Under the laws of the Nine-Star League, all men are slaves. But when Soleyla Devarian, a captain of the elite League Guardians, falls in love with her new pleasure slave, Kantou, she begins to question the very League she is sworn to uphold.
Badly abused by his previous owner, Kantou is handsome, intelligent, and painfully vulnerable. Soleyla, moved by his yearning for a woman to whom he can give himself utterly, vows to prove she is that woman and make Kantou feel safe enough to submit to her completely.
But when she is posted to Antoros, a newly discovered world in the far reaches of the galaxy, Soleyla finds herself equally drawn to Rolen, the fiery, passionate leader of the Antorean rebels the Guardians have been ordered to crush. Now Soleyla's trapped between two alluring men and their conflicting desires, and there's only one way to fulfill them both!
WARNING: This book contains explicit sexuality, anal penetration, and voyeurism.
This book was previously published many years ago and has been reedited for its rerelease.
It had never occurred to her that men had dreams, too—no matter how small and inconsequential those dreams might seem to her, Soleyla, daughter of Senator Rachel Devarian, Regent of Argulus IV.
She hadn’t been entirely ignorant, of course, of the sensual uses to which a man could be put, even at sixteen. She’d walked in on her mother and one or more of the six pleasure slaves her rank entitled her to, any number of times. But she herself had had no more than the briefest of conversations with the ordinary slaves who tended the fields, the manor, the livestock—and none at all with the six her mother kept for pleasure.
It had been a shock to realize they might have dreams.
Her mother had led her to Merkun’s establishment—an interlocking series of blue silken tents, the fabric fluttering lightly in the soft, sultry breeze. Wave after wave of half-understood sensation had flowed through her as Merkun paraded one man after another through the small blue chamber. Soleyla had watched Rachel inspect the men, her mother’s long, capable fingers feeling their muscles, caressing their buttocks, curving down to cup their full, heavy testes. Soleyla had longed to be the one touching them, caressing all that warm, waiting flesh, but she’d sat quietly, awaiting her mother’s choice.
Finally, her mother had decided on Danel. Dear, sweet Danel, who’d eased her gently into the knowledge of her own womanhood, who’d always been there, eager to please, whenever she’d wanted him. His softness, his sweetness, his gentle pliancy to her moods and needs had made him, Soleyla had to admit, an ideal selection for her first pleasure slave.
Which made her mother’s betrayal bitter indeed.
That first trip to Porto had been six years ago. Now, at twenty-two, Soleyla was far more versant with the emotions that tumbled through her at the sight of those hard, chiseled bodies so delectably displayed before her. The hunger she’d ruthlessly suppressed over the three months since her mother’s betrayal roared through her as they preened, their poses and gestures and soft seductive looks all for her this time. But desire reminded her fiercely of Danel and so fueled her rage, keeping her firmly on her course toward Merkun’s blue tent.
Her mother had been right about many things, including the preeminence of Merkun’s establishment. That thought, too, carried its own weight of fury.
Merkun smiled and bowed as she entered his voluminous, multi-roomed tent. He had been castrated when granted his freedom by the regent of Porto V in token of fifteen years of outstanding service. Now the fat, aging man taught the extraordinary skills which had won him his freedom to the men he groomed for sale—one of the many reasons Merkun’s pleasure slaves commanded such outrageous prices.
