Warning: This chapter contains mature scenes. 

Kai put up a good fight. He really did. But two bleeding noses (none his) and a swollen eye later (also not his), he was pushed to the ground onto his stomach and his hands were restrained behind him.

“What are you doing?” he growled, trying to peek over his shoulder.

“We’re sorry, but we have to do this,” Was the only grim apology one of the triplets gave him before they began oiling his body.

He felt at least two sets of hands scouring the length of his body, slipping into every nook and cranny, rubbing every crevice. Just as when they had soaped and washed him, their touch remained perfunctory and brisk.

They’d made it sound so ominous when they said they were going to ‘prepare’ him. He began to relax.

Then things got personal when they began to handle his genitals.

“Hey!”

One of the triplets wrapped his hand around his member and all but wanked him. 

“No, don’t-”

An oiled finger slipped into him.

He gasped, and then gritted his teeth against the foreign, invasive feeling. The last time he’d had anything up there was when he was six and sick for which the doctor had prescribed suppositories.

Not even Shtara had gotten this far.

By the time they were done, he was so thoroughly oiled and shocked that he didn’t move a muscle even when they released him.

“Please rise; we must dress you now.”

His docility this time stemmed from his shock. In fact, he was so shocked that he didn’t register rising to his feet until he was already standing.

He couldn’t help but scan the triplets’ faces. They’d derived no pleasure from preparing him. Rather, it seemed that they were as reluctant to be here as he was. In that, he found some consolation.

“Are you…” He cleared his throat. “Are you servants?”

They exchanged looks.

“Answer me,” he demanded loudly, his voice echoing in the baths.

The bangle triplet shook his head. “Not servants. Slaves.”

Kai let out a gasp-sigh.

Unbelievable.

“H-How…”

He wanted to sit down. Why the hell wasn’t there a single chair in this entire place?

“How have you come to be here as…?”

The word felt so foul in his mind that he couldn’t imagine what it would taste like saying it out loud.

“Were you also kidnapped?”

“In a way,” said the earring triplet. “We were out with our father on a fishing trip when a storm hit and the boat capsized. The waves were so high that we couldn’t swim. Giant waves kept crashing onto us, pulling us underwater. Eventually we got tired of fighting the sea. We closed our eyes and the next time we opened them, we were here.”

“So,” Kai began, his brows drawn together. “You were rescued by mermaids?”

They nodded in unison.

“We were twelve.”

They now looked twenty at least.

“And your father?”

He shook his head. “He was not to their liking.”

“What do you mean ‘he was not to their liking’? Whose liking?”

“The hunters who found and sold us to the Palace.”

“Wait, slow down. I don’t understand.”

They proceeded to explain that there were some mermaids known as slave hunters who scoured the seas looking for drowning humans that were pretty and young enough to be sold into slavery to merpeople nobility. It was a profitable business apparently; noble houses and the Palace especially required large numbers of slaves to staff their houses, and the prettier the slave, the larger the profit.

“So your father-”

“Was too old,” Finished the collar triplet, his face ashen.

Kai didn’t need to ask if the hunters had bothered to rescue their father even if they didn’t intend to sell him. From what he’d seen of mer cruelty, disregard and disdain for human life, he was sure he already knew the answer.

“And there are other slaves?” he asked in a reluctant, low voice, fearing the answer.

“Hundreds.”

Kai really, really needed to sit down. In addition to all the steam, this revelation was making him dizzy.

Human life really did mean nothing to merpeople. There was no mercy to be had here whatsoever.

“What do they need us for? Why can’t they have servants

“Please allow us to dress you now.”

He stayed incredibly still as they brought his ‘clothes’ and began to put them on. His outfit consisted of what appeared to be a bejeweled gold harness that extended up to his throat but exposed most of his chest, sheer bluish harem pants secured to his waist by a gold belt with precious jewels that matched the harness, and at his limbs’ ends were matching gold bracelets and anklets.

“What is this?” Kai breathed, shell-shocked by his reflection on one of the pools’ surfaces. He turned slightly. “You can see my butt!” His front was covered by the belt extending downward in a V design, but if he got too creative in his sitting positions, his family jewels would be put on display.

A triplet presented a box to him which he opened. It had face paint in it.

He reeled away.

“No way!” he cried, angered. Now he was really going to break someone’s arm if they tried to paint his lips red.

Another triplet intervened. “No, His Majesty said not to put face paint on him.”

Though they’d certainly eased one of his concerns, they answered his greatest one: this was all for that royal bastard’s sake. He was being prepared for King Marius.

“Why do I have to wear this?”

Looking him in the eyes, one of the triplets answered, “This is the outfit of His Majesty’s Royal Concubine.”

Kai turned away from them if only so that they couldn’t see the look of sheer terror on his face or the twinkling of unshed tears in his eyes. When his fists began to shake, he clenched them. But how would he hide the shaking of his entire body?

He had foolishly assumed that King Marius wanted him for his power. He had never imagined that… that…

But the King of Nostraza had shown him no sign that he was interested in him at all! He hadn’t even spared him a glance longer than was necessary! Nor had he held back any punches for that matter! If anything, the King had acted like he couldn’t even stand being near Kai.

So how was it that he now wanted to... to…

What the hell is this?

“Come. We must take you to him now.”

A black portal appeared. It was the way out of the baths and to King Marius the Conqueror.

Kai absolutely did not want to go.

But there was no choice.

Legs shaking, he stepped into the darkness once again.