Free The Bid by Jax Page A

continued, “When Hanna bought me ten years ago, I had suffered my time on the auction stage fully awake and aware, bound from tearing the hearts out of those who abused me against my will. It was Hanna’s first and her last auction. She was so horrified over my treatment that she couldn’t ever attend another, no matter what her needs. One day you will realize what a sacrifice that has meant for her.”
    “So what? She couldn’t stomach it, so she sends you in her stead. She thinks she can pretend she isn’t a part of perpetuating slavery because she doesn’t do the actual buying of those who draw her bath and cook her food?”
    “Hanna has only two slaves, Vejhon,” Najir informed coldly. “Me and now you. This House is run by paid commoners, servants earning wages. It is the only House in the city to do so fully.”
    The information gave Jhon pause. He narrowed suspicious eyes on Najir, trying to read whether or not he was being honest. Then again, it was completely counterproductive to the training of a slave to say things like this. What he said amounted to a woman who actually couldn’t tolerate slavery. But then why…?
    Jhon asked the question with only his expression, and Najir nodded in understanding as he relaxed just a little. “She has her reasons for the exceptions she has made with you and me, and it is not my place to speak of them. She will reveal herself in her own time and way. What I will discuss with you is how Hanna spent her time with you earlier.”
    Najir saw the rushing clouds of fury that ran over the other man’s expression, and he didn’t blame him in the least for it. But that response was why he had come there in the first place.
    “What do you know of it?” Vejhon asked furiously, a sheen of red coating his vision.
    “Because I’ve lived it! Hanna reached into that nightmare and plucked me out of it. But at the time, like you, I didn’t know she was different from the others and I didn’t trust her either. For you, it is worse, because she was forced to submerge you into the ice of her culture herself, and she damaged the path to trust with you for the sake of your life and comprehension.”
    “Do you get that vague way of saying shit from her, or is this common around here?” Jhon snorted contemptuously.
    “Fine.” Najir took a step closer and both men tensed. “She drugged you. She touched you. She forced your body into orgasm against your will. And I am here to tell you how lucky you are that it was her doing all of it. Yes, it felt like a violation, and it was. But she only did it to show you a little of what you will suffer if you try to leave the safety of this House. If you run away, in this society, you become fair game for the hunt. Anyone who can recapture you will own you. Do you understand?”
    “What’s your point?” Vejhon asked gruffly, although he had a terrible sinking feeling that he already knew what it was.
    “Run, if you want. Go. Try to do what no slave has ever done. You are powerful and resourceful, you might make it farther than any of them. But be warned,” Najir said, his voice dropping to an ominous tone that Vejhon realized came from a terrible place of knowledge within the man, and not just theatrics. “What she did to you today is bliss and delight compared to what you will face once captured by another. Hanna is singular, I assure you. No one else will weep in their heart with guilt after they have violated you. No. They will revel and celebrate, delight in your manhood, your will, and all the monstrous ways they can create to tear it out of you. Hanna feared for you if she failed to make you see this fact. What she did, she did to save and protect you.”
    “Why couldn’t she just tell me all of this? Just like you are telling it to me now! Why the—?”
    “She tried. You were too busy threatening to kill her to hear her. Besides, I guarantee it is a lesson you won’t ever forget, and Hanna needed you to have that burned in you