The Invisible Ring

plans for this one. I don’t want him dying before I get any use out of him.”
    Her voice made Jared’s skin crawl. Her psychic scent unnerved him. Even without the wild stranger’s presence, it produced a kind of lust in him that went beyond the body’s desires, the kind of lust a dark-Jeweled male felt in the presence of a dark-Jeweled witch. It made him crave her touch, made him want her hands on him.
    He hated her for that most of all.
    The escort hesitated, then said, “I can take care of it, Lady.”
    Relief flooded Jared when Grizelle left the small room. It would be better to feel another man’s rough hands than have those gentle fingers touch him again.
    When the guards delivered the clothes and the healing supplies a few minutes later, Jared’s world narrowed to a fierce craving for water. He thought of asking the escort if he could drink from the basin—he would have drunk anything at that moment, no matter what had been added to the water to clean the wounds—but the man’s angry growl killed the words before they could form. As he suffered the sting of warm water and cleansing herbs while the escort washed his back and belly, he wondered if Grizelle had known what kind of torment this would be or if she simply didn’t care how long he’d been without water.
    Jared endured the cleaning in silence, but he gasped when the escort smeared the healing salve into the lash wounds on his back. It felt icy after the warm water. It also quickly numbed his skin.
    Released from a little more pain, he started remembering the advice Daemon Sadi had given him the year they had spent together.
    Daemon had called it balls and sass. If a male went into a court cringing, for whatever reason, and regained a little strength or showed a little temper, it would be regarded as defiance by the Queen and the witches in her First Circle, and as a challenge by all the other males who feared losing their place in the court’s pecking order. However, if a male went in with balls and sass, forcing the Queen and the other witches to remember that the danger of a dark Jewel couldn’t be dismissed just because a man wore a Ring and was called a slave, he was treated more cautiously, faced fewer challengers among the males, and was thought of as a chained predator instead of as prey. In some courts, it meant the difference between surviving or not.
    “I can do that,” Jared croaked when the escort started smearing salve on the belly wounds. He wasn’t sure about that, wasn’t even sure he could stand up much longer since he was quickly reaching his threshold of physical endurance. Balls and sass were a fragile shield, but, right now, they were all he had. “I can do that,” he said again.
    “Shut up,” the escort snarled as he hurriedly applied the salve.
    Jared studied the grim face, the shadows in the eyes that avoided his. The escort was a Warlord who wore the Purple Dusk Jewel. How did he survive looking at the bruised, naked bodies of his Brothers? How did he survive looking at the ones who had been maimed or broken or shaved? Did he go home to a lover or a wife he felt some affection for? Did he have children he cuddled and played with and loved? Or had he picked up a witch at the auction one year, one already broken and barren, whom he mounted without considering her feelings or well-being? What did he think of the males bought and sold here? Had he ever looked up one day and seen a man he’d called a friend standing on the auction block?
    Ah, the shadows in the eyes. The worry behind having to escort someone like the Gray Lady around the slave fair. Look well , Jared thought as the man finished applying the salve and stepped away. Look at the price you may have to pay for one error in judgment .
    As if the thoughts had been sent on a psychic spear thread, the escort looked Jared in the eyes. Seconds passed in strained silence. “You’re nothing but a pretty mouth, a dangle for the Ladies to play with,” the escort snarled.
    Jared smiled savagely. “I’m a Red-Jeweled Shalador Warlord. I’m stronger than you’ll ever be, can unleash power you can only dream of. And I’m still here.”
    The escort’s jaw tightened. His breathing became harsh. “Get dressed. Your dangle’s for private viewing now.”
    The clothes had been dropped on a rough bench next to the small table that held the basin. Jared forced himself to look away from the basin full of dirty water, but not soon enough.
    With a fiercely pleased look in his eyes, the escort used