Anya knocked on the door to her new Master's study. She hadn't even seen him yet, this man who paid ten times her official worth to buy her. The man who had convinced Lady Eve to sell. Anya knew only that she was delivered to the largest house that she had ever seen and had been instructed to report to the study immediately for assessment.

"Come in." His voice was low but managed to carry.

She took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and let herself inside. A man sat behind the desk. He wasn't as old as she had feared; his long hair was still dark. His face was strong, intense, and hardly touched by wrinkles.

He looked up at her. "Hello. You must be Anya."

"Yes, Sir."

"We'll keep the name. I like it." He riffled through papers. "You're eighteen? Only had three previous owners."

"Yes, Sir."

He stood and came around the desk. He was long and lean and moved like a dancer. Penetration with this man would be smooth and fluid. Anya looked up at him through her eyelashes.

"My name is Quintus. I saw you with Lady Eve," he said. "I couldn't take my eyes off of you."

She smiled at him. "Hopefully, your hands will have the same problem."

He laughed and it was musical. Then, he circled her, his eyes tracing her curves. He combed his fingers through her thick, black hair and brushed the back of his fingers against her cheek.

She waited for him to finish his assessment before she said, "Am I everything you remember, Master Quintus?" Her eyes twinkled and her tone teased.

"And more," he replied.

He offered her an arm and she took it. He led her down an elegantly decorated hallway and into an equally elegantly decorated room. It was all in shades of cream and blue and had an excellent view of the courtyard.

"This is your room," he said. "Mine is next door. Make yourself comfortable. We'll get better acquainted this evening."

"Until this evening, then."

He lifted her chin and kissed her. It was open-mouthed but quick and it left her breathless. She was pleased to see the bulge in his slacks; she liked knowing she affected him, too. She watched him leave her room before she slipped her shoes off.

#

Anya always knew she would be a civil servant. Identified at birth as having the potential for an unusually high sex drive and recruited at puberty to undergo the training, she was auctioned for thirty thousand notes when she was sixteen. Since then, she had been bought and sold several times, always for a better price and always to a better home.

She was good at her job.

This was the apex of her ambitions. A beautiful house. A room of her own. She opened the window that overlooked the courtyard and liked the way the breeze caught her hair. She leaned out and saw a maid and a butler unloading her trunk.

"...new girl?" the butler asked.

Anya's ears pricked and she leaned on the window sill to hear more clearly.

"Haven't seen her yet," the maid answered.

"She prettier than the last one."

"I'm not even going to bother," the maid replied. "What's the record? Three days before he sells them to Xavier?"

Anya sat up a little straighter. Everyone knew who Xavier was. He collected her kind.

"Two and a half, really," the butler said. "I don't think any have had a third night with him."

"So, what's the point? I've barely started liking them when he gets bored."

The butler loaded her trunk on a hand cart and headed for the house. "I just got a soft spot for them. Civil Service can't be easy...."

Anya leaned out even further, but she could hear no more. Her fingers gripped the sill; she forced them to relax. She fell, weak-kneed, into a chair. Her heart beat at a panicky pace.

Xavier! The sadistic, insatiable collector. Males and females. And such stories you hear about him: piercing and branding and bloodletting during sex. Specialty drugs designed to heighten every touch. Wild parties with his like-minded friends and dozens of workers like her.

Some of the students at the academy actually considered getting into his house a goal, but never Anya. She preferred a single or a couple to please and the lowest possible amount of pain. The worst thing was that Xavier never sold his workers, so she would be stuck there for the rest of her career.

She stood and paced the room. She was still tracing and retracing her steps a few minutes later when the butler arrived with her trunk.

"Do you need any help unpacking it, Miss?" he asked. "I could send in the maid."

Anya smiled at him. "Would you please?"

"Right away."

She unclasped her trunk and opened it, adding her clothes to the well-stocked closet. She was half done before the maid appeared.

"Sam said you needed me, Miss," she said, looking at the floor.

"Come in," Anya said. "Sit, please."

She closed the door while the maid perched on one of the delicate embroidered chairs.

"I overheard you speaking to the butler just now in the courtyard," she said. The maid's eyes widened and her ruddy cheeks grew redder. "I want you to tell me about the other girls that have been here."

"Well...." She looked at Anya a little fearfully. "They seemed nice enough."

"Were they official workers or freelancers?"

"A bit of both, I think," the maid said.

Anya chewed her lip. Then, at least some of them had been trained at the academy. It was unlikely that they were unpleasing.

"You said he gets bored with us?" Anya asked.

The maid grew even redder. "I was talking out of turn, Miss."

"Please," Anya said, laying and hand on her arm.

The maid glanced at the door and then back to Anya. "I heard Master Xavier and Master Quintus talking. Xavier's here at least once a week, they do so much business."

She paused and took a deep breath.

"He praised one of the girls he'd recently purchased. He said she was so eager to please and he wondered why Master Quintus sold her."

"What did he say?"

"That he wanted a woman to give him a reason to come back to her every night."

Anya thought a moment. Workers like her were trained in sexual pleasure only. They were discouraged against forming attachments; though, it certainly was a hazard of the job. Anya had been very fond of Lady Eve and leaving her was harder than it should have been.

It sounded like Quintus wanted an attachment. And he wanted it fast. Three days? How could she make him fascinated with her in less than three days?

"Did he say anything else?" Anya asked.

The maid twisted her fingers. "That he had purchased dozens of beautiful women in the hopes of finding a beautiful mind, Miss. He was disappointed that most girls for sale were either parrots or spaniels, whatever that means."

It meant that Anya's training would actually work against her with this man. She had been trained to not be provocative and to be loyal. And, indeed, it was a good practice. She had been with many people where the only common trait they shared was arousal. It had been enough.

But, with Master Quintus, it wouldn't be.

"Thank you," Anya said. "You can go if you like."

The maid stood and seemed hesitant about leaving. But, eventually she went, closing the door behind her. Anya returned to her pacing, wondering what she was going to do.

#

By the evening, Anya had no more of an idea of how to keep Master Quintus's attention than she had in the afternoon. The most frustrating part of this was that she believed that she could really enjoy this new Master.

He had given her time to get used to her new house before demanding her services. Not every owner was so understanding. He moved like silk on the air; sex with him was going to be like dancing. She had a natural attraction to him--something that wasn't always the case.

When he came for her that evening, she gave him her prettiest smile and hoped for some sort of divine intervention. He escorted her for the three steps to his bedroom door. He had barely closed it behind them before he started kissing her.

He seemed to vibrate with passion. His lips were everywhere. Her body responded in an eager, ready way. For some clients, she had to take the oral aphrodisiac that every civil worker kept at the ready, but she knew there would be no need for this with Master Quintus.

He put his hands into her hair and held her head, looking at her. "The things you must have seen," he said. "The things you must have done."

Anya's academy training kicked in. She remembered Mistress Caroline saying, "Clients may think they want to know about your past experience, but once told, it can ruin an otherwise intimate encounter. These are the methods of obfuscating that question...."

Anya used one of those methods and not for the first time. "Nothing like what you must have seen and done," she said, watching his eyes. "A man like you."

She expected the complement to have a positive effect on him but instead, he frowned. He looked away from her and his hold on her hair loosened.

"My life has been all business," he said.

Her training told her to keep directing the conversation to him but her instincts were telling her otherwise. Then, an idea occurred to her. Something so ridiculous she was almost embarrassed to try it. But, she really was desperate and had no other ideas. Besides, this would be something that no other girl had tried, she was fairly sure.

"So has mine," she said, casting her eyes down and to the left, like she was thinking. "Trained at the academy. Sold at sixteen. My first owner...."

She let her voice trail off into silence. His fingers tightened in her hair again. "What about your first owner," he asked.

"I was a gift to him from his wife," Anya said. "An expensive gift. I was still a virgin."

Quintus's breathing picked up. "Was he kind to you?"

"Oh, yes," Anya said. "But...."

"But what?" He fumbled for her hem and pulled off her dress a little roughly. Anya let him hear a gasp.

"But, his wife wanted me too."

He brushed her hair out of the way and kissed her shoulder. Then he bit it gently, as if he knew what she liked.

"Did they share you?" he whispered near her earlobe.

"Oh my goodness, no. He was far too possessive for that."

Quintus pulled her bra strap down. His mouth was hungry on her skin.

"He went away on business a lot, you see," Anya continued.

His hands traveled and his touch was everything she thought it would be. It got harder to concentrate.

"I slept on a mat at the end of their bed, even when he wasn't there. Then one night...."

Quintus's hands still wandered, this time finding the clasp to her bra. He opened it, but left it hanging on her loose.

"Then, one night?" he asked.

"One night, she called me into her bed. She said she was lonely and the bed was cold. So, I slipped under the covers next to her and she cuddled me, my back to her front. Then, she started stroking my arm."

He mimicked what she described, the touch making her nipples pucker.

"When she grazed my breast, I rolled on my back for her," she added.

He brushed his fingers against her nipples through her sheer bra and she melted a little. She bit her lip and tried to control her pleasure. He stripped her bra off and pushed her onto her back.

"She loved my breasts," Anya said.

Quintus explored them too, touching the fine, firm skin, squeezing them and kneading them.

"She used her tongue in the most expert of ways, first the long, flat, wet stroke, then the hard little tip of her tongue. She pinched and pulled until I couldn't stand it any longer."

Quintus pinched and pulled, too. He brought his face to her breast and nuzzled his cheek against it. "And what happened when you couldn't stand it any longer?" he asked.

"I climaxed," Anya gasped.

He took a nipple between his lips and sucked. Her sex quivered with a promise.

"Master Quintus," she said, her voice unsteady, "you're going to make me climax, too."

He looked up at her, his lips still against her skin, his fingers still working. "Just by doing this?"

"Oh, God yes."

"I want you to," he said gruffly. Then he returned to sucking and drawing one nipple while he chaffed and pulled on the other.

She tried to fight it, knowing that his pleasure and not hers was supposed to be the goal. But his touch was relentless. His mouth was magnificent. Before two minutes had passed, she was gripping the bedsheets and arching into his mouth. When she came, she cried out.

He let her breathing return to normal before he brushed an airy touch against her breast, as if he just wanted to see her squirm.

"Was that the end of your night?" Quintus asked.

"By no means. My pleasure had been fulfilled, but hers had not."

Anya gave him a meaningful look. He clenched his jaw and stripped away her panties. Then he removed his own clothes. He was slender and delicately boned; his erection had more girth than length.

"So, how did you fulfill her?" he asked.

"She opened her legs for me," Anya said. Quintus spread her thighs. "She was glistening wet."

"Like you are now?" Quintus asked.

"I'm even more so."

That seemed to please him. He got on his knees in front of her and stroked between her legs with the tip of his cock, like a tongue.

"She smelled so good. You know?" Anya said. "Sweet and salty. I'll confess, I made it last longer than it should have."

He fitted himself to her and thrust. She jolted with it and he groaned.

"How?" he asked, sounding strained.

"I would lick her in a steady rhythm until she seemed very close then I would put my tongue inside her. Lick her there for a while. Kiss her thighs. Then go back to what she wanted. But not for long."

His thrust was every bit as elegant as she had imagined it would be. He stretched her in a delicious way. She clutched at him with her knees. Still, it was the heightened, passionate expression he wore that pleased her the most.

"Did you let her come?" he asked, his movement getting a little rougher.

"Yes!" It was less of an answer and more of an outcry. Anya took a breath to steady herself. "Her whole body shook and she yelled. I was afraid the servants would come." Quintus ground himself into her in a movement that managed to be both graceful and base. "When she did come, it was very, very wet."

"Good lord, Anya," he said, seeming to grow harder inside her.

"All over my face," she added.

He groaned.

"And in my mouth."

He cried out and thrust into her hard, holding himself there. His mouth owned hers. She clutched at him; sex had never been so physically and intellectually satisfying. When he was done, he just lay on top of her for a minute, going soft inside her. Finally, he stood.

"I want you to sleep in here with me tonight," he said.

"Of course," she replied, showing him her pleased smile.

He cleaned himself and then her. He crawled into bed beside her, kissing her shoulder. "That was quite a story," he said.

"You should hear what happened when the master finally caught us."

He sat up a little to look at her. "You were caught?"

"Oh, yes."

"Well, what happened?"

There. That was what she had been waiting for. In her most teasing tone, she said, "That's a story for another night."

He paused for a minute. She thought he might argue. But, in the end, he didn't.

"Tomorrow night?" he asked. "When I have you again."

She had a little triumphant thrill. "Tomorrow night," she said.

Then, he laid his arm over her and they both went to sleep.

#

Anya spent the next day making a list of all the strange, unusual, or risqué sexual encounters that she had been part of. Then, she drew lines between them in a complicated illustration of how the story could be made to continue from night to night.

Heaven only knew if it would work, but at least it bought her a second night.

She was encouraged when he came to her room earlier than he had before.

His tight grip on her upper arm was also a good sign. As was his needy expression.

Like the night before, he barely had his bedroom door closed behind them when he started kissing her. It was even more intense than she remembered. He pressed her body against the back of the door and kissed her so long and hard, it stole her breath.

"So...," he said, finding the button to her skirt and letting it fall to the floor. "The master caught you with his wife?"

"He did," Anya said. Quintus worked the buttons on her blouse and slid it off of her shoulders. "We hadn't expected him for another two days but he walked right in on us."

Quintus led her to the bed, removing her bra and panties before he pushed her to sit on it.

"What were you doing when he walked in?" he asked.

"She was astride my face." Quintus groaned and Anya hid her smile. "I had my panties on but she was fully naked, braced against the wall, facing the wall, and moaning so loudly, neither of us heard when the master come in."

Quintus parted her legs and crawled between them. He kissed her stomach and her thighs. "Tell me the story. You'll know if I like it."

Her stomach fluttered. She forced herself to speak slowly. "Since we didn't hear him, we don't know when he came into the room. What we do know, is that he let his wife finish."

Quintus kissed up her inner thigh and down her other one. Then he put his hands on either leg and opened her with his thumbs.

"I'll remember his voice until I die. He said, 'You put on quite a show, Adel.' She jumped off of me and pulled the cover over her, her eyes as big as bicycle wheels."

Quintus tasted Anya in one, luxurious lick. She made a long, low sound and saw him smile, even as he repeated the motion.

"I guess the master's wife had done this before with the paid staff," Anya continued. "The master told her, 'You know what I expect.' She begged him not to it. Whatever 'it' was. He was very stern, though and soon she crawled out of bed and bent over it."

Quintus's tongue set up a rhythm that made her legs tremble and her stomach jump. But when she stopped talking, it slowed.

"He told me to join her." Anya's voice was unsteady and husky. "I leaned over the bed like she did, presenting him with my backside." Quintus's pace picked up again. "I could guess what he intended to do but I knew for certain when he spanked his wife. It was a solid blow that cracked like a whip. She cried out, but then she moaned."

Quintus worked her relentlessly with his tongue; speaking became less and less easy. Anya struggled to keep control of her body, even as her master stole it from her. Her hips tilted of their own volition.

"When he struck me, I was so fearful and wound up that the hurt was almost a tension release," Anya said, her voice shaking. "The second time he struck me, it affected my body in a different way. It made me... hot. In heat."

Quintus's tongue was like a lash. It was driving her to her peak.

"The master went back and forth between us until we were both sore and heated. His hand must have ached." Anya couldn't hold out any longer. "Master Quintus, I'm going to orgasm."

What she meant as a warning, he took as a challenge. In seconds she was hurtling to her climax, crying out to the empty room. For the second time in two days, she was first to reach her conclusion. She gasped while he crawled up her body, kissing her skin along the way.

Quintus entered her while she was she was still contracting from her climax. His lips never stopped. He bit her earlobe gently and whispered. "What happened after your master punished you?"

"He was very angry with us," Anya managed, her voice a throaty moan. "He told us to get on our knees before him and we took turns sucking him." Quintus's pace picked up. He was making soft, pleased sounds. "Then we were both tasting him at once, kissing around his cock. My tongue touched her tongue. We licked his balls together."

Quintus's hips were smooth pistons. They moved a fraction faster. His fingers pressed into her skin.

"He grabbed our hair with one hand and pulled us off of him. He used his free hand to finish himself. He came all over our faces."

"Jesus," Quintus moaned.

Anya moved in his rhythm. "And then he said to us, 'Now you know you both belong to me'."

Quintus cried out and slammed into Anya once more before he stilled. He held himself there for seconds, then he fell on her, gasping. He used his tongue on her neck, licking the sweat.

Finally, with both of them still pulsing, he withdrew and rolled off of her. He propped himself up on his arms and looked at her.

"Was that story true?" he asked.

"Every word."

"What did your former master do after he came on your face?"

"Well, he meant what he said about us belonging to him. He fitted us both with chastity belts and collars. He punished us for more than a month."

"Punished, how?"

Anya gave Quintus another of her teasing smiles. "That's a story for another night."

His jaw clenched. She could tell that he didn't want to wait. But then he said, "Tomorrow night?"

"Whatever pleases you."

"Tomorrow night, then. I want you to sleep in here with me tonight."

"Of course."

Anya let Quintus clean her and then himself. When he got into the bed with her, she liked the feel of his arms around her. They made it easier for her to drift off.

#

The following day, the maid delivered Anya's meal and stopped to talk with her for a minute. The butler smiled and winked at her in the hallway. She supposed that she had made it over the two-and-a-half-day threshold, but she was by no means in the clear.

She imagined she could at least spin enough stories for a half-year. Maybe longer if she turned to fiction. Perhaps a few years if she delved into the public libraries at the Academy.

That afternoon, she sat at the little table in her room, writing to her Mistress at the Academy. Maybe the older and wiser woman would have some good advice for her. Besides, she wanted to keep in touch with her old friends at the school; sometimes it was lonely being the only civil worker in a household.

There was a solid knock on her door, more forceful than the servants would typically be. She put her letter aside and answered it. Quintus stood there waiting for her. His face was flushed and his eyes were bright.

"Sir!" she said, her surprised smile genuine.

"I would like to know how you were punished," Quintus said.

Arousal bloomed in her stomach and moved lower. She opened her door wider. He stepped inside and closed it behind him.

"Have you heard of a Marionette Collar?" Anya asked.

His lips opened and his eyes widened. "Your Master put you in one of those?"

"He certainly did. And if you've heard of that, perhaps you've heard of the Cheater's Chastity Belt?"

"Holy hell," he said, his fingers going to her shirt and dragging it over her head.

"At this rate," Anya teased, "you're never going to feel my mouth on you."

He pulled her against him. She could feel his solidness. "Your mouth pleases me more with this use," he said, kissing her. "What did it feel like to be in a Marionette Collar?"

"It was so strange," she said as his mouth traveled over her skin. "The collar connects to your skeletal muscles, so he could freeze me like a statue and pose me, if he liked. Or, he could just freeze my arms, so I couldn't touch him. It doesn't affect the nerves, so you feel every touch."

"It's diabolical," Quintus said against her shoulder. "I've only heard of them. Were you nervous?"

"Yes," Anya answered. "But I deserved my punishment. As did his wife."

Quintus walked her backwards to her bed. "She got one, too then?"

"Yes, and I daresay it was worse for her than me. It wasn't her first time cheating. He was very angry with her."

"What happened?"

Quintus stripped Anya's slacks away. He slid her panties down and stripped her bra away, as if he was over-eager to see her nude.

"Every morning, he brought her naked to the front lawn. And every morning he froze her there. She looked like a Grecian statue; the maid did her hair in ringlets and decorated her with flowers. And for the entire day, she was on display for the neighborhood."

"What a creative man," Quintus said, pushing Anya on to the bed and nuzzling her breasts.

"We wore the Cheater's Chastity Belt, too, and only the master had the remote. Every evening at five, before he brought her inside, he made her orgasm with it. He unfroze her from the shoulders up; she tried not to make any sounds, but she was naturally loud. After a couple of weeks, people came to watch."

"And what about you?" Quintus asked.

"My punishment was more private and varied."

Quintus used a soft mouth on Anya's nipples and began to stroke between her legs. It was a maddening, enticing sensation. She bit her own knuckle and the pain helped her concentrate on her story.

"He taught me many lessons that month," Anya said. "He froze me on my knees and only unfroze my mouth so he could use me. His cock was long and thick; I had to take it down my throat whether I would or no."

"Would you have objected?" Quintus whispered. His fingers were tortuous.

"No," Anya gasped. "He never knew how I liked it. It left me feeling dirty. Well used."

"What else?"

"I went a month without an orgasm."

"Really?" He sounded more intrigued than scandalized.

"Three times a day, every day, he brought me to the brink with the Chastity Belt."

"Like this," Quintus said, making his touch between her legs much lighter. She moaned and he chuckled. "Tell me more," he said.

"No matter how I begged, he wouldn't give me release. He said I should remember who I belonged to."

"Who do you belong to, now?"

"You, Sir." His touch became rough again. He worked her in a way she liked and her legs strained wide because of it.

"What happened when the month was done?" Quintus asked.

"He removed our belts, but left both collars in place. Then, he instructed her to pleasure me and not to stop until he told her to. He froze us like that. All but her mouth"

Anya was so close. She fought against it and rose in spite of herself.

"My tension was so intense and her tongue so eager that I climaxed quickly. I thought I'd pass out. But I didn't. And she didn't stop."

"She kept going?"

"Yes," Anya moaned. "Oh, Sir, I'm going to climax."

"Keep talking," he told her.

He stopped touching her and all of the air went out of her lungs. Without ever breaking eye contact, Quintus stripped out of his clothes.

"I was so sensitive," she told him. "But I couldn't move at all. I just had to take it. It was torture for a while. Good torture. Then I came again. That was when the master had mercy on us."

Before Anya could form her next thought, Quintus was on top of her. He pushed her thighs open with his hips and entered her in a smooth thrust.

She cried out, gripping him. She loved the way he stretched her and, more than that, she loved the way that he moved. His mouth was on hers, but even if it hadn't been, her story was gone from her mind.

His lips slipped to her ear. "Give it to me, Anya. Come for me like you came for him."

The way he pounded her, she had little choice. That hot, powerful build happened whether she wanted it or not. She could move with him, but she couldn't improve on what he was doing to her.

When she came, she knew he felt it. He moaned too and his liquid movements developed a shudder. Just as she was finishing he had his release.

He rolled off of her, both of them gasping.

She closed her eyes and caught her breath. When she opened them, he was watching her with a serious, considered expression.

"You're quite the story-teller," he said.

"You should hear why the master eventually sold me," she said.

"Not just now," he said. "I have business to attend to."

It was a normal enough statement; business was often conducted in the evenings. Still, it gave her a chill that he didn't sound more regretful.

"Tomorrow, perhaps?"

"No. Tomorrow you're to attend a dinner with me. I would like for one of my colleagues to meet you."

She tried not to feel that chill again. "As it pleases you."

He kissed her once gently and gathered his clothing. She watched him go. She lay for a long time on her bed, just as he had left her, wondering what she could have done differently.

#

The following night she dressed in a long, slim frock of the silkiest black. She met the master at in front of his house at the rented, parked car. And, for the first time since she came to Quintus's house, she left it. The whole time they rode, he talked on his phone. It sounded like business, but she couldn't be sure.

They arrived at a place with a circular drive and massive grounds. Quintus helped her out of the car. She tried not to let him see her tremble. She knew where she was.

A gentleman in black answered the door. He had a neatly trimmed goatee, some sort of tight, black pants, and white shirt left unbuttoned. And black, leather gloves. Anya thought he looked like an entertainer. A musician, maybe. He shook Quintus's hand like a friend.

"Xavier," Quintus said, "I'd like you to meet my latest. This is Anya."

She stepped forward and Xavier lifted her face with a leather-clad hand. He tilted it this way and that, like he planned to draw it.

"Very lovely, Quintus. Come in."

Anya clasped her hands to keep them from shaking. She regretted losing her senses to Quintus's stupefying sex. She regretting not starting him a new story. She regretted not being fascinating enough.

They followed Xavier into a dining room where two other couples mingled. Anya recognized Isabelle from the academy, a beautiful girl with strawberry curls. She had been with the same woman since she was auctioned. The other couple, she didn't know. The older man didn't seem particularly wealthy and his boy seemed a little out of place at a dinner party. Freelance, Anya supposed.

Three couples and Xavier all sat to eat and the owners bantered with their small-talk. The latest class from the academy was nearly due to be released which always caused a bit of a stir. The price of butter had gone up ("Scandalous," Isabelle's owner had said). And had anyone heard that Sir Arthur was working on a new sex toy? It had been two years since his last.

Anya managed a respectable portion of her dinner. That, in spite of the fact that the servers were all pierced and branded. That they jumped at Xavier's commands. She imagined herself there and wanted to weep.

Dinner concluded and brandy was served. Isabelle and her mistress were the first to go. Then the two men. Finally, only Quintus, Xavier, and Anya were left. She imagined that her time had come.

But, after another fifteen minutes, Quintus said, "It’s been a delightful time, Xavier, but I must say good-night to you now."

They shook hands again. Again, Xavier lifted Anya's face. His eyes were so dark; they seemed to bore into her brain.

"When do I get to play with this little one?" Xavier asked. "I had hoped for a taste tonight."

Anya trembled and she saw the hint of a pleased smile on his lips. He liked her fear. He would like her pain as well. She closed her eyes.

But then, Quintus's voice broke through her fear. "Not this evening. She's been too sweet to spoil."

They both laughed but Anya didn't care. Relief was like a drug. She wouldn't be sold or given or even shared this night. It was better than she could have hoped for.

Quintus led her back to the car and it seemed as if she was floating on a cloud. He got in beside her, lifting her face as Quintus had.

"Do I need to tell you what will happen to you if you displease me?" he asked.

"No, Sir," Anya whispered.

"Good," Quintus replied. "Now, I'd like to hear more about why your Master eventually sold you."

She hid her smile. "Yes, Sir."