The Rebellious Slave 3
Post-Apocalyptic Sci-Fi Action Adventure Romance
To Be Published: May 30, 2025
Rowan teaches the art of love to a lusty novice, while Ky suffers at the hands of an old enemy.
The lusty adventure continues!
Slave girl Rowan attempts a daring escape from her mysterious kidnapper. She hopes to be reunited with Ky and find the Key that will release her from the bonds of slavery and let them love as equals. Rowan is found by Lopi, a virgin fisherman, and she gratefully teaches him the joy of sex.
Ky has sworn revenge against the bearded man who took Rowan from him. However, he’s been handed over to his old enemy, the evil Warlord Thorfin, who seeks Rowan for his own purposes. Will the conjoined twins, Pus and Tule, be able to help Ky escape with his life? And what of Chin Lau? Rowan’s fellow slave has accepted the wolf brand and is the personal bodyguard and lover of the beautiful war chief, Tamin Gutra. He soon discovers she demands much more than his satisfying skills in bed.
To unlock the secret of this strange medieval world that coexists with advanced technologies, Rowan must first survive and then be reunited with the love of her life.
Excerpt
Copyright ©2025 Mikala Ash
Ky’s head felt as if it was going to burst. It throbbed in time with the beating of a drum that seemed to be not two inches from his ears. This wasn’t his only torment. His wrists and ankles were cruelly knotted with thin twine that cut deep into his inflamed flesh. When he struggled, a wave of nausea overturned his consciousness. He dry-retched, which sent fresh stabs of lightning through his tortured brain.
He forced open his blood-encrusted eyes. The bizarre scene caused a moment of confused alarm. Everything was upside down. The pain emanating from his ankles was explained; he was hanging by his feet. He reasoned, after a few moments, that he was inside a vast tent, and against the walls the flaring torches cast dancing shadows of a parade of exotic animals and bizarre circus performers. Ky caught sight of Pustule, the ridiculously named two-headed dwarf. The cunning oddity was the loyal creature of Boss, the carnival’s owner. Laughter erupted from the audience who sat at long tables, amply supplied with wine bottles and ale mugs. Ky licked his dry lips.
What is this place? In brief disordered snatches he recalled his and Rowan’s attempted escape from the caravan, the fight with the bearded man, the taking of Rowan, the boss’s betrayal, and the arrival of the Skolls, the vicious marauders of the wastelands. He recalled that instead of just taking him, the Skolls had captured the whole caravan. After that the numerous beatings, too many to count, blended into one continuous thread of pain.
Nausea again threatened to take him out of his pain when a bucket of foul wastewater from the cook tent was emptied in his face. He coughed and spluttered as the stale liquid filled his nostrils.
Before him, only a few yards away, flanked by guards armed with spears, a naked gargantuan occupied an ivory throne. The big man pushed away the thin whore who’d been curled in his lap sucking his engorged prick. She slid to the floor gasping. Ky experienced a pang of recognition, but in his confused state he couldn’t put a name to her. Released from her immediate duty, she crawled away into the shadows.
The giant gave a hand signal, and the drumbeats ceased, as did the chattering of the assembled guests.
“He lives, does he?” he asked a thin, rat-faced man who stood by Ky.
“As you ordered, Captain,” the man replied.
Ky cursed the fiend who obviously revelled in inflicting pain with skills designed to take a living body to the brink of death and coax it back again.
“He hangs by his feet so as not to drown in his own blood.”
“Call me Lord Thorfin!”
“Lord Thorfin,” the man hastily corrected himself.
That some sort of promotion had occurred mattered little to Ky. It was the name that stabbed him in the heart.
Thorfin!
He hadn’t recognized the warlord from his dizzying position. He doubted he would have known him under normal circumstances. Thorfin had grown prodigiously fat during the dozen years that had passed since Ky had been on the losing side in the War of the Three Sovereigns. Filled with rage and grief, he’d stood with his father and brother while Thorfin personally walked among the ranks of prisoners choosing those who’d be sacrificed to Po. Ky had stared defiantly into the eyes of Thorfin, who laughed and chose his older brother, Sandor. Ky had rushed forward only to be beaten to the ground, his head held up by the hair so he could watch Sandor dragged to the crude block to have his body ripped asunder.
Ky had screamed every curse known to man till his voice failed. In the cells he’d watched helplessly as his father died of grief. Then, after a month-long trek, he’d been returned to Slavin Hold and pressed into service as a guard. At Slavin he’d started every day by swearing bloody revenge, an impotent gesture, as it turned out. Now the tyrant had him trussed up like a beast ready for slaughter.
Ky forced his mind to rise above his pain to concentrate on Thorfin’s words.
“I am bored with this,” Thorfin said. “Will he talk, Greeg?”
The torturer slapped Ky’s arse. “If he knows what’s good for him he will.”
“Then put him to the question.”
What question?
Greeg extracted an iron poker from the fire and waved it so close to Ky’s eyes it felt as if his tears would boil. “Where is the girl?”
Of course. This was about Rowan!
Rowan, the rebellious slave who he loved. Ky spat a wad of blood from his mouth. If he told Thorfin that Rowan had been taken by the bearded man, he might know who that mysterious fellow was and go after her. Did he really want Thorfin to get his hands on her? Even if he lived beyond this day, could he protect her?
Then, in a moment of clarity he realized that Boss, the corpulent owner of the carnival who had handed him over, would have already told Thorfin everything. There was no reason not to speak what he knew.
“The man with the beard,” he said his words barely audible.
Greeg struck him with an open hand. “Speak up!”
Ky repeated his answer.
“Yes, yes,” Thorfin said irritably. “I know of him. Who is he?”
“I don’t know. He never said his name.”
“No one in the town knew him either,” Greeg confirmed. “I asked them most pointedly.”
“You haven’t killed them all, have you?” Thorfin demanded.
Greeg chuckled. “Not yet, but they wish for it.”
“They must know something. There are more clues to a man’s identity than just his beard.” Though a beast in human form, and despite consuming a vast amount of wine, Ky knew Thorfin was not without intelligence.
“I will persist in my questioning, my Lord Thorfin.”
“I want answers.” Thorfin returned his gaze to Ky. “She means something to you, this slave, Rowan.”
About the Author
Aussie Mikala Ash used to be a mild-mannered training & development consultant by day, and a wild sci-fi and paranormal adventure writer by night. Now she is a brazen full-time writer and nature photographer who is concentrating on having among other things, “… bags, and bags of fun!” Mikala can be found on Facebook and on Twitter.
Publisher on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok: @changelingpress
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