Slave To The Fang

8, Rule number one

Gale's POV

Silence and awkwardness settled in the beautiful room like a suffocating blanket in the middle of summer and I stared ahead at my hands, still fondling the little piece of cloth that said I was free after this.

I mulled my options over in my head, analyzing everything with a keener focus than usual in these situations. So many questions rushed to my mind and for the first time since I was a slave, I was more than curious about my new mistress and everything that surrounded this place.

I didn't know much about the politics in Lakaiyah. All I knew was, I was in the Southern Regions, the Lord here was Lord Kyryaan. You can't really blame me. When you've been a slave all your life, nothing else seems to matter apart from your survival. What does it matter who rules the regions? What does it matter how they are? Well except it did now and I mentally smacked myself in the head from never paying attention on those rare moments when other slaves would talk, discuss and giggle at length about the heads of the various regions of Lakaiyah.

It was just my bad luck that my mistress lived in the same mansion as the Lord of the Southern Regions and from her carriage and that grand reception downstairs, she was very important here. A thought snuck into my head, wondering who she was to him but it quickly snuck back out. It was none of my business. I was here to train the doll and try to survive long enough to my freedom. Freedom, it had such a hopeful taste to it but I knew it was much more complicated than anything.

It wasn't just enough to be free in this world. Even if I got free, how would I survive? Under the clutches of a master or a mistress I was safe from anyone else but out there, anyone could have access to me, be it vampires, werewolves, witches, fae or any other creature. Humans were known to even be as barbaric as the vampires themselves. I know I thought a lot and I spent too much time analyzing the bad aspects of life but I had grown up that way and it was the only thing that kept me sane. When you thought about the bad things and sort of expected them, you were less likely to be disappointed when it happened. Hopeful people always got disappointed. I had seen it one too many times as a slave.

And the doll beside me was too hopeful for her own good. Speaking of which, I needed to stop calling her doll and maybe find out her own name seeing as I was going to be training her and all. I dragged myself away from my thoughts, letting my eyes trail around the room and back to her.

My eyes skipped over a large Queen Sized bed with white covers and too many stuffed pillows, red velvet cushions, the color of blood surrounding an expensive looking glass table, a huge dresser laced in gold with the shiniest and most expensive looking things in it that I had ever seen that overlooked a very wide mirror that had writings, inscribed around the edges with what seemed like a moon-like circle right at the very bottom, to two locked doors to the side, one which probably led to a closet and the other which probably led to an adjoining bathroom, gold laced blinds and off to the side, a large human sized cage that would have looked brand new if not for the piece of hair stuck to one of the bars and some blood. I shuddered at the sight and quickly dragged my eyes away from it.

It set a sinking feeling in my stomach and it reaffirmed my previous analysis that Lady Karayan was not one to joke around with. She was dangerous. Extremely dangerous. I couldn't assume whether she left the cage there with the hair and the blood as a warning or she really didn't care but both of those psyches were dangerous on their own. When my eyes where done with the mild analyses, I came to the conclusion that this was Lady Karayan's room.

Why would she bring us here on the first day? Was she testing us? Was this a game that she played whenever she bought a new slave? See if they will steal? And then settle with the satisfaction of murdering that same slave. Is that what happened to her last slave? The one with the straight auburn hair in the cage? I shudder again, set my resolve steely and removed my mind from the situation, looking for the doll.