male! I will not take the chance of such a huge animal going berserk at the crucial moment.”

  Trin watched numbly as two of the lesser priestesse
s forced Thrace to his knees and cuffed his wrists together in front of him. The big Havoc made not a murmur of protest and allowed himself to be shackled without comment, even when one of the priestesses put a choke-chain around his throat, just above the collar, and held it like a leash.

  “Now, Defiled One…” Betina motioned at Trin. “Choose which part of your lover you will sacrifice and make it quick.”

  “You…you want me to…to…cut…” Trin couldn’t get the words out. Suddenly the frost around her brain thawed and she realized that the high priestess must have had this in mind from the beginning. Why else would she bind Thrace so that he was incapable of completing the ceremony himself?

  “Of course.” A slow, cruel smile spread over Betina’s face. “You are still the Defiled One, therefore you must make the sacrifice. Whether it is your own pain you offer or another’s, it matters not but the stroke must come from your hand. The Goddess demands it.”

  “I…but I can’t.” Trin’s mouth was so dry she could barely speak. She had been prepared to lop off her own finger or ear or poke out her own eye but the idea of doing such violence to Thrace turned her stomach.

  “You must,” Betina declared. “It appears you have chosen to give a finger.” She nodded at the cleaver Trin was still holding. “Prepare his hands.”

  The priestess holding the choke-chain around Thrace’s throat reached out but he had already placed his large hands on the small pedestal where the other instruments of sacrifice were laid.

  “Do it,” he said quietly. “Do it, Mistress.”

  Trin looked wildly at him. “I can’t hurt you like that—I won’t do it!”

  He leaned forward, looking at her intently.

  “It’s all right, baby,” he said softly, for her ears alone. “If this is what they want in order to clear your name, then do it. I want you to.”

  “No!” Trin looked down at the cleaver clutched tight in her sweaty palm. Oh Goddess, why was she still holding the awful thing? She dropped it quickly, as though it had burned her and it fell with a ringing clatter upon the stone floor. “No, I can’t hurt you like that,” she said in a louder voice.

  “It’s the only way,” he insisted.

  “No.” Trin shook her head and backed away. “I can’t do it. Not when I…” She looked at him longingly. “Not when I still love you,” she said softly.

  It sounded like the entire group of assembled priestesses had drawn in a breath at once. Betina looked enraged and her mother looked scandalized.

  “How dare you!” the high priestess shrieked. “How dare you speak words of sacrilege and shame here in the presence of the Goddess—in the very inner sanctum of her temple? How dare you love a male?”

  But neither Trin nor Thrace was looking at her.

  “I love you too, baby” Thrace said softly. “I never stopped. Please leave this place and come with me now. I swear I’ll devote the rest of my life to making you happy.”

  “The rest of your life won’t be very long—I can promise you that, male.”

  Suddenly Betina was right behind him. In one motion she drew the long, jeweled dagger from her flowing sleeve and with her other hand, she grasped Thrace by his thick, black hair.

  “No!” Trin gasped.

  * * * * *

  Thrace was about to die and he knew it.

  He would have surged to his feet and fought his way free—even with the choke chain and the manacles he was certain he could have done it—but for the razor sharp blade pressed against his throat. The priestess behind him held the advantage. One swipe of the dagger would sever all the blood vessels in his throat—possibly even cut off his head. There was nothing he could do but hold still and look at Trin.

  She was crying openly now, tears running down her face as she watched the high priestess threaten him. More than anything else, her tears made Thrace crazy. He wanted to take her in his arms and comfort her, wanted to kiss them away and promise her she would never cry again.

  But mostly he wanted to kill the high priestess who was holding him for putting those tears in Trin’s lovely dark eyes in the first place. Trin was his female, to love and cherish and protect. He needed to keep her safe and happy and this bitch had broken her inside, filling her head with guilt and her heart with doubt. Making her hate herself simply for loving him.

  And now she was going to kill him right in front of Trin. He didn’t want to die but even more than that, he didn’t want Trin to watch him die and think it was all her fault.

  “I love you,” he mouthed at her, afraid that if he spoke the words out loud the priestess would slice his throat immediately. “Trin, I love you so much!”

  “Please…” Trin begged, looking at the priestess. “Please let him go and don’t hurt him. I’ll give the Goddess whatever she wants—I’ll cut off my whole hand and poke out both eyes. But just please, don’t kill him!”

  “Too late for that, Defiled One.” A cruel, triumphant smile was playing over Betina’s thin lips. “The Goddess has chosen her sacrifice and it is this male—the same male that defiled you in the first place. He must die for what he has done that his blood may feed her hunger for justice.”

  She started to draw the blade across Thrace’s throat and he felt the sharp kiss of the cold steel as it bit into his flesh. Already a warm trickle of blood was running down the side of his neck and soon it would all be over…

  “I don’t think so.”

  The voice belonged to Charlie, who was pushing her way through the assembled lesser priestesses, a destroyer held in one hand. Thrace cut his eyes to the left and saw that Becca had the other weapon and was holding it on the two priestesses who had been guarding them earlier. How had they done it? They must have taken the opportunity when everyone was looking at him and Trin to catch their guards by surprise and disarm them.

  However it had been accomplished, the prisoners were free and Charlie was pointing the destroyer right at Betina. She looked supremely confident and comfortable with the weapon in her hand—almost as if it was an extension of her arm.

  “That’s right—just hold it right there,” she said, coming to a halt right beside Betina. “And don’t try anything funny. I’ve been a law enforcer back on my home planet for a long time and I know my way around a gun. True, this one’s a little funny…” She gestured with the wide-mouthed destroyer, nudging the high priestess in the ribs. “Looks like it could blow a hole the size of a barn door right through you. But its’ still just a gun and I’m not afraid to use it.”

  “I’m not either.” Becca was turning from side to side, keeping the other priestesses at bay as she made her way to the front of the crowd. Not that any of them seemed to want to try anything, other than the ones she and Charlie had disarmed. They were watching with impotent frustration but they clearly had a healthy respect for the weapons which had been taken from them. A wise choice, in Thrace’s opinion. He didn’t know how big a barn door was but it was certainly true that a destroyer could make a sizeable hole in whatever—or whoever—it hit.

  “Okay, now step away from Thrace slowly,” Charlie directed.

  Betina snarled at her. “Why should I? I can cut his throat before you can pull the trigger—I am sure of it!”

  “That may well be,” Charlie said steadily. “But if you do that, I’m going to shoot for sure. Ask yourself, hon, are you really ready to die just to make your point?”

  “You…you blasphemer!”

  Thrace could feel the high priestess’s hand shaking and for a moment the blade bit deeper into his throat, drawing another rivulet of blood. He had a sudden moment of certainty—the priestess was crazy and she was going to do it. She was going to kill him even if it meant her own death.

  He held his breath and commended his soul to the Goddess.

  Please, Mother of All Life, if Trin and I are not to be together in this life then let us meet again in the next…

  Then, miraculously, the sharp pain against his throat eased and the high priestess stepped back an
d away from him.

  “Good, that’s good,” Charlie said evenly. “Just keep going and keep your hands where I can see them. You—drop that chain you’ve got around Thrace’s neck and uncuff him now.”

  Abruptly the steady pressure of the choke chain eased and the priestess who had been holding it knelt before him to unlock his manacles with shaking hands. They fell to the stone floor with a clatter and she scuttled away, as though frightened that Charlie might shoot her even though she had obeyed orders.

  Thrace stood at once and went to Trin. She rushed to meet him and he enfolded her in his arms, feeling her tremble against him.

  “Gods, baby,” he whispered, trying to hold her carefully because of the multiple cuts and welts on her skin. “Are you all right?”

  “I will be if you take me away from here. Please Thrace, let’s just go.”

  Thrace’s heart felt light for the first time in days.

  “I was hoping you would say that. We’re going,” he promised her. “Going right now.” He looked at Charlie who nodded.

  “Listen up, people,” she said, raising her voice to be heard over the frightened murmuring of the lesser priestesses. “We’re going to leave now and we’re going to do it peacefully as long as nobody tries anything. You two go first,” she told Thrace. “Becca and I will cover you.”

  Thrace swung Trin into his arms, ignoring her halfhearted protests, and covered her naked body in the folds of the scarlet cloak he still wore. Then he carried her straight down the aisle at the center of the inner sanctum. The lesser priestesses were quick to get out of the way, pressing back from him as he went.

  Then, suddenly, Trin’s mother was standing there, blocking his path.

  “You dare,” she breathed, staring up at him. “You dare to try and take my daughter! And in the middle of her cleansing ritual! Before she has been pronounced blameless by the Goddess.”

  Thrace was tired of the older female’s attitude. He could understand why she didn’t like him and that she felt he had corrupted her daughter—that he could forgive. But her willingness to stand by and see Trin hurt and tortured—both physically and psychologically—that was a whole different matter. And it was something he could not forgive.