Slave Unbound Ch. 29

It might only buy Genmar a few more weeks before he faced likely death again, but those would be weeks when Leita could try and better prepare him. Perhaps, she could even make him seem less expendable. Regardless of whether it was worth her time to blame herself or not, she still felt she owed it to him to try.

By the time they reached the door to the HouseMistress's private chambers, Leita felt she had managed to get herself enough under control to do whatever she must. She felt, at the very least, she could manage to retain an air of respect and obedience for her owner. Still, at the back of her mind, lingered the original thought that the timing of the summons had been meaningful beyond Sabrina feeling an itch that needed scratching.

As she was brought through the doors, still chained at the wrists and on a lead, she was surprised by the scene that unfolded before her. She had expected the sight of Sabrina, lounging on her deep sofa and nursing a drink, but she was surprised by the presence of Sasinel dancing nearby, dressed in sheer silks and glittering jewelries that spared very little of her modesty, and a pair of house slaves standing off to one side.

Sasinel's acceptance of her new position in the House had been nothing, if not stoic, possibly even optimistic, in scope. Leita had come to know the sidil well enough to understand that, despite her culture's belief in personal freedom and hatred of enslavement, that same culture's sense of honor and belief in utmost discipline made her as dedicated to her role as a slave as she had been to her role as a gladiator. To not perform to the best of her duty, whether it was a place of her choosing or not, would be a disgrace to her.

Perhaps, though, there was also the tiniest thread of selfish indulgence in her agreement with becoming the new concubine for their Mistress. The first time Leita had seen the pale, beautiful woman after her removal from the stable, she'd barely recognized Sasinel at all. Though the sidil had always taken great pains to maintain a moderately groomed appearance, it paled in comparison to the luxury with which she could now take care of herself.

Gone were the frayed, dusty, braids she often kept her long, white hair in. Gone were the course tunic and breeches of the training pitch. In their place was now clean snowy plaits that framed a carefully made up face. Her body was now always adorned in fine dress of silk or satin, cut in revealing fashions meant to accentuate her beautiful body and appeal to the appetites she was meant to feed.

And yet, despite the resplendent glamor of the sidil, it was Leita who had continued to accompany their owner to the bed, not the Mistress' concubine. Sasinel was typically left to her own devices, serving only as a show piece for social engagements and guests. Still, unlike Cookie, Sasinel refrained from acting as though she were somehow above any other of Sabrina's slaves. Of course, also unlike Cookie, the sidil had little more liberty to move about as she pleased than she'd had as an Element.

Though she had obviously been watching her concubine dance before she'd entered, Sabrina turned her attention to Leita, looking her up and down appraisingly for several moments. Her eyes looked a bit unfocused and Leita recognized that, despite her having a pretty strong tolerance for liquor, she was particularly inebriated. "You look utterly filthy, my darling." She said finally, the words a bit slurred.

Setting her drink down a moment, she clapped her hands to get the attention of the two house slaves. "Clean her up." She ordered them. "I want her fresh as a tulip."

The two slaves obediently rolled a largish wooden tub over, set it down, and began undressing Leita and removing her fetters. Sabrina resumed her drinking while she watched the process, seeming to enjoy the show. Once she was unclothed, Leita stepped into the tub to be washed, taking in the whole of the scene in the room. Her private guards, who she typically dismissed when it she brought Leita up for pleasure, were still in their places about the room, meaning she was keeping this more formal. Sabrina herself seemed a bit tense, despite her lubrication of drink, with a strain about her eyes that Leita hadn't seen before.

After a couple minutes of watching the slaves cleaning her gladiator, Sabrina chuffed. "Stop! Stop and back away." She waved for them to move aside and then turned to look at her dancing concubine. "Sassy, I want you to finish cleaning her. Make it worth my audience."

The sidil stopped her motions, looking directly at Leita for the first time. While she did not immediately obey, her pause seemed less about hesitation than considering her plan of action. Finally, she crossed over to the tub and stepped into it with Leita, reaching out one jewelry covered hand towards one of the slaves in silent request for their washing cloth. Upon receiving it, she set to her task, making every movement sensual, like a lover's caress.

It felt strange to have her friend tending to her this way, occasionally planting subtle kisses to cleaned spots and brushing herself against her purposefully. For her part, Leita merely stood and kept her eyes on her Mistress, trying to gauge the subtexts and undercurrents of this little tableau. First the week of keeping Leita at arms-length, now this strange performance.

There was still little doubt that the timing of it all wasn't a coincidence with what was happening with Genmar. There was little question that Sabrina was aware that Leita had been training him, likely had seen her questioning Colja or been told by a guard in earshot of the conversation. It seemed probable that she'd quickly orchestrated this as some kind of distraction, either to ensure she didn't forewarn the doomed gladiator of his impending fate or to keep Leita from making sure he managed to survive it.

Thinking from her owner's point of view, half the point was to be rid of a gladiator that she saw as simply taking up space in her stable. One that, given his lack of skill would give little profit from simply selling him. If Genmar survived the fight, not only would she still be saddled with a poor fighter, but she would also then have the expense of his recuperation. Better that he goes blindly into the fight and die.

Perhaps, she'd chosen to engage Leita in this way to avoid the temptation of allowing her to have the chance to speak more frankly, once she'd serviced her owner into a more malleable state of mind. However, Sabrina's heavy intoxication suggested something much more was going on. Sabrina didn't bend to drink quickly, so for her to be so besotted, she'd have had to be tippling for some time already.

"Don't just stand there like a tree stump, Leita." Sabrina's words cut into her thoughts. "My poor Sassy is doing all the work of making this entertaining. Reciprocate, dear."

Leita paused a moment, uncertain. "I thought my Mistress forebode me from such contact with anyone but herself?" She dared to ask.

If the question irritated Sabrina, she showed little sign of it. Instead she just chuckled and made a motion with her cup, clumsily sloshing the contents about the floor. "Unless I give permission! And this is me, obviously, giving permission for the two of you to entertain your owner by fucking each other while she watches." Her voice sounded so drunken that Leita had to wonder if the woman was even fully aware of what she was doing anymore.

Despite her misgivings, Leita obeyed, turning her attention to Sasiniel. At first, she simply caressed and touched back as the sidil explored her body with the rag. After few minutes, she upped the ante, taking Sasiniel by the face and kissing her deeply, one hand sliding beneath the sparse garments to tease one of the sidil's nipples. It was not long before any pretense of bathing was abandoned and the two of them were simply standing in ankle-deep water fondling and kissing one another.

Inwardly, Leita felt oddly embarrassed to be so engaged with the sidil. While she would have been lying to say that she did not find the woman alluring and was partly enjoying the situation, it felt out of place to be doing this with someone she saw as a mentor and trusted friend. In truth, she had no romantic feelings for Sabrina either, but that seemed somehow different.

Glancing towards her owner from the corner of her eye, she noted that, though she was watching them with an expression of lustful interest, that tension was still about her features, as though she were wrestling with something. Perhaps, it was a part of her still wanting to keep Leita as hers alone, both enjoying the sight of her with her concubine and feeling jealous over it.

A small bubble of that previous anger rose from deep within Leita, a rebellious notion forming in her mind. Turning her attention fully back to Sasiniel, she pushed away all feelings of awkwardness at the situation. In the next moment, she took complete control of the moment, establishing an air of dominance with the sidil. If her Mistress wanted a show, she would give her one.

Leita tore free the sheer silks from Sasiniel's body, tossing them aside before positively ravishing the sidil. For her part, the beautiful, pale woman became quickly lost in the passionate encounter, allowing herself to surrender to her prior apprentice. Within moments, Leita had the woman moaning and clawing at her back.

Lifting her up, Leita stepped out of the tub and carried Sasiniel over to the bed, depositing her roughly there, before turning to look towards Sabrina. For a moment, the HouseMistress seemed of two minds, split in her feelings, but whatever was motivating her to take this tact won out and she languidly rose from her couch and drug one of the large stuffed chairs around and closer to the bed to plop into drunkenly and better watch.

Turning back, Leita climbed atop Sasiniel on the bed, pausing only long enough to search the sidil's face for any sign that she was distressed by what was happening. However, the sidil seemed honestly eager to resume and hungry to be touched. Leita considered again that Sabrina seemed not to ever actually call upon her concubine for anything more than a show-piece.

If Leita was honest with herself, her week long pause of sexual activity had left her with a bit of an itch and a desire to have it well scratched. And so, she and Sasiniel scratched their mutual itches very well, both of them losing themselves into one another, that Leita all but forgot everything else going on around them. The two women practically devoured one another, carnal utterings bursting from their voices as they gave in to explosions of pleasure and sensation.

And then came the sound of a slamming door, jarring them both from the trance. They barely had time to look up and see the chair where Sabrina had been sitting was now empty, before a pair of guards came through the door she'd just exited from and roughly pulled Sasiniel from the bed, forcing her into a satin robe, and ushering her from the room.

The speed of the jarring transition left Leita's head spinning. Suddenly, she was alone in the room. Even the private guard and house slaves had vacated the room. For a long minute, she waited there, uncertain what was about to happen. She assumed that Sabrina had cleared the room either because she'd become too aroused or jealous to let the scene continue and had finally decided to engage Leita herself, privately.

However, after almost ten minutes passed with no return from her owner, Leita dared to dismount the bed and venture to the door. When she opened it, she found a guard standing there, blocking her way out.

"You are to remain here." He said flatly, offering no further explanation or instruction, before pulling the door from her grasp and closing it in her face.

For a long moment, she just stood there, naked and bewildered. Finally, she turned and scanned the room. There were no other exits to the chamber, at least not obvious ones. Situated at the heart of the estate house, there was not even windows in the room. Absently, she began to wander the space, trying to get her barring on what was happening.

Had she crossed a line? Was Sabrina currently punishing Sasiniel and intending to return with someone to take Leita off to be strapped to a pole and whipped somewhere? She knew her Mistress could be fickle and impulsive sometimes, her typically firm hold on her emotions occasionally giving way to almost immature outbursts. Just because she had encouraged the whole scene didn't mean that she hadn't reached a limit.

The question was, what should she do?

Obviously, her only option was to wait until her owner returned or sent someone to fetch her. She began to return to the bed, figuring that was where she was likely expected to wait for her Mistress. However, before she reached it, her attention snagged on something that had held her curiosity for a very long time.

The large, covered, birdcage that sat on the ornate desk at the back of the room. It had been there since her first time in the room, but she'd never once seen what lay beneath the sheet or heard any sound come from it. Had she not occasionally seen subtle shudders of the covering cloth that indicated that something alive was indeed within the cage, she might have assumed it empty.

For the first time, she found herself with an opportunity to sate her long curiosity over the cage. She considered that she had never been explicitly told to never touch it, though she'd never seen anyone, Sabrina included, interact with it. At least, not while she was present. There had been occasions where it was clear that the cover had been removed and replaced and times where Leita was sure that Sabrina had been sitting at the desk with the cage just prior to her arrival.

She considered also that she was unlikely to get another chance to peek beneath the cloth without anyone to stop her for a long time. That was enough to motivate her to take the chance and finally learn what sort of rare pet her Mistress kept there. As she moved over to the desk, she could hear a faint flutter of movement in the thing, further confirming that it was not empty.

When she reached it, her hand lingered for a long moment more, hovering over the top of the cover. She wasn't sure why she felt such hesitation. Again, she reminded herself that she had never once been warned away from the cage or given any instructions to avoid it. For all she knew, it was nothing more than just a normal bird, perhaps one that preferred darkness.

Still, she sensed that whatever lay within was meant to be a secret, some special thing that her owner kept hidden. Considering that the room was full of depictions of Sabrina's naked body, all of which she personally knew were anatomically accurate, there wasn't many things that she felt the need to hide. Whatever was beneath the cloth might be something that Leita was not allowed to see.

If so, then why leave her alone with it? That thought was enough to lead her to finally pull free the cover. In the next moment, she was staggering backward in utter disbelief, the sheet dropping from her hand without thinking.

Within the cage was something out of pure myth and wild story. A creature she'd always assumed, despite the bizarre creatures and races she had personally seen, to be only imaginary. To see it, real and in living flesh, made her wonder if she was actually dreaming.

In the cage was a fairy.