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  “They are supposedly very rare aliens,” the Steward said. “Not numerous, and few travel. I think the Worldlord would very much enjoy showing this new pet to Manufactory-East to emphasize what he’s lost. He should be home later this evening.”

  “Where shall we put it when we’re done here?” the first male asked.

  “Leave it in the annex with the others. It can wait there until someone calls for it.” The Steward considered the Emperor a moment longer. “They say that these aliens can feel feelings through their skins.”

  The second male snorted. “Sounds like the sort of thing people say about freaks to make them sound more exotic.”

  “Wouldn’t it be interesting if it was true, though?” the first male mused.

  “It would be a nuisance, is what it would be,” said the second male.

  The Steward chuckled. “I’m with the Assistant Artificer.” He ran a finger along the edge of the Emperor’s jaw. “Very well done. Have him ready by the evening.”

  “Long before then, Steward.”

  And then the other male left, before the Emperor could tell him that he was no Eldritch. That Eldritch didn’t have dark hair, that they could have eyes dark as uncut sapphires, that they were much taller and they did in fact feel through their skins. That no Eldritch was here to receive the Emperor’s outrage that someone had remembered his name… that someone had used it to refer to him. That the Usurper that sat his throne dared to strip him of his title and spread the naked memory of his name until even such nobodies as the males who decorated harem pets could use it to refer to him.

  I am the Emperor!

  “Come along, Dainty,” the first male said, rising. “We’re done here, and you must await your masters’ pleasure.”

  The annex was on the floor above them, but still underground. There was at least some sunlight, gliding down on the ramp that led up to the ground floor, but it was otherwise a utilitarian room, with pillows to kneel or lie on, hooks on the walls sufficient for leashes, and nothing else. The male left him bound there, and with nothing to do he sat with his back to the wall. He tried putting his knees against his chest, but the piercings hurt. Cross-legged was the best of what was left to him, if he wanted to avoid kneeling; the leash was too short for him to lie down.

  Once upon a time he had found time without distraction useful. He could use it to organize his options, sort through deployments of distant fleets, consider the economic and political currents that had required such ardent management.

  This, though, was not time without distraction. It was time with nothing to do. And even if he’d had anything to do, he couldn’t imagine pushing past the thickness in his head to grasp it. That had to be an injury; hadn’t the human said so? A concussion? Probably from the flight down to the planet—ejection sometimes caused soft tissue injuries, though he wasn’t sure if such a head injury counted. Maybe he’d acquired it on ship during the fighting. He didn’t remember how one recovered from concussions. Rest, perhaps. Was what he was doing now resting? He pulled against the leash, swallowed as the collar gagged him. Human necks were so tender. Why had the Ambassador not warned him?

  His hands on his knees were trembling. He pressed the palms down so that he need not notice.

  There was no marking time without windows. It was long enough that he was grateful when someone finally arrived and unhooked him from the wall. As he followed, he tried to attend to the layout of his prison. Going up the ramp took him to the gated garden where he’d found Andrea; a large area, lying in the shadow of a raised deck that probably held the harem. He remembered manors like these. Hunting estates. That was how he’d gotten over the wall: it was intended to keep the wildlife in it from escaping, not to deny people entering it... because Chatcaava would be flying overhead, seeking prey to harry, and it wouldn’t do to have any force field repel their dives. This part of the garden, then, was the safe zone, probably intended for females to use. And aliens, if Andrea and her Hinichi friend had been in it. Would he too be given freedom of the garden? How could he earn it?

  No, that wasn’t the question. Could he bear to earn it, maybe.

  He was led into one of the towers, which inevitably meant he was destined for a room with a male in it. And an important one, presumably, because they climbed a great many stairs to reach the suite where he was, once again, leashed, this time to a hook on the floor, near the wall. There were few such hooks in the palace, perhaps because no one bothered to leash any of the slaves or females there. They knew there was no escape.

  This was an opulent room, with a broad balcony sweeping outward for guests to light on. The afternoon was late, from the cast of the sunlight, and there was a breeze the Emperor would ordinarily have found pleasing. On human skin, it was too cold. His flesh pebbled in a way he recalled more favorably from caresses—here it just hurt, especially around the new piercings.

  There were voices talking through the door. He recognized them both: the Steward and the male who’d been with him in the garden. They came through that door, still talking, and ignored him as they poured brandy from the sideboard and finished their conversation. Only then did the first male consider the Emperor. “Nice work they did there.”

  “I think so,” the Steward said. “But I don’t know about the creature’s temper.”

  “You think it’s rabid?”

  “I think it’s either dumb, or violent. Why else the escape attempt?”

  The first male snorted. “It looks neither to me. Well, dumb perhaps. The Physician did clear it for use, didn’t he?”

  “No thinking or hard exertion for a few days.”

  “And nothing in a slave’s life requires either,” the first male said. “Still. Very pretty. Do you really think it’s one of the Emperor’s aliens?”

  “It certainly looks like one.”

  “Didn’t all the pictures have white hair as well as white skin?”

  “Hair can be dyed.”

  That made the first male laugh. “Maybe it’s smarter than it looks if it’s trying to make itself look less like one of the more popular freaks.”

  “But where would it find dye?” the Steward said.

  A grin spread over the maw of the first. “Maybe it has some fire after all. Leave it with me... I’ll make sure it’s suitable for the Worldlord’s use. If it’s dumb, violent, or neither, I’ll know by the end of the night.”

  “Truly, the sacrifices you make for the Worldlord are without end,” the Steward said dryly.

  “We are good allies, I like to think,” the first male said. “And a good ally is always prepared to make sacrifices for the good of the alliance.”

  The Steward snorted. “I’ll send dinner up later.”

  “Thank you.”

  Left to himself, the male did not drag the Emperor, off, however. He sat on a chair with his glass of liquor and watched the sunset, every limb lax. Ordinarily the Emperor would have found his wings lacking in elegance, but after over a day without any of his own all he was conscious of was a wan avarice. He was still staring at the light on those vanes when the male rose and unclipped his leash, tugging him roughly after.

  There was a door leading to the second chamber of the suite, where the bed was. It too had another balcony large enough to receive visitors, and like the first it was open to the breeze and the evening gloaming. The Emperor saw the lights glowing in the distant city in the moment before he was flung against the bed’s edge. The impact against the new piercing on his navel disordered his thoughts with the lance of unexpected pain, and then the male gathered him by the waist and rolled him roughly onto the bed.

  The Emperor had been expecting... something. Taunting. An attempt to inspire fear or obedience. Scrutiny, at least, some sign that the male wanted something out of the exchange, something psychological. It was a game, after all—the Emperor himself had played it more times than he could remember. Granted, he’d been considered freakish for turning the same intense regard on playthings as well as rivals, but wh
at was the point of engaging with anyone without seeking the satiation of that fundamental curiosity? All encounters had the potential to teach. To satisfy the mind as well as the body. Given such a contest, he could win, even trapped in this humiliating body. He had only to meet the male’s eyes and they could fight.

  But the male shoved him onto his stomach, yanked what little cloth concealed him out of the way, and thrust into him.

  The spines. He’d known about them, but not how they interacted with humanoid flesh. He didn’t scream only because, he thought, he passed out. Thought, because when he was conscious again he was still under the male, who was moving now, roughly. Had he imagined it? But he hadn’t remembered wetting the pillow. Not tears. Surely not. Maybe he had screamed? Almost as bad as tears.

  The pain was bad enough he simply disbelieved it.

  The comm request buzz was surely another figment of this fever dream, because it didn’t cause a cessation in his rape. Instead, the male laboring over him said roughly, “Deputy-Apex-East. Yes?”

  “Pardon, sir. Did I catch you at a bad time?”

  “It’s fine. Just exercising myself. What is it?”

  “The debris clearing teams want to know if you’d like them to continue. There are still pieces missing, but they’ve scattered fairly far from the site of the original battle. It may not be worth the time to sift them.”

  One hand pressed on the Emperor’s back, spread fingers digging talons into flesh. “Tell them to get back. We have enough to do without engaging in scutwork at heliopause just to appease Second’s paranoia. We destroyed the target. We don’t need to bring him every scrap of insulation and wire just to prove it’s all been accounted for.”

  “I’ll tell them to prepare a report for the Emperor, then. Will you be returning soon? Things are crowding up and it’s only going to get worse as the rest of the fleet musters. There are going to be arguments once everyone starts shifting around.”

  “It’ll be good for them to take a few snaps at one another. It’ll keep them off our backs. There’s a situation brewing here that I need to take care of personally. I trust you can handle things for a few days?”

  A snort.

  “I thought so.” The male’s hand twitched on the Emperor’s back, and with a shudder he spent and pulled himself free. Shoving the Emperor aside, the male continued, “Any other trouble?”

  “No. Everyone’s eager to be gone, though. If there are delays, I anticipate the usual problems that accompany too many males in too small a space with too little to do.”

  “There are always delays,” the male said. “But I don’t think Second will let any mold grow under his tail. The Navy’s been preparing for this too long. I’ll tell you when I’m on my way back.”

  “As you say, sir. We’ll be here.”

  “I know it. And well done.”

  “Thank you, sir. Enjoy your evening.”

  The comm buzzed its closed channel, leaving the male to sigh. “I’d enjoy it more with someone with a little more fight.” He pressed a foot against the Emperor’s hip. “I don’t even know if this thing is conscious. And rather a lot more blood than I thought. Maybe there’s a reason Manufactory-East let you escape, mm?” A shift under the Emperor as the male repositioned himself again.

  Would he ever have raped a comatose slave more than once? Had he? The Emperor couldn’t remember.

  It hurt more the second time.

  He didn’t even object to the use of his mouth, because by the time the male got to it, he was clinging to consciousness for no reason he could divine, only that the sight of the stars through the open balcony was more precious than breath.

  The male finished. At some point. It felt interminable. It felt impossible that it should be over, as well, but somehow, he thought, it was. No more pressure on too-thin skin, no more cruel friction, no more degradation. But it was over, and the Emperor knew it only because the breeze continued to play over his tacky skin but the male was gone.

  He’d left. Completely. Without so much as leashing the Emperor to anything to keep him in place, and why would he? The Emperor was in the body of a wingless slave who’d shown himself to be so weak he couldn’t even fight his own violation.

  The male had left him. In a room. With a window.

  His breath soughed in and out of a throat gone raw and tight. The sight of the dark sky was powerfully affecting, so much so that it blew all the thoughts from his clogged head. The mortification, the physical suffering, the shame, the memories of touches and pressures he hadn’t fought, or had been unable to fight, all of it eroded and left him empty.

  And then he lunged for the edge of the bed, falling over it, tangled in the sheets. Scrabbling for the balcony he gained it and reached for the shapechange. To be free, at last, at last to be shed of all this, to leave it behind, to be the Emperor again—in hiding, but once again possessed of agency and autonomy! To unfurl wings, to feel the air in streaming columns beneath them, bearing him up! To have a real face again, and horns, and a hide hard enough to shrug off casual swipes of talon and blade....

  Change, he thought as he lunged for the egress, and only the blanket still furled around his ankle saved his life because nothing happened.

  On the lip of the balcony, staring down six stories, the Emperor found himself still human. He forced himself upright and reached again for the Change, for the sweeping ecstasy that was the Chatcaavan birthright. Nothing. The fog in his mind interrupted every effort at concentration, and yet he could sense the revelation just beyond his grasp. It was there. He knew it was there. He could taste his true body like yearning in his mouth, in every cell of his body, in his open palms as he strained toward it. Change! A demand. Change change now change!

  His prison of flesh remained obdurate. He rolled onto his savaged back and howled his denial. No matter how he struggled, his birth shape remained elusive, melting out from beneath him every time he almost had it, and he kept trying and trying, and still this cage, this sleeve of useless weakness trammeled him.

  He was still there on the balcony, fighting to become himself, when the males who’d decorated him arrived and dragged him back from the ledge.

  “How’d it end up outside?” the second male asked, perplexed.

  “No idea. I doubt Deputy-East would have been careless.”

  “Maybe it was trying to fling itself over the edge?”

  The first male snorted. “It would have found out the hard way that life is short.” He leashed the Emperor. “Looks like the Deputy made good use of it, at least, so we don’t want it making any grand suicidal attempts. We’ll make sure it’s properly tied down in the future.”

  The words penetrated then, through ears that remained stubbornly human. He was still here. He was still lodged in this flightless ruin. He’d been violated—casually, and during a comm call—and found suitable for further use.

  They were going to keep him, and he couldn’t escape.

  He was trapped.

  The Emperor howled and lunged for the nearest of the two males. Even in his madness he knew the futility of the attack, but he could no longer hold back. The hand that smashed his face—he welcomed the pain. He didn’t care that he was damaging himself more than them with his struggles. They had to batter him to reduce him to a state where he could be hauled after them on his hands and knees, and even then they had to halt at intervals when he recouped his energy for another rush. He could not escape, but some part of him wanted to force them to put him down, like a diseased animal. No one kept a dangerous alien as a pet. No one cared enough to expend the energy required to tame them. He would be vicious, and they would kill him, and all this would be over.

  He could not live wingless and collared and abased. He could not exist like this. He would force them to end it.

  “Maybe we should let Deputy-East rape our slaves more often,” the second male commented to the first as they passed through the night-darkened garden and into the slave annex underground.

  “Fei
sty is much better than catatonic,” the first male agreed. “The Worldlord will enjoy a fight much better than a limp body.”

  “Wash it, you think?”

  “You want to chip all that off tomorrow when it’s set?”

  “No.”

  They were going to wash him. They were treating him like this was normal, as if his writhing and hissing and clawing amused them. They were chaining him up in the room with the drain and stripping him of what few rags of his decorative clothes existed and hosing him down, except this time they were cognizant of him, and satisfied, as if he’d finally done something useful.

  He tried to bite them when they dried him off, but they were already ignoring his efforts as interesting trivialities to be compensated for, but not treated as significant.

  The kennel… seeing it, he knew he had to die before he went back into it. To allow himself to be shut into it was to admit that he was trapped in this body, in this life, forever. He writhed and clawed and spit and snarled… and they simply lashed his legs together and slid him in.

  The wire door lock buzzed. The two males left, still talking.

  Silence.

  He screamed. He tried to hook his fingers in the wire grid and shake it, and when he couldn’t force his fingers through the holes he balled his hands into fists and beat on the door until the wires cut him and hot droplets of blood spattered his face. And he screamed and screamed until he realized he was sobbing, and then he couldn’t stop.

  We do not cry, you understand. We whimper. We writhe. We wail and scream and moan. But we do not leave any evidence of our suffering. We do not weep. I would like to know what makes you cry.

  He thought he’d learned. He’d thought, holding the Ambassador’s face cupped in his hands and tasting the Eldritch’s agony during the torture, that he’d understood what it was to weep. But he’d only learned what it was to cry on another’s behalf, and that was noble, was dignified, was made holy by compassion.

  This… this ugly, coughing, heaving paroxysm that never seemed to end, with the snot smeared from his nose and the sickness near to vomiting, and the unending self-involved anguish that could take not even the smallest of consolations in having been uttered on someone else’s behalf… this ugly confession of pain past bearing, of weakness…