“Listen to you, calling him by his first name! You littlehsh’fruxslut—you have no right to be so familiar with him!”
“Hetoldme to call him by his first name!” I said.
I was still trying to get away from him, but it was no use—his grip on me was too strong and now we were nearly at the elevator. I could see my bright green coat hanging there on a peg beside it, symbolizing my old life which I most certainly didnotwant to go back to. At least, not so soon!
“Look, the Baron bought me for a day and a night,” I reminded Ass-licks. “It hasn’t even been a whole day yet!”
He glared at me.
“You think I’m going to let you stay here all night long, so you can poison his mind against me even more?”
“We weren’t talking aboutyou,”I snapped. Honestly, some people think the whole world revolves around them! Clearly Ass-licks was one of that kind.
“Excuse me, Master Azz’lx.” One of the Naggian chamber maids was suddenly there, right in front of the elevator doors. “Where are you taking the lady?” she asked, rather timidly.
“This is nolady,” Azz’lx snarled. “The Baron is gone now—you don’t have to pretend anymore. She’s nothing but a littlehsh’fruxBlood Whore and she’s leavingnow!”
“Only because he’smakingme leave!” I protested.
The maid frowned.
“Master Azz’lx, I’m not sure the lady wishes to go. Please…maybe you should let her to go back to the room the Baron assigned to her. I helped pick out her clothes myself—he seems very taken with her.”
Ass-licks rounded on the chamber maid who still had an uncertain look on her face.
“She’s leaving because she has an unnatural hold over the Baron that must be broken now before it’s too late,” he said. “Her kind ofhsh’fruxdoes evil magic that bewitches the minds of males!”
“Oh, no—really?”The chamber maid’s eyebrows rose high on her forehead in shock.
“Yes! So we must get her away from the Baron before she controls himcompletely,” Ass-licks exclaimed.
“Oh, I see, Sir. Yes, Sir.” The maid bobbed a kind of curtsy and looked at me with wide eyes.
My heart sank. One thing I’ve observed about the lower classes of Naggian society is that they areextremelysuperstitious. The other Blood Whores have all kinds of rituals they do—little things like making the sign of the Goddess of Mercy for protection before they go with a client or squeezing the first dab of nutritional paste out of the tube onto the ground as a kind of offering to the spirits of the Blood Whores who have gone before them to seek favor.
The point is, if Ass-licks managed to convince the Naggian maid I was some kind of witch or succubus, she would never say a word to Vik’tor about what had happened to me!
“That’s not true!” I protested.
“Liar!” Ass-licks hissed and slapped me across the face,hard.
I gasped and put a hand to my mouth as the taste of blood from my split lip rolled across my tongue.
“Run quick and get this whore’s old clothes out of that bedroom,” Ass-licks commanded the chamber maid. “We don’t want to leave a single thing in the Baron’s residence that might remind him of her evil influence.”
“Oh, yes Sir. At once Sir!” The maid bobbed a curtsy and ran off.
She returned shortly with my old clothing bundled under her arm.
“Here we are,” she said and shoved the bundle at me quickly.
I took them reflexively just as the elevator dinged and the doors slid open.
“I’m not a witch,” I said desperately, spitting blood as Ass-licks shoved me into the small compartment. “And I don’t want to go! Baron Vik’tor would bereallyupset if he knew about this!”
“Shut your mouth, you little slut or I’ll shut it for you!” Ass-licks snarled as he pressed the button that closed the doors. “And you—go about your business,” he snapped at the maid. “Clean that room and get rid of any evidence of the whore!”
“Yes, Sir!” she said, just as the doors closed.