AN: Again… my Husband thinks I need to offer a warning – I think that y'all get that when you're dealing with slavery, that shit is going to go down, I don't go into too much detail, you can use your imagination. Possibly, this bit is darker than my normal style but one of my reviewers wanted hurt…not sure if this is what they meant though...

Chapter 36 – Master

OK so, maybe 'No Problem' wasn't entirely accurate.

Max would have loved to say that things were going swimmingly for her back at the slavers camp. But in all honesty… they weren't.

She had ordered, cajoled and hell, even pleaded with the slave girls to cut her free. She had promised that she could remove their collars, set them free and take the camp for them, if they would only give her the first nudge to freedom. Her authoritive growl only got her so far. She could only get information out of them but not action. They were too far gone in cowed slavery.

Max gritted her teeth and ground her jaw in frustration. She didn't really blame them, she had no idea what they had been through up until this point in their enslavement and she didn't want to guess. Would she be willing to risk the lives of all of the women in this camp for a complete stranger, no matter how confidant she seemed?

She expelled air from her nose in a long impatient gust as she eyeballed Ness, who was across the tent faffing about with cleaning products and straightening up. Alice was behind her, drawing a comb through her newly washed hair. Her damned hair had already been clean, clean and smelling of carrot flowers just how she liked it. Now she smelled like a stupid conifer tree.

"Can I at least take a closer look at one of your collars?" Max tried to engage the girls again. "I can't touch it, I just want to see how it's armed."

Alice stopped combing.

"Alice, I can take them off." She said assured the girl, for the hundredth time. "I can free you."

The girl started combing again. FUUUUUCK! Max slumped her shoulders in defeat.

There was the sound of male voices outside of the tent and the girls began to quiver in fear. Each of them ceased what they were doing and knelt on the floor in front of Max and pressed their foreheads into ground in submission. She was out of time.

She heard the tent flap being forcefully swept aside behind her and the heavy footfall of a man in armour enter. She carefully arranged her face into an expression of indifference.

"Oh, Honey," She said brightly, her voice dripping with barely suppressed contempt "You're home. How delightful."

Tiberius Curia walked arrogantly around Max's bound form, he arrogantly kicked the girls on the floor aside with his heavy armoured boots and stood before her with his hands arrogantly on his hips, a cruel smirk on his arrogant lips. She couldn't wait to beat that arrogant sneer from his face. She'd smash those horribly twisted lips through the back of his skull.

"You heal fast." He said approvingly after he had looked her over for remnants of her earlier beating, taking his time on her smooth bare thighs and the tawny unblemished skin of her chest where it sank into the deep shadow of her cleavage. "Good."

"You are something to behold." He said a little breathlessly while he perused her. "I may even send you as a gift to the Bull himself."

Who the fuck was the Bull? Max thought.

Her eye caught the movement of the slave girls as they gathered themselves off the floor and crept quietly away. Ness crept back a moment later dragging a chair with her. She positioned it behind Tiberius Curia and crept away again, her eyes downcast. He sat without looking behind him. He reclined back into the chair and continued to look her over.

'Before I contemplate your fate, either as product or gift, I think I need to crack on with breaking you. I have been thinking about it…" He mused softly, his icy blue eyes glittering.

He held out his hand and snapped his fingers imperiously. Ness scurried forwards again and placed a hunting knife into the mans open palm. She met Maxs eyes this time, she clenched her jaw and looked away quickly, taking her place on the far side of the tent with Alice. Max saw her draw a deep breath and let it our shakily, the girl knew what was coming.

"…and the brazier, girl." Tiberius Curia snapped impatiently over his shoulder.

Ness jumped in fright and hurried over to one of the smoking cast iron braziers in the corner of the tent. She slipped a pair of red oven mitts onto her hands and struggled to move the hot, ungainly thing over to his side. She went over and collected another item and placed it in the scorching coals. She caught Max's eye again, this time she had tears threatening to cascade down her dirty cheeks. As she once again took her place next to Alice on the side of the tent, she lifted the hem of her smock that hung over her left thigh and exposed a circular burn in the shape of a crude rendition of a bull. It was about the size of the bottom of a nuka cola bottle.

Oh Hell No! Max thought suddenly… he was NOT going to brand her. No way in fucking hell was he branding her like cattle.

Max kept her mouth shut and looked him in the eye, this was not the time for quips and banter. She twisted her hands against her binds behind her back and felt the rope cutting into her skin with no give what so ever. This was shaping up to be a really shitty day.

Tiberius Curia rolled the hilt of the knife in his hands as he contemplated her, he gripped it firmly in his right hand and leaned towards her. He inserted it slowly between her breasts, blade down and began to cut her smock away from her body with rough jerking slashes, the tearing sound of the fabric grating on Maxs nerves and set her teeth on edge. She watched his face as he worked, cutting away the tunic piece by piece, tear by tear, until he had her sitting naked before him. He sat back slowly, his eyes pawing at her.

"I get the feeling…. Profligate… that you don't care for your own skin." He spoke softly, almost absently as he devoured her body with his eyes. "But I also get the feeling that you do care about the skin of others."

Max tried to keep the rage from her eyes but she knew they were flashing. She needed to calm down, she needed to relax, she couldn't shut down if she continued to boil so. She drew in a deep breath, her nostrils flaring and her eyes slipped closed and then opened. She felt her face colouring as she struggled for control. He was looking at her face now and she tried to maintain the façade of indifference to him.

He looked back up at her face, a slow smirk coming over his face again as he saw her reddened cheeks, mistaking it for a blush. He didn't see it, the struggle. She was glad of it.

"It is my job to find weakness." He informed her, his voice sliding over her like nails on a chalkboard. "You are strong. But others are weak and your weakness is caring about their weakness. Alice…come here." He ordered sharply.

The little red heads eyes opened wide and a look of terror crossed her pretty face. She stepped forwards hesitantly and slowly slunk over to her masters side. Her head was bowed and her lips trembling, a tear snaked its way down her cheek.

Tiberius Curia locked his eyes on Maxs as he reached his hand up, snaring the young girls hair and dragging her to her knees at his side.

"I selected Alice as my own." He said in a conversational tone, clutching the blazing locks in his fist, the young woman flinching and gasping in pain. "She is pretty and delicate and she was so terribly easy to break. This girl will do whatever I want, whatever I need… and I have some voracious needs, do I not, Alice?"

Max didn't waver, she stared directly into his eyes as he began to tear at the girls tunic.

She couldn't do anything. She wanted to roar in frustration, in fury. She wanted to tear from the ropes and crush this creatures face into a gory smear on the floor. But she could do nothing but sit by and watch as he assaulted the poor girl. He watched her as well, his eyes roaming over her as he used her naked flesh as fuel for his ardor, while he used the young girls unwilling body for his twisted gratification. He shuddered out his release with his eyes on Maxs lips and his tongue sliding over his own.

He threw Alice away from him forcefully when he was done and she flailed on the floor for a moment before she picked herself up slowly, she ran her hand over her mouth and slunk back to her place against the wall of the tent, her shoulders hunched as she buried down her racking sobs and her eyes squeezed shut.

Tiberius Curia smiled then. Max had growled low in her throat and her lip hitched up in a snarl. It was the first emotion that she had shown other than mocking or indifference. He adjusted his armour, covering himself and leaned over to the brazier. He turned the handle of the branding iron, sending up sparks from the burning coals.

He turned back to her, his eyes cold and cunning.

"I won't touch you after this," he said, "and neither will any of my men. If you attempt anything that I deem threatening or disobedient or disrespectful, you will not be punished. One of your sisters will. They will take every lash. They will take every cock and they will hang from a cross in a blizzard if need be… all for you."

He picked the branding iron out of the coals and smiled beatifically at her. "That is, unless you take the life of one of my men. I cannot condone that. You will lose your head for that and I will select five other girls to die with you. They will go first while you watch and then I will take your pretty head off your pretty shoulders and mount your mouth at crotch height outside of my tent."

He grinned and brought the brand down onto the side of her left thigh.

Max didn't flinch, she ground her back teeth together and her eyes blazed with hatred as her skin sizzled and puckered under the brand. The smell of burned meat pervaded her senses and she inhaled it deeply, feeding the hate.

"And if you run…" He whispered threateningly, pressing the brand down hard, "If you run, I will kill them all."

He pulled the brand from her thigh and placed it back into the brazier with a nonchalant toss.

Tiberius Curia sat back with a satisfied smirk on his face. "Not so chatty now are you, woman?"

"I was wondering how long it will be until you send me away as a gift for your Bull?" Max queried, though her voice no longer held her usual mocking levity. "How will you keep me docile when the threat to the others is no longer a risk?"

Her green eyes burned as she held his icy stare.

"Ha." His short laugh cracked without humour. "You believe I am the worst of the slave masters…How quaint. You will be bludgeoned into submission with the innocent eyes of children when you are given to Him. He will surround you with little ones who will take your punishments the way my girls will here. Is your rebelliousness worth the blood of dozens of children?"

She glared at him, her fire slowly extinguishing and he knew that she was done.

He stood up and leaned over her, his lips brushing against her ear. "You belong to the Legion now." His chill voice whispered softly.

He pulled back from her, his eyes sparkling with humourless mirth as he ducked down and bought the hunting knife to the ropes at her ankles and cut them free. He straightened and walked around to her back. He leaned in and pressed his lips at her ear again.

"Slave." His voice hissed as he dragged the blade over the bindings at her wrists, letting them fall to the floor

Max stared straight ahead. She couldn't do anything.