Fallen Star by Morgan Hawke Page A

was tight. “You heard me.”
    She cringed. He was seriously pissed. “I’m ... I’m sorry.”
    “Good girl.” He pushed her back upright and released her hair. He cupped her shoulders and stroked her arms. “Now, keep that feral temper of yours in check.”
    Fallon hunched under his hands, but the urge to bite him had completely fled. She had no idea where that urge had come from in the first place.
    Sobehk released her arms and stepped away to retrieve a fresh cloth from the floor. “You’ve got good reflexes; I barely caught that kick. You’re going to make a damned fine upuaht rehkyt .” He watched her as he coated the cloth with soap. “But the faster you learn to submit, the easier everything will go for you.”
    Submit? Her hands clenched on the bar and she shivered. “I don’t take orders very well.”
    He snorted. “That is the understatement of the year.” He knelt at her side and grabbed her ankle, turning her as far to the side as her hands on the bar would allow. “You’d better get used to taking orders.” He looked up at her with narrowed eyes. “Or you will get beaten, a lot.” His cloth swept across her belly and he began his merciless scrubbing across her hips then up toward her breasts.
    Fallon rocked under his strong strokes. She’d been beaten before. It hadn’t done any good then, she doubted it would do any good now. She suddenly tripped over the end of his earlier statement. “Wait a minute ... you thought I’d make a what?”
    “Took you long enough to catch that.” He focused his scrubbing on her breasts. “An upuaht rehkyt is a bodyguard. Upuaht translates into Imperial basic as ‘canine guard.’ Rehkyt means pet.”
    “What is with you and all the ‘canine’ and ‘pet’ stuff?” She bit her lip as the cloth rasped against her nipples, bringing them to abrupt and insistent life. “I’m not an animal!”
    “Oh, but you are.” Sobehk stood and lifted her chin to stare into her eyes. “Close your eyes.” He ruthlessly scrubbed her face. “ Rehkyt are what we Skeldhi call our human pets.” He rinsed the soap from her cheeks carefully. “There, much better.”
    “A human pet? ” Fallon had to blot her eyes against her shoulder as she couldn’t release her hands from the rail. “What? Are you going to put a collar and leash on me?” The idea was so silly a smile lifted her lips.
    Sobehk scrubbed down her arms, pinking her skin in his wake. “Yes.”
    “Huh?” Fallon stared at him. “Are you serious?”
    “Very.” He tossed the cloth on the floor and reached for the soap dispenser. “Lift your chin and close your eyes; I’m going to wash your hair.”
    Fallon lifted her chin and closed her eyes tight. “A collar for people?”
    His fingers dove into her matted hair and massaged her scalp. “The collar is for temperamental pets .” Thick lather dripped onto her shoulders. “ Rehkyt are designed to be sexually aggressive. Their appetites -- or their tempers -- occasionally get out of hand. The control collar, the shen , is jacked directly into your nervous system at the cerebral cortex. It does pretty much what force-cuffs do, only more so.” He doused her hair with water to rinse off the soap.
    She shook her head to clear her eyes. “You’re putting a control collar on me?”
    “Yep.” Sobehk spread soap on his palms and trapped her gaze with his. “You’ll be collared as soon as we are done here. As soon as I get to a proper enclave, I’m getting you a nice steel chain with a tag with your name and mine.”
    “A chain ... two collars?”
    He stepped behind her and his broad palms swept down, spreading soap along her waist and over her hips. “The control collar is for behavior, it doesn’t come off. The chain is for the leash, and the tag marks you publicly as mine -- my pet, and my property.”
    Leashes? Tags? He really was treating her like a pet! Her mind reeled under the shock of what he was saying. Her knees jelled and