destroy the senator’s.
“Yes,” he said. “I believe that my pet deserves release.”
The crowd fell quiet again as Bron looked down at his auburn-haired waif. Gone was the look of bored defiance; the hovering screens now showed a look of need. The camera panned down to also show hard, erect nipples, and a sheen of slickness on the folds of her spread pussy.
“I’m going to touch you, little pet,” Bron said. “And as soon as I do, you are going to release harder than you ever did in training. Do you understand?”
She nodded, and the crowd strained forward, eyes on them, eyes on the screens. Bron reached out two fingers, touched the top of her mons and then dragged them lower, grazing Phaedra’s clit. “Release,” he said.
She screamed as the red bar filled. The crowd went wild, and the ground of the arena shook with their stomping feet. Even the normally composed elite class in the lower levels was cheering as Bron raised his little one to her feet and set her on the ground. Without being told, Phaedra immediately dropped and fluidly moved through the nine positions with such grace that Bron wanted to scoop her into his arms with pride.
But his attention was diverted by a flurry of activity to the side. The senator had hauled his pet off the table and had ordered her into a display position that had her bare bottom hiked up in the air, her legs spread. The crowd now yelled in protest as Senator Primus raised a loop he’d pulled from within his robes and brought it down hard across his human’s buttocks. Dakara wailed mournfully as the implement—this one designed to leave impressive welts—marked her skin.
“Shame! Shame! Shame! Shame!” the crowd cried, but their condemnation only made the senator strike his pet harder.
“Help her?” It was the first time Bron’s pet had spoken since they’d entered the ring, and Bron knew he could not deny her anything. Giving her hand a squeeze, he left her side and rushed over, pulling the implement from the senator’s raised hand and shoving him aside. And there, the senator and slave lay on the floor of the arena, both beaten and humiliated.
“Bron the Compassionate! Bron the Masterful!” The first cries from the top were faint, but voices joined together and the volume of the praise grew and swelled until one collective affirmation filled the arena. It was to this sound that the general left, his pet proudly following behind him.
Chapter Eleven
Had she displeased him?
Bron was quiet as they headed back from the arena, and his silence filled Phaedra with apprehension. He’d been similarly taciturn the day they’d returned from the arena after she’d angered him by speaking out. He’d punished her severely that day. Would he punish her again?
Phaedra’s mind spun as she replayed events at the arena. She’d been sickened when she realized that Senator Primus would be touching her. Although he was nearly as handsome a Traoian as Bron, his demeanor repulsed her. It had not been at all difficult to keep her passion restrained as the senator’s arrogant face had loomed above her as his hand unsuccessfully worked the bud of her womanhood.
That Bron had turned her over to this man to fondle was unexpectedly painful, but even more painful had been seeing the general touching Dakara. Phaedra winced now and closed her eyes against the memory. It was silly to feel this way. Yes, she’d heard the cheers. Yes, she knew that what she’d done in the arena had greatly impacted the political landscape. But at the end of the day, she was still a slave—disposable, expendable, nothing.
“Leave us!”
At Bron’s command, all attendants scattered when he entered the house with his pet. Phaedra’s heart was pounding so hard that she fancied for a moment he could hear it. Bron was not touching her, but she had been trained to follow unless otherwise instructed, and now she struggled to keep up with him, her small, bare feet padding on the polished
C. J. Cherryh
Learning to Kill: Stories
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