Page 1 of Rix & Val
VAL
My master’s talking, but I’m not hearing anything past the buzzing in my ears. I’d zoned out as soon as he told me he was releasing me and selling me on to a new master. I’m a slave, born of slaves, and will likely die as a slave.
Although for the last three years I’ve not felt like one but more like a member of the family. That is why this betrayal is cutting through me like a knife. My heart feels like it has been ripped from my chest.
This was the first place I’ve been that I’ve felt safe since the age of twelve when I’d been sold for the first time, ripped away from my parents and siblings.
Not once since I’ve been here on Ozki have I worried about being violated in all the worst ways. I could fight, and I’m good at it, but you can’t fight when your master holds all the power to incapacitate you while they do what they want to you. I’ve learned over the years to block out what was being done to me.
The number of times I’ve imagined killing them and all the ways in which I could do it used to run through my mind as they did what they wanted to me while I was unable to protect myself. Big brave males. Sometimes it would take four of them to hold me down so that I could be restrained. I’ve never gone easy, and they have always known that.
But this time, I’d thought I’d found a place to land where I could see out my days. I’m only twenty-six winters, or I think I am. It’shard to keep track when you’re moved from planet to planet at the whim of those who owned you. Here on Ozki I’ve been able to do what I love, and that’s hunting. I love spending time in the stillness of a forest, tracking animals for days on end until I find the perfect one that I know will feed the family I’m tenured to for months. It’s peaceful, and if I could have, I’d have disappeared. Unfortunately, the tracker embedded in my back doesn’t allow for that. If I could have reached it, I’d have cut it out myself.
Instead, I trusted my master when he told me not six months ago that I’d be with him and his family for the rest of my days. I believed him when I shouldn’t have. Hope. That’s what I’d been given, and it has been taken away. I should have known better—a slave is always a slave. No matter that I’ve formed bonds with his children and have taught them how to hunt and track. His children that I look on as younger siblings. I’d forgotten the first rule of slavery—never become attached.
Never become attached because it breaks something in you when it’s taken away from you.
A noise from the corner of the room breaks through my thoughts, and my attention is taken by the two boys standing in the corner of the room, anger on their bright green faces, silver eyes glowing bright as they glare at their father before their attention is diverted to the smirking female in the doorway.
Bitter anger flows through me. I should have known when he brought her home as a wife four months ago that my time here was limited. Instead, I trusted my master, Joshu. Never again, I promise myself. Never again will I get attached.
“Valoria,” Joshu implores, bringing my attention back to him. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. Even as detached as I am, I can see that he is sorry. But not enough to stand up to the woman who finds me a threat.
Not replying, I turn and give him my back, whipping my top off and holding it to my breasts. Not for my sake. As a slave, you learn that being modest is pointless. No, I did this for the sake of the young boys in our company.
Raz hisses, and I know he sees the scars of previous masters’ trackers. At fourteen winters, he knows what they mean. I’d heard the guards come in while Joshu had been talking. They were waiting to cart me off to the shipping port to be taken to wherever the next slave auction was to be held.
“Val,” Joshu tries again.
“Just do it,” I tell him through tight lips, already knowing how much it’s going to hurt. When I feel how badly his hand is shaking against my back, I know there’s no way he can do it. For as much as he’s hurting me, he’s been a pseudo-father to me for three winters, and I know that this is hurting him, just not enough to stand up for me and keep me.
“Raz,” I call out, turning my head towards the boys. Raz looks at me, and I’m surprised at how much he’s grown in the last few winters, and my heart aches. He’ll come to manhood soon and claim his own mate, and I won’t be here to see any of it.
“You do it,” I tell him.
I watch as he strides over and takes the knife from his father’s shaky hand. “Where?” Raz asks him. Joshu touches my back, and I can’t help but flinch from his touch. “Here,” he says, regret deep in his voice. But I’ve switched off again, knowing that I have to preserve myself for the pain that’s coming.
“Val?” Raz questions as he hesitates to do what is being asked of him.
“It’s okay, Raz, remember everything I’ve taught you. You can do this,” I reassure him.
Taking a deep breath, he cuts into my back, and I bite my lip as pain sears through me and blood flows down my back. Before long, he heaves a sigh of relief and pulls the tracker out, tossing it on the floor. I watch as Luc stamps angrily on it.
I’ve never once told them I’m a slave; I assumed they knew, but from the hate in Luc’s tone when he informs his father, “I can’t believe you’re sending Val away because of her,” he points a finger at Joshu’s new wife. “I’ll never forgive you. That you kept Val a slave when you didn’t have to, that you’re selling her, and that you ever brought that evilsoithinto our home.”
I guess they didn’t know.
We all ignore the gasp of outrage from thesoithstanding there watching everything transpire with a pleased look on her face.
Heavy footsteps sound on the wooden floor, and I look up to see the guards walking towards us. I make to slip my top back on when Luc steps bravely in front of me. “You can’t have her yet. You can take our sister when we’ve cleaned her back, but not until then.”
“We don’t have time to wait on a slave,” the smaller guard informs Luc coldly.
“Make time,” Raz orders, coming back into the room with a bowl of steaming water and my bag of herbs. I’ve been so out of it I’d not heard him leave. I know better. Inattentiveness gets you killed. But with my heart hurting so badly, I think I’d have found death preferable.
The small guard opens his mouth to say something, but surprisingly, it’s the larger one who stops him, holding his hand up. “We’ll wait.”
I’m surprised. It’s seldom you find a kind guard. But I’ll take the wins.
