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“Live in thirty,” Tim said, a little stern, a little sad, a lot frustrated. Though he didn’t say Wait for me in your office after the show, Daniel heard the command anyway.

Great, one more thing to worry about.

Even if he had seen it coming. Even if he did deserve it.

Useless cunt slave.

He wrenched his mind back to the here and now, but still said, “Good evening, my name is Daniel Halstrom, and you’re watching Round the Globe with InfoGlobe,” a whole four seconds after they went live.

“Look, buddy,” Tim said after the show, with entirely more compassion than Daniel knew what to do with. Daniel stripped off and discarded his suit coat, tie, and dress shirt in short, furious little jerks that would have left his first mistress fainting with horror. “I know you’re freaked about tonight, but that’s no excuse for what happened in that studio.”

“I know.” He sighed, stuffing his cuff links in the pocket of his pants before yanking them down.

Tim watched his angry strip show impassively, Daniel’s jeans waiting in his outstretched hand.

When Daniel finally managed to work his pants past his shoes, he snatched the jeans with a short, prickly, “Thanks.”

“But . . .?” Tim asked, holding out Daniel’s T-shirt now.

“But what? But nothing. You may be unusually fine with the whole . . .” he waved a hand between them both “. . . casual thing, but I know better than to make excuses.” Daniel grabbed his shirt, turning away from Tim and staying that way as he popped his arms through the sleeves. His hands were trembling; he didn’t want Tim to see. “I know you have to tell them. I understand. I’ll go downstairs first thing tomorrow, okay? They won’t even have to restrain me; I’ll be good. Ten hours should be plenty of time to recov—”

Tim touched his shoulder, and Daniel flinched, muscles tense.

“Hey,” Tim said softly. “Hey. This is really bothering you, isn’t it?”

He didn’t dare turn around, lest he look a freeman in the face as he challenged him. “Which part? The imminent torture thing, or the whole being-leased-to-a-stranger-after-twenty-five-years-of-faithful-service thing?” When Tim didn’t dignify that with an answer, he tried, “Wouldn’t it bother you?”

“That’s different. I’m not a slave.”

In other words: I feel things like a real boy, Pinocchio. I have a soul.

Daniel resisted the very strong urge to roll his eyes. He felt plenty, thank you very much, and he’d seen enough in his well-traveled, deeply investigative lifetime to have figured out that this God thing was bullshit anyway. Not that he could ever say that to anyone—even liberal left-wing Ivy League Tim went to church every Sunday like clockwork, and not just because he had to be seen there to keep his social standing.

So instead Daniel said, as calmly as he could, “Think about it, Tim. Being leased off to some total stranger who wants God knows what from you—no, worse, God knows exactly what. Like I don’t do enough for the company already? They’ve got to strip me of the few moments of peace I ever have? The few moments of free time I’m allowed? They really—”

—expect me to pretend to want this person?

Tim squeezed Daniel’s shoulder, but said nothing. The man was rarely speechless, and he respected Daniel enough—slave or no—that maybe he really was listening to what Daniel had to say.

“You’re luckier than most, you know,” Tim finally said, but it sounded pretty flat to Daniel.

“I know.” Daniel nodded. He really was lucky, even without that comforting, smothering blanket of faith all the rest of his kind seemed to have. “I just . . . What if they—?”

“NewWorld screened the potential lessors very carefully. Especially those who expressed interest in their most valuable property, of which you most assuredly are. They wouldn’t send you to someone who’d mistreat you.”

Tim’s hand was still on Daniel’s shoulder; Daniel shrugged it off and turned to face him. “You mean they wouldn’t send me to someone who would mark me in a way that would show on camera,” he said, slowly and purposefully blunt. Not everyone was like his old mistress, maybe not even most people, but it wasn’t exactly unheard of, and the kind of person who would and could shell out six mil for a lease was either obsessed, dangerous, jealous, or all three. He knew damn well that slaves like him—the ones cursed with good looks, the successful ones who’d accomplished more than most freemen—were magnets for mean crazies like that.

Not to mention that he couldn’t fathom why anyone looking for something normal would feel inclined to spend six million dollars to get it, even from a famous slave. With that kind of cash, you could outright buy a custom-trained Nevada Arts companion. Two, even, and lily-white both. You didn’t need a guy like him.

Daniel bit his lip, but Tim was making that face at him, that open, understanding, tell me what’s bothering you face, and there was no way Daniel could hold the question back: “Why won’t you tell me who it is?”

A pause, a grimace; Tim actually looked upset. “The buyer paid us well not to. I’m sorry, Daniel, even I don’t know who it is. Guess the brass figured you couldn’t puppy-dog-eyes it out of me if they didn’t tell me. But they won’t hurt you, Daniel. I promise.”

I’m not gonna hurt you, boy. Be a good little cunt now and spread those legs.

Daniel shuddered, half-choking on memories of blood and agony and sobbing so hard he couldn’t breathe. So not comforting.

Tim grasped Daniel’s bare forearms just above the slave bracelets—thin platinum cables bound with rectangular gold links, slim and stunning and masculine without a single ring for binding—and squeezed gently. Daniel looked down at Tim’s hands, at his own, at the bracelets so different from the functional iron bands he’d worn twenty-five years ago. No matter his fears, Tim was right; NewWorld Media had been good to him. They’d rescued him from cruel oblivion and given him everything. They’d even gone back for his mother, once he’d proven himself a good student, put her to work in wardrobe and never made her—or him—touch another man again. If they wanted him to touch one now in return for those twenty-five amazing years, well . . . then what kind of ungrateful, spoiled little shit was he to balk? He wasn’t a child anymore, and surely he’d faced scarier things before, and Tim . . . Tim had never lied to him, not once. He deserved the beating he had coming tomorrow.