Asteria In Love with the Prince (15 page)

A few minutes later, Arno’s phone rang. He spoke, and I realized it was Jagor on the other end. “He wants you to go in,” Arno told me. “Hendel is having some problem with Russian caviar – the Prince thinks you can help translate. Sixteenth floor.”

I nodded, and got out. Jagor should have been an actor: even I’d believed that he didn’t want me there.

He was waiting for me inside, of course. We got into an elevator, and he slotted in a keycard. We didn’t go up, to Hendel’s office: we went down. My stomach knotted.

Jagor turned me away from him and slid a key into the palace collar’s padlock. Click. The thing came loose, and he rolled it up and pushed it into a pocket. I stood there as he placed a much thicker, metal collar around my neck. He hesitated before he locked it around my neck. “Lucy,” he said softly, “This is just for tonight. And you can still use the ring. Understand?”

I nodded.

“No. Tell me you understand.” He sounded worried.

“I understand.”

Clu-click. And it was on – a heavy, solid band in some polished silver metal, padded inside with black leather. I looked at myself in the mirrored wall. A metal ring hung from the front and, above it, a symbol I recognized. The seal of the Prince of Asteria.

***

When we reached the basement, he had me strip down to my bra, panties, stockings and heels and stuffed the rest of my clothes into a locker. Then he took something from a hook by the door – a long strip of heavy black leather. It was only when I saw the clip at one end that I realized it was a leash.

I watched dumbly as he clipped it onto the ring on the front of my collar. “As far as anyone knows,” he told me, “You’re one of my slaves – an Asterian I’ve collared.”

I nodded, and then we were inside.

It reminded me of a high-end vodka bar. It was big, and disorienting: the walls were all glossy black, so they seemed to fall away in the distance. It was as dark as a nightclub, but without the flashing lights – just soft, indirect glows from lights built into recesses. Strangely, there was no music. The floor was dark, polished wood, with tiny white lights sunk into it, lighting the edges of different areas. There were armchairs and stools everywhere, all finished in soft white leather. I saw some bigger padded areas, too, the size of king-size beds.

The place was packed, the men mostly in suits, though a few of them had stripped off. The women were either in their underwear or naked – and every one of them was wearing a collar. Some had their hands bound behind their backs.

None of that, though, was what shocked me: I think I’d been expecting something at least along those lines. What shocked me was the atmosphere of the place. Raw and sexual in a way that hit me right in my core. People came here for one reason...and I was a slave, right in the middle of it. I thought back to the dress shop in Monaco, the way the bodyguards had looked at me. I could feel it now, the heat of the male attention as I was led, on a leash, past hundreds of them. Not everyone was in a couple, I saw. There were quite a lot of men who seemed to be on their own, and my stomach tightened at the implications of that.

I quickly realized that being on a leash has more subtleties than I’d thought. People imagine being hauled along like a disobedient dog, but it’s not like that at all. In five inch heels, on a slippery wood floor, being pulled would yank you right off your feet. To avoid it, you have to keep pace
exactly
with your owner, so that there’s just a tiny bit of slack in the leash. That means you can’t dawdle, can’t look around or be distracted. You have to be in position and attentive at all times: that’s what it’s all about. If you’re doing it properly, the leash might as well not be there. It hit me with a little shock that I was actually taking pride in following correctly. What the hell was I turning into?

Jagor gave me some Asterian money and sat while I went to the bar for him. Given that all the men who had slaves sent them to the bar, that meant that the only men at the bar were guys who’d come on their own. I expected them to accost me, but they just stood there, taking their time and sipping their drinks, while the slaves came and went with orders. It took me a while to figure it out: they couldn’t just approach us – etiquette seemed to be that they had to talk to our owners and ask to speak to us or – my stomach flipped over – to borrow us. So they waited at the bar to check out the slaves, then followed one back to her owner if they were interested.

As I ordered Jagor’s obscenely expensive imported whiskey, I could feel their gaze sliding up my legs, over my ass, up my back. Some of them leaned right up against the bar so that they could get a side view - and I realized that there were mirrors above the bar, tilted down, so that even the men standing behind us could see our fronts. We were displayed for their delectation, and the idea of that twisted around inside me in a way that left me both panicky and hot. I saw other slaves depart with their drinks, some followed, some not. When I left with mine, three men drifted along with me.

I returned to Jagor, feeling their eyes on me with every step. He took his drink and indicated a white leather cushion on the floor. I knelt on it, head bowed, hands loosely behind my back. Doracella had taught me well.

The men arrived, just a few steps behind me. Three sets of feet in expensive shoes. One of them hesitated and then walked away, upon seeing that it was the Prince. The other two bowed.

“Your Highness,” said one. “You honor us with your presence.”

Jagor sat back in his chair. “Hendel is an old friend.”

“I had heard rumors, Your Highness, that you didn’t choose to keep slaves.”

I caught my breath. That was something I’d been wanting to ask, ever since that first conversation about Asteria. Did he have a harem of slaves somewhere?

“I rarely get the opportunity,” Jagor said, answering without answering. His hand came down and lazily caressed my hair.

“I’m glad you did this evening, Your Highness,” said the other. “Your slave is quite lovely. A new acquisition?”

“A temporary arrangement.”

“Would you consider lending her?”

My heart rose, even though I knew the answer would be “No”.

But Jagor hesitated, and my heart leapt into my mouth. I had to keep silent, but I could feel my pulse hammering, my eyes locked with cold fear on the toes of the men in front of me – I couldn’t even see their faces! And it was entirely possible that he would lend me – certainly, sharing lovers seemed to be more the norm than the exception, here.

“We’ll take excellent care of her, of course. Would you like to watch?”

Oh God Jagor no please!

“I think not. Not tonight.” And the two men nodded politely and departed.

I let out a long, low sigh.

“Disappointed?” asked Jagor, chuckling.

I could barely speak. The fear had been overwhelming, but I’d been ready for that. What I hadn’t been ready for was the other emotion that had swept through me as I knelt there, waiting for him to decide my fate. Arousal so strong it left me physically weak.

“God!” I managed at last. “I—”

“Not sure?”

I nodded. Now that my brain had time to process it, I started to understand. With the lack of control came a lack of guilt. If I chose to have sex with someone else while I was in love with Jagor, that was cheating: to most of my friends back home, at least. But if he ordered me to sleep with someone...I could enjoy every second of it.

We were interrupted by another man. At first, I thought it was another single guy trying his luck, but this one arrived with his own slave – a lightly tanned woman, her blonde hair tied back in a ponytail. She was completely naked. The man motioned her to a cushion opposite mine, and she knelt while her owner embraced Jagor.

“Thank you, Sarik. I needed this to be somewhere discreet.”

My head was swimming again. Jagor had set up a meeting here? So the Russian caviar story was just a cover for our trip to the sex club, which in turn was just a cover to meet Sarik. I was beginning to understand how many deceptions Jagor had to pull on a daily basis. No wonder our secret relationship had come so easily to him.

“SSV have got everything we can out of the man who poisoned your father,” Sarik said. “The official line you’d be getting out of us, if you didn’t know me, is that he was paid off by one of the larger crime gangs: they don’t like the way the King cracked down on them.”

Jagor’s voice was tight. “And what’s your line?”

“I don’t believe it for a second. This is out of their league. I’m worried, Jagor,” I realized I’d never heard anyone else call him that. “I think things would have gone very differently, had he died. Something big would have happened; something they cancelled in a hurry when he survived.”

“Do you have any proof?”

“None. They did an excellent job covering their tracks. They even gave us the crime boss who supposedly hired the poisoner. Found dead, of course.”

Jagor was silent for a moment. “Could it be another country?” My ears burned, because I knew, on some level, he was wondering if it was the US.

Sarik stared straight back at him. “It’s not impossible. A lot of countries would like to control the palladium.”

Jagor nodded. “What do you advise?”

“Stay alert. Let me keep digging around: I’ll get a message to you if I find anything.”

They shook hands, and sat back in their seats. Sarik’s slave went to fetch him a drink, padding to the bar barefoot and apparently quite at ease in her nakedness.

“I see you finally succumbed to the pleasures of the flesh,” said Sarik. Then, to me, “Look up for me.” It was almost a shock to be spoken to directly by someone other than Jagor: I’d gone days without it. I raised my face to him, seeing him for the first time. He was about Jagor’s age, with messy, straw-colored hair and a lean, muscular build. Smaller than Jagor, but then most men were. He smiled at me, and I smiled back: I liked him already. “I thought so,” he said wryly. “Hello, Lucy.”

Jagor and I both looked up in shock. Eventually, Jagor said, “Lucy Snow: Sarik Taum. Deputy SSV controller and my oldest friend.”

“You’re a long way from the UN, Lucy,” Sarik told me, not unkindly. He looked at my collar, then at Jagor. “May I ask how much of this is a game, and how much is real?”

We both looked uncomfortable. “We’re working that out,” Jagor said at last. I’d never seen him so open, without his shield of smooth confidence and bluff. Sarik was the one person other than me he could be honest with, I realized. “Do you think anyone else will recognize her?”

Sarik shook his head, still looking at me. “I don’t think so. Bringing her here was smart – I mean, incredibly stupid, but if you’re going to do something as stupid as pass your secret lover off as an Asterian slave, this is the right way to do it. It’s so crazy no-one will believe it. If they think it’s her, they’ll assume it’s their mistake.” He smiled at me again. “I don’t suppose that you’d consider letting me borrow Lucy
,
and I’ll leave you with Telessa?” The naked Telessa returned from the bar, two men trailing after her. As she knelt beside him, Sarik gave the guys a glare, and they turned away instantly.

This time it was different – Sarik was asking Jagor, but his eyes were flicking to me, as well. He wasn’t treating me as a slave: more as his friend’s lover.

Jagor glanced at me, and I flushed – God, was he actually considering it? I was never absolutely certain with him, and this was his friend, a man he trusted. If he was going to share me with anyone, it would be Sarik.

“I’m not sure Lucy’s ready for that,” Jagor said at last. Sarik nodded solemnly and they embraced again. Sarik knocked back his drink in one – that Asterian drinking culture in full effect – and they were gone, a wave of head-turning in Telessa’s wake.

“Would you have wanted to?” Jagor asked me.

I hesitated. “I’m not sure, Your Highness.”

“What about Telessa?”

That took me by surprise. I didn’t have any idea how gay culture worked in Asteria, if it existed at all. And I had zero experience with women; hadn’t really ever considered it. “I’m not sure about that, either,” I said at last. I had a question of my own. “Do you really think it could be another country that poisoned the King, Your Highness?”

He shook his head. “We have no way of knowing. Sarik will find out, though, given time; he always does.” He sat back in his seat. “Stand up,” he told me.

It was a simple enough request. But something in his tone made my whole body sing like a tuning fork; I could feel little shocks of sexual heat running up and down me.

“I want you now, Lucy,” he told me.

I caught my breath and then nodded, looking around.

He smiled. “What are you looking for?”

“The private rooms, Your Highness.”

His smile grew wider. “There aren’t any.”

I looked around. There were couples having sex on some of the white leather furniture, in twos and – I flushed – larger groups. But I’d never thought that we’d—

“Aren’t you...worried about being seen, Your Highness?” I asked, stalling for time.

“It’s the purpose of coming here. It would be unusual not to. Take off your bra.”

I looked at him in horror. I’d stripped off in front of the windows in Monaco, with the knowledge that people might see me. But this was different – there must have been forty people – mostly men – within sight of us. And there was nothing between them and me: nothing except Jagor to stop them coming closer – even touching me. For the first time since we’d entered the club, I really hesitated.

Jagor looked pointedly at my bra.

I knew that all I had to do was slip the ring off my finger. But I didn’t want to do that: I wanted to follow this through. Partly out of a sense of pride. Partly because I wanted to understand more about Asteria, and more about myself. Partly because I wanted to know how he’d treat me, if I really were his slave. I wanted to know exactly what he’d have me do and whether he’d be cruel or caring. I wasn’t sure
why
I was so desperate to know that. I didn’t want to think about it too much; I wasn’t sure I was ready for the answer.