Broken Thing

by Recidiva

This is a fill for a prompt asking for non-consent smut using the concept, characters and plot of my story "Of Kittens and Broken Things" - squick and rape, intentional and graphic. Setup and spoiler for "Kittens" in the starting notes. Thane Krios/Fem!Shep. Narrated on YouTube under the name Recidiva Quixotic.

1. Chapter 1

NOTES:

Apology and warning! This is my version of Thane and the back story he carries through all my stories with one critical alteration to his timeline. He's evil. This is non-consent AU smut using the characters and plot from my story "Of Kittens and Broken Things."

So spoiler alert for "Kittens" and big ol' 'mind fuck' warning.

This AU breaks off from the timeline of "Of Kittens and Broken Things" at chapter 14.

At Chapter 33 of "Kittens" Thane proposes an alternative setup for Kasumi's loyalty mission. Thane has an alternate identity; Hock knows that identity and extends an invitation. Thane describes his alter ego as "a vicious killer with no morals." When Shepard is resistant Thane makes a comment to goad/convince her to do things his way:

"If you are not up to it, we can dispense with the Gunn identity and I will present you as a mute pet. Perhaps with a control chip. Perhaps with her translator removed."

Prompt from Artificial Stupidity on AO3 "Part of me really, really wants to see Thane at a villain party with a chipped pet. That's the same part of me that wants to climb him like a tree for saying he has no morals. I'm just saying, if you ever feel like writing some AU smut... I would read the hell out of it. :D"

All Thanes were hurt in the making of this story.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

His name was Senar Tuelon but he had not been called that since he was six years old, given to the Hanar by his parents and community to be trained to kill. That name had been taken from him, but others given, 84 separate identities in the course of his career. One name became known and was repeated on wanted bulletins due to a security error he had made. He had been seen, a picture of part of his shoulder and head had been taken. His skin colors and patterns had been partially revealed and he was linked permanently to the biometric data representative of the name Thane Krios.

He thought of himself as Thane Krios. It represented his failure to anticipate exposure. Each time he heard it or thought that name it was a reminder of critical failure. It was a caution against making another error of that magnitude. He should have been nameless until his death.

He sighted his current target, judged the shot favorable. He led slightly forward and pulled the trigger. A woman stepped in the way of his already loosed shot. He believed she did it on purpose. She said 'How...' and then her face was gone.

It had been a beautiful face.

He completed his mission and claimed his legitimate target later yet never reported back to his handler. He had taken innocent life for the first time. He should have felt guilt and failure, and he did, but those were old and scarred sensations. What he felt most strongly was that she was beautiful, he wanted her, and he had killed her. Her face, her expression and the power of her last word made him choose to chase desire for its own sake. After a lifetime of monastic self denial he wanted to want. He often contemplated her and her last word. He never sought to learn more of her or discover her name. He preferred that in the clarity of recalling her face she was his. She was shorn of prior existence and personality beyond that moment. She was without future potential. He considered 'how' he could achieve another moment of potential transformation, of searing unexpected perfection.

He abandoned his life of service. He began a calculated path of service to self, obtaining what self denial and isolation had not allowed him in terms of reward. He maintained the discipline of craft, but dispensed with Drell Gods and traditions, debts and bonds. He embraced contracts, opportunities and what he could take for himself. He chose a careful path of desire and indulgence with practical limits on excess. He did not lose his edge but sharpened it for personally chosen kills that brought him status and reward. The greater good became a myth of conditioned delusion he had outgrown as a concept. In the worlds he was no longer solitary. He was counted among the venal, selfish, rapacious and cruel. He had found his community.

His ironically retained name of Thane Krios was sought after. Women and men sought him out yet he found them unsatisfying. Sex was physically satisfying but lacking in further depth. The delusion of his early life was difficult to eclipse in its power. He could not find inspiration in the eyes or bodies of mere people when he was accustomed to being the Chosen of the Gods. He still defied being Chosen. He embraced being able to choose.

His new path was mundane and no longer invested with the significance that granted him a Path lit by Gods and Signposts. He had abandoned Rightness as it had abandoned him. However petty his new life was as a destiny, it was more satisfying than his previous life, which had consisted of duty and torture. He sought to regain the depth of his previous life without the delusion inherent in it, wondering if it were possible or if disillusion was a preferred state for clarity's sake.

As an experiment he slowly added the unwilling to his sexual targets while still indulging in those who were willing and available readily. They were easy to twist with the venom the Hanar had surgically altered him to produce. With his hands on a target his venom created a mild suggestibility. With his mouth delivering venom to them directly they were situational slaves. They did whatever he asked until he grew bored of asking. That was more satisfying but had unfulfilled potential. He was disappointed to find he was often uninspired. Killing them seemed something they had not earned. Killing was not something he did idly but for reward, and they were unrewarding. He left them with various physical and mental scars. They lost time and had no memory of him, the hypnotic effect of venom aiding him in not encountering them again after they had been used.

He had a stirring of inspiration and desire from an unexpected source, a human female. There was a contract to take Commander Shepard's life. He was surprised to discover she was alive and that this was theoretically her second life. He was inspired by her eyes, the color and depth of a green sea. In a life no longer touched by Drell Gods, she seemed perhaps a conduit to other Gods, other sources of meaning. Her rebirth was rumored to be worth four billion credits. Her death would deliver to him one billion. He did not need the money but it would be a tragic loss for her eyes to close and open no more. He wondered what she had seen with them, if she remembered death.

The decision was a whim but he took the contract and invested himself in planning. She was worthy of death, worthy of the fee, worthy of his attention.

It might seem a difficult thing to kill a woman of that renown, but that mantra was the prized hope of naïve storybook and the verbal equivalent of whistling in the dark. It was at times easy to kill people. People were fragile and not only prone to death but occasionally hurtling toward it before he could reach them. As he researched her life it seemed possible she had a higher chance of dying to her choices than to him. It took some time to track her through the movements of the Normandy but he discovered a brief window of vulnerability to exploit when the Normandy put in at Illium. She walked alone as she would on the Citadel, but Illium was not the Citadel. There was no public security force such as C-Sec, Asari looked after their own and only if they were contracted to do so. The wise hired bodyguards. She seemed anecdotally a brave woman yet not a wise one. Illium was conveniently for sale in many ways. Lal Shepard was small and she was no challenge. She did not see him, she was easy to drug, take and transport from her ill-advised venture down a deserted corridor. Through the use of service access, a few bribes and hacked recordings she ceased to be, as did the evidence of what had happened to her.

He killed her in the sense that she was reported dead and he intended for her to remain in that theoretical state. He provided proof of her body and DNA profile, collected his fee. Beyond this point she was no longer Commander Shepard. She was his Drala'fa, which translated to 'ignored' but in this case to him it meant unseen, unknown by those who would try to find her.

She deserved an ironic name as well for her failure in security.

He had taken one beautiful life unintentionally; he would attempt preserving a beautiful life intentionally and see what gifts that brought.

There was preparation to accomplish before he took her to Beckenstein, his home. Beckenstein had been taken from Donovan Hock who had found himself under envenomed duress willing to deed the location to Thane. The story was that Hock had bet the estate while drunk and had lost it to Thane over cards at one of his gatherings. The match had no witnesses. Hock shortly after committed suicide spectacularly before witnesses in another system. Thane's venom was tailored to compel, and often compulsion was more useful than coercion. Donovan Hock had no friends. The same people or the same caliber of people who had graced Hock's gatherings graced Thane's with a titillated aside to the 'unfortunate' demise of the previous owner. No one believed Hock had lost the estate at cards. No one cared. They wished to show their sharp powers of deductive reasoning by telling the real story to the uninformed. It added to Thane's popularity. Death as a subject among the dissolute was not a cause for grief unless it was their own. The admission of selfish fear of death would betray weakness, so death was transmuted in the telling to laughter and schadenfreude. Speaking ill of the dead was a treasured defense and pleasure with the company he kept.

Thane deserved far worse in terms of death. He welcomed anybody to try. He had neither grief nor fear on the subject and expected a spectacular end to his own life, anything less would be disappointing. He had various ways to commit suicide secreted on or in his body. He had an appreciation of the macabre as well as experience with the whims of mundane or Chosen destiny.

Taking possession of Lal Shepard required removal of her customized hardware. He arranged at the same time for surgical alteration of her appearance. He took her in a shielded shuttle to a safe house off Illium. Any alarm or signal she would emit that might aid others in locating her was blocked while her Omni Tool and all transmitters were removed or disabled. There were some unknown components. An expensive and talented surgeon informed him some components could not be removed, but they could be scrambled remotely, fused and destroyed of potential function. The surgeon said she'd never seen anything like Shepard and that maybe the rumors of her being brought back to life were true. What had been removed from Shepard had been beyond the surgeon's technical comprehension. Valuable or not the components were distinct and therefore destroyed, as were the surgeon, the shuttle and the safe house.

Lal Shepard had been a compelling but not a beautiful woman, certainly not as beautiful as his slain Drell with sunset eyes. He made her beautiful. She no longer resembled Shepard. His Drala'fa was small and that suited him. Her body required no alteration. Her face demanded it for security and aesthetic purposes, her contouring and coloring changed. If she survived she would be seen by those who frequented Beckenstein, possibly by many and often, but he would not risk having her identified as or associated with Commander Shepard. Her skin was cleared of melanin discoloration. He was warned that the 'freckles' would reappear if she were exposed to sunlight, therefore she would not see the light of day except at a distance. The terrace in Beckenstein would be off limits to her, the glass set to filter out rays damaging to impractically fragile skin. Her skin was refined to porcelain, her features altered to his specifications with a flair for the dramatic. Her hair to suit her new coloring was midnight black and her eyes a deep violet in a newly sculpted face.

He regretted the loss of the green of her eyes, but he had to change every aspect of her appearance. As her height and size were not negotiable, her hair and her eyes, red and green respectively would be too evocative of her former identity had they remained. Violet did not go as well with his skin as her green eyes would have, but he consoled himself with the choice of black hair, which would. She became classically beautiful as well as compelling.

There was no ripple of publicity involving her disappearance that he could find in media reports. She had only been briefly and allegedly back from death, no public appearances, only announcements from Councilors Vakarian and Anderson. She had rarely given interviews before her resurrection and none after. In the interviews she had given during her career she was soft spoken and unimpressive. She was much more impressive as a list of accomplishments than she was as a person. Whatever search was conducted for her was done privately. She was not a person of public appearance so it made sense that the public was not alerted or questioned. Perhaps they hoped to recover her before her absence became known in more legitimate circles. He did not know who had contracted for her life and they made no announcement of their own.

His venom was hypnotic, addictive and virulent, effective for his purposes, but she had been Commander Shepard once and although it was at times easy to kill people, it was not necessarily easy to break them. That was his hope, that she would prove unbreakable. He would like to test her Destiny against his will, her Gods against his desires and see what came. He had a control chip implanted in her as a failsafe, transported her to Beckenstein under sedation for recovery and acclimation. Beckenstein was for now nearly deserted other than security and serving staff.

He would take time off for his new project, he had earned a vacation and hoped for it to be rewarding. Perhaps he would retire with a new hobby if she survived long enough to be entertaining.

The control chip dictated her behavior as advertised. She ate, she slept, she followed simple commands and she dressed in what she was asked to wear. She was docile and dull and he was her sole caretaker as he observed her, learned the use of the chip and wondered what lucidity she would regain. It was difficult to see in this altered and suppressed woman what use she could be to any Destiny other than as decoration. Satisfying to his curiosity, disappointing to his greater ambitions. He learned the care and feeding and maintenance of a human, fascinated by her hair as she stood unseeing and near unblinking. Without being given a command she had no awareness, no will and the specifications of the extraordinarily expensive chip guaranteed control over all voluntary impulses. She would starve to death if left in a room alone without someone to care for her maintenance. The chip could be set to different levels of potential lucidity and awareness, but he anticipated only using the full suppression setting. His venom and methods of coercion could provide him with what he needed to control her behavior otherwise. He had the remote controls to her chip implanted into his hand. She was metaphorically and literally under his thumb.

After he chose to wake her fully he positioned her in front of a full length mirror where he could see her and he positioned himself behind her. His fingers traced again remembered curves and lines of now vanished scar and missing original features. He had learned her body, the texture of her skin, the shape of her hips and the small fill of her breasts in his palms as she stood mindless over the course of several days. He had made sure that extremity of thirst, hunger or exhaustion would not counteract the chip's control over her. He looked for any sign of lucidity. She did not respond to pain or sound or light or movement. He was convinced it worked. She wore a thin fall of black fabric, inset panels of violet tailored to her. He had abandoned many ways of his people, he had left the Gods, the Hanar and Rakhana's myths and troubles behind him, but he favored their fabric and design. He wore black loose pants of the same cloth, his eyes on hers, head and shoulders above her. Her skin smelled of vanisfruit, something that went well with her natural scent.

She was fully healed, the chip worked as promised and he had grown curious to meet her. He wished to see her eyes, their new color and shape and whatever she brought to them. He released the hold of the control chip and said softly to her "You have ten minutes to try to kill me, Drala'fa."

She did not understand. He watched her in the mirror and said nothing more, watched confusion in her eyes and tension in her body that leaned to horror. Her eyes did not meet his as she tried to reconcile who she had been with what she looked like now. She struggled to discover or perhaps remember where she was. He had hope that her mind had survived the surgery, the removal of components and all the time spent sedated and controlled. The horror cleared partly from her expression. She attempted to step away from him calmly but he did not allow it, an arm around her waist and his hand around her throat.

She stood still, her eyes meeting his in the glass. He expected more horror or panic, but what she gave him instead was rewarding. Intelligence. She asked calmly "What do you want?"

He smiled and said "To see if you can kill me in the next eight minutes and thirty-four seconds."

Her smile reflected his lightly and she said with his tone "Why would I want to kill you?"

"That you will have more time to discover."

"Why don't you tell me now?"

It was a fair use of her time. He would allow it. "Commander Shepard is gone from the worlds. She is assumed dead, believed dead by many because I reported her as such. Rather than end your life I chose to keep you, slightly altered, for my own. I'm certain you know the horrors of a control chip as a survivor of Mindoir. I had one placed here." He ran the thumb of the hand that was around her throat down the back of her neck, no scar remaining.

Her eyes echoed the horror of the words Mindoir and chip. She did not speak. Instead, she thought. She said reasonably "People… many people… are going to die if I am not out in the fight."

An appeal to greater good was lost on him, she would learn. "People die every day."

"All your people. Drell will die."

"So they should, and the Hanar. My people are capable of terrible things. They destroyed their own world. They give their children into celebrated slavery to the Hanar. They sell their bodies as intoxicants and toys. Perhaps it is time for their lives to end. Not mine. Not yours. Not yet."

She shook her head, more despair than horror in her eyes "You… want me to kill you?"

"I want you to try."

"Then… why would I do that? You could order me to try to kill you."

"Your opportunity slips away, Drala'fa."

"What does Drala'fa mean?"

"It is the name for the ignored of my people, the unseen, the insignificant."

"Like you?"

"Not like me."

"What do you want?"

"You."

"You have me. You have a control chip."

"That is not you."

"Then take it out if it isn't what you want."

"There is want and there is need, Drala'fa. I want you. I need for you to have a control chip until you give me yourself."

"That… is not going to happen." He looked at her eyes, the same defiance whether in deep green or deep violet. Directed at him it was glorious, inspiring.

He smiled at her and said "You give me hope."

Her eyes churned but she said nothing. No begging, no pleading. Each of her words had become more and more carefully chosen and she did not repeat an appeal, babble or beg. She looked around the wider room and to the door but she did not move. Despite her horror and her fear, she did not panic and was not driven to it by his expectant eyes or timed taunt.

She asked calmly "What happens when my ten minutes are up?" She had a steady voice, difficult no doubt with the adrenaline making her limbs tremble. A pleasing voice, lacking the depth of a Drell voice but exotic and melodic.

"I have not yet decided. I expected you to fight."

"And what happens if I fight?"

"Me dead or your body under mine wherever you land, dead or alive."

"And if I get out of this room?"

"Commander Shepard is dead. She will not be returning. There are fail safes in place that will ensure that if I die, you will not leave, but you can choose your end and try to choose mine."

"I don't want to kill you. I want to do my job."

"Admirable and possible now that your job has changed." Two minutes.

"Why give me the chance to kill you?"

"A whim. I have many."

"If this is a game, then what are the rules?"

"Kill me or lose the opportunity."

"Or try and provoke you to violence…rape."

"That as well. Lack of provocation on your part will not result in lack of potential violence or rape on mine."

She closed her newly horrified eyes and her exposed skin flushed pink, his eyes following the bloom of color, the arm at her waist moved to stroke along the distinct patch of deep pink on her upper thigh. She flinched but did not attempt to run, did not try to strike. She wished to learn the rules. She had one minute remaining but it appeared she forfeited that opportunity in favor of attempting to reason with him. She was perfectly unwilling in so many ways. His fingertips followed the flood path of color along her skin, unexpected and exotic, as though her body sought camouflage useful only against a wall of flesh and blood. Poetically fitting.

He bent his head, eyes on hers in the mirror, watching her body and feeling for the betraying tension that would come before she attempted a strike. He felt only trembles and warm smooth skin under his lips at her throat, on his fingers gliding along her thigh. Venom through his hands and mouth into her skin would have any effect he wanted. He could frighten her, terrify her, cause her pain or cause compliance and melting pleasure. She could be driven to fight or driven to yield. She stiffened and her eyes betrayed further shattering chaos with the addition of venom. She sought to understand. She had not appealed to him on her behalf, but on behalf of others; those who would die as a result of her absence. The admiration and inspiration she gave him along with the indulgence bought by her not wasting his time and effort in the past weeks sharpened the fact that he wanted her. The simple pleasure of her body with her lucent and struggling eyes was enough for this moment. His elaborately constructed fantasy had bought him the ability to indulge in what appeared to be simple without experiencing boredom. His hands roamed over her body, along warmed paths of flushed skin.

He explained to her, his hands grasping her hips and pulling her back against his cock, pressing into the small of her back with his hips pressed forward. He moved one hand to the side of her throat and with a palm over her small face, turned her to face him. "That is venom, Drala'fa. You will do anything I say with enough in your system from my mouth, from my hands, from your mouth on my skin and your tongue. Do as I ask the first time, do your best to please me. Your ten minutes are gone. I will give you opportunities to fight or die in the future. I will not give you an opportunity to leave. If you create an opportunity you will die. If you succeed in killing me expensive and effective security is under orders to not permit you to leave or live if found outside the bounds I set. You can ask me to kill you. I will oblige you eventually. I will be disappointed but when I am through with you I will not make you suffer further. Do you wish to die?"

She seemed to understand and that was a small miracle. Most people would be begging, screaming, incoherent panic. Instead she whispered a soft and emphatic "No. I do not wish to die."

"Welcome to your new home, your new life, your new expectations."

She stared at him. He knew she was frightened, even terrified, but looking in her eyes was like gazing at impossible suns, suns he could reach and hold in the palm of his hand. He was inspired. He had Beckenstein and the collected dead and potentially dusty treasures there, but he had not resonated with the impulse to collect something of value until now. Possession and contemplation was now understood as a glorious thing. He had only failed to appreciate it because he had not found the right thing to value. He was now a convert, a dedicated collector with a gallery of one item.

He wanted her badly. Wanting something had been sensation he craved so he reveled in it for its own sake. He deferred lust, which he could and would have at any time. He was patient and methodical and wished for her to comprehend exactly what was expected. He wished to comprehend what to expect from her.

He did not want to use the control chip, though he would have to dim her eyes at times, remove her edge, shut her down to a non-lethal baseline. If she wished to kill him it would not be in his sleep, and he decided she would be sleeping with him. An odd impulse, something that under all circumstances with another person was repellent, but in her case he wanted her close. A favored, pampered pet to watch while sleeping and keep in his lap for the absent pleasure of his hands stroking through her hair.

Had she attacked him he would have brutally raped her without a second thought, gladly. If she was a woman of subtleties and intelligence he could adapt to that also gladly. Anticipation of her attack at any moment was constant and one of the more subtle pleasures of her presence. She would hope and wait and look for her chance. He approved. His mouth moved to hers, his eyes closing. He had pressed his lips to hers when she was insensate, slack and lifeless. Now she was tense and resisting, an improvement to texture and taste, a near electrical crackle of impedance investing her muscles.

He anticipated a great deal of tense and resisting, a small curve to the lips that pressed to hers. Venom would deliver whatever she lacked in the moment, enthusiasm or outrage as he chose. For the moment she lacked for nothing and he chose nothing but the simple pleasure of touching her, spreading venom into her resisting mouth with his tongue. Her teeth were tightly closed. Physically moving her from this position would create opportunities for her to take that transition and turn it into assault, but he risked it with only the whispered warning of "If you bare your teeth or bite, if you attack, Drala'fa, someone else will suffer for your sins." He brought up his Omni Tool and cycled through security footage of the estate. "I have hostages. Lovely women and dedicated men doing their jobs, security and staff. If you attempt to hurt me outside of the brief opportunities I give you they will pay. Your life is of value to me, your behavior of interest, but they are expendable, replaceable and hostage to any debt you incur. Whatever you refuse to do I will wring from them while you watch. Whatever harm you attempt to do to me I will do to them while you watch. Seek my death as you choose, strike well and I wish you luck. If it results in only injury, if I survive your attempts, they will not, one by one used and replaced with another hostage. If you have a job and that job is to preserve life, you have much to do. They are counting on you to make it home alive each day to their families and homes. You remember all the names of those lost on the ships that assaulted the Citadel at your order. You will learn their names if you are not careful."

Her eyes closed and she nodded briefly, told him a dignified "I understand."

Principles were lovely things, the pleasure of her capitulation for the sake of others a potential lie but a potential beauty. He turned and lifted her, told her against the skin of her throat "Wrap your arms and your legs around me, Drala'fa."

She did, stiff and tense, his cock throbbing against the fabric pressed to her flushed thigh. He sat down on the bed and took her face between his hands. She had no venom of her own and not enough of his, her arms and legs tense and tight, her lips under his still with the electricity of defiance, an implied fence. He contented himself with her lips, the inner curves and taste, slowly spreading venom. With no verbal command she would be waiting, suspended and unable to take action until he gave it to her.

After the company he had kept for a lifetime, his curiosity about other people had been scoured down to the bedrock of the assumption that people were venal and selfish, including himself. She had the potential to be different. Wisps of curiosity about her curled up into fog embracing this Collected woman. He moved one hand to her ass and pulled her in more tightly against the press of his cock, another hand to the back of her head, twined in fine filament. He murmured in her ear "Show me how you kiss, Drala'fa."

He moved his mouth back to hers but she was still. He asked in a voice as slick with warning as his lips were with venom "I thought you understood to do as I asked?"

Her eyes met his and she said with faint and helpless panic "I do… I… am. I don't kiss. This… is… this is how I kiss. I don't. That's what you asked."

He pulled back and looked at her to assess a seemingly incongruous and impossible statement. The look in her eyes was earnest. She was trying to comply, afraid someone else would suffer if she didn't.

He resisted the impulse to repeat back to her the words she'd spoken as though he had not heard them correctly but he knew the look of confused honesty. His questions had to be phrased more carefully, his assumptions analyzed. But it was as though she did not know how to breathe. How had she achieved adulthood? He slipped his thumbs along her jaw line and tipped her head to look in deep violet. He considered his question, knowing that if he was not meticulous in questioning her it would be easy to make assumptions and misapprehend the distinct landscape of her thoughts "Is this your first kiss?"

"No."

"When was your first kiss?"

She calculated earnestly and said "Five weeks ago."

"But you did not kiss them?"

"No."

"They kissed you?"

"Yes."

"Who was it, Drala'fa?"

Panic lit her face and she swallowed. She did not wish to tell him. She would. Allowances would be made for her first day, her first venom, her first painfully taken truth. Her mind housed so many potential secrets and he wished to own them all. His voice was soft, indulgent, teeth tugging at her earlobe. "Tell me who it was that kissed you. Tell me what I want to know, what I need to know."

He barely heard her. Her words were soft, as though she could speak them and keep to the letter of his law yet escape detection. "Garrus Vakarian."

The Turian Councilor. Her prior squad mate. She had wonderful secrets. So many new things to ask. He pulled back and smiled at her, massaged the back of her tense neck with gentle fingertips. "Good. Speak to me, Drala'fa; tell me what you are afraid to tell me. I wish to know. Trust me."

She was trembling with her electricity and resistance, brows drawn against saying anything but her tongue was unable to resist speaking tumbling words under compulsion. "It was a kiss and he bonded to me and I told him he couldn't, shouldn't, but it was too late."

He held the twin suns, Savior of the Citadel and the bond mate of the Turian Councilor in his lap, earnest confession on her face. He smiled at her and smoothed his fingers over her brows to reassure her. She had not kissed the Councilor back? It did not sound like rejection but regret. Once again the echoed tone of protection in her voice, in her eyes, the undercurrent of her compliance even without venom. For a moment he was shocked into being unable to find his way forward and asked with some self deprecation "Are you certain your name is Lal Shepard?"

She said "No. That isn't my name."

He had a blurring moment of potential wrong target, incomplete revenant, body double, then the matched DNA, the accepted proof of her body. He could not find it in himself to care. Whoever she was, he fully enjoyed her company. Had he told her yet she had no right to her name? No. This was not mistaken. "What is your name?"

"Cara Fanning."

"Your name is Drala'fa. Those other names no longer belong to you, they belong to me. If I tell you that you may speak of them, then you may. You will answer only to Drala'fa. If someone other than me asks you your name, you will look to me and I will choose what to say. You will not speak to them."

She nodded, clear innocence and expectation of obedience.

So many questions. He felt near foolish asking them, believing a woman back from the dead, a fire breathing legend was likely playing him somehow with earnest innocence.

He considered her words: One kiss. She did not kiss back. He couldn't, shouldn't. The original question had evoked something unexpected, perhaps it would again rephrased. "Show me how you touch a lover, Drala'fa." He smiled when she did not move. He carried that further, spurred by the innocence in her eyes. "Show me how you touch yourself."

She did not move.

He had his moment of searing unexpected perfection.

He had her, the click of virtual manacles final and near audible in their metaphoric hold. "Do you love Garrus Vakarian?"

Whispered and weak "Yes."

"I will let you keep that, Drala'fa. A treasured memory for you to hold close. A treasured love. Beyond his kiss, beyond his bond, he did not touch you?"

"I wouldn't let him."

"Good. Remember. If you do not do as I ask, I will bring him here and make him suffer for your lack of obedience. He will die as you watch. I may do it if you are not sufficiently inspiring. I may do it because I am jealous. You do not wish for me to be jealous, do you?"

"No. Please."

"He will look for you every day."

"He won't stop."

"You do not want him to find you here, do you? With me here watching for him, waiting for him?"

"No."

"Then always do as I ask."

"Always."

"What is your name?"

"Drala'fa."

"Who owns your other names?"

"You do."

"Who owns you, Drala'fa?"

"You do."

In a short span of time she had earned not being killed immediately, she had earned not being painfully raped and now she had earned the affection of assured loyalty. A pet who had successfully learned her first trick. She would demonstrate it at his whim. She would do as he asked without question in order to protect someone she loved. She was gentle and trusting under venom. His hands glided over her face with the delicacy of strokes along flower petals.

It might be most merciful to rape and kill her quickly, but he wanted her, he wanted her for a long time, and he was not a merciful man. "This is how I kiss a lover. My mouth, my words, the only ones that will concern you. Learn how to kiss. You will have no bad habits to unlearn, which is good. Let only my habits guide you. Don't resist the venom, don't resist my voice, and if you are inspired to kiss me, inspired to touch me to earn my favor, that is what I wish."

He had never had lovers, only victims, and she was the same, but he found no reason to hurt her overtly when she was so cooperative, her mouth light and bubbling sweet with compliance. He had no need to cause her pain beyond what was necessary, all he required was control. She was sensitive and responsive, given over to venom. She moaned and that made for a harder throb against her thigh, his arms coming around her and the breath squeezed out of her momentarily, evoking what sounded like a squeak. He felt a warm slide of affection and appreciation for her as he might for art or dance, something of grace.

Without warning her he activated her chip. He pulled back as she remained in place, tense arms and legs relaxing and losing their hold, her chin held between his fingertips. Instant dull eyes and mindlessness. Possessiveness was new and fierce, his breath coming faster as hers was paced to no emotion and no sensation. She was an exquisite doll, newly appreciated. Satisfied he left her to retrieve food and water, held her in his lap as she ate and drank when he prompted her. She was missing the watchful intelligence of her fully alert state and the innocent trust of her envenomed state. There was no recognition or intelligence in her eyes, the new scent of her with his venom in her blood sharpening his newly possessive edge. Blunt possession invested his hands without need for pretense or compulsion or delicacy, though he still enjoyed the appreciation of the freedom to touch her with reverence and the texture of her skin like flower petals. There were flowers such as orchids that bruised when touched, but he saw no need to bruise her at the moment. He considered the challenge of keeping her bloom without allowing the sun to touch her, unleashing growing and powerful lust on her body while keeping her mind intact. He had hope for the impossible.

He potentially possessed his destiny and hers. The image of having his Drala'fa pampered and pleased in his lap held the smoky, cloying allure of Simfeh bark incense. Gatherings at Beckenstein had been interrupted but would continue with her at his side, metaphorically leashed in and attentive. He wished no literal leash, no collar. They were symbols of lack of control in his mind. A leash could be held by anyone. She was unquestionably his and he had no need to present a leash someone else might covet and control. How he kept her need not be known. That he kept her would be. A raw throb of his cock against her thigh emphasized how much he wanted that image to be made real, a moment claimed and felt through the satisfying drip of his seed down her thigh.

He briefly considered presenting her masked or veiled but he wanted to see her face so he dispensed with that idea. He briefly considered allowing her to be taken by others but chose to keep her for himself. In fact, he decided if someone else dared touch her he would kill them. He would move forward on that premise and if he grew tired of her he would reconsider.

He wished to move slowly and savor each moment for its greatest potential. He carefully undressed her, her breasts in his palms, recalling tight nipples against his chest where there was now smooth skin, her tongue tentative on his and her moan reverberating.

She was small, weighed little as he laid her out unresisting with her head on his chest, hard cock nestled against her thigh with her legs spread. He listened to her breathe. He whispered to her to close her eyes and rest and she did that instantly, obediently. He sifted one hand through her hair and kept one hand at the small of her back, cock hard and hungry at the rub of her thigh until he followed her to sleep.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

She was much more work than he'd anticipated. He added new goals based on his questions and her answers. He wished for her to learn to speak Drell. It was possible that she may see Garrus Vakarian again in a broadcast on someone else's Omni Tool in company, and he did not want her to comprehend his speech. A significant cruelty and a boundary set. As Shepard she had been capable of ruling the Council. As Drala'fa she would be unable to comprehend any but the human Councilor. He intended for her to not see Vakarian's image again. If she did manage by chance to see him, the divide between them would be emphasized by her lack of control and comprehension. For now he limited her translator to interpret only the Drell language and at times took that away as well, teaching her nonverbal gestures and signals. She would not speak unless spoken to by him. She would not speak to anybody else in company, and the less she understood unless it was from him the better. She was at this stage a student and an expensive asset and potential liability. With investment of time and effort he would ensure that she understood her circumstances under duress as well as when calm, that she understood her duties and boundaries in envenomed and lucid states. For that she required time, repetition, priming and conditioning under different circumstances. Ideally he wished for her to be aware of herself, her surroundings and him whenever possible.

Garrus Vakarian was looking for her through several private yet emphatic channels. The Shadow Broker was seeking her. The Council was seeking her. The Alliance was seeking her. Cerberus was seeking her. None of them had found her and that was reassuring. A sideline of research into Vakarian and some of the story from her account and he had a picture of a dedicated if not obsessed bond mate, holding to her legacy. There was no public outcry for her return, but Vakarian grew more and more haggard. Thane did not allow her any access to technology, she did not see and she did not ask.

His Drala'fa when she was entirely cogent displayed an ease of comprehension of threat and consequence, never made a misstep, never misspoke, and studied as he asked. He asked her in passing curiosity "Do you recall everything that happens to you when your control chip is activated fully?"

"Some of it. Unclear images without a sense of time, significance or sequence of events."

"Do you feel pain or hunger?"

"No."

"Do you think in that state?"

"No."

"Would you prefer that I activated that state more often to spare you horror?"

"No."

"Why?"

She hesitated until his smile indicated he could ask her another way, allowing her only enough time to gather her thoughts but not long enough to prevaricate "I am a dangerous person. I would prefer to have my wits if not my will. I can't control what you ask me to do, but if I can be aware of what I'm doing, I prefer that. It's one thing for you to keep me as a toy, another if you decide to use me to kill."

That had not occurred to him as a useful application of her assets and it still did not "That would be redundant. If I decide someone will die, I will do it myself."

"With me you could kill more people."

"Granted you have likely killed more people than I have, but from what I have seen you are lacking in subtlety in that regard and require a team. I do not require a team, nor do I want one. Do you prefer being a toy or being of more use?"

"I would prefer to be of use, but of what use could I be from here?"

"To anyone other than me? Little. Perhaps you could choose from my associates when you make your debut. I could kill the most vile at your whim."

"No."

"Why?"

"Because you'd enjoy that."

"So you'd allow evil to linger in the world, evil I could end, only to spite me?"

"It would not be only to spite you."

"To spare yourself collusion with me."

"Yes."

"Perhaps I will kill them anyway, Drala'fa. For you, if they catch your eye and your silent disdain."

"That would be your action. It would not be with me."

"There are worse things than collusion with me, Drala'fa. I can content myself with being engaged in other things with you. You have learned to bring me things I need only ask for once. I can do the same for you if it suits me."

She came to him whenever he asked, did exactly as he asked if not more, no need to repeat threats. She sought to be useful and to be perceived as harmless. He enjoyed the fact that venom made her want him mindlessly, only her inexperience keeping her from moving further. She was learning to kiss. He brought her to the edge of begging for more and then often shut her off, pleased that she'd remember his hands on her as a caretaker, as a curious owner, verifying his effect on her with hands along her thighs, grazing provoked heat and wet response with his fingertips and soft praise for her cooperation.

He had a gift for petty cruelty and he enjoyed it, he enjoyed her, and he enjoyed the look in her eye when she likely wondered each time he asked her to come to him or took hold of her mind and body if it would be this time she would be violated after she begged for it. He did not wish to let go of that anticipation just yet. He enjoyed her always precipitous fall from cool grace into enthusiastic compliance.

He gave her ten minutes to try to kill him occasionally. She never indulged in the opportunity.

"Do you believe you will escape someday, Drala'fa?"

"It isn't a moment to moment hope but it is a possibility."

"Not from my perspective."

"Would you prefer I gave up?"

"Never."

"Eventually Reapers will make their way here."

"Is that your hope? Ironic. Fitting. We will be gone before then."

"To where?"

He ignored the question but began to consider an answer in earnest. He also considered the flaws in his precautions she revealed when he asked her if she had escape plans. She had no hard plans but thoughts about power failures, rescue, serendipitous discoveries and opportunities that required only the chaos and entropy of reality and him missing something she was able to find and exploit. She had many, many ideas, and he patched security and protocol according to the potential weaknesses she postulated. "Are you so important, Drala'fa, that all will fall without you leading?"

She did not answer the direct question but said "What do you think?" The question was polite but her smile was feral, beautiful, breathtaking.

"I think the worlds can burn before I will permit you to consider any opponent, any danger other than me. If you cannot escape me or my precautious, if you cannot bring yourself to kill me, what hope do you have? Consider what damage you could do if the Reapers gained access to your control chip. Perhaps I serve a greater good. You are not a reasonable woman."

"And you are not a reasonable man. I am in danger here."

"I make more sense. You are in no danger of dying unless you cause it or ask it of me. Remain here with me, remain safe, soak in what remaining pleasures belong to species that deserve death at the end of their time. Trust to the wiser judgment of those who have seen this cycle repeat itself."

"I don't deserve death."

"You earned death once. I will keep you from it again. You wish to save all, and you cannot. You failed at your chosen, unreasonable duty. The galaxy has your example and you are twice a martyr. If they do not rise up and fight for their own sakes they deserve death. If you embody the greatest good, you should not be cast into the fire twice but preserved beyond your appointed end. I have done that. Vakarian was willing to risk you and he lost you."

She said softly "He was not willing to risk me."

"Then why was he not by your side every moment?"

She didn't answer and he looked sharply at her "You stopped him?" He waited until she confirmed, a brief nod, head cast down, an anguished twist to her lips. "So what allowed me to take you was… solely your lack of sense? The judgment and strategy that would save a galaxy, taken in an alleyway? Consider hubris a factor in your ambitions, Drala'fa. That contract should have taken you permanently. The way you ran your command you were not likely to survive long in your own care. You are not a reasonable woman and you wish to repeat the insanity that caused your death. I will not allow it."

"If I were reasonable, I'd have stayed dead."

"Or you would have not died in the first place. You would have escaped my notice. I will make my luck, take my opportunity, and may the rest of the galaxy that relies upon you to save them learn their own lessons or die."

"Do you believe you protect me?"

"From everyone but me, Drala'fa. I do not seek to attempt to convince you that I protect you for your own good, that is only a side effect of preserving you for my use. I could have taken your life, I preserved it. Not for you, but for myself. You still have your potential for improbable escape because I allow you lucid moments and I enjoy your company. You are worth all the risks and precautions taken to ensure you remain at my side. I am aware that I am selfish and venal and I am not reasonable. I am practical."

"You're a horror."

"A practical horror, at least grant me my due."

"You are a practical horror."

"You are an unreasonable martyr and that is your due."

"You expound on the benefits of living your chosen life but try to justify that mine is stolen for my own good?"

"There are benefits of logic to being a practical horror. Fairness is not a trait I value. My life was stolen and a new one created for me to inhabit. I left that life and created a new one that suited me better. I doubt you could find anybody whose life and dreams were not at some point stolen. They brought you back and threw you at what killed you the first time. Someone chose to pay handsomely for you to die. I chose for you to die and then to live. You forfeited your choices when you failed to stop me from taking you. You can still be an unreasonable martyr from here, Drala'fa."

She returned to her studies and he allowed her to do so in peace, spiked tears on her lashes from the moment of the mention of her bond mate's name.

She was a lovely martyr, excellent at her job wherever she was.

Vakarian was a politically blinded obedient fool, which was synonymous with 'Turian.' Duty, galaxy or her wishes should have been nothing compared to keeping her safe by his side. Thane felt pity for the man but not guilt. Let him fight the Reapers, let her be his martyr as she demanded, as she still sought to demand. Thane was content to allow him to suffer with unconsummated bond and regret. Let him look for her every day. Thane would allow him to remain alive as a control to her behavior. They would not see each other again. The idea of their personal heroics and what it had cost them in each other was anathema. If she could not see it as an obvious mistake he need not correct her, only continue to exploit the fact, as he did each day, that her behavior was hostage to his willingness to do harm if he did not get what he wished from her. The threat to Vakarian was something he knew he need not repeat and a threat he knew she would not risk.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

She learned broken and then conversational Drell, had a good ear and improved her accent. She studied alone but he insisted she practice with him to gauge her progress, venom dripping through her beginning with strokes of his thumbs at her throat and through her hair, turning her mouth to his and dragging her into his lap. She said she enjoyed studying and he believed her, finding another subtle control to bring to bear. Boredom. She was bored when he was otherwise occupied and she was lucent and that stalked her. She requested materials to learn to speak his language, requested data pads disconnected from Ethernet and downloaded with Drell art and history as study aids. She was still deeply inferior to Drell absorption of information but she was exceptional in the application of that information once absorbed. She sat sedately in whatever he requested she wear, out of the sun and legs curled beneath her, studying. She learned her boundaries according to his decrees, she was always under surveillance, and she did not stray or probe at the limits he set.

He took opportunities to extend her contentment with pure information into venom haze, asking her questions with translators turned off. She did not speak unless spoken to, she had learned when to keep her eyes on him and when to look away according to his signal and whim. Under venom she would embrace drilling language, asking questions about what she'd learned, until her curiosity slipped out with the carefree enthusiasm she achieved with his priming and her inexplicable natural state of a personality that grasped galactic politics and consequence with serious gravity but found joy in found treasures of Drell history and myth.

Now she asked in struggling accent "What is your name?" It was a practice phrase without immediate significance other than asking what was the weather or what was the time. His mouth was at her throat, her head was tipped back with her hair a fall down her back just out of reach of the sun. Without thought he told her "Senar."

She used the new word in a sentence, her habit. "Your name is…Senar."

He had taken her names. He would give her this one. "That name belongs to you, Drala'fa. Speak it only to me, never before or to another." He did not believe she grasped the language enough for the nuances of that command to take hold, but he would tell her again later with her translator on.

She was pleased that he answered her, pleased with her hoard of information, pleased with him and his hands with venom in her blood. She misheard him, misunderstood, smiling and saying "My name is not Senar" formally with a shake of her head as though he had said it to trap her.

He had considered moments of ceremony and significance, when to get her used to sex, how to do it. His introduction to sex during his training had been brutal, an endurance trial of being instructed by four people of different gender and species, orders given and received and executed. He had thanked them. He had volunteered, coercion in the guise of consent. He could not in reality do better for her, it would all be coercion, but it need not be brutal physically, only brutal in her inherent loss of will as she smiled and embraced his desires as hers.

He knew once he began he would not stop and he would violate his Drala'fa often, intended to do so before a crowd. Whether he took her defiance from her with a chip or his voice and venom or with her knowing and electrically charged consent, he enjoyed taking it and her and never once considered giving up that pleasure, only extending it. Now. Before she spoke Drell fully, when she had his name but did not know it. Subjugation took delicate form in the moment and he chose again. He had spent days and nights hungry, savoring anticipation and now he would demand the same from her. Her mind would wish to remain remote but could not, her body would turn traitor.

She had achieved obedience, her first trick, now she would sit up and beg. Not at first. He estimated she needed a few more weeks to learn to speak his language fluently. He would take that time to condition her response to him. She was addicted and hungry for venom already. She embraced him out of duty when lucid; he never took her memories of her slow inevitable descent into carefully stoked desire. He would add pleasure to that until she did not care who watched, obedience and abandonment a possibility in her otherwise controlled and solitary person. He would teach her to experience her own pleasure as a debt to be returned to him tenfold. She believed in fairness. He did not believe in fairness, but he could use her tendency to believe in it. She would find it fair to serve his whims, to repay the care he took for her, the care he provided to protect her and every stroke of his tongue on her body was to be repaid with her willingness to serve fairness as a moral imperative. Duty turned to venom turned to debt.

That would be crafted slowly and with words and demonstration, for now he needed no words to teach her to come, abandoned and greedy for more, her body seeking pleasure the way her mind sought new information. He would follow the path of her inclinations.

He had verified to his vague shock that she had never had sex, never touched herself, considered sex to be a drug, something she did not want to indulge in, something she considered a drug habit at worst and an idealized once-and-forever gift tied to love at best. He would provide envenomed pleasure-strained drug habit and she would provide the urge to give herself as a gift, her inspiration true and unexpected once again. He had toyed with the idea and now he was inspired.

Her clothes were constructed for access and beauty, veils and falls. Her breasts were small, always visible in profile, no bra required or permitted. No underwear provided. She attempted modesty with elaborate draping and positioning, but there was never enough cloth to cover entirely and the more she adjusted the more she revealed the changing light and shade of her body. Cloth was for enhancement and not cover, access guaranteed, essentially always undressed enough for any act or caress that tempted him. Her feet and his feet were bare. He left her for his exercise routine and maintenance of a neglected life and career, but she was his main focus in a day. He wore loose black pants suitable for exercise and combat.

She was the embodiment of exercise and combat. At the end of a day with her he was tired, another new experience preferable to the restless boredom that had often been his lot.

She wore earrings, new pairs he designed and commissioned often enough to add a jeweler to the tailor kept at the estate. He often took one to keep in a pocket or in a newly treasured urge to collect, memories of the taste and texture of metal and gems, black and violet and silver under his tongue, a new tactile experience and unique, coated like her in iridescent venom.

Now he tasted her earring and carefully removed it for safe keeping, his hands on her breasts and then mouth on hers. No more words, she would not speak further unless prompted. He moved her small body back to recline on the wide chaise, the echo of 'Senar' in his mind. She'd had delicate tattooing of black eyeliner, thick black lashes, her lips darkened in pigment to human sanguine in tone, but no blush because her habitual flush was inevitable and kaleidoscopic. Although he enjoyed her hair there was none on the rest of her body, inhibited permanently. She was lovely without potential for smudge or flaw at every moment and if he chose to learn human makeup and hair design he would over time. Now after great effort taken she looked effortlessly flawless, a perfect setting for twin suns and Destiny.

She was fully in tiremit, the state of maximum venom and suggestibility; he cultivated her receptivity and sensitivity with each repetition of that state. Later he would withhold venom and accustom her to sex without the veil of pleasure-rich compliance, and she would learn to do without pleasure or venom if he chose. For now he would feed her pleasure and venom and touch her as he expected to be touched by her and see how well she learned and applied the lessons. He demanded devotion and exquisite care to detail so he would give it to her, for how else would she learn? She would witness and be witnessed, but touch was his alone.

He spread her thighs with gentle hands, lips on the inside of her thighs and the line of her tense and trembling muscles, the drape of fabric followed by the path of his hand over her, pressing wisps of fabric into folds and damp heat and gliding them out and over, imagining her gentle hands on his cock, an exquisitely guided tongue and instincts to please. Building that potential he combed away all wet fabric with slow fingers, breathed in her expression of helpless desire and touched his tongue to her clit, tasting her for the first time from the source and not his fingers, electricity and helpless, confused mewling from the mouth of his arching, seeking pet. He closed his eyes and defined the lines of her with his tongue, dewed petals and the mindless desire of her body arching into his mouth if he pulled back from exploring her to test her enthusiasm.

He expected her to come quickly and she did, abandoned, a sound of surprised ecstatic pleasure coming from her throat as he barely slid his smallest finger into her and stroked, anticipating opening her with twisted fingers and his fused middle finger and eventually his cock. For now she was slick and panting and he would teach her to speak his name when she came, only when they were alone. His finger inside her body stayed, a reassuringly slight invasion and soothing, feeling the clench and heat and wet.

She would become used to invasion and his tongue, his fingers, that was the last time she would come so quickly. He'd make it harder and harder for her to reach that peak because he would demand it often. She had a moment of clear bliss, all hers, all given seemingly freely, but the ripples of her body and the ripples of the act would widen and deepen until she was writhing and begging and knew exactly why she was begging.

Her studies were interrupted for the day, he kept her envenomed, bliss soaked and wrung until she'd come so many times her last took almost 45 minutes of her thighs outright shaking and running with sweat, her moment of surprise transmuted to learned study on variations, his fingers dipped into wet heat and twisting into her ass, more surprise each time until she knew the possibilities of his hands and his mouth and his fingers. He toyed with driving her into passing out but he would save that for later if necessary. He was certain it would be necessary at some point, if not for her, then for his satisfaction in doing it.

He carried her to the main suite, a deep bath drawn and her exhausted while he soaped her hair and her skin, watched her to see the awareness come sobering back into her expression. He fussed over her hair and removed the other earring, brought her to the bed and repeated the lesson once more before he turned her off and ordered sleep, basic commands something she had learned first in Drell.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

She developed in her waking moments a more haunted and hungry edge to her features, subtle and endearing. She developed in her envenomed state frank expression of that hunger, learned to say his name in endless varieties of bliss.

When she developed full mastery over his language he deemed her ready. She earned what partnership she could forge from that, what pleasures she could secure for herself and beyond those opportunities he began taking his own pleasures from her body one by one.

He had demonstrated and explained carefully what his cock would mean to her in her new life, whim and pleasure and possession. On the day he believed she knew what pleasure she was expected to give he pressed her to her knees, looked at her with patient expectation until she understood it was now his turn, always his turn, the moves defined and explained. She knew not to close her eyes, she learned the fastening of his pants blindly and clumsily but carefully, and he watched her exquisite tongue explore his cock with devotion. His hands tightened and slackened their grip in her hair, grown longer and more lush. He anticipated being able to wrap her hair around his wrists and control her movement in a new way soon.

He had his own moment of earned clear bliss, so long in coming, and he doubted he'd come that quickly ever again, wondering if he would need to adjust her gag reflex with practice or surgically or if he enjoyed it, the convulsive rejection somehow better than deep throat expertise. She would have to practice often before he made up his mind.

He brought her to bed and teased her to the point of wrung out oversensitive pain, left her suspended, unable to come, writhing and frustrated and with her endearing squeak of suppressed envenomed helplessness.

"You may not touch yourself, Drala'fa. Ever. Your body is mine. Your pleasures are mine and always to be demanded or witnessed, never taken by you without my permission."

He did not have to ask her if she understood. He enjoyed holding her in silence; his body drained of tension and filled with satisfaction. He enjoyed rebuilding her to near orgasm and then letting her down over and over until he chose to shut her down, her hoarse cries abruptly interrupted. The tension collapsed from her, sweat slowly cooled and evaporated, his fingers through the droplets spreading in a lazy caress on her shoulder. He pulled her to him and arranged her as he wished on her side, his hand on her hip and one under her throat, his face in her hair, murmurs of praise and pleasure and her name. Promises and demands she would hear and could not help hearing.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

The next day was spent in bed after waking to the scent of her hair and the press of the skin of her back on his chest, his cock already hard against the small of her back. Having begun and having no further goal or ceremony to fulfill he chose to teach her position and variation. He'd toyed with the idea of taking her first before a crowd but he wanted to present her less as a plaything and more as a prize, and a prize should have skill, value.

A prize should not squeak.

He smiled at the impulsive choice and decision and acted out every idle fantasy of the moment. She was newly awoken, likely stiff from the night in one position, no venom except what had soaked into her from his skin during the night. He had no need or interest in foreplay or priming, rolled her to her back and drove into her in resisted electrical, tight stages, his nails digging into her shoulders, his eyes on her breasts and then his eyes on her face. Her eyes were open and expectant now of his whims, no doubt having imagined this from her first day and much worse, wondering where she was on the scale of depravity.

We are not far on that scale, Drala'fa. Not far at all.

With his hand under her ass he tilted her hips to better take him, a give in the angle of her body and her lip bitten as he forced his way inside, with her still wet from the hours before when he'd left her writhing and then limp. She was small and not resistant physically in any way that could be interpreted as trying to reject him. She was aware he would rape the staff if she resisted, and he would, but she was resistant inherently. Virginity was an inconvenience and an oversight on her part, not something he prized or valued on its own, but his cock, his body loved the sensation of hers, and if that was due to virginity he would blessedly be grateful for that state. He had his inspiration and his bliss, the transcendent layers he'd sought, depth and breadth to lust with her attendant significance. A harsh groan escaped his throat, his hand on her ass lifting her in a way she would learn to do herself, but for now he was happy to do it for her, the first few strokes were near stuttering and fitful until he found the course of her body with his cock, found the pressure, angle, friction and rhythm he needed with the motion of his hand. After those strokes she was far gone in whatever gripped her, unable to meet his eyes as he might have wanted. He would teach her that as well, again in new context, but this moment was given to the purity of the mechanics of sex with her. He didn't care about her face or her reaction. He focused on the feel of his cock plunging into her, her body giving way over and over, resistance and the reflexive caress of her body's give on demand. He hammered into her, the sensation of bottoming out and reaching her limits, her cervix giving way like the tight embrace of her throat, her sounds as she lost control over herself and he lost his. She let out choked scream-wails at the end of each stroke as he gripped her ass tighter, slammed into her faster until the moment of near-numb suspended and then stunningly powerful orgasm gripped him, shudders and shivers and heated spurts into her, until she overflowed, the feel of his seed rushing backward along the length of his cock, squeezed out by her body's reaction to his presence, simultaneously pulling him in deeper and seemingly trying to expel him.

He collapsed on her, hands in her hair and mouth devoted to hers, gasps of breath and heaving chest against her breasts, her moans and whimpers. Biotics had risen on his skin, random patches of discharge and tingle factored back into the experience as he became aware of it, as involuntary as her blush.

He kissed down her body, her venom-slurred voice soft with moans, her fingertips on his shoulders where she had learned he wanted them often, his mouth and hands on her breasts. He drew her nipples tight with his tongue. He cherished the moment of primal violation and would not take it from her, would not allow or force her to forget it. It was theirs and she would know him for what and who he was. He chose to ease her pain and granted her his voice in a way that would drape and soothe and would also encourage her to respond. She was spattered with sweat, blood spread on her skin with an underlying rush of her habitual blush, the remains of virginity and his seed on speckled and smeared thighs. His cock was slick with it and he made his lips and hands slick as well, smearing her further, tasting and holding her thighs apart so he could see, so he would remember. He made her come, demanded it from her with his mouth and voice, his arms around her thighs, holding her down. He slipped venom-blood-seed slick fingers into her mouth until she sucked. He pulled her head to the side of the bed, stood and drove into her mouth and throat with his semi-hard cock until he was ragingly hard down her throat, until he was about to come again. He pulled out, flipped her up and around until her thighs were open wide, feet on the outside of his, pressed her head down with her ass against his cock. He gathered more slick on his fingers and drove them into feminine-human-virgin ass while he played with her clit until she was moaning, her fists gathering blankets, her knuckles white.

He worked his cock inside her ass with near painful constriction that bled into tight bliss, uncaring again if she was in pain or would be, pleased if that's what caused her to grip like that, to tighten like that. He was a convert with religious fervor, belief and faith in her body delivering pleasure to him in unthinking frenzy, biotics again blooming in his hands, over her skin, his thighs against hers. His hands, digging in his nails and gripping her ass made her tighten and twist around him, then he dragged his nails down her back for the pleasure of seeing white tracks through pink flush.

He used her for hours, which led to using her for days, endless venom and then activated chip when he rested, bathed her and fed her, discovering he did not need her eyes at all for inspiration.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

After a time he was better able to control how to make her respond without causing her pain. He did not always bother, but he wished to know. There were involuntary movements she could not learn to make on demand and the pain he inflicted on her itself did not interest him, but the effect on her body and then on him, tightening and tensing, twitching when she did not expect a pinch or a dig of the nail or a sharp slap to a sensitive spot was spectacular.

She was just as polite, just as pointedly and carefully obedient as she had always been no matter what he did to her. She spoke frankly and honestly, argued with him when he encouraged it. He asked some questions under venom, he saved others for when she was fully lucent because truth in twin suns was breathtaking. His goals progressed yet nothing in her seemed to change. He was transformed and inspired by her; she remained inherently unimpressed with him. She had caution within the bounds he set but no fear for herself. He grew to believe she had crystallized her approach in the first ten minutes he had given her to try to kill him.

In her mind, those minutes had never ended. They had been redefined to every minute directed toward succeeding in killing him while not being provoked into trying blind. She was biding her time, and the sense of threat from her direction intensified rather than dimmed. She was the same three women she had always been, one dormant, one compliant and charming, and one waiting patiently until her opportunity arose. He would never see it coming. She would never take her chance unless she had everything; his death, security defeated and an escape plan. He never considered trusting her or considered her lulled. She remained unconvinced. He believed he could allow her to remain alert while he slept and she would do nothing to harm him until the day she had everything in place. He saw no reason to widen her odds of getting those things in place and therefore she remained dormant. He asked frequent questions under venom about her plans and theories, her impressions and conclusions. His respect for her grew and that fed into wanting her more. He never considered letting her go based on her compliance, charm or innocent joy in minutiae, never considered letting her go because he knew she was needed in the fight or because she deserved freedom. They were all excellent and even strong motivations but meaningless next to his desire to keep her close.

She absorbed the knowledge of what pleased him and used it to make herself indispensible. If he grew tired of her he might kill her and she would not allow that. Pleasing him was her job. Being an unreasonable martyr was her calling. She would do her job and do it well because if she did that she lived. If she lived she could kill him and escape. If she could kill him and escape then she had opportunity to return to her calling. Whatever he did to her was in essence insignificant to her goals as long as she survived it. He was not a person of mercy, therefore she made no attempt to appeal to the nonexistent impulses she might wish he had. She dealt with him as he was, with a politeness and respect he believed genuine and distinct to her. He would not provoke her into lowering herself to his level.

Beckenstein became subtly influenced by her theoretically insignificant presence. He began conducting meetings and kept her at hand in the room but not at the table. She was often engaged in study of whatever she chose. She did not request further instruction in other languages. She provided him with lists of what she wished to learn, he provided information in a form she could not technologically subvert. She was an expert hacker. He checked components before and after any device was given and then taken from her. He decided Beckenstein could accommodate a library. He would rather arrange for reams of printed and bound material as well as whatever she chose of published works to reduce security risk in the form of her boredom and technological genius. Those plans had not been executed, but would be. She now had an assistant curating and printing her idle curiosities, though she did not know it. The estate had strict biometrics and monitoring, encryption on all locks, Ethernet access, personal Omni Tools of staff were locked on the property and even appliances with technical capacity were guarded with limited access code keys to a degree he had once believed was excessive and now he suspected if she had access would be easy for her to exploit.

She watched. She listened. At least to him. Unfortunately for her it was most often one sided conversations, many of his associates Turian or Asari. When she first heard Turian speech from a guest and did not comprehend it, he watched her. She lifted her head and looked at him, comprehension of a different sort in her eyes. She smiled at him and a chill passed through his spine as well as the warmth of his cruelty being effective enough to generate that smile.

The sense of her being a threat was a constant trill in his nervous system, and he enjoyed that. If he expected a captive tiger to roar, she would not. If he expected her to pace and look hungry, she would not. She would watch him and wait, missing nothing. He admired her, coveted her attention, was fascinated by her.

As for her resourcefulness he began to wonder if she would develop a new recipe for an explosive he could not predict made from food scraps, Drell cloth and extracted elements from toiletries. He could predict what was already known to be possible, he could not predict what inspiration would strike her in order to achieve her relentless goal of escape.

Staff did not speak to her and she did not speak to them but she was unfailingly gracious to them. He had threatened her with their wellbeing, but she subtly extended that to them being not only hostage to her behavior, but her responsibility.

Her crew.

Thane found himself glaring at guests who attempted to mistreat his staff because his Drala'fa had noticed a brusque tone or demand and then turned her eyes to him as though he could not keep discipline in his own home.

It worked.

She would permit him to rape her, use her, and he would have to ask her under venom if she was in pain and scold her to care for her body while not being used, yet if a harsh word was spoken to her people, he would know it and she expected him to care for them. Her look at times bore the disdain of one accusing him of not being Drell at all since he seemed to forget simple concepts. She seemed to know exactly what he would or would not allow, what his own sense of morals or dignity or dissolution would or would not allow, and if he failed his own standards and hers, her smile. The smile of the tiger that watches a keeper day after day and believes that there will be an escape route and that watching the keeper will deliver it into their mouth along with the keeper's hands.

One does not keep tigers in order to feel safe. He did not keep her in order to feel safe. She delivered on everything he had hoped or expected of a myth and he appreciated her for who she was. He would not see his own end if it came at her hands. She was brilliant.

If he found himself massaging the feet of his valet at her unspoken suggestion, he would worry further. For now he intimidated guests into respecting her people. They were her people, he knew it. He had told her this was her home facetiously but she made it so. He hired an assistant and planned a library. He was her people also, in an inverse fashion. He was her job and now her responsibility. She would selflessly direct his destructive impulses at her to spare others, capable of distracting him at her whim. He believed without having to ask her that she counted minutes in his presence as not only opportunities to watch and wait for her chance, but opportunities to spare others his attention. She knew he existed. He would not survive her full unleashed regard. She had no control over what she ate, did not place orders or plan menus, but she would smile at her favorite foods and he would stock them. She had preferences and disappointments in the dignity of a household in which she abided and he agreed with her.

He saw why people followed her, why she was worth four billion credits and more. He understood more keenly why the search was still on and would be every day. With her twin suns came gravity. The bond mate of a Councilor would not be abandoned, not only because that was also the definition of Turian but because the bond mate was her. The investment and hope of billions of people would not be set aside. He considered that if they had been in a different world, he would have followed her and taken her orders. He was taking her orders now from wherever she found solid ground. She never lost an inch of it.

He asked her "Drala'fa, these moments are mine and I treasure each one and hope to keep you just as you are, just where you are. When your moment arrives, will you kill me quickly?"

"Yes. Only one of us believes torture is of value."

"Only one of us has reaped the benefits of torture. Without a goodbye?"

"Anything I may have had to say to you, if you'd wished to hear it, you would have told me to say it."

"My thanks for your mercy."

"You're welcome."

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

Arranging gatherings was a security nightmare now for more reasons than there had been before, and he paid careful attention. He must keep her close because her greatest opportunity for escape that he could conceive would arise from her subduing a guest without his knowledge and using their biometrics to leave. She would still have to disable every alarm that would trigger from an implant she did not know she had and overcome all the careful priming and precaution he had placed in her mind, but he did not consider either of those feats beyond her means. It would have been obvious to her by the time she gained any level of autonomy or solitude that she was exhaustively monitored and tracked. He had hired extra security analysis on her surveillance so he need not be aware every moment of her activity. He still had his Omni Tool or a screen in the room he occupied without her often and then always tuned to her, his eyes moving to her in an increasingly more frequent interval like a breath taken and exhaled, anxiety increasing as he looked away. She had never had a phase of her captivity where she had appeared anything other than docile and compliant; indicating that she had deduced immediately that she was monitored and tracked, watched carefully for suspicious behavior. He put nothing beyond her skill to comprehend. Ideas that would seem paranoid when applied to others somehow in her presence shrank to something she could hold in her palm.

He began to wonder if she told him more and more of her intellectual yet dormant ideas about escape and strategy to fascinate him. If so, yet again, it had worked.

Keeping intoxicated criminals from getting out of the estate had never been a problem. Keeping someone from assaulting another guest, in this case her, had not been an issue. That was one of the reasons why the parties were popular. An evening without a mortal wound or a sexual exhibition would be dull.

They had unfortunately still been dull at the time for Thane, but now he embraced the idea of attending gatherings with her with more enthusiasm than he had had at the idea's inception and for subtly different reasons and motivations. Business and pleasure took place during these gatherings. He had held them once a month on the same schedule as Hock. Why criminals would all gather together was an odd artifact of the practicalities of the nature of their business. Communication and meeting arrangements were always problematic in criminal dealings. Electronic records and recorded conversations were prone to being inconveniently targeted by law enforcement. If there were a standing social gathering with the apparent draw of debauchery it could be seen as simply that, the lowest common denominator of the criminal tendency to excess. The gatherings were mundanely practical horrors, just like him. Yes, there was debauchery of all sorts. There was even murder and mayhem. What kept people coming back despite the risk of death and what kept him carrying on this odd tradition was what was to be gained. Business required business contacts and criminals in a herd felt more secure in this setting. A predator would be flushed out and signaled by the other members of the herd in order to keep the herd alert and healthy. The loss of the young or the infirm was expected, but those that considered themselves fleet and wily had the best chance of survival. Entry to the gathering meant sufficient vetting and a reasonable guarantee that the attendee was not undercover law enforcement or in the habit of murdering or swindling business associates. Business meetings required privacy and security. There was an alarming turnover and death rate in the set of experienced and expert criminals. A network was required. Even with abundant work, options were traditionally left open and explored as one might find oneself suddenly without associates due to the common occurrences of gunfire, explosions or raid from authorities. An isolated criminal with no track record and no expectation of the ability to deliver what they promised would have to find an honest job or work freelance, which had an even higher mortality rate. It was a mating call like the full moon, calling deep sea creatures into the strongest light of night but not the light of day. It drew out those who required ongoing opportunity. Matches and deals were made here amid the excuse to see and be seen, counted among the solid and reliable criminals who could be expected to make and keep a deal. Thane's security assured no recordings of plans would find their way to law enforcement.

Thane benefited not through direct surveillance but through observing the patterns, the alliances, the deals being made and the deals being broken. Attendees shifted, waxed and waned according to mortality statistics. Thane was ironically a trusted source of security and even a potential alibi. Plan a heist for that evening and a hundred people would be willing to testify that of course the regular attendee who was out stealing Prothean artifacts was in fact present, covered in gainfully employed Asari dancers and red sand. Thane would produce biometric proof of attendance as a courtesy to law enforcement.

He had interrupted the pattern of the gatherings for the last few months while he devoted himself to her capture and training, but she was now trained and so was he. He feared for her not at all, but he might be forced to kill his guests one by one if they did not respect the distinction between plaything and prize. Killing his guests was within the bounds of the expected general behavior of the attendees, but in bad taste. Nuances that she grasped immediately were lost on the drunken and venal who were also accustomed to license. She had been so effectively threatened early on because she had been able to grasp complicated and shifting consequences even with diminished mental capacity. His guests were not that subtle or that interested in consequence other than to prove they were immune to it. All of his guests were business acquaintances, none were friends. Thane, like Donovan Hock, had no friends. Thane's personal reputation was one of detached disdain and occasional indulgence in offered sex, a certain reputation for leaving partners reeling in panting venom haze and not repeating the experience. He did not drink. He did not indulge in drugs, though he provided drugs and alcohol.

He did not hire Asari dancers or procure sex workers or slaves. His policy was one of license again. A guest could bring whomever they chose, do whatever they chose in the room assigned the function as long as they were willing to be viewed by other guests. Donovan Hock had begun the tradition and Thane extended it, maintaining a room with one overcompensatingly obnoxious throne that Hock had treasured and Thane kept as a remembrance of the man's hubris. The throne had stayed in place, a marble monstrosity and so far had anyone cared to use it they were welcome to it. Now he cherished the idea of the throne, the name Thane Krios and the name Drala'fa in a setting where nothing was as it appeared except for the lust.

Hock had lost his estate while on that throne, begging to be fucked and begging for the right to give away everything he had, his estate and his life. It was a treasured memory and Thane planned on making more there now that he had the proper inspiration and partner.

He doubted his Drala'fa would manifest any shock or exhibit lack of compliance. She would not smile at him as she did when there were no witnesses. That was a loss, though he did not tell her so. He would have relished a moment when her otherwise demure smile turned feral and caused every spine in the vicinity to signal alert. She would be docile and gracious, beautiful and remote. She would be beyond question his prize. If a few people died before word spread not to touch her, so be it. Her pace would be at his side and not behind. Her hand would be on his arm. Her eyes would be on him or downcast. She would not speak to any but him, and only at his request. If that did not signal to those who should be wary that he and she were exceptions to expectations, so be it.

The young and the infirm were fair game. The pack would remain and the stories of the dramatic deaths of those who had stumbled and miscalculated would be repeated with glee at the next call of the criminal moon.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

He collected her for the evening with no special preparation because she had achieved the stage of flawless maintenance of her own beauty. He chose to keep her in bare feet, accentuating the height difference he enjoyed in her, unwilling to raise her higher. She was in draped panels of fabric that lay like feathers, sleek and inviting, the familiar and evocative scent of her and vanisfruit, black and silver and violet. He wore black and silver, choosing his clothing after she had chosen hers.

She had asked no questions about caterers and security firewalls, more people in her home, her potential crew expanding for the evening. She was now kaleidoscopic art in the way she moved, the way she looked at him, and he experienced a warm flush of blood and tingle of provoked biotics just under the skin close to his spine when he looked at her.

"Come, Drala'fa. We have guests."

She smiled and nodded, her hand on his forearm as expected, eyes downcast as signaled, perfect in the gloss of her hair and arch of her neck.

He had learned something effective from her, the power of her smile. He used it during the evening as he greeted guests, as she drew interested and avid glances, as they asked who she was. His only answer was "She is mine" delivered with the smile inspired by her possession of self. The topic of conversation would change or he would move on to greet another guest, excusing them politely.

He need not have worried that anyone would touch her. She was her own force in that regard. She had learned so well what he expected of her that she inspired in him the knowledge that he had no right to touch her himself, but he would. He asked her questions that were polite and he knew the answers, but there was a call and response to the evening he would enjoy. Beginning and ending with "She is mine" in every expression and action.

"Do you wish to eat?"

"No, thank you."

"Do you wish to drink?"

"No, thank you."

"Do you wish to sit?"

"No, thank you."

"Do you wish to speak to any of the guests?"

"No, thank you."

"As you wish, Drala'fa."

He made the rounds of known and new, shared in the feigned grief over the loss of some prior guests and did not indulge in explanation of why the gatherings had been interrupted. Bringing her up the sweeping staircase to the room with the throne, some were already engaged in their indulgences. She did not look, did not react to sound or spectacle. The throne was unoccupied. Perhaps there had been a projected hope or warning that it would be and by them in his smile and her downcast eyes.

Approaching it he paused and asked her "The throne. A practical horror if there ever was one."

She looked at it, tilted her head and smiled. "I agree."

He stepped up on the overly elaborate centerpiece of no known artistic value or ancestor and she followed, feet on cold stone. "Do you wish to sit?"

"No, thank you."

"Sit."

She did, without hesitation, bare feet on cold marble and ass down on same without a shiver or betrayal. She had a clear view of the room but kept her eyes on him. There were mirrors and the room was filling with spectators and participants.

He knelt down in front of her, hands on her knees. "Do you want to spread your thighs for me, Drala'fa?"

"No, thank you."

"Spread your thighs."

She did, and his hands glided along her thighs. He kissed along the inner path of her thigh and asked her "Do you want to come for me, Drala'fa?"

"No, thank you."

"Put your hands on the armrests, your fingers over the edge." She did that, and that meant she had to pull herself forward so she was sitting up and balanced with her thighs open, to do that her ass was halfway off the edge of the seat.

"Come for me. Let them see what I see. Let them hear what I hear. Make them want you, Drala'fa, as much as I do." She did that, all of that, while his tongue and fingers traced her clit, glided inside her, made her wet while she moaned and thrashed with him on his knees. The louder slapping of flesh in the room stopped and then began again with more intensity, the pressing in of dozens of avid eyes, rustles of cloth and hands on bodies, mouths on bodies inspired by the sight of his Drala'fa wide open to him, moaning with a heave to her breasts and tightening of her nails on the armrests. Her moans were orchestrated music and every motion of her body was a blend of practiced artifice layered in veneer on a base of thrumming pleasure. He had never detected her feigning pleasure, but she had learned how to mold its expression into sculptured lines and graceful gestures. He gave her his own inspiration of knowing her body, knowing the slow infusion of venom and the light strokes of tongue and fingertips until she shattered magnificently for the gasping or breathless crowd. She panted and mewled and remembered she did not own his name here among the observers.

He kissed back a line along her thigh to her knee, rose to stand before her gracefully limp and replete form, properly appreciative, adoring eyes and submission. He extended his hand and she took it, stood like a dancer in improvisation to his music.

He turned her and she stood in front of him, his posture exactly that of the moment she had first awakened in his arms, hand at her throat and arm at her waist.

Sex was frenzied on available surfaces in the room. He said "I will give you the evening to decide if you wish for someone in this room to die. Not you. Not me."

"No, thank you."

"As you wish, Drala'fa. I will know if you change your mind. The evening is young. Do you wish to watch them?"

"No, thank you."

"Watch them."

He could not see her face except in profile, though he could see her doll's expression of attentive interest as he asked of her. She was not moved but he was. The room was transformed by her presence, consecrated and judged, the Throne exalted from cheap to sanctified by the touch of her body. The familiar flare of biotics just under his skin felt like a reward of his ambition and vision. She created a perfect moment, worth every risk. He no longer regretted not dying nameless or any moment in his life as it had led to this. She owned his name. He owned hers. She had venom but he would make her take more until her answers changed and melted.

"Do you want my cock, Drala'fa?"

"No, thank you."

"Find my cock with your hand and release me."

She did. He did not have to tell her to adjust her pace or grip, she was perfect, exactly as he wanted, drips of seed and venom making her hand slick. Trembling with need he shifted the fabric feathered over her ass, gripped her hips and told her "Do you want me inside?"

"No, thank you."

"Take me inside."

She was small and that was difficult for her at the angle, with one hand, guiding him with as much expertise as limited range of motion and height difference would allow until he was inside her enough to qualify for her obedience. He lifted her with her knees over his forearms, seated himself inside her and glided in and out of her body, slowly, rocking her, his teeth at her throat in gentle bites. He shifted his thumb to her clit and stroked at her, soft sounds of encouragement, venom taking hold and her long slide down into pleasure starting to drag at her. He waited for that moment, where her voluntary and involuntary, conditioned and predispositioned impulses faltered and blended.

He rocked into her until she began to buck to take him deeper, started to mewl at the stroke of his thumb, started with her lip bitten and her eyes struggling to take in what she needed to see in opposition of what she wanted to feel.

"Do you want to come for me?"

"Yes, please." She was gasping, breathless.

"As you wish, Drala'fa."

She was as always exquisite, abandoned and clenching around him until his seed dripped down across his abdomen, her legs held up and opened, green and black against white and black, silver shared, his teeth on her earring and his tongue finding the moment.

He sat back on the throne, hooking her thighs on the armrests, still semi-hard inside her and throbbing, watching her watch.

It did not take long, she noticed and her softened gaze and sensibilities lacking caution or editing of her natural impulses saw what he wished for her to see.

There was among the guests a Batarian with a human slave, a young boy, offered to any who wanted him. He spoke with his voice warm against her ear "I invited him for you, Drala'fa. Batarians live long lives. I believe he was present on Mindoir. He wished to find a new market for his slaves, hoping I would provide it."

She was silent and staring, not her feral stare but her open and vulnerable look of pain she could not hide when she was weakest.

"Would you like me to set his slaves free?"

"Yes, please."

"Would you like for me to kill him for you, Drala'fa?"

"Yes, please."

She turned her head to kiss him, dedication and devotion on each trace of her fingertips on his frill and each stroke of her tongue on his lips.

As he had told her, there were worse things than collusion with him. He would invite them one by one to his gatherings, take her every way he chose and then allow his unreasonable martyr to remove them from the world with him as her weapon.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

He had been gone for two days, the longest span of time alone she had spent since being here. He was out tracking a Batarian that he would not kill on the estate, finding that unsporting. It would make it harder for him to find new people willing to venture to his gatherings if they inevitably turned out dead before the night was out.

Cara waited for her opportunity, far back beyond the lines of caution and warning he had built. She did not test them. Ironically she waited for the Reapers to save her, and she had faith that they would, either through changing her environment or killing her. She waited for her chance.

She waited for his inevitable words to come endlessly before that time. "Come, Drala'fa. We have guests."