“Why don’t you want to be my Mistress?” Kalis returned. He didn’t sound offended, just curious, Jillian thought. “I’d be a very good bodyslave to you,” he added.
“Well, for one thing because I can’t own another person—it’s awful,” Jillian said. “And for another thing, you’re a big guy and kind of scary—especially after Mistress Douche-bag—I mean Douchenbag told me that you’re registered as a ‘deadly weapon.’”
“That’s just because of my time in the Blood Circuit and my other form,” he murmured.
His long fingers had found their way to her shoulders now and Jillian could feel him working on some of the knots she always seemed to have from all the chopping and slicing and dicing she did. When she had been an executive chef at The Palms, she’d had line cooks to do most of the prep work. But Pat-ar was a much smaller restaurant and she had to pitch in to get everything done and make sure the lunch and dinner services ran smoothly.
It was nice to finally get a massage after all this time—especially a really good one, like Kalis was giving her. How in the world had a huge, muscular warrior like him become a massage therapist?
“What is the ‘Blood Circuit’?” she asked dreamily. She was feeling more and more relaxed, making it possible to ask the questions she’d been wondering about the big Kindred almost from the moment she’d first met him. “I mean, is it some kind of ultimate fighting thing or what?”
“I guess you could call it that,” Kalis rumbled thoughtfully. “It’s pretty ultimate since two males go into the arena and only one comes out alive.”
“Wait…so it’s a fight to the death?” Jillian asked, opening one eye to look up at him.
“Mmm-hmm…” It didn’t seem to bother him to answer her questions, he still sounded calm and relaxed.
“So…does that mean you…you had to kill people?” Jillian asked, feeling a bit less calm.
“Opponents. I had to kill opponents, little Mistress,” he murmured. “And not all of ‘em were what you’d really call ‘people.’ I fought plenty of non-sentients as well—beasts…monsters…that kind of thing. If you’re wondering how many, I lost count around two hundred.”
“Two hundred?” Jillian’s voice squeaked a bit, going high on the last word and she felt considerably less calm than she had.
“Mmm-hmm,” Kalis rumbled, still sounding perfectly fine. “Couldn’t help it though—my Mistress had ordered me to fight and if I hadn’t killed them, they would have killed me. Understand?”
“Um…I guess so. But…you don’t seem like…like a…” Jillian couldn’t get the words out.
“Like a killer?” Kalis finished for her. “Any male can be turned into a killer, little Mistress, if his life or the life of the female he loves is threatened.”
“I…I guess so,” Jillian said again, doubtfully. But how did you start in the first place? I mean, fighting and…and killing in the, uh, Blood Circuit?”
“Ah, well…I’m afraid it’s not a very happy story, but I’ll tell it if you really want to know,” Kalis said. He was working his thumbs into the knots in her shoulders, right on either side of her spine now, and Jillian thought she had never had a better massage in her life. He could even teach her old massage therapist, Helga a thing or two!
“I do want to know,” she assured him. “And I also want to know…oh, that feels so good! Want to know how you transitioned from fighting to…to this.”
“To serving, you mean? Ah yes, well that’s a whole other tale,” Kalis rumbled. “But I’ll start with the first one, if you please, little Mistress.”
This time Jillian didn’t protest him calling her by the oddly endearing name. She just hummed agreement. She was more relaxed again and as the big Kindred began speaking, she almost felt as though she could see what he was talking about—as though his words were forming pictures in her head.
“I was only twenty-five cycles old when my mate died in childbirth,” he began.
Jillian saw him as he spoke—a younger warrior, without the streaks of iron gray in his hair and a beard that was jet black instead of salt-and-pepper. She saw him standing over a bloodstained bed and pulling a sheet over the face of a young woman who had obviously died in agony.
“The doctors did all they could but we were living on Rii—a backwoods planet just a solar system over from the Yonnite one,” Kalis went on. “She might have been saved if I’d taken her to a more advanced world, but pregnant females can’t fold space and there were no stable wormholes close enough when her time came on her. I held her hand as she labored for hours and hours…and I watched the life leak from her eyes as our babe came out at last—also dead.”
“Oh…that’s so sad!” Jillian found that her eyes were wet. She could somehow see everything he was talking about—like a movie playing in her head. She wondered if any of the other Mistresses could too, but they all appeared to be asleep now as their bodyslaves worked on them—she was the only one still awake.