I dipped the brush into the bucket again--carefully, to avoid letting the dirty, soapy water touch my blisters--and bent back to my task. The still-red burn scar on the back of my left hand throbbed as I scrubbed. It wasn't the same symbol as was found on the hands of the other slaves that lived here. Every time it occurred to me to wonder what that meant, I remembered King Nephrite-sama's comments about giving King Kunzite-sama a "present", and started to feel sick to my stomach, for as bad as Nephrite was, Kunzite was supposedly far worse. They called him the Ice King, and it was rumored that, unlike the other demon lords, he never had been human. He was said to be absolutely cold and ruthless.

I continued to swipe rhythmically at the floor, my back aching in time with my strokes. I'd been insolent again, or so I'd been told. I couldn't see how, though. It had only taken a few days to teach me to keep my mouth shut around here. I suspected that Nephrite had just made up the accusation to justify his pathological cruelty, although who he needed to justify it to was beyond me. Nor did I understand why he insisted on beating me in person when a trip to the slavemaster sufficed for my fellows. Perhaps it was merely for his own perverted enjoyment.

I dipped the scrub brush in the bucket again and wished myself back in the seminary. Ironic, that. I'd hated the place from the moment that my mother had delivered me to the gates. I had no true vocation, and I think my parents both knew that. The thing was, I was my father the duke's eldest son, and he didn't want me to be in a position to disinherit my legitimate younger brother, Michael. If the seminary hadn't been captured and I'd taken Holy Orders, I would automatically have been disqualified from inheriting. As it was . . . Well, unless I ever got out of this place, I was still pretty well disqualified, wasn't I?

I left the brush to float for a moment and ran my damp hands through my hair. It was growing back in to cover the little tonsured spot on top, and felt bristly there. I doubted that it was ever going to be permitted to stay short--Nephrite seemed to like my curly, copper-blonde hair. He'd played with the short strands, after my most recent beating. It was enough to make me wish to shave myself completely bald.

What was it with this damned floor? Well, everything located in Hell is damned by definition, I reminded myself with a crooked smile. No matter that the natives of this place called it the Dark Kingdom and it was ruled by a queen and not a king--I knew where I was.

A foot, applied to my backside, sent me sprawling face down on the slick, wet stone. I forced myself to bite back murderous rage, and picked myself up. Meek and mild. I'm never going to get a chance to escape from here if I anger anyone. Meek and mild.

It was a youma, a tall, heavyset pink one. She grabbed for my wrist, but I evaded her. Ever since I'd found out where those creatures came from, the concept of having one touch me had disgusted me. You see, a human had died to create every eight or ten of those beings, her soul torn apart to infuse each with a semblance of life. That was why most youma were female, and why the Dark Kingdom even bothered to take so many female human prisoners.

"The slavemaster wants you," she said. "Come."

I had no choice but to follow her. What else could I do? Attack her? Don't make me laugh. That was what the collars were for.

Every slave in the Dark Kingdom wore one of the dark grey bands at his throat. If one of us was so foolish as to attempt to attack a youma, or, even worse, a true demon like King Nephrite- sama, the collar would tighten around his neck until it strangled him. I'd seen it happen soon after I arrived here. The victim had been a simple-minded man from the village near the seminary. He hadn't had enough intelligence to realize that what he'd done could result in his death--he'd just wanted the youma who'd been beating him to stop hurting him.

I'd sworn to myself that I wasn't going to go the same way. I intended to bide my time. Eventually, a chance would come, and I'd be able to escape, or at least take a few of them with me before going down.

We walked the dark corridors of King Nephrite-sama's home together, with me always in front. Even with the collars, no youma ever turned her back on a slave if she could help it.

Our destination was a large room at the far end of the building. The slavemaster was waiting for us there. He was a true demon, one of the tiny minority of genuinely powerful beings that served as officers in the armies of the Empress Metallia, but unlike most of them, he hadn't chosen to make himself beautiful. Instead, he'd chosen the precise opposite: total ugliness. He was short and heavy-set and bald, and his face was seamed with scars.

The first thing he did when we entered the room was lash out with the barbed whip that he always carried, wrapping the tip of it around the wrist of my youma escort and stripping away the skin. The creature snarled at him but made no other protest.

"I thought I told you to get right back here with him!" the slavemaster snarled as he approached us. He grabbed me by the chin and tilted my head back so that he could get a better look at me. "What's this? A bruise? Where did this come from?"

"I was kicked to the floor, sir." I kept my tone empty of malice as I directed a sidelong glance at the youma, deriving a bitter, petty satisfaction from the thought that I was at least going to get her in trouble, too.

Sure enough, the barbed whip lashed out again. "You damned fool! Now I'm going to have to ask the healer to deal with that as well as his back! Do you know how much trouble this is going to cause me? Do you?"

The youma hissed, but it spoke to me and not him. "Enjoy your triumph while you can, trash. Kunzite'll rip your ass apart, and then he'll tear your throat out and drink your blood. Enjoy!" It blew me a mock kiss as the whip lashed out a third time, catching it on the side of the face.

What it didn't know was that I'd already figured out that something like this was going to happen soon. I'd known that Kunzite was here at Nephrite's castle, although I had yet to actually see him. I'd forced to the bottom of my mind the knowledge that I was probably going to end up as some kind of guest-gift, which meant that I was going to end up dead. The demon-lords consumed the life energies of lesser beings like humans to fuel their magical powers. The other part of the youma's threat I dismissed as unimportant. Mere physical damage wouldn't matter to me at all in a few hours.

Of course, the only reason I thought that way was because I didn't understand what she meant.

I was careful to keep my mind off what I was certain was coming as, at the slavemaster's orders, I scrubbed myself clean in a bath that contained more hot water than I'd had access to since coming here. Then another demon, a female, was called. She rubbed some sort of salve into the torn tissues of my back, the blistered skin of my hands and feet, and the bruises on my chin. As the stuff touched each hurt, I felt a cold tingling and a sharp pain, and then the injury vanished.

Eventually, the demon put down her jar and sniffed. "Well, he's as ready as I can make him," she told the slavemaster. "Are you really going to send him out there with his hair like that?"

The slavemaster shrugged. "What choice do I have? I don't know how to make the damned stuff grow any faster. Anyway, do you really think Kunzite is going to care, when he sees the rest of him?"

The female gave me a quick, clinical once-over. I forced myself to hold still, hating the way that they were talking past me as though I were some sort of dumb animal but knowing that I'd be swiftly punished if I tried to remind them otherwise.

"Perhaps not," she admitted with a small smile, "although I've heard that he does like to . . . play with his kills." Her smile widened, revealing that her otherwise human-looking face concealed a vicious set of fangs.

"Hold on a minute," the slavemaster said as she turned to leave. "There's one more thing that I need you to do."

The healer-demon sniffed. "I hope this isn't about something you caught from one of those human sluts that you insist on--"

"This isn't about me. See that collar on the table over there?" He made a vague, waving motion with his left hand. By rolling my eyes in that direction, I could just barely see something gold and green lying on the flat surface. "He's supposed to be wearing that, and not the grey one, when I take him out there. King Nephrite-sama's orders. Anyway, I don't have enough hands to put it on him myself, and after what that damned youma did I don't want to allow any of them anywhere near him. So I'm going to hold him while you take the old collar off and put the new one on."

"So long as you realize that you owe me a favor for this . .. ."

They did it in the simplest and crudest possible way. The slavemaster sat on my bare chest and pinned my limbs to the floor while the other demon swapped the grey band that I'd worn at my throat since arriving here for a gold one set with emeralds. Not until they had tested the catch to make certain that it would hold did they let me up.

The slavemaster dressed me in a loose, filmy tunic that fell to a point just short of my knees, and footwear that struck me as a flimsy excuse for a pair of sandals. I was allowed no other clothing, not even my underlinen, and my legs felt cold as I was prodded out along a hallway and through a door.

I'd become intimately acquainted with the floor of just about every room here since I'd arrived, but I'd never seen this place before--probably because it was carpeted. Spotting a pair of black- booted feet in front of me, I immediately knelt and pressed my forehead to the floor.

"Isn't he everything I promised you?" inquired a familiar, hated voice.

"Satisfactory, at any rate. I commend you, Nephrite. Your taste may actually be improving. Get up, boy."

It took me a moment to recognize that as an order and cautiously raise my head.

Nephrite was lounging in a chair off to my left, sprawled there in a way that reminded me unpleasantly of a cat contemplating its prey. The expression on his face only helped the illusion. I knew that smile all too well. But it wasn't his boots that I'd seen, although I'd thought that they were.

The man standing in front of me also wore the grey uniform of an officer, but there the resemblance ended. Nephrite had always reminded me of a naughty little boy. You know, the sort of kid who pulls the wings off flies and steals other children's toys just because he can. This man was different. His expression held none of Nephrite's malicious glee--in fact, I couldn't really claim that he had much of an expression on his face at all. The grey-blue eyes that bored into mine were like chips of ice, bleak and cold.

"Get up," he repeated, and I thought I saw a flicker of impatience. I scrambled to my feet, keeping my hands carefully clasped at a point just below waist level and hoping that neither of them would guess the reason why. I'd thought Nephrite was beautiful, but that left me without a word to describe this man. But I do know this: even if I'd met him casually on a street in some human city, I would have immediately recognized him as a demon. Those finely chiseled features were just too perfect to belong to a mortal man, especially when they were accompanying that lean, powerful body.

He took a step forward, which put him within arm's reach of me, and tilted my head back, presumably so that he could get a better look at my face. One white-gloved fingertip traced a gentle path along my jawline, then rose to flick an errant lock of hair out of my eyes.

"He will suffice," the white-haired man announced, his hand descending to rest on my shoulder. "Now, if you will excuse me, I think I will retire early."

"Kunzite-san, I would appreciate it if you would take a moment to speak of--"

Kunzite turned to face Nephrite, and for a moment, I saw an expression of annoyance flash across his face. "You forget your place, Neffy-kun. We will speak of these 'important matters' of yours when I am ready to do so, and not before."

He pushed me in the direction of the door. Although the shove he gave me wasn't hard, I wasn't expecting it, and it made me stumble. Even though I knew it would earn me a warning squeeze from my collar, I wished suddenly that both of these demon-lords were dead.

But the band around my throat never tightened.

I did my best to imitate Kunzite's expressionlessness as my mind raced. It's faulty! But that means I'm free to act . . . I could actually kill that bastard Nephrite! I'll have to wait until Kunzite's distracted, or at least lets me go, and then I'll sneak away . .. . or kill him, too? I should. He'd deserve it. How many hundreds of thousands of people has he killed, after all?

Kunzite's hand returned to its place on my shoulder, guiding me out into the hallway and up a staircase.

I'd never seen the second floor of this wing before either. They didn't allow unescorted slaves into the big guest suite. My feet sank into inch-thick pile carpeting as I stepped through the doorway and Kunzite released me in order to close and lock that portal.

Uncertain of what I was supposed to do, I stayed where I was while Kunzite removed his cape and tossed it over the back of a convenient chair. He never took his eyes off me, and he had a peculiar sort of faint smile on his face. Then his jacket followed the cape, and given that he wasn't wearing anything underneath it, it wasn't his face that I was watching after that.

It took a while for me to wrench my eyes away from him again, to search the room for a weapon, any weapon, but all I found was a pair of trophy swords hanging on the wall, and I knew from experience that those would be blunted. King Nephrite-sama didn't leave real weapons lying around if he could help it--there were enough deliberate murders among the youma that I suppose he didn't want any "accidental" ones--but I'd hoped that Kunzite had brought something with him. Evidently, if he had, it wasn't stored here. I didn't think much for my chances if I tried to tackle him barehanded, not when he was so much bigger than I was, but I had to do something, and soon, or he would kill me.

"Come here, little one."

My eyes snapped back over to Kunzite. He had seated himself in the chair over whose back he had flung his jacket and cape. The muscles in his arm and shoulder rippled under his smooth, dark skin as he indicated that I should kneel in front of him. I obeyed, once again keeping my hands carefully in front of me. What he would probably do if he knew what I was feeling right now didn't bear thinking about.

One black-booted foot swung out to tap me on the chest.

"Pull that off," Kunzite ordered.

His boots were unexpectedly tight, and it took me several tries to remove them both. It didn't help that I kept wanting to touch all of that deeply tanned skin that he seemed to be taking such pleasure in revealing to me, so badly that I shivered when my fingers finally did brush against his bare ankle.

He bent down, capturing both my hands in his, as I laid the second boot aside. I was gently but inexorably pulled up and forward, until I was on my toes, leaning, unbalanced, against Kunzite's chest, almost in his lap. Then I was in his lap, as one hand, releasing mine, slid from shoulder to back to buttock and then jerked me forward, off-balance, so that I fell on top of him.

What is this? Unless he intends to absorb my energy through his skin . . . Which, for all I knew, he did. All I knew about the process came from rumors, and I wasn't foolish enough to think that any of those was likely to be anything like true.

Our faces were only inches apart. Pale eyes stared into mine, heavy-lidded, and his mouth was still softened by that strange hint of a smile as he reached up to stroke my hair.

"Now, that is a true shame," he whispered.

My entire scalp seemed to crawl for a moment or two, and then there was something tickling my shoulders. Wondering, I reached up to touch, and encountered . . . hair. Shoulder-length bronze-gold curls, in which my fingers caught. As did Kunzite's. His firm grip drew my head forward as his own tilted slightly to one side.

I felt my eyes open wide as his tongue parted my lips and thrust deep inside my mouth. Meanwhile, his other hand was pushing my flimsy tunic up around my waist, stroking my thighs and hips. This can't be happening! I hadn't even dreamed that a demon-lord could possibly want me, not after Nephrite's behavior when I'd first been captured, but Kunzite obviously had something in mind, and I doubted it had anything to do with draining my energy. Unless this is the way they go about it, in which case I think I'm going to die happy.

Greatly daring, I raised one trembling hand to stroke his jawline just as I felt my tunic rip. Kunzite tore it into two pieces and tossed it contemptuously aside. Then he picked me up and carried me through a curtained archway, depositing me on a huge bed. While he stripped off his remaining clothing, I touched myself, wondering. The last time that I remembered feeling like this, I'd just been waking up from a particularly embarrassing dream. But this . . .. this was real.

I couldn't take my eyes off Kunzite as he kicked his trousers aside and moved toward me again. The rest of his body was everything that his chest and shoulders had promised--sleek, muscular, dark-skinned, and . . . big. Very big. I didn't understand how he could keep his motions so slow and graceful if he was in even half the agony that I was now in.

Gripping me by the waist, he lifted me again. Before he could do anything more, I flung an arm around his neck and kissed him.

He chuckled softly as we parted. "Eager, aren't you? Don't worry, it won't be much longer."

I was deposited face down on the bed. Something hard brushed against the inside of my left thigh as Kunzite knelt between my legs. I whimpered.

Then I felt a sudden nova of agony and twisted my back, trying to figure out what in hell Kunzite had just done, and how it could be so incredibly painful and so arousing at the same time. I couldn't get a very good look before his first thrust ground my hips against the silk of the sheets, but it was enough.

--Kunzite'll rip your ass apart--

He's too damned big! I realized. Then I was beyond thinking at all, as waves of agony and ecstasy rippled through my body and brain. Both sensations crested at the same moment, as a particularly enthusiastic thrust from Kunzite both brought about my climax, causing hot, sticky liquid to soak the sheets underneath me, and made something tear where he was planted inside me.

I screamed. I couldn't help myself. Kunzite, oblivious, thrust two or three times more, then gave a soft, satisfied sigh and pulled himself out of me, while I cried silently into a convenient pillow.

"This will never do," I heard him murmur. "Sleep, little one."

His hand brushed gently across the back of my neck, and I tumbled down into oblivion.

I was dizzy and disoriented when I woke up. For a moment, I didn't know where I was, or why there was something warm and heavy resting across my shoulders. Then I remembered. I was lying, face down, on the bed in the big, upstairs guest suite, and the weight--I twisted a little, trying to see--was the arm that Kunzite had flung over me. He was lying on his back beside me, breathing slowly and deeply, obviously asleep.

It doesn't hurt, I realized. I ran one hand down my flank, feeling dried something-or-other flaking off onto my palm. When I brought that hand back up to where I could look at it, I discovered that it held some bits of white stuff. But mixed with those were flakes of reddish-brown. Blood. My blood. And the other was . . . well . . . what you would probably expect, under the circumstances.

Either I wasn't as badly hurt as I thought I was, or . . . I glanced over at Kunzite, speculating. No. Not possible. He's a demon.

Moving his arm aside took quite a while. I had to do it a little at a time, or risk waking him, which would have prevented my escape. Then I finally had it, and was able to sit up--also slowly and carefully, for fear of jostling the mattress.

There were low tables on either side of the bed, I discovered. The one on my side supported the lamp which was the only source of illumination in the room. But on Kunzite's side . . .

The box was somewhat less than two feet long and probably about nine inches wide. Its lid hung open, and a knife, plain steel and very sharp, was displayed against the velvet of the lining. A weapon. My weapon. My chance at freedom.

Getting off the bed was a study in torture. At one point, I moved a little more emphatically than I should have, and Kunzite stirred. I froze, not even daring to breathe, until he seemed to have subsided again. Only then did I dare continue my slow movement towards freedom.

I padded around the bed to Kunzite's side, thanking God that my sandals had been lost at some point in last night's proceedings, and grabbed the knife. Then I hesitated, staring down at Kunzite's sleeping face.

I should kill him. He's as evil as the rest of them. And yet, the pale-haired demon king had shown me the first gentleness I had seen in this terrible place. Up to the last few moments, our lovemaking had been the best thing that had ever happened to me. And even then, I don't think he was genuinely trying to hurt me, it's just that he . . . didn't realize.

But that doesn't make him any less evil, I reminded myself. Practically speaking, he can't raise an alarm if he's dead, but if I don't get it precisely right the first time, he'll catch me and that'll be the end of it. If I leave him alone, I should get at least a few minutes' head start. All right. Let him sleep then.

I had this insane desire to bend down and give him a good-bye kiss. He was still just as beautiful, and just as . . . desirable, I admitted to myself, as he had been last night. But I forced myself to turn away and pad toward the archway that opened onto the front room of the suite . . .

"You know, it's going to look a bit odd if you wander out into the hallway without any clothes on."

I spun, raising the knife, as Kunzite rose to his feet.

"Put that down, idiot," he ordered. "You obviously have no idea of how to use it. And in any case, the outside door is spell- locked. Even if, by some fluke, you did manage to kill me, you would have nowhere to go afterwards."

"What difference does it make?" My voice sounded hoarse, and I realized, with surprise, that this was the first time I had spoken to him. "You're going to kill me anyway."

"I can do that from over here while you still have the knife in your hand." He made a small gesture, and I felt the jeweled, golden collar that was my only clothing tighten across my throat. "It's fortunate for you that you're more valuable to me alive."

"I don't believe you." But I felt my knife-hand waver. Kunzite tilted his head to one side.

"Nephrite obviously meant you to kill me," he said. "I knew that from the moment that I realized your collar was faulty. Why didn't you do it?"

"Because it's Nephrite that I hate, not you," I admitted. "I thought I had a better chance of getting to him if I let you be."

"Ah." He moved toward me, slowly. I kept the knife where it was, not caring that he was well within stabbing distance when he finally stopped. Grey-blue eyes met mine. "So you don't hate me, even though I raped you and you think I'm going to kill you. I don't exactly take that as a compliment, you know. Humans like you are supposed to hate beings like me."

"It wasn't rape," I admitted, blushing.

"Wasn't it? I admit, I didn't think it was either, but you seemed to change your mind towards the end." His hand reached up, slowly, to cup my jaw.

"It wasn't rape," I repeated.

"And that only confirms my belief that you might be of value to me." His hand slid down to caress my neck, and then my bare shoulder. I shivered, liking his touch and the way it made me feel, but still not willing to surrender the knife. "Think, little one. If you somehow manage to escape and return to the human world, chances are that you will never find another lover. Our shared preferences are not well-regarded there. On the other hand, if you stay here . . ." His other hand blurred upwards, tearing the knife from my fingers as he leaned forward.

The kiss was unexpectedly gentle, and left me weak in the knees, with both arms wrapped around Kunzite's neck and my hands buried in his hair. And he had his arms around me, supporting me.

"You are exquisitely beautiful," he whispered in my ear. "Killing you would be a terrible waste. And . . ."

"And what?" I murmured back when he didn't seem inclined to continue.

"If I feed off one of Nephrite's servants instead of you, and take you away from here with me, Nephrite will be enraged-- and there won't be a damned thing that he can do about it."

I laughed. The thought of Nephrite in an impotent rage was almost as entertaining as that of his blood spilling out onto the floor while I clutched a reddened knife in my hands . . . Which reminded me of something else.

"I suppose that you're going to fix my collar now."

"Why bother?"

I stared at Kunzite, eyes widening.

"I have two excellent holds over you, little one," he said, hands roving lower. "First of all, there's this." I jumped, and gave a little squeak. His squeeze had been just a little too hard, but there had been more pleasure than pain. I could feel myself swelling against his palm, and hoped that he'd stop talking and start doing . . . other things . . . before he drove me completely insane. "Although lust really isn't as important as some people seem to think it is." No, it isn't lust, it's-- But I bit the words back. There are some things that you just don't say to a demon. "More importantly, you had a chance to kill me and you didn't take it. That makes me believe that you never will, unless I maltreat you beyond endurance. Which I have no intention of doing. So I don't need a collar to protect myself from you, and I don't care much about what happens to anyone else. Now." He kissed me again, longer and harder than before, as I tentatively reached out to caress that large, fascinating organ that dangled between his legs. "We both need to get cleaned up, and given that I don't want to hurt you again the way I did last night, you're going to have to learn a few things about how to cooperate with me . . ."

By the time I followed him downstairs, I was clean and dressed, with my now-long hair tied back in a ponytail, still a bit flushed from all the . . . interesting . . . things that we had done in the bath. I still wore the gold and green collar. And I was looking forward to seeing the look on King Nephrite's face when he realized that Kunzite-sama and I hadn't killed each other.

I was damned if I was going to call my former owner Nephrite-sama ever again. Even though I didn't really understand the language or the system of honorifics yet (the only reason I could manage at all was that they'd cast a translation spell on me, fairly early on), I knew that -sama was supposed to be a term of respect, and I didn't respect Nephrite.

Of course, I'm damned now regardless, so what difference does it make? I thought wryly. Damnation is a given for someone who decides, of his own free will, to live in hell and spend the rest of his life as a demon-lord's catamite. Not that it promised to be an unpleasant life. Not only was my lover beautiful, but he had told me that I was, too, enough times that I was beginning to believe him. I hadn't often been praised, at that point in my life. To my father, I'd been a nuisance that had to be gotten rid of. To my mother, I'd been her shame, a child born outside of wedlock. And at the seminary, I hadn't been able to do anything right. That made Kunzite-sama's compliments all the more precious to me.

He stopped at the bottom of the stairs, startling me so that I almost dropped the box. Which wouldn't have been a good thing, given that the knife was loose inside and I didn't think that the lid was too terribly secure. I didn't know what Kunzite-sama wanted it for--I had merely obeyed his order to bring it without questioning him.

"Nephrite-san. This is not an opportune time."

From my position slightly higher up the staircase, I could just barely see over Kunzite-sama's shoulder. The two demons flanking Nephrite were fidgeting under what I suspected was a raking glare from the white-haired King, although I obviously couldn't see his face. Nephrite himself was expressionless, but I could see a familiar glitter of rage in those blue eyes, and knew that he was primed to explode.

"Will there ever be an opportune time for you, Kunzite- san?"

"After I have fed, perhaps. Incidentally, I congratulate you on your perspicacity. For once, you have given me a gift worth having." He glanced back over his shoulder. I think I was the only one that saw one corner of his mouth turn up as his eyes met mine. "However, I still require a suitable sacrifice. Perhaps one of these . . .." A wave of his hand indicated Nephrite's two flanking demons, both of whom cringed back.

"These two are tried and tested battle commanders," Nephrite snapped. "If you insist on choosing from my household, I have more than enough human slaves to select from."

"Unlike you, I do not feed off the weak."

Nephrite didn't waste any more time on words. His eyes flared with a dangerous white light. I ducked back, shielding myself behind Kunzite-sama's body. I'd seen a challenge between true demons once before, the day after I had arrived here, and those had been mere officer-demons, Nephrite's servants, who were only rarely allowed the privilege of feeding on the life energies of others. What a battle between these two demon kings might result in, I could only imagine. Then . . .

"No," Nephrite said, and when I was able to get another look at him, the light in his eyes had gone out. "I'm not going to start a war with you over a servant. Take one of them, you bastard son-of-a--" Even the translation spell couldn't render his next word into anything that I could understand. "--and get out of my domain!" He grabbed one of the demons and pushed her towards Kunzite-sama.

My lover reached out to grab the demon's arm before she could run away from him, and said, in his best calm, disinterested voice, "You've made the right decision. I assume that you have a room . . . ?"

"In the basement," Nephrite spat. "Don't think that I'm going to forget this."

"I don't expect you to."

I kept my eyes on the floor as Kunzite-sama, with the other demon in tow, led me past Nephrite and down another flight of stairs. I could still feel my ex-owner's raking glare strike my back. I shivered a bit, but forced myself not to react in any other way. Then I was far enough from him to be . . . safe? Was I? How . . . odd.

Kunzite-sama stopped in front of a closed door that looked like it had been constructed from a slab of solid stone.

"Locked," he murmured. He never looked directly at the demon whose arms he held, not even now that he needed both hands to restrain her. "How very inconsiderate of Nephrite."

His eyes flashed blue-white, and the door crumbled, collapsing into a pile of pebbles and dust at his feet. The demon plowed some of it out of the way as Kunzite-sama forced her across the threshold. A small stone slid inside my sandal as I followed, and I hopped on one foot once I was clear of the pile, trying to dislodge it without dropping the box and the knife.

Kunzite-sama drove the demon across to the other side of the room, where manacles dangled from the wall, waiting. He closed them about the demon's wrists and ankles. She was crying, I noticed suddenly, but silently. As though she knew that pleading would do her no good.

"Little one."

I shook my head. "My lord?" It occurred to me, suddenly, that he probably didn't know my name. And I'm not going to tell him, I decided. He can call me whatever he wants to. Far better a nickname given by him than the real name given by my mother.

"Bring the knife here."

I took three steps forward, opened the box, and presented the contents to him. He took the knife in a casual grip, so loose that I almost expected him to drop it. His free hand forced the demon's head up, baring her throat. Her eyes rolled back in her head, and I think she fainted at that point.

Kunzite-sama's face suddenly came alive as he smiled maliciously. "Normally I don't feed this way, but it'll be nice to leave Nephrite with a mess to clean up, don't you think?" he remarked. I said nothing, not sure whether or not a reply was expected, as Kunzite-sama raised the knife and laid open the demon's throat.

His slash, precisely placed, must have bitten into an artery, because blood didn't just trickle out--it sprayed. Or it did until he clamped his mouth over the wound and drank. It was a sickening display, and I shrank backwards a step or two.

Demon lord, my mind howled, as Kunzite's eyes slid shut and his entire body shuddered, as though with an orgasm. This is what you've sold yourself to. Demon lord, drinker of life--

But it was a demon that he just killed, I reminded myself. Am I going to fault him for that?

When he turned back toward me, his eyes were still glimmering with white fire. As I watched, the blood still coating his face and soiling the front of his jacket seemed to evaporate and vanish.

I couldn't move as he stalked towards me. He was still beautiful, but this was the first time that I had really realized how dangerous he was.

The knife clattered to the floor as he grabbed my shoulders with both hands and pulled me roughly towards him. His mouth descended to cover mine.

There was still demon blood on his tongue, but it didn't taste like human blood. It was sweet and rich, not copper-salt, and I found myself savoring it, kissing him back as he guided one of my hands up under his jacket and then down into his pants. I willingly moved my other hand to join it, then, when I could tell that he was ready, I knelt in front of him and tugged the waistband down over his hips, opening my mouth wide to receive him.

I really had learned quite a bit in the short time that we'd known each other.

I knew now that I was lost for good. I would never be able to bring myself to leave him. Never. If someone had told me that he would kill me the next day, I would have chained myself up and placed the knife somewhere where he would have convenient access to it.

"I love you," I murmured, but the words were muffled by the tip of his organ, which I held in my mouth. And that was precisely the way that I wanted it to be. I hadn't seen much of the Dark Kingdom yet, but I knew that this wasn't a place for love, and I knew that Kunzite-sama would never return mine. That, however, would never stop me from offering it to him.