Cyberella: Preyfinders Universe
Date: 2015-11-09 05:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Science Fiction; Erotica; Romance; Science Fiction Romance; Fantasy; Aliens; Paranormal; Bdsm; Erotic Romance
Description: *Alternate cover edition of ASIN: B017ODJ3UI* A story set in the Preyfinders Universe. Accepting herself when much of her is cybernetic is Ella’s never-ending struggle. When she’s captured by Torgeir, an alien, mercenary ex-lordship, she prays her struggle is over. He knows what she is and still wants her. But there are cracks in the mirror... Strange things are growing. A lunatic wants to make her his princess, after he modifies her. What happened to this girl who was, once upon a time, a perfect human being? Can even her beloved Torgeir love a girl who is nothing like she should be? The crun

CYBERELLA

A Preyfinders Universe story

by
Cari Silverwood

New York Times and USA Today Bestselling author

Though a standalone story, Cyberella is set in the preyfinders universe.

You can read the previous books individually or in the Preyfinders Trilogy.

Copyright 2015 Cari Silverwood
www.carisilverwood.net

Editor: Nerine Dorman

All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the original purchaser of this e-book only. No part of this e-book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without prior written permission from the author. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials.

This e-book is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Acknowledgements

Thank you to my regular crew of Carly and Emma for reading this as I wrote it. I could never have finished this without your encouragement. Also a big thanks to Jody Rhoton, MJ, and Ann Grech, another erotic author, for beta reading Cyberella.

To join Cari Silverwood’s mailing list and receive notice of future releases go here:

Mailing list
http://www.carisilverwood.net/about-me.html

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Chapter 1

“Once upon a time, a girl found herself on an alien planet hiding behind a lump of stone while saying fuck, fuck, fuck, a lot,” Ella whispered, adding another “Fuck,” for good measure.

With one eye, she peeked around the edge of the gray column. From the faint grating noises and the leak of light across the room from the opened door, someone had sneaked into this coldroom full of hanging animal carcasses. The sneaking meant they were looking for her.

Her chest squeezed in tight. Maybe they’d go away.

Now they’d stopped. Were they waiting for her to move?

Her mouth pursed, she stared at the array of weapons on her lap and the floor. She’d gathered them from the rooms she’d passed through while evading everyone. Knife. Long metal rod. Some sort of grey metal and wood gun that might even shoot bullets? It reminded her of flintlock pistols from Earth’s ancient history.

She’d been loping along, dodging fast, and lucky to grab these.

Primitive weapons considering she’d arrived here in a starship. Well, not here here, arrived in town. The covered cart they’d used to get here had been drawn by mule cross doggy creatures and had been so un-starshiplike it was laughable.

Hand to her heart, she checked the beat. Not too slow, not too fast. She’d learned not to panic or the stupid emotional bypass the aliens had installed in her would kick in. Dead minutes she’d termed the phase that would hit her. They thought it’d save her angst or something, spare her worrying about whatever shit her tattered mind might drag into the light?

She hated dead time. She always ended up worrying about it more afterward than whatever fear had made it happen in the first place. It wasn’t that she didn’t fear anymore, just that she knew the limits, could feel when she was going over, and she dreaded going too far so much that she’d learned how to stop herself.

Sometimes she reached the very edge of panic before she could claw herself down.

So... No panic, no panic.

The mantra was effective, even when she was cornered in a shithole about to be... She shuddered. Raped or tortured. If she was lucky, perhaps they’d only make her bake cookies, or play Mahjong, or something. Hah.

The Lords of Sicar and their Traditional Way meant everyone who came out here to the territories had safety clauses in their contracts. Or so she’d been told.

So what had happened to their guarantees of safe travel?

She held up the gun to her eyes, turned it, seeking a ray of light to illuminate its secrets. Dark in here as well as cold. If she was right, this gun had no safety. You just pulled the trigger.

Her butt was aching from contact with the cold stone. The leather skirt, the corset, and light cotton shirt Duggy had advised her to wear to fit in with the natives was great in the sun. In here, a parka and a campfire would’ve been nice.

Duggy. Where was he, and all the others?

Another noise said her intruder had moved closer. Two columns over. One guy only, though.

She peeked again, spotted a knee and a man looking back, and ducked away.

“I see you, girl.

Ella gulped. Maybe panicking and taking a dead minute would be good?

The problem was, without fear to hold her back, she might stand up and try to shoot her way out of here. That would surely be fatal. Her fingers ached from clutching the gun and she eased off the pressure, flexed them.

“You slide whatever weapons you have out in the open, then step out so I can see you.”

Seriously?

“Why?”

“Why?”

From his voice, he seemed puzzled, and she grinned despite the churning of her stomach.

As well as nausea, her fingers ached, she was shivering from cold, and her left foot was itching – as if to remind her that maybe they’d not fixed everything when reconstructing her body.

She exhaled slowly, remembering how she’d just grinned.

Pluses always pluses.

For a few seconds she put her hand in her skirt pocket and held the miniature stuffed koala on her keyring. It was her substitute for a rabbit’s foot. Even if it didn’t work, it still reminded her of home.

How was she getting out of here? She angled back her neck, trying to ignore the animal meat hanging from hooks to the left and right. The smell of blood in here was strong. At least it wasn’t hers.

The windows were tiny, square, and up high. A bird could use those, if they weren’t sealed with glass and barred. The door was alien-guarded by now. This place was a maze and she knew the way out, but it was a long way to the left. Every time she’d tried, someone had been in the way. A bullet in the head was an option some might consider.

No.

The alien hadn’t moved, and she could hear his breathing. He wanted her gun.

“Give me facts. Why should I do that?”

Maybe he hadn’t called in others. She’d heard no other noises out there.

“I saw you brought in, saw you lay out one man with that bronze vase and run off. I’d like to help you.”

What? Her forehead corrugated. “What’s the catch?”

“Catch doesn’t translate for me. I don’t know what you mean,” he said quietly. “You give up now, you’ll be fine. Hurt one of these men again and they will punish you, badly. You’re headed for becoming a possession of Lord Kalfa’s. He wants you for some reason. Still, he will punish you. So far, you’re providing amusement.”

While she counted to ten, Ella shut her eyes.

What did he mean by fine? A possession was not tolerable. She’d been a possession of sorts already.

“Slide out your weapons.”

“No. We have a clause of safety in our travel documents. You need to enforce that.”

“Null and void. You strayed off the allowed land. You can’t get out of here. I’d help you more if I could but he figures to sell you for a good sum. A hundred thou, I was told.”

She’d known they kept female slaves but this wasn’t right.

“Why are you wanting to help me? And how exactly? Aren’t you into the Way? Wait. Wait...” She thought a few frantic seconds and pressed her knuckles into her head. Money was no good if she was a slave. “If I gave you money? I have two fifty thou in my account.”

“You have that much and you’re apprenticing to a trader ship? You are crazy.” There came a pause where all she could do was watch dust motes drift in the light rays. “I could buy you off him with that. Do what I tell you and it can be done.”

“I can give it to him myself.”

He laughed. “A female? No. Won’t work.”

“Primitives,” she muttered darkly.

Was this a lie? She couldn’t tell. The law the rest of the ’verse worked on varied from place to place plus it had been ruled invalid on many small planets via negotiated settlements in a thousand native courts. The best lawyer, even if she could contact one, was unlikely to win her freedom.

She had to ask. “How can I trust you?”

Silence, for a long time. Again.

“You can. Decide. I can’t prove myself this way or that.”

He was calm at least. Hadn’t tried to rush at her. Maybe they’d sent him in to talk her down? Again, she had no way of telling.

“You have to let me go, straight away.”

“As soon as is safe. I know these men. The Way is important out here. I’ll lose credos if I don’t stay a while. After that, yes, we go back to the city and I release you.”

Credos? Honor on a points system? That word didn’t translate well. They’d implanted a standard translator program when they’d reversed the...she gulped...and made herself not think. Yes. When they’d fixed her.

Talking to his disembodied voice was lending a surreal air to this. Serenity settled over her. This or that. Fate. She’d decided that fate was often the way of the universe. Sometimes you had no say in how things went in the greater scheme of the ’verse.

“Okay. Deal.”

“Payment first.”

Warned by noise, she looked around in time to see the flat rectangle of a comm unit slide her way. Ella picked it up. Unlocked, with a bank transfer screen up and ready. The man was happy skirting traditional rules when it suited him. What would his fellow warriors say if she showed them this?

Fingers poised she said over her shoulder. “One hundred thou.”

“Hell no. One seventy. I get danger money, girl.”

Her nose wrinkled at his girl. “One fifty.”

“No deal.”

Fuck. She often wondered what Hell really translated from. The aliens had gods but not the same one the Earth’s Christian Hell was associated with.

“Fine. One seventy.” Maybe a lawyer could screw it out of him after.

When done, she spun the comm back to him.

“Good.” She heard him rise and spotted the length of his shadow spill across the floor beside her. “Weapons, then come out.”

After a few deep breaths and counting to some big number, she scooted the gun and the metal rod toward him, slid her back up the column, and stepped out.

The man emerged from his hiding place – no weapon drawn, just a long knife sheathed at his left hip and a gun holstered at his right. From the unadorned red gun butt, it too was unpowered. Traditional.

He still scared her, maybe even more because of his rough appearance.

Lights flickered on. Those were powered. Their rules of the Way were fickle.

Now she could see him properly. Like all the aliens she’d ever met, he was a human with minor embellishments. Apart from the Bak-lal, the universe had stuck with one, fun design.

His hair was sun-bleached blond. When he bent to retrieve her pistol, a few straggly locks swung across his face and she saw most of his hair was cinched at the back. Let loose, it’d be at his shoulders. The man was superbly muscled with bulky shoulders and chest. He wore a loose white shirt and dark leather pants with double leather belts, though one was a weapons belt. His brows and eyes were too golden to seem natural. Most aliens she’d met seemed different in some small way and therefore disturbing. He was also alluring – deadly yet sexy. If this were an everyday situation, she would’ve quietly checked him out, despite knowing he was out of her league.

Once her weapon was tucked into his belt, he examined her again, from her toes to her face, slow and measured. The Sicar tribesmen were always brazen about looking at women. She’d almost become accustomed to the treatment. If they knew what she was, they’d not be so interested.

To conceal her nervousness, she spoke. “Are we going anywhere soon? I’d rather get this –”

“Turn.” He made a circle with a finger.

Frowning, she turned. The knife was slim and sheathed, and tucked where he couldn’t see it, under the skirt.

When she was facing away, he said, “Stop.” Then he approached.

Without thought, her fists clenched. She made herself relax them. When his hands touched her waist though, she stiffened.

“Be calm. I’m just inspecting you.”

“For what?” she asked, teeth gritted.

“Weapons.”

His hands slid over her, everywhere. A man handling her like this made her jumpier than a colt but she stayed mostly still.

“You’d get worse if a true slave. It’s not that I don’t trust you, but I don’t. Be still. I have to get a little intimate.”

When he slid a hand between her thighs, she jumped again and muttered her curses under her breath, knowing what was about to happen. He found the knife where she’d tucked it upside down into the side of her underwear, pulled it free, and tossed it away. The small smack when it hit the stone floor echoed the drop of her heart.

“That was not good. Now I know I can’t trust you. Put your hands at your back so I can tie them. What’s your name, girl?”

“You don’t have to do that.” Trembling was stupid but it happened anyway. Count. To. Ten. She calmed. “I won’t do anything. It was just insurance.”

“Do what I said or I will make you. If you misbehave, you will endanger me as well as yourself. Now!”

Fuck. Slowly, she put her hands behind her and felt him lash them together.

He turned her around and put his hands on her shoulders. “Your name?” While she struggled to decide whether to answer, he studied her body, her breasts even. She flushed hot but managed to hold his gaze, keeping her chin defiantly lifted. “You’re younger than I thought? Age too. Tell me both. Planet of origin. That too.” As if to lessen the aggressiveness of his questions, he paused then added, “I’m Torgeir Rakkel.”

Before she could answer, the door was blocked by another man. He entered. Three more filed in after him. All of them were big and armed with sharp things and mean glowers.

She swallowed.

“Caught her?” The first, a bearlike man with a red beard, chuckled. “I should’ve known. You were always good at tracking, Lord Rakkel.”

Lord? Torgeir Rakkel wasn’t some minor tribesman but one of their leaders. He’d be sworn to uphold the old ways. She went to step back but he only smiled and caught her arm.

If he’d lied to her, she was in trouble. So much fricking trouble.

“Yes.” He didn’t look at her though his grip tightened on her arm. “I sniffed her out, followed her hot little female trail. I’d say she’s in heat.”

The laughter from the men made her cheeks even hotter but she opened her mouth to retort.

At that, Torgeir leaned in and murmured, “Don’t talk unless you want your panties in there as a gag.”

Her eyes almost bugged out from the effort of stopping herself. How had he known?

Talking was not a good idea. Or maybe he just wanted her to think that? She still didn’t know if he’d told her a big lie to get her to surrender. Tears threatened to spill, but she held them off by force of will.

The long, embarrassing walk to the dining hall, with her hands bound and these men laughing over her plight, kept her mind swirling with fear and hope.

The journey with Duggy and the other trader, Finch, had been straightforward until they’d arrived at the Carmagga holding. Before they’d done more than climb from the cart, a horde of warriors had charged in, shooting, killing the opposing men. They’d thrown down and restrained those who didn’t resist, which had included her and the whole trading column. That was standard operating procedure when accidentally involved in native disputes. The widowed Lady Carmagga and her sister had also been captured. It was a lightning raid and she’d imagined some hostage taking and ransom, but being unrelated parties the traders should be set free.

That hadn’t happened. They’d been brought here and she’d been informed of her up-and-coming sale as a slave to some interested people with a special Earth girl order list. Hence, her escape.

This alien, Torgeir, he must be true to her. He must. Lord or not.

When they pushed open the double doors to the dining room, she faltered.

The two women were being raped, systematically from the looks of the gathered men, while held down on the tables. Though there were no screams, only grunts and moans, writhing limbs and pumping male bodies, all the usual signs of passion, the women were bound and held down. This must be rape.

She delayed, walking slowly, as bear man stalked to the head of the biggest long table and Torgeir led her onward.

Again, he whispered to her. “It’s okay. Not what it seems. This is what happens when unmated and propertied women come into the hands of men who have taken their land. Lord Kalfa has been eyeing the Carmagga lands for a decade.”

She thought of speaking but only did a fiery wide-eyed glare. Okay?

“It’s truth. Once they bondmate with a man of Kalfa’s they will be the same as married. A few days at most, statistically, then it will be done.”

Her swear words failed her.

The insufferable man smiled and shrugged. “It is the Way.”

Not her way. She couldn’t help watching as yet another tribesman lowered himself over one of the women and began plowing into her. That she reached up and wrapped her rope-tied hands about his neck, as if to pull him closer, was odd.

“That’s...” The rest of her angry words were cut short by Torgeir lightly slapping her face.

Shocked, she rocked on her feet, desperate to get away but her hands were tied. She tugged and twisted, only to feel the ropes at her wrists tighten.

“Panties, remember? Unless you want that to be you?” He waved at the sexual exhibition but she refused to look again. He bent until his mouth was adjacent to her ear. “Good. This is sensible. Watch and be good.”

That his warm breath on her ear had stirred her made her shudder again. She shouldn’t react so when a man had her bound. That she’d moistened below was appalling when she was in the middle of an orgy-like disaster. All she had to hope for was that an alien lord be true to his word? She was doomed.

“Now, Lord Kalfa.” Torgeir slapped her ass. “How much for her?”

“Her?” Bear man laughed and spun around to settle into a big chair at the top of the table. “Why? She’s spoken for, though I was planning on having some fun with her first.” He leaned forward and examined her thoughtfully. “I want to see if these Earth women are as good as people say they are.”

Oh crap. He didn’t mean good at gardening. Her breaths came faster and her heart was racing too.

Torgeir clamped his hand over the back of her neck.

“This girl? Maybe. What did you say they’d pay you? Fifty thou? I’ll pay seventy.”

“No. I promised her.”

“To an outsider? Seventy-five.”

“Not enough.” The man stroked his beard. “You seem keen.”

“What do you expect? I’ve been off working as a Preyfinder for years. Now I’m free to do as I please, I please to buy and fuck women. Sell her. I will give up the Om I hold over you and I’ll give you seventy.”

“The Om?”

She could hear surprise in bear man’s voice. His eyebrows rose to his hairline and remained there for some seconds. The room seemed quieter too, as if a shockwave had rippled outward. An Om must be worth something to them.

This was going to work, but she’d paid over so much more than this. She tried to grace Torgeir with an extra strong glare but couldn’t turn within the arc of his hand.

At least he was doing what he’d said he would – buying her. But...what if he did desire her? The large hand at her neck, the rope at her wrists, and the pulse of blood there because he’d tied it too tightly, all these reminded her of how impossible escape would be if Torgeir turned on her.

At last Kalfa stirred and gestured. “Wrap her eyes. She has an insolent look about her. Eighty. If you give up the Om and you fuck her here and tell me if she’s any good.”

She should run. Torgeir seemed to sense this and his fingers clamped in.

“Eighty? No. No watching me fuck her.” Casually he pulled her over, shoved her face first onto the table, and dragged down her underwear while he kept his palm planted on her lower back. Before she’d managed to do more than gasp a few times, he was tying the panties over her eyes. “There. Now, where were we?”

Today was a day for sensible cotton panties and she’d worn black and lacy. How silly to be mortified about that – from the cool draft, it was likely she was revealing all of her private area to anyone who bothered to look.

“At eighty. You know this other man, this foreigner, he wants her bad. I think he’ll go higher.”

With his hand on her neck, Torgeir kept her pinned though now and then his finger strayed and he stroked her ear lobe. “You’d sell this succulent female to an outsider? You can’t.”

Succulent!

He slapped her ass again. Squirming only resulted in him holding her down even firmer.

“She’s mine.”

“Not yet.”

“You don’t want the Om?”

What was this Om?

The sound of her heartbeats drummed harder every second. The chair Kalfa sat in squeaked, as if he adjusted position while he thought about what to do, with her. This could not be happening.

If she told them she was almost a cyborg, Kalfa would let her go. Or he might kill her. The Sicar people hated borgs. She wasn’t one really, but he might still do it. Revulsion might make him release her or she might be killed. She didn’t know. The theoretical small print on their Way was so convoluted that no one raised outside of their system was sure of anything, one hundred percent.

Torgeir might be so disgusted he’d let her be sold too. That was the most likely result.

Ella sighed, shut her eyes beneath the cloth of her panties, feeling her lashes brush the lace, and she said nothing. Despair rose in her until it seemed her heart would wither into a knot of useless scarred flesh before this day was done.

Chapter 2

That Kalfa hesitated was to be expected. The man knew his intent. The Om had been an honorable debt and obligation held between their two families for generations. They were friends despite it, perhaps because of it, as it had drawn them together knowing neither family would raid the other’s lands.

Without the Om holding Kalfa back, he would be free to raid. They both knew who would win.

He had nothing and no one loyal. Five of his Rakkel warriors had accompanied him off-planet, to the foreign stars and systems, to fight the war against the Bak-lal. Only he had returned. They’d stayed loyal but had died in small engagements and battles, one by one. Warrior’s deaths and none had blamed him. Though he regretted their passing, it had been their choice and they were now safe in the realms of their gods.

Being away had meant the remainder of his warriors had left his holding. Too long away, but he’d known that. Nearly half his life. The manager he’d left to take care of his lands and structures had done well, considering.

At a whimper, he glanced down at the little female laid out across the table. Well, not so little. She squirmed enticingly under his hand, reminding him of the raids of his youth when they’d taken females. A pity. He smiled to himself, imagining those times, when a captive like this would be stripped, collared, and tied to his bed at the snap of his fingers. Old ways and he was returning to the new.

Besides, she was an outsider and didn’t understand. Her shivering probably meant she was frightened but he had no way to communicate or calm her except to stroke her neck with his thumb.

He’d been looking for an honorable way to return the Om. This way both of them, he and Kalfa, retained credos. Buying her was only an excuse – one he’d pounced on when the opportunity arose. Simply giving the Om away would be despicable.

Kalfa slapped his thigh. “You’re certain of this, Torgeir? She’s worth it?”

He looked up and used Lord Kalfa’s personal name also. “Yes, Jagna. I’m certain.”

A lesser man would’ve taken the Om when first offered.

“Then I accept. Take her and go. You have a day to be clear of my lands.” He added quietly, “I am sorry to see you go.”

He inclined his head as Jagna did so. After the day had passed, anything could happen – including being attacked. “I will transfer the moneys when I reach Besk.” Both of them knew the money was trivial to Kalfa, if not to him.

His lands were empty. His true family was dead and long gone after the plague that had ripped through the outlands two decades ago. While grieving, he’d decided to join the Concer forces to fight the Bak-lal. He’d seen so much out there, on other worlds circling other suns, things that Jagna and his men would never understand unless they too ventured beyond Sicar. He’d seen things that’d opened his eyes, his mind, even his heart, he believed.

The Way had stifled him as soon as he stepped on the surface of Sicar.

He tugged the cloth from the girl’s eyes.

She turned her head to the side and whispered, “Thank you.”

“You are welcome. You’re mine now, so it’s for me to say whether your eyes are covered or not. Come.” He took his hand from the girl’s neck and encouraged her to stand, then drew her with him as he marched to the doors. The long plait of her dark hair lay across one shoulder and he stopped a second to rearrange it so it fell down her back.

Pretty. He liked how it looked there. What a good handle that would make to hold her still. Perhaps that was how her lover liked her to wear her hair.

Despite her obvious fears, she had her head up and appeared to be cataloguing everything in this room. Clever little trader. Information was knowledge to traders. Her masters should be happy, whoever they were.

When at last they exited this underground citadel of Kalfa’s and emerged into the fierceness of the sun, he paused again to inhale. Dry, dusty, hot air. One of his last breaths on this planet. He had his long bag of weapons, his clothes and sundry items, a girl he owned for a little longer, and ninety thou he hadn’t had yesterday.

Perhaps the pretty girl was worth more than that at auction. He needed money badly.

“Come.” He jerked on her plait then indicated his lime-spotted qualarfa stallion. They’d have to ride together to Besk. Her ship would be there. So were the auction yards.

Once he’d saddled the qualarfa, she turned her back to him and jiggled her tied hands. “Free me.”

“Not yet. When we are off the Kalfa lands. I don’t want them to think I am too lax or I might lose my head early.” He hoisted her up onto the beast, to the front of the saddle area.

“That’s ridiculous,” she muttered, glaring down at him.

“Is it?” He mounted behind her and took up the reins. His thighs nudged in behind hers and her ass was inches from him. This ride would be interesting. “What is a true pity is that a good Sicar warrior keeps his word. Certainly, I do. I will free you when I say, but not before.”

She harrumphed as if disappointed. “I think my fingers must be going blue.”

He checked, feeling them for coolness also. Women had such fine fingers. “They aren’t blue or cold. Wriggle them.”

She did so, and the sight of her lashed-together wrists and her fingers down there, wriggling and barely inches from his groin made his cock stir.

“Good. You are so lucky,” he murmured, then he clicked his tongue to stir the stallion into a smart canter.

“Lucky? You call all this lucky?” She jerked her chin toward the citadel.

“Yes. Lucky. I could have caught you back there in the coldroom with little effort and given you to Kalfa. I could have said a secret word to make our agreement void so that I could keep you myself after all, to sell or to be my slave. I didn’t.”

“What?”

He grinned at the dismay and incredulity in her voice, then he leaned in until his lips were an inch from her ear. “Not all of us are honorable to Outsiders. I need money. Lucky, you’re so very lucky.”

Torgeir wrapped his arm about her waist, pleased at the feel of her softness then he began to hum a battle song he’d learned from a dying warrior on the planet Gerrelt...or was that the moon of Lun? So many strange, new places and more out there to discover.

He had an armful of delightful, if spirited, female and he was free for the first time in his life to do as he chose. The woman was a reminder of his decision to tread a more civilized path where slavery was but a memory. He needed nothing more than the stars and a ship to ride among them.

And some money. Ships were damn expensive.

If he wasn’t so nice, he could have sold her.

Her luscious ass jiggled against him again and his cock swelled. Every breath brought him her feminine scent, for it lingered in her hair and at her nape. Torgeir cleared his throat. Really, if he was still taking slaves, he would have kept her. He would’ve dragged her off the mount, made her sit on her knees on his rug, facedown, flipped up her little skirt, and taken her, here, now.

The old ways had their benefits.

Chapter 3

“What’s your name?” he asked her yet again.

The horse creature cantered smoothly under her thighs. Now and then the motion jarred her backward and against this warrior’s groin. The hard bulge of his cock was obvious.

“Ella,” she said, grudgingly. What information was safe to tell him? To distract him she asked a question of her own. “This creature, is it a horse of some sort?”

“I don’t know horses. It’s a qualarfa stallion. A male. From my travels, many planets have similar four-legged animals. Tell me more. We have a long ride. Where are you from?”

She set her lips in a line. Her hands were tied and she was at his mercy but she wasn’t inclined to cough up information just to amuse him when she wasn’t certain of his intentions. His little threats about selling her were ominous. She shut her eyes.

Be calm.

“Not talking?”

“I will talk when you free me.”

He snorted and wrenched her in closer. “Silly female. You think that would make me change my decision if I was going to sell you?”

Anger flared. “No, but I figured it might frustrate you, and that’s a plus.”

“Annoying a man who has you captive is stupid.”

True. She fumed, hating to be shown her error. “I’ll talk when you free me.”

“I don’t like ultimatums or women who annoy me. Who are your employers? If you’re this annoying to them, I can imagine they’ve beaten you a few times.”

“What? No! The Spiriton Trader Corp doesn’t beat employees.” The pressure at her ass seemed even more obvious and she added dryly. “Could you not hold me so close?”

“Is there a please with that?”

Ella sighed. “Please.”

“It’s not possible. You will fall off, if I let you go. Be good.”

“Untie me and I can hang on myself.” Duh.

“Did you not understand the part about my head being removed if I release you early? I would beat you. You feel good against my cock anyway. I’d stop this horse, tie you to that prickly Nagar tree over there, beat you, then fuck you until you pleaded for more.”

The almost leafless tree was a stark black presence at the base of a red cliff to the left of the trail. Rocks kicked up under the stallion’s hooves as it took a few, slower steps. While she was still gaping at his words, he went on.

“But first I’d beat your ass red, blue, purple.”

“You can’t...” She hauled her squeaky protest short.

“Has anyone ever made your ass purple?”

“Is that...was that meant to be funny?”

“I was just annoying you, Ella.”

She bit her lip, to make herself not reply to that.

“Let’s agree that I won’t beat you, if you promise not to try and get my head cut off.”

A second later, what he’d said sank in. Had that been a joke? A smile sneaked in. He was absurd and rude, but somehow his stupid sense of humor had relieved her anxiety. The idea of him fucking her had been planted too though. She swallowed and pushed away that image.

The man was a big, male presence that she couldn’t ignore. Scary and sexy and yeah, even more scary, yet she was becoming convinced he would free her.

“I’m sorry,” she muttered.

“Accepted. I know you must come from Earth – where the Bak-lals were finally defeated. Kalfa wouldn’t try and sell you as an Earth woman if you weren’t one. The women of your world had some magical powers that helped us win. You must not have this sort of power, or it’s weak and useless, else you would’ve freed yourself. So, why does someone wish to pay for you? The price was large. You know this?”

“Yes, I know that and yes, I am from Earth.”

She’d been given three fifty thou of the universal currency when they’d finished with her at the hospital and told her she could become a citizen of the universe. She’d spent some, trying to see where she fit in, retraining. Learning. The unit was the basic currency of their money. Eighty thousand units to buy her. You could buy a small house most places, with that.

Money slipped through your fingers while you gazed at the wonders of this universe. She’d found that out while living on a single planet and the journey there from Earth had been gratis on a warship of the Concer Command. Now, much of her money was gone. A lot of it to Kalfa and this man behind her. She had no clue what had happened to her fellow traders. If they fired her and left her on this planet, she’d never earn enough to go elsewhere.

Despair leached in and she felt nauseous.

Ella shook her head. “I don’t know why anyone wants me.” As a slave. She couldn’t bear to say that. “Do you know if my shipmates survived?”

“They did. Kalfa freed them. It was only you he kept, and the Carmagga women. It makes me think he knew you would be there.”

“Two birds with one stone,” she said to herself.

“A saying of your kind?”

“Yes. Means, umm –”

“Doesn’t matter. Someone may have betrayed you. Be careful when you return to your ship.”

She stared ahead, past the qualarfa’s green-spotted ears. That was disquieting but also she wondered why he cared.

“Thank you. I will.”

A few hours later they stopped in the shade of a copse of more of the straggly, shiny-leaved trees that favored the ferocious climate here. He turned her away from him. When she heard him draw his knife, her heart picked up speed, but he put his hand to the ropes binding her, and he cut her loose.

“Thank you,” she said again, finding it strange how often she was thanking him.

“You’re welcome, little female.”

Oh now. Him calling her that and the last pressure of his hand about her arm, just above her wrist, it sent a warm thrill shimmying through her.

Heat wasn’t what you needed on Sicar, desert planet. She brought her hands to her front and began to massage them, head down, thinking about how crazy it was to be affected sexually by a warrior from Sicar. It was like...like ambling through a bull ring and admiring the sky. Or something. Torgeir confused her.

“Allow me.” Before she could react he was before her and had taken one of her hands in his, and now, was massaging her wrists.

Her eyebrows sprang upward. “Hey, I’m fine. I got this.”

“No. It’s my obligation since I caused the injury.”

Put like that, in that sensual male voice that threatened to turn her mind to jelly, if not her knees, she could only stand there and suffer being massaged.

“May I ask how many of your people have been allowed loose in the ’verse with large sums of money and no supervision?”

“I don’t know. Let loose? No supervision? I’m an adult. I can take care of myself.”

He eyed her steadily. Gold and gray eyes, she noticed. They’d altered or perhaps it was the lighting?

“Of course. You’ve only been captured, almost sold as a slave, and handed over most of your money to me.”

“It also happened to my companions. They were lucky not to be from Earth, is all. Does that mean you’re giving my money back?”

“No.” He smiled and let go of her hands. “I need it for my ship and crew fund. I’ve not heard of others from your planet coming out here, to space – apart from those who bondmated with Preyfinders. Or that one who mated with Dassenze, the Ascend, godlike one. What is special about you?”

Oh crap. She’d fallen into that one. “I don’t know.”

It was a truth, of sorts. She didn’t know what she’d been or done. Only that the Bak-lal had caught her and had done something to her. She may have been the only one they’d managed to reverse engineer. She guessed that someone up high had commanded she be compensated. Perhaps they felt sorry for her.

“No?” He dared to reach toward her and place his hand under her chin.

She dodged away from his grasp. “No. I really don’t.”

That was the bad thing. Yet she was terrified to find out why and what had happened, also. The unknown was a leering monster that wanted to pull her into darkness and smother her. Her dreams never survived awakening but she had them. They made her wake sweating, with a fading sense of something out there, creeping over the ceiling, in the shadows where she couldn’t see them.

A rustling and a blob of rust-red scampering across the cracked ground behind Torgeir made her gasp and jump back. “What’s that?”

He turned and laughed. “Mimi! Come here, girl.” He patted his knee. “How’d you find me?”

This was a pet of some sort? It wobbled, slid, and stepped over to the warrior then nuzzled around his feet making snuffling noises. The thing was like a small, very round bear with tiny ears like twin lumps and black eyes that gleamed as it studied her from its position beside Torgeir’s boot.

It snuffled some more, then squeaked softly. Its ears twitched.

A second later it leapt, well, it bounced, into her arms.

“Don’t catch it!”

His shout was too late. She’d caught it with both arms and the thing merely shifted about with a funny shimmy of its behind area then sucked on her forearm here and there.

She giggled. “It tickles.”

Torgeir stared and shook his head. “She likes you. I’ve never seen that happen.”

“Is your name Mimi?” she asked it. Mimi ignored her, licked her arm this time with a raspy tongue then dropped to the ground. The thump when she hit the earth was ridiculously loud and the ground seemed to vibrate.

When she waddled away, she left a crater, inches deep.

“What the fuck?”

“That is why you don’t catch Mimi, unless she likes you.”

“What is she?”

“She’s memo-morphic metal. A MeMoMe for short. I got lazy the day she friended me. I was only thirteen. Called her Mimi.”

“Wow. Memo-morphic metal? Fancy species title.”

“Yes.” He angled his head. “They kill by dropping on prey. Hide on cliffs, cave ceilings. They can alter their weight. Nobody knows how they do it but they do. No one has figured out how they can be alive even. They’re a Sicar anomaly. I have no idea why your arms weren’t torn off.”

Crap. Ella blinked and watched the little thing disappear among the rocks. “I know what she is!” She whispered her revelation, “It’s a bloody drop bear. Oh. My. God.”

“It. She. Is deadly. Remember. Don’t catch her.”

“I won’t.”

After that, they ate and drank quickly then she mounted the qualarfa. This time she tried riding behind him, with her arms about his waist. Staying on was nearly impossible, due to the saddle design and the gait of the creature. She soon gave up and sat before him, with his arms around her. Now that she knew he was honest, to a degree, the position made her feel safe, weirdly safe.

They stopped at a vehicle and stable depot a few miles outside Besk and exchanged the beast for a ride in a taxi of sorts. The gleaming yellow halftrack vehicle ground over the last few miles to the city. When the road changed from tamped-down rock to a gray facsimile of concrete, the taxi somehow transformed into a wheeled vehicle.

There were houses, streetlights, shops, people. More cars and trucks humming past. As she’d come to terms with months ago, these were not always alien futuristic tech in appearance so much as rusty and ramshackle with multiple dents.

Ella grinned. She could finally relax. She was free.

“Now you smile?” Torgeir asked, turning in the seat to watch her.

His long hair was partly free from the clip and draped past his ears. The weapons belt he still wore, that nasty long knife and his pistol, along with his rough but practical shirt and pants, even that hint of chest showing...she felt off balance. Hell, it was the whole package, just him, he stirred her, sexually.

Her smile faded.

Torgeir was blatantly too dangerous to think of bedding and she dismissed the thought.

“I do.”

“Why now?”

Beyond him, framed in the window, the sky had that flare of pink, orange and violet that marked the sunsets of Sicar.

“Because,” she murmured distractedly as some eight-legged mammoth ambled by, dwarfing them at the traffic stop.

Where was her database when she needed to know something? That wasn’t a native, surely? She frowned. The road they were turning into had a sign at the end of it. Though partially blocked by the mammoth, she could read it. Auction House.

“Because?”

Shit. How well did she know him?

Not well at all. There wasn’t really much choice. Another few minutes and they’d be there.

She wrenched at and shoulder-bashed the door and rolled out. A robotic mini-rickshaw missed her head by a smidgen then she was rising, standing, by the side of the footpath.

His stern face behind the smudged plas-g glass made her stomach clench.

She walked backward, putting more and more people between him and her. If he was going to let her go, this was just earlier than he’d planned. She hadn’t done anything wrong. He wasn’t following. Sinking farther into the crowd, she did a single hand wave to him. Bye, bye. The taxi surged off.

Luckily, she was no longer in the land of the horse and cart. Her lack of paper or plas-g ID was not a true lack. A brainprint was all she needed and her head was definitely intact. She jogged along until she found a red taxi with a curious fan of metal pipes decorating the roof like a peacock – from a rival company, she hoped. Ella tapped on the driver’s window and slid inside.

The bright ding and red flash from his dashboard meant a brain scan had been done. Her credit was good for this and for a long while yet. She’d work at it and build her funds again. Maybe trading wasn’t for her but it’d do until she figured out something better.

“Where to?” His blue hat stayed frontwards. The man didn’t even turn. Good. He wouldn’t remember her. Though Torgeir would know where she was going, she might be able to get there first.

“Spaceport. Please. Fast as fast.”

He grunted. “As you wish.”

Her brows rose. Did they have The Princess Bride here?

To her mild embarrassment, their route entailed going down the street Torgeir’s taxi had taken and making a right, just before the auction house. Oh well. Better to be safe than sorry.

She shut her eyes once sure her taxi was going in the right direction. Her eye sockets were raw with sunburn, despite the screening agent Torgeir had given her to use, and every muscle in her body was suffering post horse-ride annihilation. God, she hurt.

The rest of the trip was silent apart from the outside traffic noises and the driver hollering and spitting out his window when various other cars or creatures ventured too close.

At the spaceport, she walked in to find Torgeir smack bang in the middle of the entrance foyer. He nodded dismissively and turned away.

A bald man walked up and embraced her ex-captor. “Torgeir!”

“Dresdek! Screwed all the girls here yet?”

“Not quite.”

Bemused and blocked from going forward by a whole caravan of families dressed in tourist gear, she found herself watching the men.

Dresdek was taller by a half a head than Torgeir, which made him well over six five, she guessed. Like Torgeir and much of Sicar’s population, he was armed, though with a pistol at each hip. More surprising, though, was what she’d heard over the clink of his fancy hide and metal boots hitting the floor – the subtle whir of enhanced joints or muscles.

Not all did that. Not her. He must be very old.

A glimpse of his nape confirmed it. The black, scarred stamp said it all – DC for Declared Cyborg. This was a man who’d gone past the twenty-five percent allowable neurocyber, cybernetic, and artificial content.

She squeezed in at twenty-one percent, they’d told her. The doctors had made every effort to keep her below the threshold and human.

There but for the grace of...fate go I.

What had really stunned her though was not just a DC being here. The city of Besk was unlike the territories and more in tune with general tolerance, as in, we’ll leave you be until something about you dirty borgs bothers us. No, it was that a Sicar lord could be friends with one. She’d bet her last dollar...unit, whatever, that his friend, Kalfa, knew nothing of this.

It was none of her business, though.

She pressed forward into a gap that had appeared in the crowd, leaving them to their dirty jokes and back thumping.

This day had been a whirlwind. She searched the top levels for the right entry to the Finatar, franchised trader ship of Spiriton Trader Corp. Clutching a new plas-g ID she’d obtained at a dispenser, she trudged up the broken escalator. Sparks flew from where a repair bot was attempting to do its job. It’d been there when she’d left, a day ago.

Each step took concentration. Fatigue was kicking in with a vengeance.

When she reached the airlock, she had to put her palm to the warm, slightly vibrating hull. Made it back intact. Ella smiled. The battered, gray and blue, splotched exterior of the Finatar wasn’t top of the line by any standards, but she was home.

After a spate of welcomes, and some hugs and thumps, which she grinned through, she went to a short and sweet debriefing by Captain Lyet, a man who seemed a likely descendant of Blackbeard the pirate, and not only for his beard. The man had larceny imprinted on his soul.

That done, she made her way to the small bunk room she shared with three others. A hot, needle shower made her feel clean but sleepier. Though desperate to lie down, she was also hungry. Someone had sandpapered her eyes, she decided, as she drank some of the hot shacao that resembled thick, spicy chocolate. She dressed in the light gray shorts and tee she used for PJ’s, and snuggled under the sheets.

Home, this was home now. Safe.

One yawn and her eyelids were closing. She sank swiftly into sleep.

Some sound awoke her. The room was dark – even the emergency light that was mandatory on spaceships was out. Something stung the biceps of the arm she had draped atop the sheet.

“Hey,” she mumbled, pulling away her arm. Her bunkmates were on duty, weren’t they?

“It’s in.”

Her mind seemed to squash down, flat, her eyes wouldn’t open, and she struggled to figure out who had said that, who was in the room with her. She tumbled into blackness with one last stray thought: this isn’t right.

Chapter 4

A drink at the Purple Drakon was a priority. The place gave seedy a bad name but it was cheap.

Torgeir studied the patrons milling past the booth they sat in. This small front bar area was packed tonight with a mix of locals, offplanet tourists, and business people. The latter meaning bandits and regular honest traders. Weapons had all been checked in by the bouncer. Nothing to fear if you got yourself plastered to the pit of Tormrakki and back.

“We’re good. No one’s after us, I hope. Relax. Drink.” Dresdek chugged down a gulp of his own amber fluid.

“Sure.” He swallowed some then trailed a finger though the dew trickling down the cold side of his square glass. The chunk of grapple floating in his drink looked lonely so he fished it out and ate it.

“Did you get done what needed doing?” Dresdek’s quirk of brow said it all. He thought it was a secret. Not any more.

“The Om? Yes. Gave it to Kalfa.”

“You did?” he squeaked out the last word.

Torgeir smiled. “I did. Came across a captured girl. A pretty little outsider from Earth. Kalfa got word someone would pay for her so I bought her myself using some of her own money and the Om. Plus.” He inclined his head. “I made some on top of that.”

“And where’d she go? This slave?”

“I let her go.”

“Since when was that something you do? You’re taking this new life thing terribly seriously.”

“Technically, she ran away before I could.”

“Uh-huh. Bad manners. If you’d hung onto her a mite longer we could’ve used her in a better way.”

He fixed Dresdek with a pointed look. “We?”

The cyborg sat back, grinning. “Like that, huh? And yet you let her run.”

He relived the anger that’d stirred up. “She was a mite ungrateful. I saw Ella at the spaceport too. Not even a word of thanks.”

“She has a name? Frack. You sure you don’t want to go retrieve her or something?”

“No.” He snorted at Dresdek’s enthusiasm. “She needs someone to teach her manners though – doubting my word and being ungrateful.”

“Hmmm. I can see I need to get you a woman before we leave here. Where are we going anyway? What planet? I’m assuming we still can’t afford a whole ship?”

“No. We can’t.” He took a swallow. “We’re about at the level of affording a cargo bay and some engine parts.

Dresdek tsked. “Not that I’m complaining but you can try that one out in deep space all by yourself. So we’re hitching a ride somewhere?”

He had a favor or two he could pull in here, but wherever they went to had to be their base. It needed to be a system, a planet, with great potential. And not here. Here was either a dead end or, if he left the city, a death sentence.

His comm unit buzzed and he clicked it on. A message from Kalfa waited on the blue screen. The old ways were observed less than some thought. All the lords privately kept a communicator for emergencies.

The girl you took, the captain of a ship called the Finatar asked who wanted to buy her. Said you’d let her go. Ha! Knew you were getting soft.

Though I didn’t tell him the buyer, many will know this. This captain told me she has returned to his ship. When I offered to say this to the woman, directly, he severed the link. To me, this is suspicious. You seemed to like her, so I gift you with this information. Do as you will with it.

I think the captain wants to sell her too. The buyer is offplanet. They found out I gave you her and cursed me. I told them to come to me so I can put their head on a stake.

Good hunting, Torgeir.

Well, well. Kalfa had thought he liked her. He had, in a distant way. Because he’d known he was going to set her free, he’d restrained his curiosity and his libido. The other information was disturbing.

The seat huffed out air as he leaned back. “Kalfa thinks her shipmates, or at least her captain...” He frowned. Onboard a ship, in space, that meant the same thing really. They’d do what the captain told them to. “Means to sell her.”

“Supposition.” Dresdek shrugged when Torgeir glanced up.

“That’s a long word for you.”

“Frack you too. Bad luck for her if it’s true, but it could be all wrong.”

“Yes.” Or not. “It’s the Finatar. Anything?”

“Let me see.” While he ran through his database, Dresdek’s eyes rolled up slightly. The grimace when he came down spoke volumes.

“Bad?”

“Wanted in a few systems to answer charges of piracy, plus there’s one charge of enslaving free citizens. None proven. Nothing the law would do with those charges here on Sicar but, if the price is right, sounds like the captain would do anything, sell anybody.”

The price on Ella was very right. He hated the idea that he’d freed her only for someone else to go and grab her and sell her. He popped up the comm screen again and started tapping. “Those favors? I’m calling them in.”

“Awww. Really? We need those.”

“Shhh. I have a plan.”

“Does it involve carnage, filthy dirty sex, and us getting a ship?”

“Maybe. Some of those. Can’t tell which.” He grinned at Dresdek. “It’ll be fun.”

Dresdek wrapped both hands over the top of his head and groaned. “Baby kak. Piles and piles of baby kak.”

“Knew you’d love it.”

“One last thing, Torgeir. Her ship’s just taken off. Whatever favors these are, they’d better be good ones.”

They were. Half an hour later, after much frantic messaging, he’d bagged a ride on a police cruiser that was departing soon.

He tucked the comm into his pocket. The cruiser would detour to check out the Finatar. As long as they caught up before the Finatar accelerated into a wormhole and left the Sicar system jurisdiction, he had a chance of rescuing her.

Of course, he’d had to message Kalfa for a copy of Ella’s sale. She was legally his due to the fineprint of territory law. Enslaved out there and you were a slave until you died, bought yourself free, or were freed by your owner.

Try that here in Besk, enslaving a girl, and a man would be in jail damned fast.

Technically she’d run from him. The cops were willing to chase after a legally bought runaway who belonged to a Sicar lord, but not so keen on chasing after a ship that may or may not have kidnapped an Earth girl against her will.

He shifted across the booth’s seat and stood, gesturing to Dresdek.

“Time to go get our ride on a police cruiser.”

“Truth?”

“Truth. Just don’t tell them I’m not precisely a Sicar lord anymore.

They threaded through the patrons toward the entrance where the bouncer had already registered their intention to leave. He hefted the box with their weapons onto the counter top beside him.

“Thanks.” He nodded at the bouncer and reached in for his pistol and knife. For the last time, he would use territory law to his advantage. For the greater good.

“Also.” He turned to Dresdek. “Don’t say to anyone that she isn’t quite mine anymore.”

“You’ve reclaimed her?”

“For now.”

Dresdek wrapped his gunbelt around his waist and clipped it on. “Do I also not tell them why in all the black hells we are going to all this trouble for a girl?”

He sucked on the inside of his cheek, thinking. Anger? He was that – at her, in an illogical way, as well as angry at the men who wanted her when technically she was his? Because Mimi liked her? Childish reasons. “Nope, don’t say. I have no idea why.”

“Great. If pushed, I’ll say she has a pussy made of irillium.”

“Hahaha.” He slammed his palm onto Dresdek’s back. “You do that and I’ll tell your next girlfriend your cock’s made of steel.”

Dresdek grinned slyly.

“Pumpkin. I meant pumpkin.”

The police cruiser, a Malev 073NT, was efficient, shiny black, and fast. From the guided tour the Captain gave him, she had adequate ship-to-ship weaponry and a crew of almost seventy, with half of them well trained at boarding in transit. They took off an hour after he and Dresdek arrived. Now all they had to do was catch the Finatar and somehow convince them to hand Ella over.

Chapter 5

Ella awoke slowly, to find herself sitting in a chair in a cabin that was larger than her own bunkroom. A blurred desk appeared and came into focus, then a face that resolved into the bearded features of Captain Lyet. Her hands were tied at her back by something metal, her ankles to the legs of this plas-g chair by something softer. Not metal. Plas-g ties there? The glass plastic alloy was something new to her since venturing into the ’verse...and why was she thinking dipshit stuff like that?

She swayed in the chair, swallowed phlegm.

Her mind cleared.

“Ahhh. At last. Our little Earth girl is awake.” The captain winked. “Do you know how precious you are? Someone out there.” He jerked his head sideways. “Wants you a lot. So much that I’ve been tempted. I’m sending you to them.”

He rose to his feet and came to her, standing over her so she had to squint upward. Ella licked her lips. She was still in her tank top and shorts. How much time had passed?

“But, they want to see you alive and thinking before they will pay. So!” He swept his hand toward a blinking camera on the desk top. “Talk, my sweet bird. Say some words.”

“Fuck you,” she croaked.

He chuckled and grabbed her face in his fist. “Was that one of your petty Earth curses? Tsk. You know you have some friends in the crew but none of them are willing to stand up for you. Cowards. They all like the money more.”

He stepped back and switched off the camera.

“There. We are done. Now to package you up.”

“What? Wait. What are you doing to me?” Her heart had finally sped up as she registered the gravity of this situation. They were selling her? Again? Oh crap. She couldn’t get out of this one. Her palms began to sweat while her throat turned dry.

Calm, be calm. No use panicking.

“Doing? Once we get near the wormhole, and they pay us, we’re leaving you there in an escape capsule, all tied up and sedated with the beacon broadcasting your location. You’ll be fine.”

Was there anyone else in here? She screwed her head around. Seemed not.

“Garrett?” He spoke into a wrist comm. “Here now. Bring her dose.”

“No, oh no. Wait! Please. I can pay you.”

He eyed her, skeptically. “How much?”

“Um.” How much did she have left? Eighty? “Sixty thou.”

“Pfft. I get seventy from them.”

Desperate she blurted out, “Eighty! I have eighty.”

“Truly? That much?” He sat on the edge of his desk. Beyond it she saw his bed, a large double-sized one.

“Yes.” Oh fuck. Please let it be enough.

“I like this.”

The door opened behind her and someone walked in.

“Garrett, our Earth girl has money she wants to give us.”

She nodded, smiled weakly. “Yes. Please. I’ll pay if you let me go.”

“Let you go? No. You tell us, transfer the money, and we then still get to sell you.” His smile widened.

Bastard. “No. Fuck you fucking sideways. I will never do that.”

“I think any fucking sideways will be done by us. Garrett?” He looked over her head. “Get this done, please.”

“Sure.”

As her heart accelerated, a darkness rushed in and engulfed her. Garrett. She remembered him. Handsome man, if you liked sterile, over-muscled idiots.

Her anger faded to nothing.

Tick. Tick. Things clicked into place. Plas-g was breakable, with the correct applied force.

She thrust into a standing position, snapping the legs of the chair away from the base, and kicked backward, spearing Garrett somewhere with a chair leg that was still attached to her. His scream was loud. Unfortunately, with her hands still cuffed and the subsequent inrush of two helpers, she could only manage one weak kick to the captain’s leg. It fractured somewhat, from the crack, but she was pinned under the men’s weight.

At his instruction, they gave her a reduced dose of the sedative then tied her ankles together.

“Good,” he gasped, half-collapsed against the desk. “Send in the doc.”

By the time her dead minutes had faded, the captain had been injected with what must be a painkiller and bandaged. He shooed out the doctor while glaring at her.

Through the fog of the drug leeching into her, she realized he hadn’t stopped glaring since she’d cracked his bone.

“Now. Your turn.” He chuckled, though his face was taut.

Curving one hand under her arm, he dragged her to his bed and threw her down, face first. From the pains around her ankles, and the wetness, she’d cut herself and almost broken her own legs with that maneuver. With some effort, she turned her face from the bed cover so she could breathe. Ella coughed then tongued out the fold of cover under her mouth. She heard a noise and spotted a blurred man standing beside the bed with something long and thin in his hand.

“They want your head intact? I can leave that. The rest of you I’m going to beat until you scream. Tell me if this qualifies as fucking you sideways.”

She shut her eyes and tensed, shivering as she waited for the first blow.

The man didn’t curb the force of his blows. He didn’t seem to care what he hit.

The bite of whatever he used striped her ass, legs, and back with agony. No matter how much she writhed and sobbed, he shoved her back into place and flogged her again.

She’d been screaming for some time when she heard a thump, as if he’d tripped and landed badly.

The blows had stopped, though the fire of them remained. Almost frightened to look, she managed to lever her head up off the bed, enough to see a spreading pool of blood on the rug beside her. The room spun around and around then settled. Though her vision blurred, fading in and out, the source of the blood was obvious – the captain. He was sprawled facedown on the floor. Sitting where his head should have been was a rust-red furry blob.

“Mimi?” She laughed once, before groaning at the pain and lowering her head. What a pity she was stuck here, tied hand and foot. “Go away, Mimi. Before they see you. Go,” she whispered. The world was drifting away. “Go...”

Chapter 6

The police cruiser was faster, better armed, and skulking about under stealth. The approach to within striking distance of the Finatar might have been anticlimactic if not for Torgeir imagining all the ways this could go wrong.

He was a civilian, even if thought a lord. They kept him away from the main control deck until the last half hour. He walked in, heard the doors zip shut behind him and was treated to a busy, but softly lit, arch-shaped room. The big, curved holoscreen showed the Finatar, zoomed in, with the light of the distant sun making one side of her glow. Her hull was red and a pair of pulse drive engines bracketed the circular maw of the warp engine – the thin tendrils of blue radiance reaching out into space spoke of an imminent warp jump.

The seated crew ran through their procedures without fuss. The captain sat at the center, observing the screen, with a smaller holoscreen to his left. Torgeir took the observer’s seat, to the right, that was offered him.

Normally he could flow through what occurred around him, reacting smoothly. Not now. Sitting, watching things happen that he couldn’t change, made the situation seem fragile and sharp. One wrong move and this would shatter.

“They’ve ejected a single escape pod, captain. One occupant. Female human.”

“That’s her,” Torgeir blurted.

“Your slave?” The captain spoke without turning. “I agree. It’s likely. And very suggestive of illegal activity,”

More commands and information rattled out.

“They’ve detected our presence, sir.”

“Hail them.”

“Finatar, this is an SSP Police vessel. Cease acceleration. Shut down your drives and prepare to be boarded. This is a legal requirement.”

Silence reigned.

“Try again.”

After three more attempts at communication and a warning that the Finatar would be treated with deadly force if they didn’t comply, they pinged the ship with a coded message. It showed the Finatar AI automatically receiving it. A single missile flare was sent; it scorched across their bow and still no answer came. The captain leaned forward.

“Take out their fuel system, if you can, without breaching their hull. Prepare the team for boarding.”

At last Torgeir ventured a question. “The escape pod, Captain?”

“In due time, Lord Rakkel. We must first disable the Finatar.”

With his elbows on the side arm rests, he clasped his hands before him. If that was Ella, he hoped she was unaware of what was happening.

“They’re still accelerating. Trying for a jump, sir. We have an estimated two minutes to do this before they leave our jurisdiction.”

“Proceed.”

The small battle was brief and unremarkable, except for a distant brightness as micro-missiles struck and burrowed in before exploding. One mis-struck and blew a hole in the hull.

The air in the control room seemed to tighten but after a second or two, routine returned.

“They’re tumbling, sir. Engines are off. They’ve lost air to forty percent. Life signs...we see thirty-two deceased. Four lost to space via the breach.”

Despite Torgeir’s curses, they mopped up the Finatar first, synching flightpaths then sending over a police boarding party. After that, they rendezvoused with the escape pod and retrieved it.

They shooed him away from the main airlock, though he could hear it cycling. The first of the people would be returning from the Finatar soon and they had armed teams ready to take charge. He retreated and headed for the medical bay and emergency room, figuring they’d at least check her over when she came in. The doctor had about three medics and several others roped in to handle an influx of casualties, as well as robotic nurses. Four beds. Pallets on the floor. This place would be chaos soon.

They brought Ella in first and he joined the men pushing the hover stretcher, pretending he was supposed to be there. A lot of blood stained her shorts and top, and also her legs and her feet. Her eyes were shut and her head rolled from side to side when they moved her. Unconscious or drugged? Bad cuts too. Many bruises. He felt himself grow cold then hot. He clenched his fists. Frack them.

“Who did this to her?” he snapped.

The medic’s eyes widened. “Sir?”

The doctor gave him a searching look. “Lord Rakkel?”

“Yes? This is my slave, Ella.”

“You need to leave, lord. I have multiple wounded coming and little time to get her assessed. Cut her clothes off, Gedda.”

The medic brandished a safety cutter. Torgeir frowned at the man and he blanched.

“Lord.” The doctor nearly growled the word. “Leave, please.”

He sucked in a breath and decided glowering and shouting was not the best route. “Bring her to me, soon as she’s okay. If there’s anything bad, tell me, immediately.

The walk back was a sober one. Again he was trapped into doing zero.

An hour later, a man in the navy-colored uniform of a medic delivered her to his room.

Ella lay curled on her side on the hovering stretcher. Her unplaited hair cascaded over her shoulders like spilled night, tangling with her hand where it rested beneath her chin. She was covered with a single white sheet that was dotted and splotched with blood.

“Lord?” The medic looked at her then at him, peering from beneath his eyebrows. “She had mostly bruises, a few cuts. All repaired. The deep lacerations at the front of her ankles seem to have been from some thin restraints, possibly self-inflicted.”

“Okay.” He nodded, holding back the storm inside him.

“She’s still sedated with what they gave her on the Finatar. The doc thinks it best to let it wear off naturally. It’ll take up to twenty-four hours. We’ve done scans and found no internal damage. Right now we’re swamped with casualties from the Finatar and I need to get back. If you have any worries, message us.”

“Okay. Who did this? Who can I hurt?”

The man cleared his throat. “The crew said the captain beat her. He’s dead. They said it’s why they didn’t fire back. They were just running. Stupid, but there it is. I have to go.” Some thumping and scraping sounds made him turn to the doorway. “One last thing. Is this yours?”

Mimi leaped into view, making a clonk as she landed on the deck. Her little ears tweaked eagerly forward and she pattered into the room. She found the far corner between the end of the bed and the wall and splattered herself down, changing color to match the whiteness of her surrounds before she shut her eyes.

“Uh. Yes, she’s mine. Where did she –” But the medic was gone.

The door slid across, only to be halted by a hand. Dresdek appeared. He glanced at Ella then up. “Are you okay? Do you need my help?”

Slowly, he nodded. “I’m fine. No, I don’t need help.”

The twitch at the corner of Dresdek’s mouth said he was worried, but he backed away. The door shut.

Ella.

After swallowing once, he slipped the sheet down her body, revealing more and more of her naked body, all the way to her thighs, where he gently laid the bunched sheet. Bruises and blood patchworked her skin. Most of the injuries were on her back.

Torgeir towed the stretcher over beside the bed then carefully lifted her and shifted her over. Her small moans made him shush her while he stroked her forehead. He covered her with the bedsheet, after one last heartfelt study, then brought over a chair. This way he could sit beside her without accidentally hurting her.

All those bruises made him want to make them go away. The captain was lucky he was dead.

Strange, perhaps, how proprietary he felt looking at her. He’d wondered why he’d been so anxious, watching the battle play out, waiting for her to be rescued. Now he knew. His feelings and thoughts had crystallized. He wanted Ella to be his. How long that would hold true for, he didn’t know. He’d never bondmated and expected he never would, since he’d left Sicar. This would just be an infatuation. Surely it would.

After a while, he rested his head in his hands and thought about the plan he’d made. It could work, as long as she was well enough. The one certainty from this was that she was coming with him. For now, she was registered as his slave and he was going to use that as leverage.

Dirty tactics. He didn’t care.

Torgeir stood and looked at her. The mess she’d gotten into when left by herself. One day, she’d thank him.

The police cruiser was packed with wounded and prisoners and needed to return to Sicar before going on patrol again. The Finatar was a floating wreck until it was towed away, dismantled, or repaired. This close to a wormhole and this far from the nearest solar system, no one was going to try salvaging it, for a week or more, except him.

All he needed to figure out if this would work, was the agreement of the captain, the damage specs, and a ride over to the wreck.

The captain was preoccupied when he walked in.

The police cruiser had halted almost alongside the slowly tumbling Finatar. Every few seconds, on the control room’s holoscreen, the side with the breach from the missile rolled into view. Twisted metal decorated the edges and small debris floated loose. There was still one body out there.

“Lord Rakkel? What can I do for you? I hear your slave has been slightly injured. But not ravaged?”

“Yes. And no, not ravaged.” He’d have put any ravager out through an airlock, without opening it. “Sir, I would like to claim salvage on the Finatar.”

“You would?” One brow rose, then he turned and brought up a small screen in mid-air, swiping to bring up the dead ship’s stats. “I’m told it would be best repaired at a shipyard. It could take days here.” He eyed Torgeir. “If you can do it, I’d be grateful. It’d remove one piece of debris from near this wormhole.”

“May I?” He pointed and the captain dragged the screen closer to Torgeir. It was worse than he’d hoped. The hull breach had taken out control system conduits too, and the fuel system would need rerouting and so much new piping that he knew it wasn’t going to be available on any old trader unless she was carrying the stuff as cargo. And the cargo was...

He was actually hoping all his needs for repairs would be in the manifesto? It was not, but an idea bloomed.

“Sir.” He pointedly eyed the captain. “There’s too much damage and inadequate parts. However, if you did happen to have these.” He tapped the screen. “In your storage, as well as an engineer I could borrow for say, five hours?”

The captain’s face turned to stone and his mouth firmed.

Torgeir hurried on.

“I believe that, legally, a police operation cannot claim salvage although the ship’s cargo can be confiscated as lost property and if not claimed for a year, it can then be sold to support the Police Guild.”

“Hmmm?” The captain inclined his head, a little.

He took that as a good sign. “I have been thinking that donating half of my salvaged cargo to the Guild would be a gesture of thanks. That way, it would be in the Guild’s possession, immediately.”

“I see.” He tapped off the holoscreen and a small smile spread. “I’m glad you’re on the right side of the law, Lord Rakkel. Make that three quarters of the cargo and I will give you the suggested supplies and you can have the engineer for six hours maximum. I’m now meeting a hospital ship halfway to Sicar anyway and that delay will still allow us to be there at the right time.”

“Thank you, captain.”

“And I thank you, lord.”

He left Ella behind for the medics to supervise, with Mimi hibernating, or something, at the foot of her bed. For a MeMoMe, Mimi was behaving oddly. None of them had ever left Sicar. Once the ship was in better condition and safe, he’d bring Ella over, asleep still, or not.

Mimi too. Frack. A chill ran through him. He hoped she’d not go super heavy and knock a hole in the ship.

Dresdek was suitably impressed, saying in an aside, as they stepped from the Finatar’s airlock, “Am I right in thinking you’ve just bribed a police captain?”

The engineer, wearing his helmetless spacesuit, as they were, was already striding down the corridor, pushing the hover trolley of supplies with his detached helmet perched on top. He was out of earshot. A repair bot hummed along in his wake.

Torgeir murmured, “I think I did. Did you see Ella?”

“Yes. Poor girl. Lucky we caught up to them. I’ll do a search of their computers and AI to see if they recorded the buyer.”

“Good. It should be there. The police have cloned those memories already. You know, when she’s asleep, she looks a lot sweeter than when awake.”

“What? Ella? She’s hooked you, that much?” Dresdek chuckled.

“No. You haven’t seen her awake.”

“Uh-huh. And now I’m really wanting to get your sanity checked. Why in hell did we rescue her if she’s as nasty as that?”

He grinned. “Because I like a challenge?”

Then it hit him. How true that was. Ella was never going to be easy to get into his bed. She wouldn’t fall in, like some. He might have to drag her in, with her squealing and making all those other noises women made when turned on and having fun pretending not to be.

Uh. Yeahhh. That was hoping. He imagined her chained to the bedpost, kneeling, with his collar on her neck.

His cock was climbing as if to remind him it was there.

“A challenge?” Dresdek scoffed and hefted the unzipped bag he carried up to ear level, jiggled it. “We need to do this, you know.” Things tinkled onto the floor.

“Yes. Start thinking pipes and ship systems, not girls. Sexy or not...” He broke into a jog. “The open-to-space area is sealed and the doors are locked down. Don’t try to open them!”

In the past, whenever he was told he couldn’t have something, he always wanted it more. Ella was that.

“I won’t. Hey! Wait.” Dresdek stopped and squirmed his neck about, looking uncomfortable. “Something fell into my suit. Where are we going when we get this heap of kak working?”

“Riptide. The planet Riptide.”

“Oh kakkity. You could have said. That place is so bad my grandmother would run the other way.”

He turned to walk backward and yell at Dresdek. “You don’t have a grandmother!”

“Because she ran!”

Torgeir laughed. “Besides, we both know anywhere you go in the ’verse turns bad.”

The lights flickered, dimmed, and went out.

Before he could find a torch, two red eyes lit up down the corridor, bright enough to reflect off the walls. For a second Torgeir was sure his heart had stopped, then he recalled Dresdek’s retinal modification.

“Scared you? Can see now, though, can’t you?” Dresdek caught up, his red eyes weirdly bobbing in the darkness. “This, lord, is me being bad. Let’s go get those pipes and turn the lights back on.”

Chapter 7

Torgeir grabbed a chair and seated himself beside Ella’s bed while Dresdek leaned against the nearest wall. She was still mostly away in dreamland, though the twenty-four hours was nearly up. The Finatar’s little medical bot thought she was fine and healing well.

The warp drive had worried him. Missile damage and repairs in space weren’t the best mix. It had gone well though. They’d zipped through the wormhole and arrived in the Riptide solar system without a hiccup of any sort. Mimi had vanished but, being her, she was probably camouflaged and stuck to a ceiling somewhere. The ship was big, the hiding places many.

Now they had a week before landfall at Riptide itself. They had to nurse the pulse drives due to some unrepaired problems. With only two crew, they had to go slow anyway. He had time to think ahead.

He took Ella’s hand and held it lightly. The sheet had drifted down a little and the swell of her breasts showed above her top. Dressing her had been an exercise in restraint. The little bot hadn’t been capable, unfortunately, or fortunately.

While asleep she was vulnerable. While awake too. He had no doubt that Ella was as incapable of fending for herself as a newborn baby.

She might agree to him helping her. She might not.

Yes, and that clinched it. He dug in his pocket and pulled out the fist-sized, slave stamp encryptor, slipped his fingers into the central hole made for gripping it. He’d charged it earlier. Lucky he’d kept the thing. When he pressed the power switch, the ready light blinked on.

Dresdek’s voice was a rumble. “I know what that is. Why? I thought you were all into the no slavery and let everyone be free?”

“After the trouble she got into?”

“And that will solve it? Making her a true slave?”

“I’m not. It’s insurance only. Think of it as backup.”

“You know I’m not that into women unless they’re under me in bed. But...I thought you were in love or something? You do that, she isn’t going to love you. She’s going to want to smash something over your head, if you don’t get her under control. And controlling someone that deeply, without them wanting it, heart and soul, it makes them hate you, down deep, forever.”

“And that was you helping?”

“Just my thoughts. Yes. It was. You know my kind’s history. I know slavery from the inside.”

Torgeir sighed, watching her turn in the bed toward him, her eyelashes fluttering. If she heard this and remembered...

“Your past is different. If I don’t do this, I might lose her completely. It’s worth it.”

Silence from Dresdek. He picked up the encryptor. The bot’s medical scans had showed her limbs were more cybernetic than elsewhere. The total percentage had surprised him but it was a plus. The encryptor liked to start with the cybernetics. When he pushed the sensing nub of the device to her wrist, the light blinked rapidly. After twenty or thirty seconds, the light went a solid red, then it slowly changed to blue. He kept it on her skin, sure that his hand was warming up. The light went green. He lifted the encryptor away and switched it off.

Done. Every cybernetic part in her, every living cell in her body, now held his personal code.

Dresdek pushed himself away from the wall and stamped his boots, making them jingle. “Hope you don’t regret that.”

“I won’t.”

Knowing his code was inside her pleased him. Watching her sleeping aroused a fierce satisfaction. The soft curves where the sheet caressed her body, the rise and fall of her chest, the tumble of her hair over the pillow – his. He’d not take her until she said yes, but with this, she was his.

Chapter 8

A man was looking down at her. Not an enemy, no. Her memory told her that. Torgeir.

“Awake at last? You’ve been drifting in and out for hours.”

“I guess.” She frowned, feeling her forehead crease. “Where am I?”

A sheet covered her. Phew.

Memory whiplashed in.

Oh god. The last she remembered the captain had been beating her. The pain was gone. Her feet ached a little but there was nothing more that said she’d been hurt badly, and it had been bad. Even the sheet near her face had been smeared with blood spray.

Stop thinking about that. It would go in circles in her head if she dwelled on it. Around and around and around. She knew her habits.

She propped herself up shakily on her side, using her elbow beneath her. The fixtures of the room were familiar.

“I’m still on the Finatar?”

Her trembling voice must’ve betrayed her fears, since he leaned in and said, “You’re safe. We caught them. They’re all in custody or dead and being taken back to Sicar by the police. The captain of this ship is dead.” She read sadness and knowledge in his eyes. He knew what had happened to her? “The Finatar is now mine under salvage law.”

All good then. Except for one thing.

“Why am I here with you?” She’d had enough of being taken places she didn’t want to go.

He paused before answering and she had time to register the strength in his jaw and the way the darker browns in his hair set off the blond colors. How his tousled hair fell over his ears. The size of the hand engulfing hers. He had such kind golden gray eyes too.

Like maybe he’d give her his last piece of bread when starving?

Uh-huh. Let me spew now. Was her natural soppiness coming out under the influence of drugs?

She struggled to sit up, finding yet again that her feet didn’t quite touch the ground. The bunks here were too high. The sheet had fallen away, revealing she had on shorts and top still, except this was her green pair.

Clean clothes.

She’d been changed? By who? Suspicious, she eyed him, then she swayed and had put her hand out to stop herself toppling. Torgeir caught her first, by her shoulder.

Damn, he had nice biceps too.

“Are you okay?”

“Fine. I’m fine. Why am I here? On this ship?”

“I thought you’d rather be on a new planet. We’re going to Riptide.”

“Good.” Best be firm. “You can leave me there.”

“You think you can find work there, without even knowing what sort of place it is?”

She looked at the floor. Would her legs function? “Yes. You can tell me all about it. When do we arrive?”

“In about six days.”

At least he hadn’t tried to claim her again. “I never said thank you for what you did on Sicar, and now this... Thank you. I guess I owe you one, only not money.” She laughed without humor. “I don’t think I can afford that. Maybe one day I can pay you back?”

“Sure.” He smiled. It could have been an innocuous piece of body language except something hinted at a depth of emotion that shouldn’t have been there.

Ella nodded. Be careful around this man, her internal, female alarm seemed to be saying. Maybe the danger was minor, but with Torgeir, she could never let down her guard.

She swallowed as the grip of his hand on hers tightened, a fraction. A tingle unfurled, spreading, warming her everywhere with an awareness of how close they were physically.

Her breathing deepened and she had to clamp down hard to calm herself.

The man versus woman world of sexuality never went away.

For the first time, she went farther with those thoughts. What was so wrong with that? Torgeir attracted her. Why not explore a little? He’d released her on Sicar. What he’d just done for her was incredible. If not for him, she’d be a slave and in the hands of some stranger.

The pain and horror of what the captain had done would never leave her entirely.

She smiled back at him, feeling it liven her eyes. The man had beautiful lips. Her toes curled as she imagined kissing him.

Did he even want her? She was pretty sure the attraction went both ways.

He’s different though. Not from Earth. Whatever he thought normal, it might horrify her. Did they even have one-night stands? She’d need to spell this out, make certain they were on the same page. No confusion.

“How did you know? To rescue me?”

“Kalfa is my friend. He told me your captain had asked him suspicious questions about your buyer.” He shrugged. “I thought you were in trouble, so I helped you.”

Said so nonchalantly and yet again, in the narrowness of his gaze and his stillness, she sensed he wasn’t telling her everything. He’d gained a whole ship doing this. That would be motivation enough for anyone. It didn’t matter though if he wasn’t some pure white knight sort. He’d still helped her.

A memory surfaced. Mimi!

“Your pet, Mimi. Did you know she was here? Is she supposed to be here?”

“Ha. No. I mean, yes, I know she’s on this ship though she’s hiding somewhere. But she’s not supposed to be here. I don’t know how or why. Perhaps she was somehow forced on board? We’ll have to watch for her. As far as I know, no MeMoMe has ever left Sicar, until now. But...enough talk. I’ll leave you to get dressed. Those are your pajamas I put on you, I guess?”

She blushed hot. It had been him. “Yes.”

“Come out when you’re ready. The midday meal is in an hour. We’re on Riptide standard time already. There’s only Dresdek, me, and you, to get this ship running properly again. We’re still doing repairs. If you want to help, I can find stuff for you to do. Okay?”

She nodded.

He sat up straighter, with those big hands on his thighs. The gray ship’s pants, standard-issue heavy cloth, made his legs look like pillars. Torgeir was far bigger than her. She liked that in a man.

Having Torgeir in bed with her might do more than rock her world.

“See you out there.”

The door closed behind him.

The healing wounds across the front of her ankles reminded her of who she was inside. A plain human might’ve torn her legs off doing what she had.

Would he mind? Did he know how close she was to cyborg status? She was worrying over crap that might never be an issue. He might not like her that much. Maybe he’d rather take Dresdek to bed? Or a squid monster from the planet who-knows-what?

She let herself fall backward onto the bed so she was flat on her back staring at the ceiling.

Interplanetary relationships were going to be hell to figure.

*****

Slowly, over the next few days, she figured out where she fit in, what she could do to help. Not a lot. The ship had ample food supplies and air and the ship’s mess could be automated. The food the robot chef produced beat anything she made by ten. She wasn’t up on ship mechanics but she could hand over stuff. So she found herself following Torgeir about being a general fetch-it person.

She had healed so fast it’d worried her, but apparently that was standard if you could afford the best. The police doctor had access to the best, at least when it concerned cuts, bruises, and strains.

On the third day, Dresdek was off attaching some hull structures so a repair bot could rig a temporary skin over the missile-created hole, while she helped Torgeir with the back-up cybernetic brain for the fuel system. He sat before the waist-high console, in the middle of the room, peering at the innards. A square of surface from the console had been removed so he could replace some slightly frazzled brain cards.

His hand appeared at his shoulder. “Next.”

She handed him another of the thumb-sized things. It was a clear bluish plas-g with some shiny stuff embedded. “Last one.”

“Yup.”

She grinned. Saying yup instead of the alien yes was a mannerism he’d seemingly adopted since knowing her. Something bugged her about how he held the card. She put a hand on his shoulder and leaned in to look, tugging automatically at the skirt she wore. It rode up way too high, almost to her butt but then she’d known that.

When she’d considered what to wear this morning, something provocative had been her first pick. Torgeir brought out her inner slut. Shamefully. But no one apart from the three of them would see or know, so she’d said to Hell with it and put it on.

“Upside down again,” she whispered.

“It is?” He stared at it and turned it around.

“Yes. It is.”

“Half these things are way too old to be allowed on most ships.” He used the tool loupe that lay on the console. “You’re right. Second one today.” He slotted it into place then half-turned to look up at her. “How did you spot it?”

“Um. I just...do?” The man’s gaze never faltered and she tumbled into an awareness of his near vicinity, the heat of his body, and the solidness of his muscles under her palm. A high, thin note sang in her ears.

His chin had blond stubble, and he was watching her ever so closely.

“Oh. Sorry.” She went to snatch away her hand but he caught it.

“No.” Then he swiveled his chair about until he faced her. “Come here.” He towed her closer until she stood between his parted thighs. She didn’t have the fight in her to resist. “You give me those looks every day. You say things. And never act on them.”

Ella tried to swallow but her throat had seized up. “I don’t.”

He placed his other hand on her neck and traced small circles over her throat with his thumb, mesmerizing her. “Liar.”

She couldn’t blink.

She was such a coward, but he was an alien lord cross warrior from some ancient tribe. Until recently he’d probably kept women on a chain at his breakfast table. Her face heated at that unwelcome image, her nipples peaked also, then between her legs warmed.

Seemed like something about that idea turned her on.

While she was thinking about the why, he let go of her hand and found her plait, gripping it and her neck so as to slowly pull her lower. A smile grew in his eyes when he saw she wasn’t resisting. She should have. This is a little presumptuous, was her last thought before his lips met hers.

“Better,” he murmured then he kissed her softly a few times. She could feel him winding her plait around his hand. “I knew there was a good reason for you to wear your hair like this. Stay there.” He kissed her harder, surrounding her lips with his, taking what he wanted in such a male way and so arrogantly, that she found herself panting already, and shuddering.

That tug on her hair while his hand was at her throat...thoughts vaporized in the heat of swelling passion.

“You like that?”

“Mmm.” She wanted to be closer, skin to skin, and slid her hands down his arms.

“Good. I like doing it to you. Sit.” He rearranged them so she sat on his legs with hers to either side. It was comfortable, and terribly vulnerable, with her thighs wide open. His rigid cock brushed against her clit through their clothes, whenever she leaned in, or rubbed herself against him. Her moaning grew louder when he bit her neck and opened her shirt, button by button. His hand sneaked inside, into her crop top, then he paused, with finger and thumb holding her nipple. His kissing stopped too.

Eyes closed, she breathed awhile, knowing how harsh the noises were that she made, and how wet she was. She whispered, “Don’t stop.”

“No? Do you want me to fuck you? Is that the right Earth word, Ella?”

Of all the words to learn. Her eyelids fluttered open and she could’ve sworn she felt some part of her be absorbed by his gaze. There was a force there, in him, that drew her so hard.

“Yes. Please. But...no strings attached. I don’t want you to think this is forever.” She frowned, wanting him dreadfully, but knowing she must be clear. She didn’t know what rules he abided by.

“We will see. One time only, first?”

Phew. “Yes.”

Then he bit the side of her neck, here, there, then at the top of the muscle, below her ear. “Put your hands on me. Open my pants. Take out my cock.”

Oh my. She shut her eyes. Though she was eager, this would be the first alien man she’d ever done this with. She eventually looked down at him, at the bulge in his pants, and she put both her hands on him, and slowly she undid the fastening. The fastener was something like Velcro, but smooth on skin. His cock was clearly ready to perform, standing up proud and stiff when she freed it.

She gulped, a little awestruck, a little nervous. The head seemed bigger than on the cock of a man from Earth, but otherwise it was similar.

“Approve?” he asked, taking her hands and wrapping them around him. His cock pulsed against her palms and grew even larger, or so it seemed.

“Yes,” she said quietly.

“Stand up.” With his hands under the cheeks of her ass, he encouraged her and helped her up.

When she kissed him, using one hand to angle his cock toward her, while she began to lower herself, he stopped her, tightening his hands under her ass.

“Not yet.”

Her whine of frustration made him chuckle.

“Shhh. I want to make sure you’re ready.”

He stroked his fingers along the crotch of her underwear. Her practical black panties were all she’d been able to find in her messed-up bunkroom storage, but she guessed his fingers didn’t care because they were wandering in good places, tucking aside the sodden cloth, fondling her.

Embarrassing, how wet she was for him, this very first time. Why, she had no clue. In the past, men had taken ages of foreplay to get her this worked up.

She squeezed shut her eyes for his thumb was dipping delicately into her, and it was good, so good.

Her head had gone back and she gave a strangled whimper.

“I’m guessing,” he said, as he slid that thumb into her, deeper, along with a finger knuckle that pushed her lips apart, stretching her and circling...bumping into her hole, until both thumb and finger were penetrating her.

“Ohmigod.” She bounced a little, up, down, wanting something even bigger, preferably his cock. “You? Please?”

“Soon. If you’re like our females...this?” He popped out his thumb and applied it to her clit, working at her in soft circles, just as he leaned forward and sucked on her nipple.

“Fff...” She clutched his shoulder and the base of his cock, striving to insert that prize but he laughed again and kept toying with her, fucking her pussy with two fingers, making circles around her clit with that thumb, that awesome thumb.

“No, wait. I want...” She had this need to get him inside her, not just fingers. Him. His cock. But he refused to play that game and she shuddered, unable to stop a climax building and building, then thundering in. Her last cry cut short as she collapsed blindly onto him, her tongue tasting him where her lips met his skin.

His hands caught her, keeping her ass up in the air, and she could feel her moisture on her thighs.

“Oh. Oh. That was...” The words had gone. She hugged him, almost oblivious while she recovered.

“Now,” he whispered, “You can have me.” He drew her forward and made her sit.

The head of his cock was bigger. The damn thing, as it touched her entrance and pushed in, seemed to be carving a new hole all by itself. It sent shivers of new ecstasy spearing through her and she groaned, feeling pleasure reawakening. Irrevocable, unrelenting, and captive pleasure. The way he held her, she couldn’t leave, or extract him from inside her.

Her thighs quivered as he forced her lower, slowly, inch by inch taking her.

Damn. Tunnel drilling machines had nothing on his cock.

“Stop. Wait.” She dug fingers into his biceps and he began to make her go up and down, each small thrust, taking a little more, conquering more, fucking her more.

When he was all the way in and she was sitting on his legs, she had to stop with her head tucked under.

“Hurts?” he whispered, turning to kiss her neck.

“Is good.” She shuddered, clenching in on his cock the small amount her walls could go. The stretch was the utmost. “Hurts and then doesn’t. Much. Fuck.” She squirmed on him. “Good, most of all.”

“Now I know you can take me...” He stood, still inside her, then he pulled out and let her stand also.

“Maybe we should go back to the bunk?” She wrapped her arms around his neck. Common sense had returned. Could she catch diseases? Babies? “Do we need condoms or whatever you use?”

“No. And no. Only the bondmated can get pregnant.”

His cock looked as rigid as any cock could be and even twitched as she looked at it.

“I can’t get pregnant?” she said absentmindedly, thinking she might need a crowbar to get that back inside her.

“No, you can’t. Find a bunk? No. Here.”

When she pouted, he turned her and had her lean over the console, with her breasts squashing to the panel. He dragged down her panties and, to her surprise, kneeled and used them to tie one of her ankles to a leg of the console.

“What?” She stared down. No one had ever done this. “You’re not planning anything weird?”

“No. I just sometimes...” He bit her ass. “Like to tie up my females.”

The pain had made her squeak but with both of his hands wrapped about her thigh, she’d had to stay there. She clutched either side of the console, thinking, feeling. That had been surprisingly hot. The hurt seemed to head straight for her pussy. She leaned over some more, eyelids half-lowered.

Her right ankle was soon fastened to the second console leg, a good few feet apart from her left, perhaps tied with his pants. She was trapped and her pussy exposed to his study, thoroughly exposed.

She liked this, she decided. As his cock touched her pussy, she felt her entrance tighten.

“That’s it. Be mine. Be still for me, Ella, while I fuck you.” Then he slid all the way in, steadily, like the pillar of a building being driven into the ground, slamming her open.

“Fuck,” she gasped.

When he ground himself in even farther, if that was possible, she moaned long and low, unsure if she was drooling on the electronics but not caring.

He fucked her hard and relentlessly, shoving her clit into the plas-g console so it rubbed up and down with his movements, driving pleasure into her, making her grunt and utter the most indescribably primitive sounds – ones she would never own up to, even if tortured.

Being held open made her feel owned. In this moment, this now, that was good in some strangely awesome, overwhelming way.

When he came, she shuddered and fell into another orgasm. Her back arched, her legs tensed, straining against the ties, her toes curled at the floor.

Cleaning up the floor and her clothes was messy. She couldn’t wear her thoroughly soaked and stretched panties, but since she could cuddle on the chair with him afterward, she didn’t care at all. There was no one to see or know how dirty they’d been in this room of high-tech equipment. No one to know if she walked around minus panties. If all sex with alien men was this good, she was signing up for more. On his lap, with his arms wrapped around her was the best snuggling ever.

After a while he kissed the top of her head. “We should talk soon. I need to find out why someone wants to buy you. It’s dangerous to ignore.”

He needed? The way he’d phrased that was odd. She thought about it. “I don’t know, really. Maybe he, if it is a he, is just collecting Earth women. My name wasn’t mentioned?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t seen the request. Why did the captain hurt you? It seems the opposite of sensible, if he was selling you.”

She let out a sigh then nibbled her lip. Thinking back to that was painful, but she had to face this. “I angered him. And he said they only wanted my mind intact.”

“How did you anger him?”

“I kicked him and nearly broke his leg.”

Silence. Had she said too much? A normal woman could probably not do that.

But he only squeezed her and murmured, “A dangerous move, but I understand your need. Kicking enemies when you can is very tempting.”

She huffed a laugh. The man was being silly. He seemed to have said that to reassure her, even though she’d been stupid to kick that horrible man. She snuggled in some more, breathing slower, her eyes closing. “Thank you.”

“Another time, we will talk more on this.”

She nodded though unsure if she would.

Was someone waiting to pounce on her?

Whoever this mystery buyer was, now that he’d failed, twice, she might be forgotten.

Or maybe Torgeir was right? He was being nice to her, but she didn’t like how nosy he was getting. This was her life. Relying on him would put her under an obligation to pay him back somehow. She already owed him. Debts with unknown prices scared her.

Chapter 9

One day to landfall and Ella was avoiding him. Ever since they’d had sex she’d been more distant, as if trying to stall any relationship. It would’ve worked if he hadn’t felt so connected to her. If he wasn’t sure she was about to fall into a heap of trouble if left alone on Riptide.

And if he didn’t see her step out of the shower naked, water dribbling down her, over all those curves, wetting her breasts and making them seem plump and edible as fruit.

His color was coming out on her. She was bondmating. He stopped, frozen in place.

Did she know?

“Hey! Privacy! Shoo.” She grabbed a blue towel from the wall rack and wrapped it about her.

“Your door was open.” He struggled to keep his emotions in check and let stillness settle over his face.

“Oh. Yeah. The things on this ship that need repairing...”

“Yes.” For once he was glad the Finatar was rundown.

What he’d seen meant this was at a whole other level. Her nipples and even the hint of labia he’d glimpsed were rosier in color than before. Not just any shade. She had the early signs. Any male would recognize his own color.

But would she understand? And why was she resisting the pull that must be there? It was like someone was hauling him to her with hooks in his flesh.

She clutched the towel more. “Why are you still here and staring?”

“Don’t you feel it? The attraction?”

Ella blushed. “What?” She stared at the floor, frowning before looking up. “Being attracted to the opposite sex is natural but we agreed, no strings attached. I need to be my own person. I need to be me, and I’m already getting a vibe that says you’re not keen on that. Torgeir, please go.”

Her ridiculous argument tipped him past sensibleness.

“You’re showing signs of bondmating with me. I didn’t think it was possible with an offplanet female, but it’s happening.” She stared blankly so he explained. “Your sexual characteristics are becoming my color – a special shade of red.”

“Uhhh. What?”

“Your nipples and labia, even your lips, are redder than before.”

She didn’t even look, just hugged the towel to her. “Fuck off. Okay. Go away. I knew sex with you was a mistake. Besides, red? You’re not red. Anywhere.”

He pulled up his shirt and showed her the markings on his chest.

“Oh. So? A red tattoo or whatever doesn’t mean anything to me.”

He wanted to haul her off by her hair and do bad things to her ass. She was his and didn’t get that? Earth women were infuriating. If they had sex again she would see. The change would progress.

He stepped closer, grabbed the towel and ripped it loose, then tossed it aside. “Here.” He took hold of her breast. To not take hold of the rest of her was agonizing.

“Let go!” She put her hands on his wrist and tried to tug free.

“Look.”

“What? So? It’s the heat from the shower. Nothing.”

He ground his teeth. “You’re mine.”

“Fuck. No. You’re no better than the captain or that buyer. When we land, I’m going my way, and you’re going the hell elsewhere.”

He had no choice. “No. You’re legally and indisputably my slave.”

“I am not. Prove it in court. This isn’t Sicar.”

“Court? Easily. I inserted my code into you.”

“You did what?”

He released her breast but dragged her closer by her hair, gathering it tightly to her nape as he spoke, so she had to look up at him. Her pert nipples touched his shirt and wet him.

“It’s an unbreakable encryption stamped on your every cell and every part of your body. Only I, the owner, can ever remove it. You run from me and I will have you brought back to me in chains.”

She growled, literally growled at him. It was ridiculous, this little female growling at him and showing her teeth. He held back a smile.

“Mister Torgeir, you do that and I will hate you forever. What you’ve done already is unforgiveable. I swear...the things I would do to you. Remove this code!”

That gave him pause. Made him think. She wasn’t the same as most women. If he did this, maybe she would hate him forever, in spite of the bondmating? That would be tragic.

He thought fast while he held her inches from him. The way she panted through those red lips would drive him crazy, if he stayed this near her for much longer. He let her go and took a step back.

“I give you a choice. It’s true I swore off slavery.” He shut his eyes, for a second, and put his hands to his scalp, anchoring them in his hair and thinking some more.

“What choice?”

The pout she wore was offset by the wildness in her eyes. Such a feral creature. He would get this to work, but perhaps he needed patience.

“I free you, if you agree to grant me, three times in the next six months, a week of your complete presence, your complete obedience. You will be mine on those days. You will not try to leave Riptide until that time is up.”

“Six months?” She blinked, clearly thinking this through. The way she stared at his feet said it wasn’t easy for her. “If I’m free otherwise and not a slave. I’ll agree to this. No sex.”

What a stipulation. His mouth tweaked as he considered it. This could still be very interesting. He would make sure of that. “Very well.”

She smiled. “Fine. I don’t care if you make me scrub floors for a week.” Her eyes narrowed. “Wait. This is like granting you three wishes.”

The translator gave a green light to that word.

“You can call them that. Three wishes.”

“I’m no fairytale genie. But okay. I still agree.”

She folded her arms, making her breasts lift up. A distracting and naked girl, presenting her breasts to him. He made himself look at her face and to his surprise saw amusement at his reaction. She teased him? Wait until he had her for a week.

“Now, remove your code.”

“In six months’ time, I will.” By then, he would have convinced her to be his. He was a patient man, when he wanted to be. “In six months, you’ll be mine.”

“What? You never said you’d wait until the end.”

“You never asked.”

“In six months, I will leave.”

“We will see.” He stepped forward and walked around her as he spoke. “Already, I have ideas as to what I can do to you, without fucking you. You didn’t rule out the insertion of other things into you. I plan to have you begging for more, as well as begging me to stop.”

That she swallowed subtly then blushed, satisfied him all the way down to his toes.

He realized then that he’d missed something. Dresdek had been right. She should have wanted to smash something over his head for implanting his code in her. Her anger had been there but relatively minor compared to, say, threatening to kill him. The one explanation? The bondmating was affecting her. The signs were there. She was resisting but her culture might have nothing like bondmating so that was understandable.

This would work. It had to.

Chapter 10

Avoiding Torgeir made for a lonely, boring day. Ella sat on the deck in the kitchen, wrinkling her nose and poking the open panel on the chef-o-mat with her finger. The amount of corrosion on the AI boards was appalling. Cracks in the protective clear layers had let in moisture, she figured. Now all the thing would make was a meal with some smoked meat like bacon, eggs, and custard or chocolate fish. Death by space vacuum was looking tempting.

Mimi sniffed where her finger rested. Her nose was stubby yet wriggly and her fine metallic fur wriggled at the same time as her nose.

“Hey! It’s already got problems. Shoo.”

The critter seemed to have decided she was worth following and had emerged from her hiding place. Most of the time Mimi had four tiny legs and with her sitting on her backside as she was, she resembled a pet dog...well, one that’d OD’d on food, expanded to big balloon size, and turned into rust-red metal.

Ella stood, dusting off the bits of decayed plas-g that’d fallen out of the panel. As she straightened, Mimi leaned in and slurped her long silver tongue all over the AI boards, leaving trails of silvery slobber that evaporated as Ella gaped at it.

“Oh fuck. What have you done? When did you acquire a tongue?”

Mimi grinned in a wide-set, Cheshire cat way only a piece of living rock could manage. A malevolent smile, some might think. Which might be exactly right, considering she’d once squashed a man’s head flat as a pancake.

“Wish I knew what was going on in your mind.” Assuming Mimi had a mind.

Tomorrow they landed, thank god. Torgeir could maybe find new parts. Chocolate fish for a day was bearable.

She laid her palm on the boards. Touching cybernetics, AI chips, it helped her somehow to appreciate the damage – as if knowledge seeped in through her skin. Before, she’d felt the wrongness but now, even when she peered closer, there was only shiny new metal and rightness. Would it still function like a chef?

“Hmmm.” She looked at Mimi, then went to the controls and ordered a roast meal with the red sauce that had seemed edible in the past.

When it arrived in front of her, steaming, with all the correct ingredients, as far as she could tell, she raised her eyebrows. Interesting.

*****

The approach to Riptide was a whole new experience for Ella. Captain Lyet, bastard Captain Lyet, had never allowed her on the bridge on landings or take-offs. This time she was strapped into the navigator’s seat. Which worried her.

Seemed like the long holoscreen that stretched across the room had a habit of flickering too. She clutched the arm rests. They must know what they were doing. Both Torgeir and Dresdek were tapping away at buttons on the virtual control board. The planet on the holoscreen looked close enough to suck them in – a revolving gray-fogged globe with glimpses of green-gray land and blue sea showing in the gaps.

Even though being this close to Torgeir bothered her, she’d rather be here than by herself.

“Who is navigating if I’m sitting here?”

Torgeir half-turned. “Dresdek. We’re doing multiple roles. Sit. Watch.”

Miffed but seeing the sense in that, she listened.

“They’re wanting to send us up a guide,” Dresdek said.

“That’ll cost us heaps. No.”

“We have limited insurance. We’re doing so many...” He glanced at her as if wondering how much he should say. “If we damage anything, they will suck every last unit out of you in compensation.” As he spoke he was tapping things, glowing squares, pulsing circles. Hopefully, he was steering and not playing a video game.

“I know. We can’t afford a guide. We go slow. We stick to the plan.”

“Yes, lord.” More tapping and some words she couldn’t hear properly. “They’ve given us clearance, grudgingly. One minute. Then we hit the flight path.”

Blinking red lines appeared on the holoscreen, drawing a cone-shaped path diving down to the surface of Riptide.

“Good.” Torgeir said over his shoulder to her, “This isn’t some tourist spot. Riptide is one of the poorest, most over-populated and under-financed planets in the ’verse. The war depleted a lot of planets, made them resource poor.”

Wow. She’d looked it up but that must be in the fine print. The planet had sounded...industrious, old. The government was via a hegemonic monarchy, whatever that was, and some of the cityscapes had made her feel claustrophobic. “Remind me why I’m following you down there?”

He grinned, and it reminded her of that sense of humor of his that made all his bad points fade away, temporarily anyway. “Because you’re on the same ship as me. Because no one else would let us even attempt to land this heap, with only two crew, without levying a hundred charges on our tail. I’m not rich, Ella, haven’t been for years. This place here.” He pointed at the screen. “It’s where I start to make a new life. The Finatar, if we land her okay, will be a great beginning. ”

“Oh. Me too. A new beginning.” She firmed her mouth, staring at the revolving planet.

The night side glowed with a million lights but their red blinking path led them down to the daylight side. “We’re headed for the light.”

“Mm-hm.”

That had to be a sign.

“Keep your eyes open. It’ll be pretty as well as a little hair-raising. The port we’re going to is antiquated but it’s near one of the districts where we should be able to get accommodation and afford to live.”

“We?”

“Yes.”

Persistent, insufferable man. “So you’re about to risk our lives landing at some sort of garbage dump port so we can live in the slums?”

“You summed that up well.”

“He has a big cock though,” Dresdek muttered.

Ohmigod.

Torgeir grinned again. “Why do I take you anywhere?”

“My good taste? Here we go. Ten, nine, eight...”

The screen seemed not to show the heat radiating off the ship’s shields. The screen flickered now and then, but stayed mostly clear as they flew into the upper atmosphere and through the clouds. When an alarm blurted on, ringing through the small room, Dresdek slapped at a few more buttons and it stopped.

“Small loss of surface. Lost a panel over the hole.”

“Still intact, though?”

“We’ve one more layer. It should hold. I pray.”

Ella’s eyes popped wide. Should? She’d never heard Dresdek pray about anything.

They dived lower, flattened out over a sparkling ocean, screamed over fleets of ships and a floating suburbia, then over land, between some towering metropolis, and headed straight toward what seemed a monstrous pyramid topped with the head and shoulders of a gigantic sky-eating bird.

How big was that thing?

At the last second they veered and slowed, tipping slightly upward over a motley landscape of rusty, ramshackle, and sometimes gleaming spaceships. The Finatar landed, shuddering as some new power was unleashed; the ship shook so much that she seemed torn between landing and exploding.

Ella tried not to look scared but her teeth were gritted tight in a lockjaw of terror and her heartbeat was growing louder in her ears with every moment.

Calm. Be calm.

The last bump and shudder tapered to a whine. A whiff of smoke spread into the bridge and another alarm blared until Torgeir whacked some button with his palm.

“We’re fine. Fire’s out. Remind me to replace that, Dresdek.”

He coughed. “I will. Don’t fancy being barbequed in outer space.” He put his hands to his forehead and dragged them down his face. “We’re alive?”

“Yup.” Torgeir unstrapped and smacked Dresdek on the arm. “Let’s go get breakfast.”

*****

Breakfast was easy, since they ate it on the ship, but by lunchtime, after clearing the equivalent of customs here, they’d trekked all over the nearby area.

“How big is this city?” she asked, turning in a small circle on account of the mill of people around them.

“It’s not a city. It’s planetwide. It keeps going. Apart from the seas, almost every inch is covered by buildings. This here.” Torgeir vaguely waved at their surrounds and the towering stone and metal buildings. “Used to be the city of Pelagia. I think it’s now called Pelagia district?”

Dresdek nodded. “It is. Our next chance is up there. Hundred and eighty-third tier. Cheap. And we can get a big place.”

“Fuck,” she whispered.

Up there was like climbing to the heavens. She’d been in tall buildings, skyscrapers, but this was the bird-headed pyramid structure. The outside was gray stone and each tier seemed taller than an average office story. Though this wasn’t simply a pyramid, she realized, now that she was up close. There were other triangular metal pieces, jutting out, that added to the artistic impression this thing made on the viewer. It looked made for cutting and rending the sky – a violent yet majestic structure.

She shaded her eyes. Birds flew in vast flocks up near the head, which featured an open beak with dark triangular teeth. Whatever this had been in the past it was now a place where people lived. Curtains and towels, struts with washing, jugs and bottles and odd pieces of tech decorated every tier. Signs and perhaps graffiti were hung and daubed here and there. People leaned out of the tiers and talked. They yelled, cried, laughed. People swarmed over the tiers and slid down them at high speed in some impossible way. They landed at the bottom and walked onward.

From the noise and the litter alone you could tell people lived here.

“How many?” she asked, hitching her back pack into a more comfortable position. They were all carrying essential clothes as well as a small amount of food. Getting things ferried from the Finatar would happen once they found a place to stay. Whatever repair work they meant to do on the ship would make living there hazardous.

“They say, fifteen thousand. Come.” Dresdek approached an open entrance framed by stone lintels.

Torgeir seemed as fascinated as she was by the bird pyramid.

“Does it have a name? What was it built for?” she asked.

He casually reached for then took her hand. The warmth was enough of a pleasant shock that after straining for a few seconds to pull her hand from his, she stopped trying and walked with him.

He’d barely seemed to notice her little struggle.

“A name? Yes. Horuk is the name that’s stuck, at least for this generation.”

“Horuk.” It seemed a good name. A sharp name.

She marveled at the intensity of awareness touching him brought her. Every tiny brush of his fingers on hers was highlighted in sensation. She wanted to simply close her eyes and feel. Was he right? Was there some link between them? She’d looked up bondmating. Many cultures believed in it. Still, it seemed wrong and akin to a forced marriage.

She’d never been one to believe in something just because others did.

The way he’d stuck that code into her body had been so utterly wrong. She’d never forgive that. The more she thought on it, the closer it was to rape. He was infuriating, domineering, and a whole lot of other words that translated as asshole in her dictionary but she was stuck with him, trapped in his experiment – a sexual experiment, of some sort.

The scary thing? She wasn’t sure as to how she’d react.

Her only ways out were to run away and hope no one could find her, to wait out this six months, or to get rid of this code he’d implanted and thumb her nose at him. If she could do that last one, she would tell him to suck it, to sit and spin, to stick his bondmating where the sun don’t shine.

Those thoughts had her fuming again, until he squeezed her hand in his big fist and her insides went all gooey and her chest tightened. Damn traitorous gooey insides.

“As for why Horuk was built?” he went on, as they weaved past a small crowd of chanting, pink-robed teenagers with cat ears on their heads. “They say it was used to store a vast library that held this planet’s knowledge. They say priests used to split the hearts of ill doers in sacrifices. They say it was always a tenement where the poor came to pretend they were worth more because of the grandness of their residence.” He smiled and squeezed her hand. “Any of those could be true.”

She couldn’t look away from him. History was meat and bone to her. The past fed the present. “I want all those to be true.”

“Even the bad ones?”

“Yes. They make Horuk real.”

Torgeir laughed. “Then it is so. They are all true. It’s possible they are all true. Riptide is only the latest name for this planet. It’s had five others and has been civilized for millennia. Riptide is only the name it gained from gathering all the flotsam and jetsam of this latest awful war.”

Ahh. “Awful? You’re a warrior but you dislike war?”

“Most soldiers do. The smart ones do. There is nothing nice about war.”

A yellow-haired boy slid down the tiers, swooping past a few yards away, while sitting on some sort of board. He rode around in two swift circles and waved to them. “Welcome to Horuk!”

Ella waved back.

Most of his legs were gone and only slithery cybernetic connectors remained at the bottom. They somehow clutched the hovering cart he rode.

“That is why I hate war,” Torgeir whispered.

“He’s not a soldier, surely?”

“He’s still a casualty. Many of the cyborgs here can barely afford to live, let alone to replace their cybernetics.”

When they entered the darker space of the foyer, Dresdek skidded over and dangled a yellow chip before them on a chain. “Got it! Off her.” An old woman with a scarf on her head and a foot long prehensile metal finger looked up and nodded. “Being a lord still has value. Come. I will show you.”

Torgeir waited for him to move ahead then leaned down. “Your first week, starts now. Keep holding my hand. I like that, feeling you.”

She shut her eyes and let him lead her blindly for a few feet. Of all the things she noticed, it was her pussy squeezing in. Thank god he had no clue.

He kissed her ear and she stumbled. He caught her. “One of the things you get to know, when bondmated, is when your partner is aroused.

Kill me now. But she summoned a glare. Torgeir only laughed.

“Come, Ella. One week from now, you can do as you please. For now, you’re mine.”

The ecstatic shiver that travelled to her very bones mortified her.

Chapter 11

One thing to be said in Torgeir and Dresdek’s favor – they were organized. The sheer number of people and the strangeness of this place daunted her. Anyone sensible should be panicking and yet they carried on as if this were normal. The one hundred and eighty-third tier took twenty minutes to reach. They trekked up creaky elevators, stairs, and one hoverflow shaft that zipped them straight up fifty stories in a few seconds. The drop under her feet made her gut swirl.

She stepped off and had to take a moment to gather herself, no doubt looking pale. A giant of a black man grinned as he brushed past. “Don’t worry. It doesn’t fail often and even then you’re dead almost before you figure it’s stopped working.”

“Gee, thanks.” She swept back her plait and went to follow Torgeir.

“Hehe. No worries.” He stepped into the downflow side and plummeted from sight.

The corridors were clear-coated stone – made to be cleaned easier, she guessed. The doors to their place, or rather Torgeir and Dresdek’s place, were double and made of some honey-colored wood, or a copy of it. Even the handles looked posh and were black steel in the shape of bird claws. Inside, when the doors swung open, was vast and sparsely furnished. There were doors off to left and right and ahead was a broad opening to the sky.

“What have we got here?” Torgeir asked, stepping in and unslinging his pack.

Dresdek shut the door, and strode in, tossing the key chip on a low table. “We have a bathroom, but all water has to be brought from community taps at the end of the hall. Power is fine.” He waved his hand over a sensor and lights flicked on. “Bedrooms, two of them, with the bathroom, to the left. Living room ahead, kitchens to the right.”

“Plural? Kitchens?”

“Yes. I don’t know why. Maybe it used to be an eating place?” Dresdek shrugged. “I was happy to get this. We paid for the furniture. Have to find more food. The furniture will be enough if we don’t have parties.”

As if they would. Well, she wouldn’t. She didn’t really know the two men that well.

Wary, she walked toward the opening. The only doors sealing this four-yard-wide gash from the outside weather folded in from the side and were flimsy-looking clear plas-g. A stone roof projected outward and covered the terrace. She leaned out over the drop, putting her palms on the warm downslope of gritty stone. Their balcony edge was also the roof of the terrace below. Every roof on every tier below was the same so that the pyramid flowed like a slope all the way to the seething markets below. She couldn’t see her neighbors below and those above couldn’t see her, unless she stuck her head out, like she was doing.

Coming in on the Finatar, there’d been lakes of thick smog wreathing some of the buildings but from here the sky was a clear Earth-like dirty blue, though pocked with flying craft – some of them zipping across lower than this story. Where she stood was on a level with some distant buildings but Horuk went higher than this, far higher.

Washing waved like tattered flags all around her and graffiti decorated even the stone under her hands. The language looked so foreign and her in-mind translator gave her a blank answer. She had no clue which way up it should be read, though one section was clearly a stick figure man with an enormous dick fucking a...she turned her head sideways. A big chicken?

A rattle from above warned her and she ducked in.

A tide of people on some sort of board shot past to either side of her, screaming out happy insults. Hand on her thudding heart, she watched them surf to the bottom where they peeled away into the crowd and vanished.

“Wow.”

“Looks like there’s more than one way to get down.” Torgeir leaned on the terrace stone beside her. “Thirty-second trip compared to twenty minutes?”

“About that,” she agreed. “Looks scary.”

“Yes. I’ll stick with the hoverflow shaft. My big feet would never stay on one of those boards.”

Something scared this warrior?

Strands of his long, unbound hair wafted in the wind and his big shoulder and arm muscles bunched as he leaned out, peering downward. The sun seemed to like him and glinted gold across his skin. The man was enticing, physically, that she had to admit. He turned and caught her looking then took her hand in his.

He raised it to his lips and kissed her knuckles and smiled.

“Come.”

She kinked an eyebrow.

Where was this heading?

He winked. “Only shopping. Though we may need provisions, a native guide, and pack animals just to get to ground level.”

“Food?” This she could do.

“Yes and if I can find you some sexy clothes, I’ll be buying those too.” With his hand on her ass, he guided her toward one of the bedrooms. “First, what do you have here already? Dresses?”

“No.” She couldn’t help smirking. “Black pants and tops like this.” She indicated what she was wearing. “Uniforms. You said you looked in my storage on the ship.”

“Tsk. That has to be rectified. It’s much more interesting to watch a woman take off or put on a dress than a uniform. Luckily, I rescued your skirt and corset outfit from the ship’s laundry. You’ll find I packed it in with your stuff.”

He what?

He was going to watch her? That hand on her ass suddenly seemed far more possessive. Though she halted and opened her mouth to protest, the look in his eyes told her he was waiting for her to do that. She subsided. Best to appear compliant and save her energy for things she could win. The three wishes were far better than him pulling slave master status on her.

Though if she pressed him, might this repentant slave owner give up entirely and let her go?

There was a hardness to him. He’d fought years of war, killed. She doubted Torgeir ever gave in on something he really wanted to win. And he wanted to win her. She must be secretive and careful.

“I won’t watch this time,” he added softly, but he pulled gently on her hands until she had to move to him then held her about the waist. “Nothing in the wish rules said I couldn’t do this either.”

One of his hands slid up to her back. The firmness of that hand, arriving close to her nape, seemed to shudder into her mind in one hit and she had some sort of mini-orgasm on the spot.

Fuck.

I imagined that.

He came in for a kiss at the same time as he dragged her body into his, molding his thigh between hers. She grunted at the squeeze of hard male muscle onto her clit. This was a long and slow kiss that smothered thoughts, submerging her in the little intimate sounds and movements of two people breathing, face to face, of sighing, of licking...it was mouth fucking done exquisitely right. From where his lips caressed hers, a tide of warmth swept inward.

Her moans were barely more than sighs and she thought, inaudible, until he whispered, “I love your sounds.”

When his tongue demanded entrance she refused at first, but as the onslaught of his kiss continued, she parted her mouth. Her resistance, today, was nonexistent.

At the sound of Dresdek’s footsteps, her eyes sprang open.

Torgeir patted her ass. “Go get dressed.”

That instruction, along with that dismissive gesture, riled her, no matter if his wish had a thousand rules, and she hesitated.

“Go. Unless you want me in there too?”

One glare said it all. She stalked into the room, trying not to seem too bothered though sure he watched. The feel of his lips and his taste lingered in her mouth. His body had been hard against hers, in more ways than just muscle. At least this bedroom had a door. She shoved it closed. When she was sure he couldn’t see her, she propped her shoulders against the wall and inhaled, then pressed her hand between her legs. The tremors in her thighs disturbed her.

“Man.”

She pried herself from the wall. The corset and skirt were indeed in her backpack. The skirt looked shorter than she remembered and she screwed up her nose.

It was only after she’d changed that she noticed the other pack flung in the corner. Dresdek must have moved it in here with hers, while she was on the terrace. It was the bag Torgeir had brought. The bed was large and would be classed as king-size on Earth. The blue covering, like the linen underneath, was clean but plain.

She sat down and stared sourly at the light gray walls. Every wall in here was gray, stripped-back stone. Someone needed a lesson in color schemes.

Did Torgeir expect to sleep on this bed with her? She might need the Great Wall of China constructed to keep him away from her, right down the middle. Or maybe to keep her away from him? Ugh, if there was such a thing as human catnip, he was it. Man-nip? She snorted.

Had she orgasmed from his hand on her back?

This would be a long, looong week. Getting aroused every time he touched her or said anything in that gravelly voice was going to be a trial and a temptation all at once.

Her ankle itched and she reached down to scratch it. Then she stared. That spot on her left foot had become spongy, as if under the skin had changed. They’d said it was some neurological damage from whatever the Bak-lal had done and that it was nothing to worry about.

Right. She straightened, set her mouth in a firm line. No worrying would be done. She was definitely not going to explode open then have a little alien jump out of the hole and eat everyone. No worrying. Except...what had happened to the cotton shirt she’d once worn under the corset? If the hooks containing her boobs popped, she was going to show off the whole deal. Would that get you arrested on a planet where everyone seemed to be multiplying like rabbits?

*****

The markets surrounded the base of Horuk for miles, or so it seemed, washing up to its edges in a tide of money-hungry, shouting, babbling people. A few stray pet dog-things and other weirder creatures wandered about snuffling. For all her local knowledge, they might have been deadly predators if not for their garbage-eating habits and how everyone ignored them.

She became accustomed to the noise. They found out it took forty minutes to circumnavigate the pyramid, though a lot of that walking time was spent dodging people and shops. They filled their packs with food and necessary small things. Cheap plates and cups, high-sorb towels, cleaning stuff. Their room had much supplied, but not all. The taxi ride to ferry things from the Finatar would be expensive. Everything here was either expensive or super cheap because it was only made to last the shortest time that a customer would think satisfying.

Dresdek had peeled away to do his own thing by the time Torgeir found the clothes shop. They’d passed a few she’d suggested. This one, a booth that was open on three sides, looked ready to sail away on the next good wind, it had so much colorful and fine cloth billowing in the fitful breezes.

“Here.” Torgeir nodded. “I recognize some of this.”

Oh my. From what? His slave girl days?

Ella stepped in after him, dreading what he’d choose. She’d had boyfriends before, but never any who’d wanted to buy her clothes. Or she thought not. As always her memories were so jumbled she had trouble being sure. They’d glued her back together, rescued memories but not done a perfect job, then they’d pumped in all sorts of other info. Languages, emotional bypass, translator and databases, even a good smattering of knowledge in a couple of employment types to help her get a job. She knew something of cybernetics, something of trade, something even of piloting a ship, and nothing, out of all those, was perfect.

I am one fucked-up jigsaw of a woman. Ella squared her shoulders. She’d survive. That was her best attribute – survival genes.

Getting through the next half an hour was agonizing. Once some clothes had been chosen for her to try on, Torgeir sat in a chair and waited for her to emerge from the tiny change room. She supposed twirling was expected. She didn’t do twirls. He seemed amused by her lack of catwalk skills. When she came to the more see-through items, he was looked both amused and predatory. Her blushes grew redder and hotter, as far as she could tell.

The last, a gossamer translucent dress that made her nipples clearly visible, had her stomping to him and whispering harshly, “You cannot expect me to wear this?”

Another male customer paused to stare.

“I do. Though it may not be on you for long.”

Smug and he was assuming far too much.

“It’s...it’s...too you know.” She vaguely swirled over her breasts with her open hands.

“Yes. It is and they are beautiful.”

She rolled her eyes but he merely chuckled.

“Now I will have to buy it.”

When they returned to the entrance to Horuk, the same boy was there, selling the hover boards and apparently his hacking skills from the handwritten sign propped on his cart.

Torgeir was talking to Dresdek and she slowed. “Hello, you’re a hacker?”

He might not be great at it but perhaps he could lead her to someone who was great.

“Yes. My name is Plito. Pleased to meet you, miss.” He offered his hand and she bent to shake it. The boy couldn’t be more than sixteen. “Would you like to buy a hover board? They’re excellent at transporting you swiftly down Horuk.”

“Not today, but I may ask you about hacking.” She glanced over her shoulder. “The men were approaching. “Another day though. Are you always here?”

“Most early mornings and late afternoons, yes.” He smiled.

She rummaged in her purse. Solid coins were sometimes used here where digital currency had a habit of vanishing. “Here. Thank you, Plito. I’m Ella.”

“Thank you, Miss Ella.” He saluted her with a hand to his forehead. “This is a big coin. I’ll keep some of it as your credit toward some hacking.”

Honest too. “Okay.”

Now that was a start. The code could not be as unbreakable as Torgeir thought. Nothing was ever impossible or perfect.

Chapter 12

Incoming. Henchman 1.

The dry-voiced AI announcement with that henchman label made him smile, as always.

Found her, sir. On the planet Riptide. We tracked the Finatar. Salvage rights now owned by Torgeir Rakkel. She’s with him and a cyborg called Dresdek. Do you want us to acquire her? There are signs she may be bondmating with the Sicar Lord.

He hit reply.

No. Do nothing violent. The last attempts were chaotic. I wish to remain seemingly harmless, to sink into the background. We will pass through there in a month or two. This many ships slow our progress through the ’verse. We will have to terminate the bondmating using a slow-release nanochem so that she’s sexually receptive again in 3 months. That should be long enough a gap to deter this Torgeir. However, find out what she needs, wants. Perhaps she will come to me willingly. Play with that concept.

Yes, sir. It shall be done.

*****

Though Dresdek returned to their rooms, he immediately packed and left. The last sounds were of his boots tinkling as he shut the door. Without him, the place was emptier than seemed possible. She stood in the center of the living room aware she was alone with Torgeir. Now there were two bedrooms for two people. That had to be a plus?

Well, alone except for Mimi. Ella checked the spot above the door and could just make her out, blended with the pale rock up there. She’d arrived a few hours ago via the terrace.

Her feet ached so much from the walking that the incessant ankle itchiness faded to the background. The evening meal was yet to be eaten. They’d bought a selection of the local spiced and preserved meats and salads – things that would keep, though the power here had so far been reliable. The smoked fish had smelled divine.

Her stomach grumbled as Torgeir walked up behind her and said, without touching her. “Go choose one of the dresses to wear.”

She turned, puzzled and suspicious. The almighty Torgeir was letting her choose?

“Then we’ll talk, out there.” He indicated the terrace. “I’ll put together a tray of food and some of that Kiana wine.”

Talking? Stunned, she watched him walk to the main kitchen. The man must be ill.

Of all the dresses, one had made an impression on her – a red dress with silky fabric and colors that changed hue into subtler versions of flame along its length. The way it clung to her curves, accentuating her breasts, curving in at the waist, then flowed down to calf length like a flower blossom as yet unopened said elegant yet sexy. She never wore dresses but this one had beckoned to her.

She twirled, yes twirled, before the cracked head-high mirror glued to the bedroom wall, and she grinned. Gorgeous.

For this, she might just forgive him for making her try on all the see-through ones in public.

Venturing out onto the terrace wearing the garment seemed as dangerous as putting your hand through the cage bars to pat a hungry lion. She rarely dressed up, certainly not since leaving Earth, and Torgeir had plans to seduce her. She settled in the rickety chair that awaited her at the equally rickety table. A platter of food and wine sat on the table though both bottle and glasses seemed likely to be plas-g. Was everything here synthetic?

She laid her hand on the table and dared to meet his eyes. “With the cities covering this world, do they still have trees? Is this really timber?”

“I doubt the table or chairs are timber but they might be antique plas-g. Furniture’s been made out of it for centuries.”

“Uh-huh.” She tapped her glass with her fingernail. It sounded duller than glass. “Are we really discussing furniture?”

He slid an empty plate to her with a fork and knife resting on it. “Find what you like. The bread’s great too. Ella, I’m trying to be nice to you. I can see that bondmating is a foreign idea. I have a feeling my own desires are greater than yours at this point, though...” He smiled. “That will change.”

Her anger returned. “Your assumption that I’ll come round to your way of thinking bugs the hell out of me.”

“Bugs?” He frowned.

“That and your code and making me stay here. Everything really.” She stabbed at the food, transferring some randomly to her plate while he poured out the wine. “Don’t you see that? If you want to be nice, remove the code.”

“I see that you’re angry. Remove the code? No. I don’t trust you as yet.”

“You don’t trust me?” Could she fork stab him?

“I also know that you were in grave danger by yourself and for me to ignore that and let a woman who is m –”

“Do not, say mine. I am nothing to you.”

He sipped some wine and set down the glass. “Why don’t we eat and drink before we talk again. It might be best.”

Was it her? Even that seemed patronizing. “Fine.”

They ate in silence, if she ignored the distant street noise, the calls from birds flying above, and the roar as a spaceship zoomed in to land. The wine did relax her a little and he hadn’t pounced on her. Maybe talking might get her somewhere? She watched him through the glass as she drank. Those faux leather pants, with the wide animal-hide belt, made him look mean and warriorlike. The long projectile weapon he’d propped against the stone of the balcony added to his allure for her. It had a ton of buttons and shiny sights and accessories. She’d always loved fantasy warriors with swords and stuff.

“You ever own a sword?” she asked slowly, wanting to kick herself and facepalm even as she said it.

“What?” He paused in the midst of pushing his plate aside. “Only a sherukk.” He pantomimed measuring something a yard long, holding his hands apart. “It’s a type of edged weapon. The fighting style is almost a dance. No one uses them much anymore. Guns do it better.”

Was she drooling? Imagining Torgeir doing a sword dance in those tight pants with his shirt opened was insanely hot. She gulped some more wine.

“What were we going to talk about? Furniture?”

His eyes narrowed. “You. I planned to talk about you.”

Chapter 13

The woman must have no perception as to how alluring she was to him. The dress might not be see-through but it cradled her breasts to perfection. Every curve beckoned the eye, every fold of the delicate fabric seemed arranged just for him, and when she leaned over to pick something up, or to talk to him, or do anything at all, he nearly swallowed his tongue at the sight of her cleavage and the slight movement of her breasts.

When she’d swayed out onto the balcony earlier, with that red cloth twining around her, worshipping her hips and ass, he’d been mesmerized. How could she look so beautiful, so female, and not want to be his? It was criminal. He really should’ve worn looser pants. And he’d been so nice, despite her detesting him doing it.

He should’ve just taken her despite that stupid wish.

But, he was a man of his word, he could be patient.

“Tell me, what work do you plan to get?”

“Ummm.” Her fingers grew paler where they clutched the glass.

“Nothing? I wish I could take you on the ship when we go, but I plan to hire out for fighting. Mercenary fighting. Dresdek has gone to other districts to find some soldiers and crew.”

He wiped his mouth with the big and fancy cloth napkin. First time he’d used one of those for years. Anything to woo her though. He could be couth. As long as it didn’t involve manicures.

“I’m thinking AI device work. Cybernetics? So many people here are cyborgs or close to it. I could maybe open a shop down there?”

“You’ll have a lot of competitors. Do you know enough? Do you have money for stock?”

“I learn fast.”

He thought back to the ship. She did. She had a strange awareness of what went where that transcended learning even, perhaps, but the people here would have years of experience. She’d likely go hungry if left to her own ideas. He’d have to leave her emergency funds. There were people he could pay to watch her. The hard part was finding the good and trustworthy ones.

“Would you like to know anything about bondmating?”

Her mouth set in a line. “I looked it up. It’s like forced marriage. We have that on Earth.”

“Forced marriage? That doesn’t sound good. Bondmating isn’t forced...or at least not once past a certain point. Give me your hand.” He reached across the table, laid his hand in the middle and waited.

“What?” She did that cute, one-browed lift that said she was worried yet curious, and she stared at his hand. “Why?”

“Do it.” He opened his hand some more, turned it so it lay palm upward.

Her sigh made him smile, but she placed her hand in his. The little shock of contact raced into him and went straight to his groin, but he was watching her. Her lips parted, her pupils widened. She had it too.

After a few seconds where all she did was gape at him, her breasts rising and falling, he said softly, “I know you felt that. Admit it.”

Everywhere his hand touched hers seemed to pulse and their clasped hands felt as if they expanded, taking up more space than was possible, telling him and her, irrevocably: this is how it should be.

Her eyebrow status went from raised and startled to annoyed and frowny. She shook her head and her words were quiet but distinct. “No. It was nothing. We are nothing. You dream.”

He tensed, tightening his grip on her hand.

“Hey. Let go.” She tugged, her nostrils flaring, her lips white. “Let go of my hand, mister nothing –”

The tipping point hit him. He did possess one of those. Rarely did this happen in battle or in life in general, but now...

He snarled, shoved back his chair, while still holding her hand down then he hauled her forward across the table. Plates clattered to the floor. The wine bottle tipped, though he caught it and set it down on his chair. Then he stood and went around to her side while keeping her in place with that hand and the other across her nape. She spluttered protests and he ignored them.

He was angry. Going berserk in battle was a known phenomenon but not really his way. He kept himself close, controlled, when fighting.

Ella though. She’d broken him, broken his resolve to be nice.

The cloth napkin drew his eye. He picked it up, wrenched one of her hands then the other to her back, and used the napkin to tie her wrists together. Though she cursed some more, he noted they were quiet ones. His temper had cooled. She knew people would hear if she screamed, yet she stayed quiet. It was as telling as anything.

He flipped up her dress to her waist and swore a few curses himself at the sight of her flame red panties and the double swell of her ass straining at the cloth.

With his legs jammed against the back of her thighs to keep her in place, still facedown across the table, he cut the sides of her panties with her table knife. That made her swear louder than before and writhe against his hold. The whole platter toppled from the table.

“You! You cut them? What a waste.”

“No, the food falling on the floor was a waste. You liked the underwear? Good. That will teach you not to be such a bitch about bondmating.”

Panting, she said into the table, “You don’t even know what a bitch is.”

“Female earth creature that’s in heat? That’s you.”

Her ass was exposed like this. He stared down at her, shifted his legs so her own were spread even more.

“I could feel your wetness through my pants. You’re such a liar, Ella.”

“It was just... I was...”

While she was still unnerved, he turned his hand palm upward, lined up his middle finger on her slit, touching the very center. Back and forth, he worked his fingertip between her pussy lips until it was barely through the entrance, then he slipped it in. Like sliding through honey, his finger went inside her to the max, only stopping when the skin between his fingers pushed into her. Her squeal was electrifying so he squeezed it in even farther while keeping her in place with his hand clawed into one ass cheek.

“Stop, stop, stop. Wait.”

But when he withdrew and slipped a second finger into her beside the first, she moaned and slumped into the table.

“Holding hands was good, wasn’t it? I’m guessing from your noises that this is better.”

He leaned down until he could see her one visible eye, see her focus on him and blink. She turned her face and licked her lips as if to speak.

“You –”

“What?” As he spoke, he jammed his fingers in and out and in again, and she coughed and shut her eyes. “Say it, say you’re turned on, or I swear, I will take your wetness for consent, and I will dishonor my word for the first time in my life and I will fuck you right now.”

She squirmed on his hand, looking uncomfortable but her pussy clamped in and more of her slick moisture leaked out and dripped onto his palm.

“You said you wouldn’t do sex. You swore that. This is sex already.”

“No. It’s not. Tell me, are you turned on?” He kept his tone even, though his heart was beating crazily.

“Bastard!”

“Ella...”

“Fuck.” She groaned. “Yes. Damn you. I am.”

“Hah. Thank you.”

Having her like this, tied and down on the table was giving his cock notions of grandeur. Some fasteners would pop soon.

“I promised no sex but that I might stick something other than my cock in you. When I was nice, I wasn’t inserting things.” He tsked. “Nice wasn’t working. Now I’m being mean. For some reason...” He wormed his fingers in a half circle and pumped them in and out, steadily. “I think you prefer mean.”

She stayed silent, her eyelids squeezing down and fluttering. She huffed and groaned quietly when he went deep and stayed there, curling his finger up high and shoving hard enough to slide her forward an inch.

“Well then. Now we both know. Mean it is.”

“No.” But the word was shakily uttered.

“Oh, yes.”

He stood straight, took up her torn panties and shuffled them between her lips and knotted them around her face. A perfunctory gag but it was pure justice to use those sodden things in her mouth when she’d declared she wasn’t aroused.

What to do now? This wasn’t planned. If he hadn’t given his word, he’d be fucking her hard right now. That promise was coming back to bite him. If he couldn’t do it, he was going to make sure she felt his pain.

“Come.” He pulled her to her feet with a hand around her arm then guided her into the darker room. Sunset was coming soon. He turned on the lights and studied Ella, gagged and waiting. He really had little need except to handle her, to touch her. After leaning on the sofa back, he raised her chin with the edge of his hand. “I don’t want to scare you. I just have this incredible need to, at the very least, touch you. Being obstinate will not prevent the bond between us from forming.”

From the look in her eyes, and the way she tongued the gag, she wished to speak.

“Hmm.” He kissed her without mercy, grinding his mouth on hers and forcing her to submit, nipping her nose, holding her head back to get access to her neck and biting her there. He pulled down the front of her gown and bared her breasts.

Then, only then, when she was red of face and neck, and her legs were shaking, when she was near to melting in his arms, he wriggled the gag from between her lips. While she regained her ability to speak, he picked apart the knot.

“What did you wish to say?” He tweaked his mouth. “Take care. No more insults. I think I have you at a disadvantage now.” When she only sucked on her lower lip for a while, looking unsure, he added, “I think you enjoyed that. Let me say this. Lying to me, from now on...the penalty is that I get to fuck you then and there. Of course, I have to catch you doing it, but I think I can. So be careful.”

It was a new rule and outside their agreement. He waited. No argument came. Perhaps she was too flustered? More likely the bondmating urge had her in its vice. He knew what it could do, had seen many of his friends succumb. The heat of it thrummed through your blood at times, created chaos in your head, made you unleash a fuckfest to end all fuckfests. He was ready. Knowing what would happen would help him to withstand the force.

Ella must have little idea of what was coming.

It would be enthralling to watch her fall to her knees, her mind blown as passion took her to the brink and beyond.

He almost asked her if she’d enjoyed being mastered by him, as he’d just done, but it was too early. Her mind would be a mess of contradictions.

“Your words?” He gathered her dress at the side, drawing it to her waist, baring her and making his mouth go dry at the wonder of her body. He’d never tire of seeing her, even the simple slope of her hip and waist. He caressed her there, marveling at her softness, then he raised his head and met her eyes. “What did you want to say?”

After opening her mouth again, she shook her head, looking dismayed, perhaps at her own cowardice.

“I’m going to untie you in a minute, so I can take off your dress.” He cocked his head. “You’re going to be naked for the rest of the day. My word is true. I won’t fuck you unless you lie. Okay?”

She nodded, swallowed. “Yes.”

He’d shocked her, doing this. Torgeir studied her again. Good. Something had needed changing. So far he didn’t regret this. He nodded then took her arm again and steered her to the side of the sofa. He left her standing there, facing out and frowning, while he piled up some pillows at the end nearest her. He said no more words and only pushed on her, making her fall backward under his control, with his hand on her stopping her from truly falling.

She ended up lying with her head and back on the down-sloping ramp of pillows, with her butt on the armrest and her legs bent at the knee and hanging over the side. Her tied wrists were under her back and she couldn’t rise or get free without his help.

“What are you doing?” she whispered.

He pushed the skirt of the red dress to her waist, then he parted her legs with his hands on her inner thighs.

“Keep your legs open. I want to see you.”

She obeyed without question, though she craned up her neck for a moment, searching his face, as if what he was about to do was written there. He wanted to cheer at this victory, at her obedience, but he said nothing. Instead, he kneeled between her legs, letting them rest on his shoulders.

Seeing her swollen and aroused, with a hint of his red marking showing on her labia, yet not being able to mate with her – if he didn’t come in his pants while doing this, he deserved a medal. His plan for the rest of the week would please him, though. After this, he was going to keep her on the edge and punish her if she came. He wanted her to know she was available to his touch at any time, that he could handle her when he wanted. He wanted her so aroused she moaned when his hand merely threatened to touch her.

If he could achieve that, he would have won. She would never resist him again. Once they mated a second time, their bond would be unbreakable.

He wrapped his arms around and over her thighs then reached down to open her pussy lips with his thumbs and...he waited. He listened to the small noises even that gained him. When she stilled and fell silent he went farther; starting at the lower end of her seam, he applied his tongue tip, gliding it softly along her opening then swirling it over her clit with a last flick. She strained upward, thrusting her pelvis at him, as if she could make him touch her more.

He smiled, knowing she couldn’t see what he did. He kept his thumbs barely moving along the wetness on her lips, slow, then even slower, achingly slow, until they almost reached her clit. When brushing the button of flesh, he moved them down again. Soon, she whispered to him, just as he thought she would.

“What are you doing? Please?”

“Please what, Ella?”

Her unhappy sound turned his smile into a grin. He’d been wrong. Even this first overture in the concert of her arousal, with his cock shoving hard at the seams of his pants, it was worth the agony, a million times over.

Chapter 14

Whatever his reasons, to Ella it became torture. Never before had she met a man who didn’t want to make her come as fast as possible so that he could do what he wanted to. Torgeir seemed to enjoy just hearing her groan and shudder. So delicate was his touch she sometimes wondered if she imagined it.

“Please,” she whispered for perhaps the tenth time. Were her hands numb? She wriggled her fingers where they were pinned under her back and they moved well. The mild discomfort of the bindings at her wrists sank to the background. Every part of her mind was concentrated on what he did to her below.

His tongue was the worst. He’d touch her clit, circle it, then not do it again in like, forever.

She squirmed her hips, not courageous enough to clamp in on his head as she’d done. The bite on her inner thigh still stung and throbbed.

“Hmm? What do you want? Tell me exactly what you want.”

Oh god. The man had a masters in mind torture too. Saying what he asked her to would be a defeat.

His mouth engulfed her clit and gave one tiny suck, then released it. She squealed, her toes curling, a shudder running from her taut abdominal muscles to those toes, Her engorged clit felt as if it had swelled some more and was throbbing in time with the bite.

“Fuck,” she said, hoarsely. “Fuck.” She could feel his warm breath on her there. Her thighs twitched as she fought the need. The need for his tongue, his fingers, something. She gave in and croaked out, “What do you want me to say?”

“Only what you want.” His thumbs began that repetitive circling and massaging.

Since the time out at the table, she’d had nothing inside her. She’d never known she could ache to have something inside her.

“I’ll only touch what you say you want me to, when you say it.”

Okay. Okay. She could do this. Just to get him to let her up and do whatever. Something brushed her clit hood, briefly, and she bit back another moan.

“Suck on me again.” She added please at the last second, thinking politeness might make him do it faster.

“Where?”

“For fu –” She swallowed. Be polite. “My clit.”

When he began to suck on her in little tweaking sucks, she realized his tongue had been nice too. Eyes shut, her thighs already straining toward that sensation that seemed close to heaven, she gasped out. “Lick me too. Please. Please.” Begging had become what she did because, just because.

His lips let go and she sighed, mind running down from that almost orgasmic high. Almost there. Why had she interrupted him? Then he licked at her, and around, and over, going at her as if licking her clit was the only thing in the universe. But she couldn’t quite come. Too much sensation? Not enough? Fuck. She quivered on the edge of that explosion of mind and soul. Her muscles tightened, she strived to get her toes on the floor so as to thrust, and couldn’t reach.

When she put her feet on him instead, shoving desperately, he turned and bit her again, making her squeak, leaving her whimpering.

Something, she needed something...inside.

Admitting that, saying it, no. No, no.

The licking tormented her. “More,” she whined, wriggling, squirming.

“More what?” He sucked on her, then stopped.

So close. Ella groaned. She had to say it. “Inside me, please?”

“What would you like inside you? Hmm?” He licked her, a slow swipe upward.

Bastard, bastard. The ache throbbed from pussy to bite marks to clit and reverberated.

“Your fingers?”

The begging was getting to her. He was right. Hand holding had been revelatory but this, this was cataclysmic need.

With no warning, Torgeir thrust something, a thumb perhaps, into her and she cried out at the intersection of dominance and her need to be fucked and whatever else was unraveling her mind.

For once he forgot about more words and sucked on her clit, his tongue playing games, toggling back and forth, then he’d suck again. She slammed shut her eyelids, her eyes rolling upward.

As she bucked toward his mouth, he increased the force of his grip around her legs. Words became nonsensical babblings. She clutched the pillow under her with her bound hands, climaxing, sure she was crushing him but unable to do more than arch and moan until the shuddering died away.

She collapsed down onto the pillows.

Sweat dribbled from her forehead and her throat was dry.

“There.” A final lick below made her jerk.

Too tired to do more than gasp and lie where he’d placed her, she studied him through the slits of her eyelids. He’d used her, in a way, made her come in spite of her words to him, or because of them.

He’d brought her, she understood, one step closer to something that felt like it would become worship.

She would struggle against that. She must. She worshipped no one. Ella sucked in air, still unable to control her breathing.

Bastard. Lover. Warrior.

Who was she kidding? A tear or two trickled from her eyes. She was going to lose. There was some primordial feeling awakening, and they hadn’t even fucked again.

Torgeir rose and pulled his shirt off over his head then draped it over the back of the sofa. The red markings were revealed. Her color matched those? With her dress still dragged below her breasts she compared her nipples to his marks. Was it the same shade? To her, his marks resembled a red dragon or snake curling up from his belly button to below his neck.

It was beautiful, she admitted to herself. He was beautiful. From her position, she had a prime view of the bulge in his pants. If she’d been dying to come, what must he be feeling? The very thought had her opening her mouth, imagining him sliding his cock over her tongue.

Was he right? Was bondmating real? A whole ninety-nine percent of the universe believed in it.

“Ella?”

He’d caught her licking her lips while staring at his groin. Blushing might not be noticeable when she was already flushed.

Slowly, while watching her face, he undid the fastening on his pants and freed his cock. The thing was clearly ready to fuck her at a moment’s notice...or at her yes.

She bit back a sigh and shut her eyes. Ridiculous.

She heard him kneel beside her and he turned her body so she faced him.

“What do you want, Ella?”

She kept her eyes closed, thinking crazily fast. What did she want? She didn’t know anymore, except the idea of him fucking her mouth or her impaling herself on him or him simply driving that lovely erect cock into her, over and over and fucking over was beating on the inside of her brain.

Then she did sigh. “Can I leave that question for later?” She opened her eyes and looked up at his face, then couldn’t help glancing downward, and caught sight of his cock, again, at close range, at mouth level.

Yes. All that she wanted. Her pussy squeezed in but then it had always wanted him.

“Ella.” There was scolding in that single word, which puzzled her. “If I fuck your mouth while you’re tied up that’s still fucking.”

“I know,” she said quietly. “I know, but what if...” Was she saying this? Really? God yes, she was. The ache was back. “What if I ask you to?”

“I’ve decided...” He continued as if she’d not spoken, wrapping his hand around his cock. “Not to fuck you anywhere until I think I should. Whether I come in your mouth, your cunt, or your ass it will take you to the next level of bondmating.”

Her eyes widened. “My ass is a no-go zone.”

“You think so?” He grinned evilly. “In any case, your mouth can stay mostly unravished.”

Mostly?

“But?” She stared at his cock, which wobbled as he climbed over her and straddled her upper body. It looked desperate. About as desperate as she was feeling.

“This is what I’m doing until you convince me otherwise.” He leaned over her and gave her ideas as to what he intended, getting closer, closer.

His cock pushed on her lips. Yes. She opened and let him slide in. The head of his cock pressed her lips wide, gliding easily over the wetness of her tongue. Then he withdrew and fastened her head to the sofa by grabbing her hair. He wrapped his other hand around his cock and proceeded to masturbate thoroughly and roughly in front of her. The slick noises became louder, as did his breathing. At the last he was grunting and she tried to lean up, mouth open, hoping to convince him.

She knew she’d flipped in mindset. Embarrassing yet unstoppable.

His hands slipped up and down faster; his fist clenched in her hair.

Not once did his gaze waver from her face. That he came within a minute, spurting cum all over her breasts was both annoying and tantalizing. None of it reached her tongue.

“There. Be good and maybe sometime this week we can do it properly.” He sucked in a breath.

This week? What did she have to do? Crawling on broken glass was out, but almost anything else was a yes.

“You’ve convinced me. Please? Just do it?”

The sofa shifted as he bent down to kiss her gently, letting her taste herself on his lips.

“I’m going to clean you up before I untie you. We’re doing this slow. Do not...” He caught her bottom lip in his teeth, released it and smiled that mean smile. “Try to rush me. I like this. Seeing you beg. Why though? How did I do it?”

Her brow was probably furrowed with a thousand wrinkles. “I don’t know.” She shut her eyes again unable to face him as she said the next part. “I think I even like the idea of you making me wait. Is that strange?”

“Hmmm. Yes and no. Don’t change, Ella. I like you just the way you are.”

“Crazy?”

“No. Sweaty, desperate, with my cum all over you.”

“Man, where did I find you?”

“In a desert, about to be raped by Sicar warriors?” Then he pounced and engulfed her left nipple with his teeth, making her squeal. “Maybe.” He kissed her nipple, licked it. “I won’t untie you after all.”

Chapter 15

“I think it best you don’t wear any for the rest of the week.” Then Torgeir waited to see what that would evoke. Her protests often amused him.

She shook her head. “Why no panties? I mean. Why?”

He’d cleaned her – hauled water in from down the hall, poured it into his bath tub and let her soak while he sat on the edge, played with her hair, and admired her. Like much of their rooms, the bathroom was a combination of archaic and modern. Distressed walls, rust-streaked tub, shiny faucets that didn’t work, and a floor of some beautiful, glowing, amber-colored stone.

The water was cold but the climate here wavered between cool and greenhouse hot. This land would’ve been covered in jungle at some point in history.

He’d washed while she dressed.

Now, though, he had Ella complacent, as well as needy, and standing in her bra and white dress while he sat on the empty bathtub. Her hair was wet though towel dried. Dark, it straggled over her shoulders. He was looking forward to seeing her plait it.

How had he achieved this? A bondmating miracle, he guessed.

“You’ll go without because I say.” He drawled that out, wondering if he’d finally hit her limit.

“Oh.” Then she did that wide-eyed glance at him and he could tell she too was stunned at the change. And yet, they both knew she liked this. “I’m not sure I should agree.”

“But?”

“You have no idea how torn I am between just saying yes and knowing I should say no. I mean, letting you choose if I wear underwear? It’s –”

“Sexy?” He nodded then drummed his fingers on the tub. She was making him think too. “I find I enjoy this more than I thought. I had planned to get you so turned on you’d come around to seeing that we are meant to be with each other. But even now that you’re happy for us to mate, I want to do this. Like really want. Not just because I like ordering women about. To me this is a huge turn-on, and part of that is because...” He tilted his head, watching her listening to what he said, so avidly. Her eyes shone and she hadn’t blinked. “I can see you love it too. Yes? If I thought you hated me doing this, I’d stop.”

They were in tune despite not having progressed far with the bondmating.

Surprise of the day. She liked him dominating her. Fascinating in a way that made his cock swell.

“Say, yes.” He smiled then to show her he saw the irony.

She smiled too. “Yes.”

“Come here.”

She came to him and turned, nestling into his lap, sighing, and he brushed at her hair and tasted her neck. He’d never tire of her smell, her taste.

“We can explore this, take our time, see what we both like.”

Then he began what he’d known he wanted to do, ever since she defied him on the balcony. He teased her. Inch by inch, he hauled up the knee-length dress, probed beneath it with his hand, and found her cunt. Her sweet, sweet cunt that he’d also tasted. His finger slipped along, nudging apart her pussy lips. Of her own volition, her thighs spread, inviting him.

Wetness was there. Instantaneous. He hitched her higher on his lap and wrapped his other arm around her waist.

“Wait,” she began, putting her hand on his wrist.

“No.”

She let go, her hand poised above. At that, he found his lips curving in a smile. Oh yes. She liked his orders.

“Put your hand in your lap.”

When she did so, he began to play some more, slip-sliding, touching nothing more than that part of her, watching her breathing intensify and deepen, her lips part, her eyelids drift shut, for he leaned forward and looked over her shoulder. Her leg muscles were tense when his wrist brushed them.

Up and down went his finger. Slippery, female cunt juice. He could play there all day.

“You want me in you?” He kissed her cheek.

“Yes,” she whispered and he felt her pussy clench as he trailed his fingertip along it.

“You’re so wet, already.”

“Mmm.”

“Don’t move.”

He teased her for another five minutes until she was huffing and squirming on his lap, until she was wet enough to dribble onto her thighs and dress and she moaned when he asked her if she was about to come. Then he stopped. He made her stand up and he straightened her dress.

“No panties, Ella.” He caressed her thigh, running his hand up under the hem, letting it rest on her inner thigh where the wetness began. “Not until I say.”

All she did was nod and sigh and tremble.

He liked this, a lot.

That her acceptance, no, call it what it was, her submission to his demands evoked vivid images of her tied up in rope, that he didn’t like. Or that his anger had begun this. He’d thought he’d not regretted that but time had brought him worries.

This had echoes of slavery.

He’d always known he liked tying up his women, a little, every now and then, but with Ella in his arms, his mild tendencies seemed unchained. He didn’t want to hurt her.

Torgeir shut his eyes.

Ella immobilized, her body decorated by the intricacies of knotted rope – one end fastened to her plait and drawn down her back then looped up between her legs. The rope drawn tight until her own movements against the rope might make her come, and her struggling to be free...

He shivered at the intensity. Doing that might unleash a monster, himself, at his worst. He should take care.

Chapter 16

The no-panties state she was in gave Torgeir the freedom to intimately touch her with no more than a second of warning. While talking to Dresdek on his comm, with her beside him on the sofa, he casually reached under her dress and toyed with her. She stared but he just kept talking. Well then, she could be stoic. Not making any noises or moving finally drew his attention. A gleam came into his eye and he told her to kneel on the sofa, facing away from him. After pushing her dress high on her back, he stroked her pussy, softly, barely separating the lips. This gentleness seemed one of his favorite teasing techniques and it worked so well at stirring her. But she knew men, or thought she did. How could he resist her when she was showing off her intimate parts like this? Maybe she needed to act up more and tease him in return?

She wiggled her ass from side to side, blatantly tempting him, and parted her legs as much as she could on the sofa cushion. When he sat forward she figured she was winning, until he shoved some fingers inside her.

“Ohhh.” Her arms stiffened and, head down, she sucked in a deep breath, let it out, shakily.

“Hmmm,” he said. His hmmms were warning signs all by themselves. His fingers stilled inside her.

“More?” she dared to squeak. Maybe today could be the day?

“Here.” He drew her stomach down over his lap before resuming his talk to Dresdek, about recruiting and business, while he absentmindedly massaged around her clit and over it, gathering her moisture and repeating that ad infinitum. Quivering, she moaned into the sofa, coming close to climax. Squeezing her thighs around his hand gained her a bite on the fullness of one butt cheek.

“Ow! No!”

He sucked on her hurt flesh. “Then don’t try to squash my hand.”

Miffed, she only grunted.

“Where was I?” He rested his thumb inside her with his fingers on her butt. With her clit begging for attention this was evil, she decided.

Was it possible to be aroused every hour of the day without dying of frustration? When would he decide they could have sex?

Later, he backed her against the wall and held her there with his hand at her throat while he slipped the straps of her dress down her arms then studied her breasts.

“Mmm. My red. My woman’s breasts.”

The glow of happiness overtook her. Who knew this, of all things, this possession of her, would affect her so?

He kissed her on the lips and she responded. Warm yummy kiss. Being kissed while pinned in place, it was heaven. Her eyelids lowered as the feeling settled in her flesh like molasses.

“I’d wag my tail if I had one,” she whispered.

“That, I’d like to see.”

When he bowed his head to suck on her nipples, engulfing first one then the other, with his thigh pushing up between hers, she was soon overcome and mouth breathing, swallowing against his hand. She pressed herself onto his leg in little, insistent circles. This must be when he’d decide to fuck her.

Bondmating compulsions were playing havoc with her hormones.

Arousal was something she had always disregarded if need be. Not now, not with Torgeir. Even her feet were flexing, treadling against the floor. Every atom of her body craved release.

“What do I have to do?” She’d tried not to whine that and looked downward, pointedly. “To get you to...” Ella curled her hands into fists, her fingernails cutting her palms.

“Nothing.” While pressing her more firmly against the wall, he wedged that knee into her, grinding it softly into the juncture of her legs. “Nothing except make those cute female sounds.”

“When? Please?”

“Soon. Tomorrow. Maybe. I thought we’d have another wine and nice-food sort of meal up above, at the very peak of Horuk.” He’d said all that in his rumbly voice then he kissed the top of her head. “I’m going to explore, but I heard there’s private places up there where I can fuck you without being interrupted.”

That sounded awesome and dirty and elegant all at once. He was planning when to fuck her again in detail like this? Tomorrow though.

“I don’t know if I can wait that long.” Men liked the cute little kitten look didn’t they? Though it was more hot and flustered kitten, right now. She tried to look cute, needy, and kitteny.

“You can.”

Kitten failure. It hadn’t worked.

The breast fondling and sucking recommenced. She tried to resist, she did, but his hand on her neck, while the other grasped her whole breast, then his wet tongue on her nipple. Uh. So nice. Ella’s legs shook and she stiffened. Her sighs turned into moans.

Coming from breast sucking was not possible. Maybe that’s why it happened, why it slammed in and wiped her out. She groaned and her head thumped back against the wall while he kept her fastened coarsely in place with that dirty pussy-invading knee, his hands, and his hard as cry-steel body.

The last of the orgasmic spasms came and went and she sank down the wall an inch before he caught her.

“You weren’t supposed to do that.”

Wracked by gasping and spent, she looked at him through her lashes and could see ideas tumbling through his mind.

“I know,” she said, her voice husky. “Accident.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

Spanking followed. On the sofa. Across his knee. That had aroused her too, which surprised Torgeir.

“It was your hand, touching me there, and the way it sort of beat through me.” She looked back at him, pouting. Well, it was really pouting and amused, as well as furious that he blamed her.

“Oh, come here.” He was still laughing as he cuddled her.

“It did hurt.”

“Sure it did.”

“Hmph.”

Cuddling with him was the best. She sank into a dreamy state. Wherever this was going, she’d been lucky. Though a Sicar lord, Torgeir seemed exactly the right man for her.

There was something odd, though. It was true that this bondmating relationship made sex the ultimate wonder and gave her a sense that hinted at when he was aroused as well as vice versa, but it also niggled at her and showed her what was not. Something was missing. He wanted something more that he wasn’t telling her.

Maybe that was why he had taken so long to decide to fuck her?

The next morning she awoke first and spent some more time thinking, as the light brightened and crept across the room in bars and jagged shapes.

Not being able to recall all her past made her speculate. Ella doubted she’d ever been in such a curious arrangement with a prior lover. Torgeir liked commanding her and she absolutely adored obeying, even when all he did was tease her sexually, night and day.

They were like love-struck but strange honeymooners.

They hadn’t left the room yet. Luckily they had food, and each other to play with. And oh my, Torgeir did love playing with her. Even now, lying in bed with his arm wrapped over her, she was getting aroused remembering, though maybe that was because she could feel his erection against her ass.

If she wriggled, he might accidentally slip it in while half asleep?

No. Best not to try. He’d said today might be the day. Then his cock seemed to harden and poke her and she couldn’t stop herself nudging backward into him, just a teensy bit.

“If you do that again, I won’t be able to control myself and I will fuck...”

Oh yes! Her hearing pricked up.

“Your tight little asshole.”

“Oh! Never.” She squirmed around to face him, frowning ferociously.

He laughed. “That worked. I vow to you, I am going to organize for us to go up top, today. I can’t keep spending big on food because repairing the ship and hiring crew will cost an astronomical amount, but I want this to be special.”

Ella grinned. “You’re so sweet. We have already done it once though, you know?”

“Mm-hmm. But this time we know we’re bondmated. It’s different.”

His bare chest drew her attention. She trailed her fingers down his pectorals.

“Your mark. That’s really not a tattoo?”

“No.”

Flakes and swirls of red coalesced as they twirled up his chest to make something that seemed a type of red beast. Not a dragon or a snake but beautiful. She smiled at him then, when he didn’t protest, dared to get him to move his arm and the sheet, so she could see lower down to his belly button. She put her finger in that sweet dip.

“Do all of us, all over the ’verse, have these? Belly buttons?”

“As far as I know. We’re all from the same stock according to history and gossip, but there’s no records going back far enough to say why or how. You humans on Earth were late to the star-faring party, though.”

She snorted. “Trust us to be late.”

“Let me see you.”

He pulled at the sheet. She’d managed to keep it over herself. Being naked, as he’d told her to sleep, her breasts were revealed as the sheet slid from her.

“Pretty.” He drew light circles around her areolas, one then the next, making them crinkle. “The red’s even more filled in.”

The pleasure in his voice and on his face made her happy, as did his touch. Today he was relaxed and perhaps wasn’t dedicating his time to teasing her into arousal. Before, it might have been the novelty of seeing what he could do to her. What she would sit still for. She shivered. How she hoped and prayed he’d keep trying new things on her.

“I’m glad I’m changing.” She blinked, overcome again by his eyes and his presence. “I like being yours.”

Torgeir nodded. “As I like being yours, Ella.” He paused, weighing one of her breasts in his hand while his thumb caressed her. “I don’t know why it happened, but I read that the Earth women of power who bondmated also had faster changes than usual.”

“It must be an Earth thing.” She shrugged.

“I guess so.” Yet he studied her, as if wondering if she was about to sprout wings.

“I’m normal, Torgeir. I’m just me.”

A chill ran through her. Was she trying to tempt fate? She wasn’t normal and she mustn’t ever forget that. She had been, maybe was, an experiment of sorts. What would happen if Torgeir found out? She didn’t even know what the Bak-lal had done to her. She had to find out. Not knowing was no longer acceptable.

As if to underline her problem, her left ankle chose then to itch.

“You okay?” He nudged at her chin.

Had she been that obvious or was it just this link they had? “I’m okay. Yeah. Just a bad memory.”

That he pulled her close and kissed her only made it worse.

“I can tell you’re lying. Or skirting the truth, at least. Lucky for you I’m fucking you today anyway. When you’re ready, you tell me what bothers you.”

She nodded. “I’m sorry. I will.”

“Okay.”

Worry gnawed at her for the first time in days. She would tell him, but first she must find out who she’d once been. ASAP.

Torgeir disappeared for a while that morning, off to explore the top of Horuk, and he wouldn’t take her in case it was dangerous. This place... She shook her head and gripped the stone of the balcony. Whenever she needed reminding she was on an alien planet, she only needed to come out here and look.

The sky was a weird tint. This building was weird. The people below? She leaned out. They were like ants. Ella screwed up her mouth, but she knew they were weird too.

That boy with the cart and no legs, she had been going to try and see if he could remove the code, which wasn’t exactly worth doing anymore. Now, though, what if he knew a way to find out her past?

That would be scary.

She squeezed her hands onto the stone until the hard bits stuck into her palm. Do it. If not him, someone here in this vast zoo of people must be able to help her.

Torgeir returned with more plans, a picnic hamper, of all things, and a grin.

“We go up!” He pointed then added in a melodramatic voice, “Come. Follow your master.” Then he stuck out his hand and beckoned.

“I have this weird urge to wear a red cape and hood,” she said, mouth awry, as she took his hand.

“That, I could do. Is it needed?”

“Only if you’re a wolf. That’s an Earth predator,” she hurried to add.

“Oh I am that. I’m going to eat you all up, with sauce.”

The look in his eyes scared her for a second and she halted.

“I was joking.”

“I know. I was too really.” She shook her head. “It was just like, I don’t know. There’s a saying on Earth, about someone walking over your grave. You use it when something scares you unexpectedly.”

“Not me? Surely.” For the first time she could recall, Torgeir had worry lines showing on his forehead.

She went up on her toes, took his shoulders in her hands and gently pulled him down to her, then she kissed his forehead. “No. Never.”

“Ah-huh. Good. I don’t ever want to do that.” He clasped her hand and kissed her knuckles. “Let’s go. It’s a long walk and I don’t want the champagne getting too warm.”

“Champagne? That’s an Earth brand.”

“Yes. I found a bottle of something called Moet. Cost me so much I needed my heart restarted but for you, today, anything.”

She mock bowed. “Let us be off, sir.”

He took her hand and they headed for the staircase. Apparently, another hundred and eight stories awaited them. Elevators and stairs were the only method of climbing. They came across one flight of narrow stairs that led past an open space. Shafts of sunlight shone upon a waterfall that fell many stories to some unknown place below. The roar of the water vibrated the cool metal rail beneath her palm. Where the water came from seemed a mystery.

A single, blue moth-like creature fluttered and dipped in the light.

“Broken pipe above?”

“I don’t think so.” He pointed. “There’s stone being eroded away and moss. It’s been there centuries. The rainfall here is high. My guess is there’s a lake of stored water trapped somewhere above.”

“Wow. Fucking wow.”

“Yes.”

They continued onward, upward, and reached the top of the last flight of stone stairs two hours after beginning.

There was single red door.

“I think the champagne will be warm.”

“Maybe.” Torgeir unlocked the faux-timber door with a large antique key and they stepped out. It was cooler, pleasantly so after the long climb, and cloud misted the surrounding stone. The light from above hurt her eyes. Her blue-speckled dress swirled at her ankles, tangling with the catch on her ballet-style flats.

There was wind, sun, she peered upward. The head of the bird was above them. “We’re on the shoulders?”

“Yes.” Torgeir hugged her to him, then turned her. “Look. We go there.”

There was where the neck below the head attached to the immense shoulders of Horuk. Some of the structure was stained, ancient metal, some the familiar stone. She shaded her eyes. A row of doors, six of them, punctured the base of the neck but between her and the doors was a dark lake, wide enough that it would take someone in a rowboat ten to fifteen oar-strokes to go from side to side.

Torgeir drew her forward and they walked around the edge toward the doors.

“Is this where the waterfall begins?”

“Perhaps.” He squeezed her hand. “We will only swim in the shallows.”

On all sides of the lake, an underwater terrace of wide steps sank into the water, disappearing from sight in the depths. The leaves and vines of some large aquatic plant swayed at the edge of the deeper middle.

“They say there are sea monsters that lurk.”

“Ohmigod!” She put her hand to her chest. “I am so not swimming.”

He chuckled. “It was a joke! I think.”

Her dirty look only made him laugh for longer.

“I swear I will guard you with my life.”

“What? You’ll hit the monster over the head with a champagne bottle?”

“No.” He released her hand and rummaged in the basket. “With this. I never assume anywhere is safe.” In his hand was a chunky, twin-barreled weapon. A red beast like that on his chest was engraved along the side.

It brought this day into perspective. This was but a spot of brightness in an otherwise dark and nasty universe.

He waggled the gun. “A family heirloom. It works well. Ella, we have the room here, at this end, for the whole day. This is what cost me the most. The champagne, strangely, was undervalued. It was in a bulk lot.”

As he unlocked the wide, steel door, she hesitated. “Are there others here? In the other rooms?”

“Perhaps. It doesn’t matter. I have you, that is what is important.” Then he bent and swept her into his arms, walked in, and kicked the door shut, before lowering her to her feet.

Whatever this place had been in the past, it was now a large room decorated in a style reminiscent of an Arabian nights harem crossed with alien. Most of the floor was cushion bestrewn, except for a low, square table which was covered with platters and glasses, candles, and weirdly twisted, but pretty, ornamental jugs. Bright-colored fabrics in purples, blues, and reds hung from the ceiling and walls. The only other furnishings were a low sofa and two well-padded chairs with huge curled armrests. Across the room from the door was a wide, glassed-in opening. Shreds of mist or cloud rolled past. Nothing else outside seemed on a level with Horuk, except a far-away skyscraper that shone like spear in the sky.

“It falls away past the window. These rooms are on the very rim of Horuk’s shoulders. There is a bathroom too, hidden behind the red drapes.”

Wonder of wonders, there was a sunken tub surrounded by luscious green, potted plants. She squealed and ran to it. The tap worked when she twisted it.

“Only cold?” The blued-metal tap seemed modeled after a mermaid with large breasts.

“Yes.” He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her back into his body. “But once I have you in there, I think the water will turn hot.”

“You goof.” She guffawed, shaking her head.

He squeezed her ass. “You have a long future ahead of you full of goofy jokes.”

“I’m good with that.” Ella leaned against him, squirming and content. “Mmm. Definitely good with it.”

He stuck his nose on her neck and inhaled. “I also sniff necks. Forget all the bad things, all your worries, Ella. Today is for us.”

Chapter 17

Incoming. Henchman 1

From limited surveillance of the subject, sir, it appears she’s progressed rapidly with the bondmating. I’ve had no time to find her weaknesses or do covert body mapping.

Use the Black App immediately. Terminate the bondmating link.

Without detailed mapping of her body, it could severely affect her brain. This is also illegal, even here, sir.

We know from the scans when she passed through spaceport customs that she’s almost cyborg. Riptide law will class it as cyborg-on-cyborg crime, and illegal is on every street corner on that planet. She’s just genetics to me. A body to study or use as arm decoration. You’re my one trusted man. Do this but take care you’re not caught.

Yes, sir.

If she’s damaged and he discards her, be prepared to store her somewhere for me until I arrive.

With his hands propped on the balcony railing, he surveyed the breadth of landscape below his castle, the crops and the roads, then he looked above following the curve of the strip of land as it climbed to the heavens. Small villages clung to the rising ringland.

Directly above was not sky, it was the artificial fire of his little sun and past that, the opposite side of his world. The magic of a megastructure in space. Outside, to the left and right above the mighty walls that held in the atmosphere, by the grace of his divine centrifugal force, was the blackness of space and the twinkling lights of the tens of thousands of his followers in their spaceships.

His meek crusade. The disinherited, the poor, the disabled. Many of them were cyborgs or near to it.

He smiled.

He had almost everything he’d dreamed of – a kingdom of followers, this castle, and an artificial world of his own. All he needed now was a princess by his side and the Earth herself. The prophecy foretold that the meek would inherit the Earth.

“We are coming, dear Earth, we are coming.”

Even without a functioning brain, this Ella was an Earth girl. Once he forced the bondmating, she would be his perfect princess.

*****

On unpacking the hamper with Torgeir helping, Ella found fresh berries, citrus-like fruits, smoked meats and cold pies, a magnum of champagne, some other alcoholic beverage, and some sweets that she couldn’t identify. One clear container held what appeared to be chocolate-coated cocks.

She popped the lid and picked one up, twirling it before her nose. “Hmmm. These are?”

“Dessert. After you swallow my real one.”

“You think? Ambitious man.” She put the little cock in her mouth and sucked its length, while winking at Torgeir.

“Bad girl. We’re eating first. Eat that one and then no more. If you keep that up I will fuck you on top of the food then make you eat it after.”

“Dirty!”

“Exactly.”

She gulped it down. Definitely chocolaty. “I’ll be good. Can we use the platters?”

“Yes.”

They laid out the food on the plates and platters, then shifted it all closer to the viewing window. Watching clouds go past while sitting between Torgeir’s legs and feeding each other tidbits was the dreamiest and most romantic meal ever. He was warm and big, and the bondmating gave them an emotional connection she imagined few ever achieved in any ordinary marriage.

To her astonishment, the champagne, like everything that day, was delicious and faultless. Even lightyears of space travel had not marred the taste.

When they had finished eating and cleaned up, he shifted her around to face him and made love to her in the most gentle and loving manner she’d yet experienced with him. Her blue dress spilling about them, with his pants undone enough for his cock to arise, he’d penetrated her by letting her slowly sink down his shaft. Face to face with her bondmate, she’d come, gloriously.

She strived to keep her gaze on him to the very last moment and nearly succeeded. Only in the last few seconds did she cry out and arch back her neck, her body convulsing, as she experienced that pinnacle of sensation that all humankind reveled in – the orgasm.

“Oh. Oh.” She relaxed her fingers from where she’d sunk them into his biceps, shakily raised her head, and met his eyes. After a moment, she managed to say between gasps, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, my love.”

Ella nestled into the angle of his neck and shoulder. Tempted, she licked him there while he stroked her back where it was bared by the dress. His sweat tasted of salt.

“You’re still inside me.” She looked inwardly, rapt in how that felt and in knowing he’d come inside her. “I wish we could stay like this forever, joined together.”

“That could be awkward.” She could hear the smile in his voice.

“Mmm. But still nice.”

He kissed her hair a few times and she hummed in pleasure. “When will you tell me your secret? About your worries.”

Was this a time for discussing that? She was so comfortable, so at peace. Perhaps he was right and it was best to say more. “It’s about me. About who I am or was.” She frowned. “When I find out more, I’ll tell you too.”

“Good. I’m happy with that. Just, if you need my support, my thoughts, say.”

“And you?” She wriggled, clamping down deliberately. His cock was diminishing in size and it was too soon to lose him from inside her.

“Me? What about me?”

She hugged him, her arms around him while she peered, blinking slowly, at the small curls of blond hair on his neck. “I felt as if you needed, wanted, something more from our loving.” Ella straightened and found him regarding her curiously. “Am I right? Tell me. I want to make you happy too.”

“You are perceptive.” His sigh was long and she thought, troubled. “I want to tie you up.”

“You’ve done that.”

“Oh no.” A feralness came into his eyes, though his lips were still curved in a smile. “More than that. Much more.”

“Then do it.” She leaned in and nipped his lower lip, released it. “I want it too.”

“You don’t know that. You don’t know what I intend. Besides, I’m afraid I might go too far, that inside me is some sort of primitive monster.” He shook his head, as if disbelieving his words.

Ella took his head in her hands. “Torgeir, I trust you to the end of the ’verse, to the ends of time and space. I know you won’t hurt me.”

He nodded slowly and she felt his cock thicken again and twitch. “Very well. I will think on this.”

“Good. I don’t care if you’re a monster because you’re my damn monster.”

He laughed. “Ahhh, Ella. Not today though. Today I can make do with fucking you on every surface, every cushion, against that window maybe.

“Good.” She nodded. “A wise decision.”

“Well, I might tie your hands with your dress later, and feed you berries in between making you come until you beg me to stop.”

“Oh!” Her eyebrows rose.

“You make me crazy, girl. It’s your own fault.”

“Pfft. Never.”

The day played out much as he predicted. By the end she was sore, exhausted, and blissful and, for once, Torgeir looked tired. The swim in the outside pool with the sea monster was reneged on in favor of a bath filled with sweet-smelling bath salts. The journey back down the stairs was simpler, since they left the hamper behind. When she could finally touch the quilt of their own bed in their rooms, she toppled in and so did Torgeir. Somehow, tangled warmly together, they fell asleep. The outside roars of machinery and traffic, murmurs, and shouts that always accompanied a night on Horuk became as comforting as the surge of the waves of the sea.

Chapter 18

Their plans for nonstop kinky sex came unstuck the next morning when Torgeir found a message from Dresdek saying he was returning with crew. The message had been sent the day before, while they were up on Horuk’s peak, screwing their brains out, it was merely an hour before he arrived at the door.

From the sounds, Dresdek had brought quite a number of people with him.

Ella sat on their bed, naked, sad at the interruption, and looking at her breasts in the mirror. Her nipples were distinctly red, as were her labia and her lips. She held up her breasts and stared downward. This was somehow both alarming and satisfying. She smiled to herself.

Flopping onto her back, she swore a few choice words. Torgeir had been kissing her and making those sexy threats he liked to make.

The door opened and he sneaked in sideways. “Best to get dressed. Dresdek is here, along with five others.” He sat beside her, making the mattress cave in and her fall into him – not that she minded. He took her hand. “I’ll introduce you. Already there’re ideas. We’ll be starting the repairs on Finatar today too. The longer we sit in port, the more money we lose. I’m sorry, Ella.”

“It’s fine.” She reached up to bring him down for a kiss. “I understand.”

“You won’t be coming when we leave, you know. I’m going to where there will be fighting.”

“Oh.”

“I’ll leave someone to look after you.”

Someone? Some stranger?

“Turn around.” Then pressed on her shoulders and she shifted so she sat on the bed facing away from him. “I want to do this.”

She felt him divide her hair into three at the back. Having his fingers running through her hair and over her scalp was divine and she sighed. “You know how to do this?”

“Long ago, when my sister was alive, I used to do her hair.”

“Okay,” she whispered. She sat while he pulled her hair across and formed the braid. Each tug on her hair relaxed her more. A last pull and the sound of elastic said he’d finished by slipping a tie over the very end of the braid.

“Done.”

His hands were on her shoulders again and she leaned back. “I think you melted my bones.

He laughed and kissed her hair. “Thank you for letting me. Come out when you’re ready.”

As she dressed in tights and a dark shirt, she wondered if she should tell Torgeir she’d come with him. But no, it wouldn’t work, and besides, she’d hate being near fighting...even if she was going to be scared to death he wouldn’t return.

The downside of being in love. Fear of losing them.

When she walked out they were gathered around Torgeir, listening. There was a woman in red leather-look tights and a white shirt, with a fancified rig of straps around her waist and back. She carried two pistols, a knife, and other small pieces of equipment she couldn’t recognize. Nephelle was her name. Her short, spiked, purple hair would challenge the sun for brightness and Dresdek had his hand on her ass. She kinked a brow at that. The others were all men. The names blurred. They translated into real words. Thorn. Riveter...were these nicknames? Ivan. Wow an Earth name. Grick?

Grick was huge and hairy, like a dark-haired Viking in space...with a cybernetic arm. No artificial skin, like she possessed. Another man, Thorn, had pure white, cinched-back hair and was skinny enough to make even her want to fatten him up.

Though they had a midday meal together and discussed plans in front of her, she was the odd one out. More like a pet parrot than a true equal. She guessed they knew she was Torgeir’s mate and that was that for her – relegated to mistress or wife status. She grew bored and, besides, they were going over to the ship to assess the structure and equipment. Ivan was a certified something or other to do with ship engineering and there were three more crew joining them on the ship, with up to fifty more to be recruited when the ship was ready to go.

“I’m renaming the Finatar,” Torgeir announced, as they all pushed back their seats and arose from the small dining table. “Her luck went sour when they kidnapped Ella. I want a new, luckier name.”

“Warseeker?” suggested Nephelle.

“Too aggressive. We may not always seek battle. I have ideas for trade also.” Torgeir looked around. “Other suggestions?”

“Zeus?”

They looked at her and she shrugged. “He’s a god from Earth mythology. King of the other gods and of the sky.

“A king of the sky? Not bad. I like that. We can vote on this before we take off.”

“There’s a job in the Raster system,” Grick said, scratching his beard. “Dresdek thought it sounded okay.”

“I’ll look into it.” Torgeir turned to her. “I may not be back tonight, Ella. Best if you stay indoors.”

“Oh?” She cocked her head. “If you’re off to the ship, I may as well investigate that matter I want clarified.” She figured he’d understand. “I’ve fended for myself up until now.”

Though he seemed disconcerted, a loud thump from near the door and Mimi sidling up gave Ella a new idea. Was this critter a mind reader?

“If I take Mimi, if she will come, will that make you happier? I promise I’ll stick to merchant booths near Horuk.”

His answer was hesitant. “I’m not sure anywhere here is safe as I’d like.”

If he insisted, would they have their first argument? “Could we, ummm, discuss this elsewhere?”

His jaw worked and his forehead wrinkled for a second before he shook his head. “No. You’re right. Take Mimi. She seems protective of you. Just remember she’s lethal little thing when she takes it into her mind to dislike someone.”

“Uhhh. What can I do if she dislikes someone I don’t want disliked?”

Dresdek chuckled and leaned back, thumping into his chair. He rubbed his bald head. “Pretend you don’t own her. She’ll do her vanishing act. Nobody here will figure out what the frack she is anyway.”

“What is she?” Nephelle ventured.

“A MeMoMi from Sicar. Memo-morphic metal,” Torgeir said. “If she jumps into your arms don’t try to catch her. She can weigh enough to punch a hole in steel if she chooses to. I also advise you don’t kick her for the same reason, unless you like broken toes. Now that’s settled. Grab your bags and let’s go.” He waited for them all to get to the door then came over and took her hands in his. “This is...” He inhaled heavily.

“Scary? Yes. I’m afraid for you too. If you’re going away without me at times, best if we get used to this.” Then she laid her head on his chest. “I’ll keep in touch with messaging.”

They wouldn’t get to him for ages once he left the system but it would make her feel less alone.

“Sure.” He hugged her, kissed her on the lips, and whispered, “Bye.”

When he left the room was more than empty. It was bereft. Torgeir had become her everything.

They’d had breakfast earlier. After wandering about in an aimless fashion for a half hour, Ella decided she should do what she’d promised to do – seek out someone to help her find out about herself and also try to figure out some sort of employment path. She didn’t want to rely on Torgeir for her upkeep, didn’t want to just be a hanger-on, siphoning off his money.

Mimi was waiting by the door, when she emerged from the bedroom with her back pack on her shoulder. Torgeir would expect her to go armed and she wasn’t silly enough not to do that anyway. A pistol he’d left her and a knife were holstered and strapped to her waist belt. She had money, her universal comm, and a sandwich and water bottle.

Whereas before, Mimi had found her own way, this time she followed Ella every step of the way, including down the drop of the hoverflow shaft. That she hadn’t overcome the mechanism and plummeted like the stone she was, that she instead turned into some floaty wide Frisbee shape and fell at the same speed as Ella...it left her open mouthed for a few seconds.

At least it took her mind off the drop.

She hitched the pack higher and beckoned with her chin. “Come on you freaky thing.” As she walked down the broad stairs they next encountered, she added, “If I knew what you ate, like a bunch of stalagmites or something, I’d get you a treat, Mimi.”

A man beside her in the stream of people gave her an odd look. She shrugged and pointed at the boisterous critter. “Pet rock.”

Mimi kept on sliding, hopping, and galumphing down steps. Every so often someone would squeak and jump aside as they found out she wasn’t at all soft and fluffy. The easiest place to walk, Ella decided, was in her wake. It made for a fast trip to the ground floor foyer.

The same woman with the long prehensile metal finger nodded to them as they went past. Memory like an elephant? Or had Torgeir paid her to watch for Ella?

The crowd was as dense as ever, the pavement as cracked, the piles of poop from someone’s small pet or a stray, were as infrequent but icky. She ended up circling the base of Horuk looking for the boy. There were other booths with hackers but most were priced beyond what she thought sensible or the men or women made her feel as if she were merely a mark, a source of money.

She bought a stick of some fried, unknown meat and continued onward.

On her second visit to the main entry she’d used, she found a red-headed man standing in Plito’s place with a similar sign to the boy’s. While she studied him, the man turned and saw her.

“Need help, love? I can solve most of your AI problems in an hour’s work.” His smile was gap-toothed, his eyes beady.

“Do you know Plito?”

“Sorry. Never heard of him.”

Yet the pile of hoverboards at his feet had the same stickers.

“Okay, Thank you.”

With no other idea as to his whereabouts, Ella wandered into the crowd. Her feet were aching already. An elderly fruit seller hailed her, his purple eyes mesmerizing her until she blinked, He promised the juiciest fruit in the ’verse and gestured flamboyantly at his small cartload of something resembling red apples. The prices were astronomical but people were buying one here, one there, then cuddling them like precious stones.

“Wherever did he grow those? If there are no orchards, no trees?” she wondered to herself.

A young girl beside her piped up. “Some of ’em have growing lots on the tops of scrapers. Or at the top of Horuk even. Then there’s the big hydroponics growers.” She sneaked a look at Ella from under her swaying brown hair.

Scrapers would be skyscrapers. “Ohh. Clever.”

“You looking for Plito?” She wiped her hands on her faded dress and her tights. The girl couldn’t be more than eleven. “I can show you where he is.”

“Sure!”

“For a price. Two units.”

Ella smiled. Sensible. “Of course. Half first.”

“’Kay. You don’t want that other dreg. He stole Plito’s spot and hasn’t half a clue. I’m Ange. This way.”

She followed the girl deep into the crowd then realized they were veering away from Horuk. Her promise to Torgeir stretched thin then thinner, the further they went, until she was so far away she counted it broken.

“Damn.” But she kept following through the street that was a cross between a pedestrian and a vehicle thoroughfare. The vehicles were a mix of gleaming and dirty but none of them moved fast. Something made her want to meet this boy. “Is he good at hacking?”

“Plito?” Ange waggled her head as she walked. “Good enough, they say. But if he doesn’t work he’ll fall away. You got to keep up or you’re dead as shit.”

Well, that saying she got.

The street underfoot became crunchy. Tiny metal parts were strewn everywhere – circuits, screws, micro-piston sheaths, and shreds of curled metal. Ahead was a metal fence, twice head height, that ran from left to right as far as she could see.

“Through there. He’s in there.” Ange pointed then held out her hand for payment.

Ella edged over until she could see though the gate. A sign above, in blue on white, read DUMP. In the distance, Plito sat in his cart half-way up a small mountain of discarded metal. “Thank you.” She paid the girl then went through the gate. A battered robot gatekeeper waved her through.

Luckily she’d worn boots today. The enormous rubbish heap was made up of old cybernetic parts, everything from the tiniest gleaming fingers and thumbs to corroded eyeballs. There were even whole limbs with bio cables and neurocyber links dangling loose and no doubt being damaged by the weather each and every day. Far to her left, roars of engines and crunches marked where huge machines were scooping up the parts and driving away with them.

Ella trudged slowly up the slope to Plito. He was reaching down and examining pieces close-up, next to his eye. She guessed he had a built-in magnifier. Most parts he threw away but some he kept and placed in his cart. With his spindly metal legs he was about at her level. Up close, the legs resembled long snake skeletons.

“Hello! Are you still for hire? For hacking?”

“I know you. The girl at the entrance to Horuk?”

“Yes. I’m Ella.”

He regarded her a moment. Half his head of yellow, as in bright yellow hair was shaved short, the other half provided enough long strands that he could look out through them, if he bent forward as he was doing. “I still hack. Even though the dickflopper took my spot, I hack. I share a shop with two others.

“Dickflopper?” Ella couldn’t help snorting. “I saw him.”

“And you didn’t use him? Good. You got smarts. What is it you want done?” Plito resumed picking over the heap.

Asking him about her past seemed jumping in too fast. Why not test him? “I have a sort of a body code.” She shrugged. What had Torgeir called it? “It’s uncrackable.” She made air commas. “Encrypted. On my cells and stuff.”

He focused on her, his eyes widening. “You have a slave code on you? Kak. You’re kakked. If your master knows you’re doing this...”

Oh shit. “No! I have no master. The man who put it there.” How did she put this? “We’re bondmated. I swear I’m free. Swear it on...on my heart, on all the expensive cyber shit we’re standing on. Hell, this place must be a goldmine. They let you just take stuff?”

At that Plito broke out laughing, doubling over. “Oh no. No!” He snorted. “Tell me you didn’t say that. This stuff is mostly rubbish to be melted down.”

“Oh.” She surveyed the vast deposit of leftover pieces. Ever since she’d walked in she’d been itching to look at some of it. Ella added slowly, “But, this is like being in a candy shop. It’s not all junk?”

“Look. This.” He took up a small golden palm-sized gear. Sunlight sparked on the gold. Plito lobbed it into the air then listening to the distant crash and tinkle. “It’s kak. Mostly. Here and there, now and then, I find good stuff. That’s why I’m here.”

A cybernetic leg lay next to his cart. She’d seen him eyeing it. Next to her was a tiny finger-length robotic bird with blue wings and silver elsewhere. She kneeled and picked it up, letting it lie in her hand. The little robotic corpse seemed as sad as a broken child would be.

“You repair these?”

“Mostly we use them for parts. That bird’s common. Most like that are toys. Too fiddly to fix. Got to pay the gatekeeper for parts we take and it’s a bit of a gamble. I get some back and find the insides are gone – rusted, melted, or dirty. RMD’d we call those. Eats into the profits.”

“Uh-huh.” He didn’t look like he had profits, not with his legs gone and all. She picked up the leg too, sliding it out from under a heap of ball bearings and screws.

“Leave that.” Plito frowned, his mouth down-turning. “It’s RMD’d. Look at the corrosion on the conduits even. Pity. First match for ages.”

“For?”

At his grimace she flushed hot. “Oh.”

“Anyway. Look, girl. Ella. Sorry. I can’t break slave codes.”

“Okay.” She nodded a few times. “I like honesty.” She did. Seeing someone as devastated by his own past, whatever it was that had cost him his legs, be as positive and moral, it made her feel good. Anyone who could do that deserved some good karma back at them. She gently laid down the leg then straightened. “I don’t really need it done now anyway. I have another hacking job. To find out my past.”

“That is almost too easy. Unless you’ve had a government job that put your past behind a wall?”

“Something like that.”

“Yeah? Ten units a half hour of work. That may go up. It would depend on developments. This isn’t likely to be dangerous? Why don’t you know your own past?”

“I don’t think so. Not dangerous. It’s complicated, why I can’t remember.” She shifted her feet, slipping down slope a little. Being too trusting wasn’t wise though. “I need to see you work, to start with.”

“Sure. If you think you can tell anything from watching, you can do that. I can tell you more once I begin. Once I see the problems.”

That was when she felt the absence. Mimi was gone. She’d been with Ella all day until the girl showed up.

“We can go now.” Plito shrugged and tossed aside another piece.

“Can I take this?” She still had the little bird.

“I don’t want it. It’s up to you. Junk really.”

The gatekeeper was a squarish humanoid bot with worn purple paint. “Whatcha got? Whatcha got?” it hustled as they approached. After Plito haggled for what he wanted, it gave her bird one glance and made a derisive blart sound. “Half a unit.”

She paid and tucked it into her backpack.

“What are you going to do with that little bird?” Plito seemed genuinely interested. His cart made few sounds. She assumed it was a variation of the hoverboards and his long, spine-like appendages that substituted for legs must control it somehow.

“I don’t know.”

It drew her though. She wanted desperately to fix it. The little thing was so cute.

“Well. I guess, show it to Doc and Gears. They’ll ask a fee, you know? But if you want it alive again?”

“I do. Yes.” She smiled at him and put her hand out as they walked side by side. “Thanks Plito.”

“It’s nothing.” But he touched hands hesitantly then shook hers. “I’ll ummm look up the plans for it once we’re at the shop. ’Cause it might help.”

“Great.”

Chapter 19

The fruit cart guy was still in business and though he offered her and Plito a great and wondrous deal on a superb specimen of ruby-colored fruit she could only grin and slip past.

“The prices he charges!” she said in an aside to Plito.

“Yeah. He gets people to buy, though, doesn’t he? I’ve not seen him before. One day I’ll be able to afford some of that.”

“You’ve never had fruit?”

“Fresh? No. Never.” With a flick of his metal legs, he sent his cart humming to the right. To Ella’s surprise he went another hundred yards then headed for a low door that was half below Horuk’s ground level. At the top of the door was a rough sign that read Hack and Slash Cyber Repairers in a degraded red text. A few irregular steps heralded the little rusted door and the center of the steps were so worn Ella noticed a dip as she skip-jumped down them.

Plito scoffed. “A happy one. Where’d I get you?”

“The dump I seem to recall.” She grinned.

That she made him shake his head and grin back brightened her day even more. She almost felt guilty about being so happy without Torgeir.

After tapping a virtual keypad, he unlocked the door then swung it inward. “Please. In.” Ella came up to him but hesitated. He pushed it even more open. “So you know it’s not like a trap with slavers and monsters with sharp teeth or anything. That’s Doc and Gears.”

The room was about half the size of the living room of Torgeir’s place above. She was beginning to see the difference between Torgeir’s idea of not rich and what kids like Plito would see it as. Though clean, the floor and the tops of the five or six benches scattered through the room were covered with varied cybernetic, AI, and electronic mess. There were numerous boxes and shelves with equipment spilling from them and four holoscreens going at once.

Doc was a young man who seemed a few years older than Plito, with white tattoos all over his olive-skinned body and a small goatee to go with his silver hair. Even his eyes were pale. He waved a hand and kept staring at the innards of a hat-sized sphere while a remotely controlled skeleton probe poked around inside the device.

The second of Plito’s friends, Gears, came around the side of the door. He blinked and raised a mug to her and Plito. Steam wafted her way. Not coffee, but something bitter.

Convergent evolution had produced a coffee substitute.

Looked like nerds here needed the same crap to keep them awake and functioning.

Gears was a head shorter than her and had hair as bright a magenta as Plito’s was yellow, except his was shaved short with even closer-to-the-skin shaved designs baring his scalp. There were whorls and what she recognized as ’verse standard mathematical symbols and numbers. Did these boys compete for weirdest hairstyle?

In her limited time out in the ’verse, she’d seen enough equipment, enough repairs on the Finatar, to know what was archaic, though top-of-the-line tech might look the same to her as ten-year-old stuff. A basic ocular device was fastened over Gear’s eyes, with the paintwork as chipped as the gatekeeper robot’s.

“What is this, Plito?” He peered at her. “A girl? Excuse me, miss, but don’t trust either of these two, they’re both mad.”

“Flip to mid-range vision on your vir-specs, Gears. You can’t see kak with it tuned so close. Eh. Look.” He reached and wriggled the vir-specs up to Gear’s forehead. “This is Ella.” He beckoned to her and went in, bypassing Gears. “Gears, Doc, this is Miss Ella, a new client of mine, so be nice. No dirty jokes.”

She followed him, careful not to step on anything that looked important. Off to the right a clear-fronted cabinet held a sparkling cyber arm that twinkled as a line of blue light swept across it repeatedly. Plito placed the used cybernetic pieces he’d bought in an overflowing bin and headed for a corner table with multiple AI pedestals. A wave of his hand brought several holoscreens to life.

“Want some slurg?” He asked as he slid into a chair before the screens, his cyber legs curling around the chair. Leaning over, he dragged a second chair in close.

“Slurg?”

“It’s what we call the beverage Gears is slurping.” Doc flashed her a grin. “High stimulant but legal, thick as mud, and it’s cheap and nasty.”

“Ummm.” She was feeling thirsty. “Sure.”

She sat next to Plito, watching him gesturing, whispering, and air-typing like an orchestral conductor with ADD. The holoscreens flickered and settled.

“Okay. Ella. Need more details. You’re from Earth, right? I figured. Freaky though. When you were born, place, parents. How you got released into the ’verse, cause from prelim investigations.” He pointed to one screen. “There are very few of you out here. Concer is playing you Earth people like you’re in quarantine or something. Only four other females are out supposedly. No male Earth humans. All...” He whispered some more. “Yeah. All were integral in bringing down the Bak-lal. Heroes. Wow.”

At last he turned his full attention on her.

“That was quick.”

“Pfft. All out there. Known. Not secret. You though are different and unknown. Pretty and different.”

The flush burned across her cheeks. “Thank you but you know I’m –”

“Yes.” He dismissed his words with a shrug. “I was just talking. I didn’t mean to embarrass you. We don’t get too many girls in here.”

“It’s okay. Anyway, I meant more...” She poked at a dent in the table surface. “How did you know I was from Earth?”

“Here,” Gears whispered. He placed a mug before her, then slipped away.

The surface bubbled. Black bubbles? She sipped, grimaced. Like salty beef extract with added thickness.

“You get used to it.” Plito rested his elbows on the table and his chin on the tops of his hands. “How did I know? When you came in, our door scanner picked up your code. Your planet of origin, full name, and other details are there along with your so-called owner. You have no warnings attached but yes, it is a slave code. I hope you know this man well. Bondmated? Then get him to remove it.”

His gaze was far too penetrating and serious for a teenager. She wondered what this boy had seen in his few years of life. Though really she wasn’t much older. Six or seven years, perhaps? The things she’d done might curl his hair, if she could remember them. She’d been altered by the Bak-lal and if anyone in this room knew that, they might be horrified. No, they would be horrified.

Maybe she’d jumped into this too fast? She needed to figure out if she could trust Plito with any information he uncovered. But how? How, when she didn’t even know what he might find?

“Do you understand that, Ella? It’s dangerous for you to have that slave code.”

She wrapped her fingers around the warm curve of the mug and clutched the handle. “Why?”

“It makes you property, legally. If he dies, you become part of his estate. If anyone can lay claim to his property, you would become theirs. It doesn’t matter what agreement you have with him. That’s what the law would see. A slave.”

“Oh.” She sucked on her lip, thinking. This was something she’d have to discuss with Torgeir. Which reminded her... Her backpack was on the floor at her feet. She rummaged in it and plucked out her comm. Muted and Torgeir had sent three messages. She flicked the ok response, praying he wasn’t fretting and sending out troops to find her.

“I also can tell you your cybernetic composition. Other things.”

He could? Fuck that door scanner. “Privacy?”

Plito looked apologetic, for all of two seconds. “Automatic.”

“What other things?”

“That your comm is sending out your location to someone, encrypted though.” That’d be Torgeir, her crazily obsessed man. “That you have military grade neurocyber and cybernetics. Nothing aggressive but it is military. They spent a lot of money on you, fixing whatever happened to you.” He sighed. “You wanted honesty? I’m not the best hacker out there. I doubt I can crack whatever your past is behind without some really hot snapp. That’s a type of security borer. I looked a little and you’re pathless, pastless, past a certain point in time.”

“I thought you needed my birthdate and all.”

“If I could get through the Concer military walls, yes. So if you want me to try, yes, you need to say.”

Funny, but she almost felt relieved that he was likely to fail. Finding out about herself was both a niggling constant in her life and a potential terror.

He pushed his wheeled chair away from the table. “Have you tried just asking them? Concer?”

“Ha-ha. Of course.” She buried her face in her hands, breathing hard, thinking, trying to sort out things. Could she trust Plito? It seemed unlikely it was going to be a problem. He wasn’t going to succeed. She drew in a calming breath. “If I just say do it. What will it cost me?”

“How about we keep it day by day? Just that ten units today. You say stop when you want. I’ll say stop if it seems impossible.”

Reasonable. Somehow she doubted Plito would bill her suddenly for a million for one day’s work. She felt obligated to pay him something.

“I’ll pay for today but let me think about my DOB and parents’ names and all that. Tomorrow I’ll say yes or no.”

He nodded and held out his hand. “Deal.”

Their hand shaking was interrupted by Doc swearing then saying, “What! Is that?”

Mimi sat in an eager, ears-forward lump by the door, her piggy eyes gleaming, her small nose lump twitching.

Ella leaped up. “That’s Mimi. She won’t hurt you. Probably. I think. Hope. She’s a MeMoMi from Sicar.”

“Probably?” squeaked Doc.

“I know what that is.” Gears hopped off his chair and edged forward to squat before her. “Memo-morphic metal? With variable mass? They kill prey by dropping on them?” He glanced back at Ella.

“Got it in one. She follows me. I can’t do anything about it. Sorry.” Then she recalled the incident on Finatar or Zeus or whatever she was called now. “Might be best to keep her away from corrosion. I think she likes the taste and she kind of...” Ella screwed up her face and wiggled both hands in front of her, struggling to describe what had happened. “Leaves goop on things.”

“Eh.” Doc tossed a piece of metal to the floor between Mimi and Doc, making a loud clang. “Have a snack. Better than my AI.”

“My my myyy. I looked them up. Never seen off Sicar. I think she slid under the door and reformed in here and that door has less than a fingernail-sized gap.” Plito leaned forward across his table to see her better.

“Fascinating.” Gears actually sounded enchanted. Weird man.

The tableaux of this man with his flower blossom pink hair, with squiggles shaved in it, kneeling and stretching out a hand to a furry rock lump...it made Ella smile. Everyone in here was slightly mad.

A small bleep and the text on her comm said Torgeir was worried. “I think I’d better go.” Ella slipped off her chair.

“Did you still want Doc to look at that bird?”

She nodded to Plito. She’d almost forgotten the little robot bird but she found it in her backpack and took it over to Doc. “Can you do anything?”

“I doubt it. Gears, give me your vir-specs. Got the design for this one Plito? Send it.” He caught the specs when Gears tossed them over and settled them over his eyes. The little bird was laid out in a brilliantly illumination circle. “These are hard. Even with nanogeers we can’t usually get past the defects. Better to replace them.” He paused, head up, as if listening. “Least this one’s not just a toy.” With a miniscule metal syringe and ultra-fine needle that he sneaked in from the side, he injected something into the bird’s crescent-shaped beak. “Ahh. See. The dots are the nanogeers.”

Doc took off the vir-specs and helped her slip them on. When she bent over the bird she could see the metal skeleton of the creature in three dimensions. Numbers laced in and out of her vision, color-coded and scrolling. Whatever they meant, she had no clue, but deep inside the bird was an area with red outlines and spots and tiny white dots crawling around it.

She blinked and thought and the image zoomed closer, closer. The wee critters were scurrying about wanting to fix the problem. She could almost hear how frantic they were.

“They want to help,” she whispered.

“You see that? Yes, part of their programming. A good nano-surgeon can get them to slowly carve out new paths, but it takes forever. A great one can make them do a dance while they’re at it.”

“And can you do that?”

Doc laughed. “I’m learning. My knack is cyber surgery, but not on this nano scale. Give me and Gears your twisted limbs, your rooted cyber directories, your neuro messes and I can fix you. This might take the few nanogeers we have ages. The little frackers are expensive.”

“Really? They’re so eager though.” The energy of the little wiggling nanogeers seemed to be infectious. She wanted to get them a damn shovel or something. “And the bird is so pretty. Can you try, at least? I will pay.”

He grumbled. “Sure. Waste of time though. If I have any nanogeer deaths I’ll have to add extra. Tomorrow. That’s the max time I will spend on this.”

“Thank you!” Then she dragged off the vir-specs, leaned over, and planted a kiss on his forehead. His fevered blush and stammering made her giggle.

When she left, the day seemed brighter and she did a fast version of a whirling dance up the steps. Maybe she was as crazy as the nerd guys. Turning, she spotted the rusty door and a wide silver trail running down it. Under the rust was good, solid steel.

Mouth open, she stared. “Mimi. Did you do that?”

Though Mimi looked as blank and innocent as a rock could be, Ella tut-tutted. Still, she guessed they wouldn’t mind their door being cleaner.

Her humming and whistling of tunes must have stunned the fruit cart man. She shook her head at his offer of a polished red fruit but felt his eyes on her back all the way into Horuk. Nineteen units for one fruit? Were they made of platinum?

On the way through the foyer, reading the messages from Torgeir brought to the fore her loneliness. The boys had distracted her. Messages, even ones using a facsimile of his voice just weren’t good enough.

He picked up on the first buzz of the comm.

“Hi.” The hoverflow zipped her upward and she barely noticed stepping off. “Are you back soon?”

“An hour or two, Princess. Wait for me. No more going out, hey?”

“Okay,” she said softly. “I was going home anyway.”

Ella curled up on the bed and waited for him. Then she cleaned and prepared a salad, and waited on the bed again. It was dark and she was hungry but doing anything else seemed wrong until he came back. Midnight had gone past when he returned alone.

“Not even Dresdek?” She had her arms wrapped around him and her nose buried in his shirt. From the way his hands were roving he was as happy to see her as she was him.

“They’re coming soon. It’ll take a few days to get places for everyone. Though they’re willing to share, it’s not easy. I’m sorry.” He pulled back and tilted her chin up to deliver one long slow kiss. “You eaten?”

“Not yet.”

“Ella! Next time eat before I get home. Let’s find you something now.”

“Yes, sir. I will. Next time.” She yawned.

“Good. We renamed the ship Zeus. Your name. It’s a good one. Thank you”

*****

Incoming. Henchman 1

I should be able to deliver the black app within a Riptide day, sir. Confirm that you wish a three-month period of effect?

Confirmed...

Chapter 20

The next day, after cleaning Torgeir’s rooms, she headed for the Hack and Slash boys’ shop, with Mimi in tow. On the way past his cart, the fruit guy offered her a cheap piece of fruit, almost waving it in her nose, but she brushed past. Over-pushy sellers made her want to wash and that man seemed creepier every time she saw him.

No hacking success yet. No live bird. She convinced Doc to try for another day. The boys didn’t seem to mind her being an observer so she stayed. Only Plito was technically a boy but they were all shorter than her and she had this crazy maternal thing going. Considering the poor diet they had, it was no wonder they’d not grown taller. She’d brought a huge lunch with her and planned to share. So she watched and watched, customers came and went, and she chewed her nails, until her allergy to sitting on her butt overcame her.

Waiting in the rooms above for Torgeir to return would drive her nuts. She began rummaging about in the boy’s shop, picking up stuff, and generally making tidy out of chaos.

“What,” Doc said, tersely. “Are you. Fracking well. Doing?”

She screwed up her nose, her mouth, then let out a sigh. “Dusting?”

“Don’t,” Plito muttered. “Dust gets into shit and makes things go pa-zoing.”

“Soooo technical, is Plito.” Gears glanced up at her, saw her frown, and ducked down again.

He had this laser welder thing going. Or it could be an Armageddon weapon for all she knew. Why the hell couldn’t Torgeir take her to the ship? “I hate dusting.”

“Then why the frack –” Plito began.

“Come over here, Ella. Ignore Mister Rude. You seemed interested in the nanogeers yesterday. You want them to do this job? Come and see why this isn’t going to work.”

If she hadn’t been so disgusted, it would’ve been funny hearing Doc call Plito rude when he’d only just sworn at her himself.

“You want me to see something that I will hate? Fine.”

Mimi trotted over before her and wobbled, standing, on her little hind limbs to see the bird. Which she couldn’t, being short. The poor bird lay as still as ever in the circle of light. One wing had unfolded like a silver fan, as if it had attempted to take flight.

With a flourish, Doc unclipped the vir-specs and offered them to her. “Princess.”

“Ugh.” She halted, her arm in mid-reach. “Why did you call me that?”

“Your boyfriend says that.”

She rounded on Plito. “You hacked my messages!”

“Ooops.” He half-smiled. “Whenever you answer one in here, it just...” He waved his hand. “Happens?”

“Urrrr.” She swiveled, snatched up the vir-specs, and there was the bird, dangling from Doc’s hand all slimed with Mimi goop.

Mimi did a little bounce whereas Doc was frozen with an expression of delight plastered on his face.

“Did you?” She looked from one to the other and back again. “You didn’t?”

“I thought maybe? Have you seen our door? Your pet rock made it shiny! I just thought –”

“And so you fed her the bird?” Eyebrow cocked, dreading what this might have done, she rescued the bird from Doc and laid it in the light.

“Doc.” She could hear the dismay in Plito’s voice. “You should’ve asked first.”

“She looked so eager. It can’t have made anything worse. The bird was going in the trash soon. Go on. Take a look, Prin –”

Her glare stopped him dead and he snatched up a second set of vir-specs and pulled them down so she was left staring at the front glass with blue concentric circles shrinking on the lens, over and over.

Below the specs, his grin manifested and she huffed.

After dabbing the bird clean of Mimi goop, she donned her specs and focused. Zooming in took seconds. The nanogeers sped up as she watched, zipping around all over the circuitry. “The corrosion blockage is gone!”

Doc chuckled. “Yes!”

“But there’s still all these red areas, like potholes.”

“Microscopic holes. It figures. Take away corrosion and the damage is revealed. There’s still too much for the nanogeers.” He added slowly, “Are you doing anything to them?”

“Yes. I told them to repair the holes. These specs let you communicate with them, don’t they?”

Doc cleared his throat. “Well-spotted. This will probably help too.”

She felt him press something, a button perhaps, at the side of the specs. The nanogeers began running around faster than she could follow. “I swear they’re having a party. Look at them go!”

“You do have a knack. Making them do the right thing is an art. Are you certain you’ve not done this before?”

“No. I think they like me.”

He snorted. “I fear we’ll have a high nanogeer mortality though. Overwork kills them.”

“Can we buy more?” So close. Getting the bird fixed had become this ultimate goal for her.

“We can’t. No. Two thou units for a vial of fifty. We don’t have that. Not right now.”

She thought through that price and what he’d said before that. “I’ll pay for more if you try me out for a job. Train me in what to do. I want to work with these.” She rattled onward before he could say no. “I feel I can do this and you said you were better at bigger cyber-surgery? This’ll free you up.”

“Plito? You hear that?”

She took off the specs and found the boys exchanging looks.

“What about we let her have a table here?” Plito said. “Your bondmate, this Lord Rakkel, won’t object?”

She raised her shoulders, let them slump. “I don’t think so. He knows I want to find work. You said there were loads of these birds? Toys that people want fixed?”

Gears nodded and pointed at a bin. “Not all are toys either. We got another brought in this morning that’s a child-minding device. People use them for all sorts of things. If she can fix them, there’s a market. Providing the costs aren’t high.”

“My answer is aye.” Doc grasped her hand and squeezed.

“Aye.” Gears nodded.

“Aye.” Plito smiled. “Providing Mimi doesn’t eat our stock.”

“Licking is more likely. If it’s okay,” she drawled. “I’m going to try making her my first option when there’s corrosion.”

Doc slipped off his chair and walked around the table. He stared down at Mimi who seemed happy chewing on the metal he’d given her earlier. “We can try her on some junked pieces first.” He put out his hand. “Ella. You got a job.”

“Thank you.” She shook his hand, grinning. “I hope I can do this. I’ll try my hardest and I promise I won’t harm your business.”

“That’s the spirit. It won’t hurt us, girl. All you’re going to be let near is thrown-away toys first off. Plus, whatever you earn is up to you. If you get good enough we’ll charge you rent. Right?”

The other two agreed with Doc.

“Wow.” She let out a shaky breath and did a small jump on the spot. “This is awesome. I have a job!” Then she couldn’t contain her joy any longer. She gave Doc a huge hug then ran over to Gears and then Plito to do the same. Then she messaged Torgeir. Her scream probably blew the speakers on his comm. It certainly left the boys with their hands over their ears.

That night Torgeir came home exhausted and late again.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured, as she crawled on top of him and cuddled up. He hugged her shoulders and patted her butt. “It’s going to be like this until we go. We have a job lined up and the launch date is in four days.”

She guessed he was apologizing for the lack of sex.

“It’s okay. I’m tired too.” She yawned. “Four days? Oh. So soon.”

“Yes.” The distant noises of Horuk night life reminded her of how this would be when he’d left her. At least she had friends now, well business associates. She raised her head and put her chin on her forearm so she could look at Torgeir. “I have a job now. I can make money too, while you’re gone. You won’t be gone long will you?”

The bed would be so lonely with only her in it.

“I’m not sure. Two weeks, I think. It’s a close job. What’s yours, Princess?”

“I’m doing cyber repair work. With these guys called the Hack and Slash Cyber Repairers.”

“Guys?” Though he was staring at the ceiling, she could hear the frown. “I think tomorrow I will come see this place and say hello.”

“Hmmm.” She tapped his chest. “Okay, but you be nice. They’re good.”

“And you know this how?”

She wriggled off and slid into the gap between his arm and his body, hugging his arm this time as sleep sifted into her mind. “’Cause. I know.”

True to his word he went with her the next morning. At least having him as escort deterred stalker fruit man.

She tapped the code on the door, the now totally shiny steel door, and it swung inward at the slightest shove. Even the hinges had stopped creaking. The boys knew Torgeir was coming. She’d messaged them and they were lined up inside, waiting. “Morning.”

“Morning,” they all chorused back.

Torgeir walked in and nodded vaguely to them as he studied the room, then he swung back and pinned them all with his gaze. By then Ella had shut the door and reached his side.

“Torgeir this is Doc, Gears, and Plito.” More nods were exchanged.

While Torgeir was still opening his mouth, Plito spoke. “You’re bondmated to Ella, I believe, sir?”

“Yes,” Torgeir grated back. “Why is that of your concern?”

Already this was going the wrong way. She frowned at the boys.

“Has Ella told you how bad it is for her to have that slave code? If you die, she’s property and part of your estate.”

Silence seemed about to crack the air. The gunfight at the OK Corral came to mind and Ella nervously rubbed her eyebrow. Fuckitty.

“I admit I’d not considered that, dying, until you brought it up.”

Plito gulped. “It was for her that I said it. We, all three of us, regard her as a friend. Though I admit we’ve not known each other long, I wouldn’t want her hurt.”

“She’s a good repairer, a good worker,” Gears added, in a serious tone, one hand fiddling with the vir-specs perched on his magenta head.

Doc glowered. “Do you agree it should be removed?”

“The code? I think that’s between myself and Ella. I came here to check you out. Tell me why I should let her stay here to work.”

Ella felt herself flash from hot to cold and back again. “Wait! Wait.” She took Torgeir’s hand but stepped forward. “Boys, I appreciate your concern. Oh my.” She placed her hand over her heart. “I do. But Lord Rakkel is correct. The code is our business. Now, I am going to be working here. I am.” She turned to Torgeir and stepped closer to say quietly. “That part is my decision even if we are bondmated.” She waited a moment. “You can see how umm protective they are of me. They meant no harm. Please?”

Slowly his gaze was drawn down to her and his expression softened. He let out a long breath then took both her hands in his. “I can see this means a lot to you. I will want to talk some more about it tonight. For now though...” He nodded. “Have fun.”

He kissed the back of her hand then stepped away, releasing her.

“I’m going to hold you all responsible for my Ella while she is here. I’ll see you later, my princess.”

Then he smiled and left.

“Phew.” She spun and shook her head. “Damn. You’re lucky you didn’t get shot or something.”

“Hah.” Plito looked smug. “There was never any danger. I had it all recorded.”

How could anyone living here be so naïve? She palm-smacked her forehead. “That wouldn’t have stopped him if he thought you’d harm me. Now.” She clapped her hands, ignoring how Plito had paled. “What is there to do today?”

Chapter 21

Incoming. Henchman 1

This is taking longer than expected.

As long as you succeed.

I will, sir.

*****

The days went past agonizingly fast. Though they made love the night before he left, it was tame compared to what had happened on the rooftop of Horuk. Afterward, Torgeir talked to her as she lay beside him in his arms.

“It’s strange, Ella, but I’m almost glad we didn’t have time for much sex. I don’t want you to become fully bondmated while I’m away.”

Her forehead tensed. “Why?” With his shoulder under her head, his arm was inches away. She drew her finger down his biceps then licked him. “I don’t think I can stand you being away. There’s no one else who tastes as good as you do.”

He laughed softly, running his fingers from her nape up through her hair, then doing it again until she sighed and relaxed against him. “The same here. Why not? Because you’ll grow my mark here.” He reached over and stroked the underside of her breasts then her upper stomach. “I want to see that happen. I want to be there.”

Her smile crept up on her. “I understand, although, when you tell me that, I got a serious ache to see it happen now. Come back soon, won’t you?”

“I will. Can you come to the port tomorrow? Bring one of those boys of yours to keep you safe on the way back.”

“Ohhh.” She turned in his arms and grinned up at him.

“What?”

“It’s nice. That you trust them now. Surprising. I’ll come, of course. Mimi will be there if the port doesn’t ban her or something.”

“I doubt they can. She sneaked through by herself last time.”

He squirmed his butt and levered himself onto his elbow so he could look down at her, moving the sheet away to bare her. Then he pressed her shoulder down until she lay flat on the bed under him. He straddled her hips, lightly sitting on her thighs, with his arms propped to either side of her head. His unbound blond hair swung down and framed his face.

Her beautiful man studied her, with those golden eyes, from her face and all the long way down her body.

“I want to remember you, Ella. Like this. Not just a picture. You, inside my head.”

“I want to remember you too. There’s no better place for me than like this. With you over me.” She curved her hands over his arms and slid them up to his shoulders, then to his back as he kissed her. She wriggled. “Mmm. All these man muscles.”

“I like the girl muscles myself. I love you. All of you. I promise, when I return, I will tie you up and fuck you until you can’t walk and then I’ll watch the marks come out and we will celebrate the way we Sicar Lords have done since, well...a long time. Which could mean more fucking.”

She laughed soundlessly. “Wonderful.”

He lowered himself onto his forearm then, with his thumb resting at the corner of her mouth, he cupped her jaw. She thought of biting but only gave his thumb-tip one soft nibble.

“The other day, I know I was scary at the shop, but I wanted you safe.” He inhaled, exhaled sharply. “My only...regret is that I have no one else to watch over you when I’m gone.”

“I’ll be okay. I’m more worried about you.” She squeezed her hand onto the side of his back, marveling at how big and almost stone-hard his body was. Surely no one and nothing could hurt this warrior of hers? Her lips quivered for a second, before she caught herself. “You’re going to war. Who or what are you fighting?”

“Bak-lal. Remnants only,” he hurriedly added. “The evil things are still buried in some planet’s crusts. We’re being employed to get rid of a factory queen, along with other mercenaries. She’s damaged and shouldn’t put up much of a fight.”

“Oh.” The mere mention of Bak-lal sent a snake of nausea through her that curled into her belly, heavy and dark. “Take care. Please, take care?”

“I will.” He rolled onto his back. “Someone has to do this. I’d almost pay for the privilege of killing these last Bak-lal.”

Replying to that was impossible when her throat had seized up. The hatred in his voice frightened her. She’d once been some sort of altered human, hadn’t she? Or so she’d gathered. Would anyone then, logically, call her Bak-lal?

What if he thought so?

Her heartbeats counted out every horrendous second for many hours of that night as she stared into the dark. Torgeir fell asleep, his relaxed hand clasping hers, while she lay there terrified of a future she couldn’t predict. Nighttime was the worst of times when her thoughts turned like this.

*****

It was only after she’d watched the Zeus rise into the sky on her flames of purple-blue that she remembered he’d forgotten to remove the code. Gears was with her and he didn’t think to ask her about it. She guessed they assumed it had been done. Would the door scan alert Plito or had he told it not to read her anymore?

She’d remind Torgeir when he returned.

Her sadness ebbed. Doing something would help. She only had to stay active all day, every day, until Torgeir returned. Ella sucked on the inside of her cheek while staring at the swirling, dark clouds. Simple, really.

They were too far from Horuk to walk back but as she was getting into the hover cab she remembered an idea she’d had that now seemed possible.

“Gears?” She settled into the padded seat beside him, trying to ignore the holes in the upholstery and the one in the floor that let her see the ground.

“Yes?” He adjusted his weapon and equipment belt, so a tool of some sort wasn’t digging into his side, then sat back again.

“Where to?” queried the AI via the speakers.

She peered out at the chaos of the spaceport exit ramps where vehicles buzzed about like bees on crack. “Can we go to the dump, Gears? There’s something I want to get. If it’s still there.”

“Sure. They don’t need us back at the shop urgently.”

“Good.”

On arriving outside the dump’s gate, she paid off the cab and watched it whisk away. The gatekeeper bot said nothing as they passed, except for emitting a single bleep of approval.

“I guess I’d better say what I want.”

“Yes. That would help.”

She kept trudging up the slope to where she thought Plito had been. The tinkle and slide of metal parts under boot was as disconcerting as before. Off to the left, a partly activated arm was attempting to crawl away using its hand. She grimaced. The similarity to a dead person’s arm was gruesome.

“Zombie cybernetics,” she muttered.

Gears gave a short laugh. “Yes. Always creepy when you see that.”

That zombie had translated into standard ’verse language surprised her. Some things were everywhere, she supposed.

“I’m looking for a part Plito found that he said was RMD’d. I’m hoping me and Mimi can fix it.”

“And it was?”

“A leg. One that matches Plito’s attachments.”

“Ohhh.” Gears grinned. “If we could do that for him... You’ve given me hope, miss.”

“I know he needs two, but it’d be a start? Yes?”

“Definitely. We shall think positive. Where was it?”

She halted, looked about. “Here. There were ball bearings. Lots and lots.”

“Small things sink. Any vibrations and they sink. We may not see those but at least the diggers and scoops haven’t been here for days.”

“Then let’s try.”

They dug and stomped about for ages and she was close to giving up when Gears whistled.

“Is this it? Do you think?”

She scrunched over, toppling a little before catching herself as the mound shifted. There were ball bearings everywhere hereabouts. Perhaps Gears had unearthed them? In front of him was a leg, next to the toes of his favorite black boots with the embossed, math equations.

“I think so. Can’t you tell?”

“Wait.” He stared ahead for a moment, as if accessing data, then kneeled and stuck a probe into a port on the leg. “Yes. It’ll match with small adjustments.”

A plop of rain landed on the leg then more raindrops spattered onto the parts nearby and Ella’s head.

Gears stood and nodded at the rain. “And that is why it’s RMD’d, as well as whatever caused it to be thrown away in the first place.”

She looked into Gear’s eyes. “I still want to try.”

“I’m glad. If we can do this. If you can do this, ask me anything, Miss. I’d –” His eyes glistened.

Aw hell. She reached over and punched his arm.

“Ow!”

“Let’s go. No owing me anything. Such rubbish you do talk.” But she smiled as they headed for the gate.

There was something about doing nice things for people that filled her heart and banished all the bad, for a while anyway.

The fruit man hassled her as they neared Horuk. She cradled the leg and shook her head despite his crazy offer to give her a taste of fruit for free. As she walked away, she felt his eyes on her back, as it often happened.

“Why’d you say no?” Gears asked her when they were out of earshot. “That was expensive stuff.”

The awe in his voice made her stop and think.

“I know, but I don’t like frauds and he is all of that. I think he has the hots for me or something. Makes me shudder.”

“Okay.”

But she could hear the disbelief. Maybe she should’ve accepted the fruit and given it to Gears? Now that was a curious idea.

She took the leg to her and Torgeir’s apartment above, before returning to the shop. Mimi joined her when she was halfway there. The creature had her own timetable and agenda.

She settled into the Hack and Slash routine. Moping about Torgeir being gone was not her way. Her little cry the first night she’d been alone was enough. She’d knuckle down and learn and work. They gave her small jobs to do while she worked on the bird in her spare time. She learned how to use the design plans with the vir-specs and how to care for the nanogeers – the best ways to use them and what they couldn’t do as well as what they could.

Every night, when alone, she worked on the leg using her new nanogeers and the preloaded plan in the vir-specs Gears had let her borrow. The red highlighted areas that appeared, when the plans were synched with the specs, were huge and daunting. This might take months. Or not. Mimi’s silver goop did the trick of clearing the corrosion and destroyed sections, only to leave a haunted landscape inside the leg of eaten away pathways and parts. Gears vowed to manufacture or repair the larger pieces, but the rest was up to her.

On the third day after the departure of the Zeus, she turned up a little late to find Doc cursing the nanogeers.

“Ella! Come here, please. The little kak-frakkers won’t obey me.” He cocked an eyebrow at her as she walked up. His client had her hand out under the light. Sometimes he fixed things while in situ as they called it – while still attached to the owners. “You try.”

The elderly woman waited patiently while she strapped on the specs and focused down.

“Just that little junction. W2330A,” Doc said. “Dirty connection. Small melted spot.”

“Mm-hmm.” She poked at her nanogeers and smiled as they scurried to do her bidding. “Easy.”

Five minutes later the job was done. She pulled off the specs. “You could’ve done that.”

“No. No.” He sat back, stroking his goatee. “I think they’re all in love with you, Miss Ella. I really do. You have some affinity for this. There’s a magic to it that I haven’t found.”

“Thank you.” That pleased her but she tried not to blush in front of the customer. “I’m...getting there.”

On the fourth day she arrived early to find a corpse of a man on their steps. She was still staring at the blood when the three boys turned up together. They hustled her away while someone in authority was called. The law arrived, though no one seemed convinced anything would be done. Cyborg on cyborg, she heard muttered.

The blood had been washed away when they returned an hour later. No police tape, no one investigating that she could see. It was a reminder of how different things could be here.

“Are you safe with your business located in this area?” she asked Plito as he unlocked the door.

“Sure. As safe as anywhere. We live nearby. The trip here is short.”

After that, the day seemed surreal.

On the sixth day she found herself dawdling outside a shop she’d noticed Torgeir observing. It was, as far as she could tell, a kinky sex shop. The outside was suggestive, with flesh-exposing poses but without anything overtly sexual. Once she stepped through into the shop, devices and imagery of sexuality were displayed in stark imagery. From her half-recalled glimpses of Earth sex shops there wasn’t much new unless you counted the virtual sex equipment and the robot sex booths that lined one side. The sounds leaking from those made her want to block her ears. She hurriedly found an attendant and purchased the soft red rope that was recommended.

Even as she picked up the bulky package, the girl rattled off more possibilities in a monotone. Her neon-green cybernetic eyes only made the encounter weirder. “You sure that’s all? No harnesses, gags, cuffs, double-penetration anal and vaginal dildos, clamps, vibrators, or auto-fucking devices – orgasm guaranteed?”

“Uhhh. No. Thank you.” She hurried out, praying her sweaty forehead wasn’t assumed as a sign of arousal by any customers.

If Torgeir weren’t pleased by her initiative she’d be sad. She decorated the package with a red bow and a note then left it beside the bed to await his return.

That night she sat out on the balcony until almost dawn, staring at the stars and alternating between crying silently and thinking about where he might be and what he might be doing. She wished she didn’t know he’d gone somewhere to fight. She’d had no messages since the ship left the system and might not get any until their return. He might not return. He might be lying out there somewhere, dying. It was almost too much to bear but it wasn’t until the sun broke above the horizon that she dragged herself to bed to sleep a few hours.

Work. She needed to distract herself.

It was the seventh day. The halfway point before Torgeir returned, and she thought she might succeed in fixing the bird. She was so near to replacing all the damaged areas.

Yes, oh yes. She blinked away the tiredness from her eyes. At least this was a cause for happiness. She placed the specs to one side and removed the bird from the recharging pad. The battery had been low, as expected. She swallowed and waited. The bird’s eyes glowed pale blue and brightened then brightened some more.

Her heart picked up pace and she bit back a squeak.

Small places on the creature seemed to ripple as if they moved an infinitesimal amount. A silver wing feather curled down. Some blue ones slid over each other like a fan unfurling. An eye focused on her and in one swift move, the bird hopped to its feet. The little robot shook itself, tinkling like the smallest bells, and took flight, whirring. A flicker of blue and silver circled the room before it returned to hover before her.

Ella clapped her hands and jumped to her feet, squealing. “I did it! I did it!”

Doc looked up, startled. Gears fell off his chair and swore. Plito leaped up and swirled over to her.

“Big hug!” he cried as he approached.

They hugged, spinning in a circle, with her legs flying out before he stopped. When she’d shaken hands with Doc and accepted Gears’s stuttered congratulations, she straightened her red skirt and smoothed her hands over her circuitry-etched tights, where they’d bunched above her knees.

“Time for a celebration and I know just how to do this. I’ll pay for some picnic food from Ravello.” This was a man with the most delicious savory-style dishes she had yet to see matched on Riptide. “And I will get a surprise for you all.”

“What? We’ll all pay.” Doc nodded gravely. “This is going to be a great boost for the business. I can see this.”

“I suppose it will.” When she whistled, the bird settled on her table and cocked its head at her. “You stay there, sweetie. Boys, I’ll be back soon.”

The fruit man looked surprised when she marched up to him. If this didn’t work, if he’d tired of her, she’d simply pay him. Doc was right; this was going to be a money-spinner. Already she knew the repairs would be faster in future.

“Would you like to try my fruit today?” He leaned on his cart, arms folded, smiling. His black hair was sleekly combed back from his face and tied at the back.

“Perhaps.”

When he plucked away a cloth, uncovering a mound of bright red, globular fruit her mouth watered. It’d been so long since she’d had real fruit too.

He looked triumphant. Why he was so keen on her eating, she had no idea. He wasn’t exactly slobbering over her hand, even if he stared far too intently for politeness.

She may as well try. “You want me to purchase your fruit? You’ve been begging me for days.”

“I think you’re a beautiful young woman and if you enjoy these, I’m sure it will be worth it to me a thousand times over when you tell your friends. Here. Free.”

He took a fruit from the top of the pile to his right and offered it to her. It shone with healthiness.

“If you want me to try this, I want you to offer ten people that same deal. One free piece of fruit.”

His eyebrows rose.

“And I have three friends so I need four for myself.” She waited, smiling. If he said no, she had money. Today was a day to be generous.

“Ten?”

“Yes.”

He inhaled and then he held out the fruit again. “I agree. It will also spur on new customers. But...you must taste this now and declare to one and all how delicious it is. Out loud, to one and all. Hear this people! I offer ten pieces of fruit to the first of you to step up if this young lady tries my merchandise!”

“Well, well, well. You are a man of your word.” She took the red fruit from him.

He nodded. “Of course I am.”

“Then. Here.” And she crunched her teeth into the fruit until she bit off a chunk. She chewed and swallowed, feeling the sweet juices run down her throat. The taste was magnificent, enough to make her wonder if fruit could give her an orgasm. “Yum!” She held it up as people cheered. How weird to have eating a fruit cheered. But the line of eager customers was already long. “Beautiful! Thank you, sir.”

“My pleasure.” He bowed to her, low, and straightened. “All of you, step up slowly, keep in line, and I will give these out.”

She saved her fruit to finish later and walked away after selecting three more pieces for Doc, Gears, and Plito. Her grin seemed to buoy her up. Fixed the bird and done a good deed for the day? Win-win.

All the work for the past few days had made her eyes feel as someone had rubbed grit into them. The virtual keypad blurred when she began to type and she had to shake her head to get the code correct. Then she realized the boys would’ve let her in if she’d yelled. She really should get an early night’s sleep. As if to reinforce that decision she tripped over something on the floor and ended up on one knee.

“Ella! You okay?” someone asked.

Her head seemed full of sludge, her thoughts were going round and round, and everything seemed to be slowly drifting away. Sounds dulled and echoed. She put her palms on the concrete and was appalled to see the fruit rolling away from her. One, the fruit with a bite taken out of it – white flesh showing stark against the red – stopped a few inches away, and wobbled, rocking, rocking, like a metronome ticking. Her little robotic bird flew in, wings singing as it landed. It pecked at the flesh of the fruit and turned a lurid green then red then green again. A thin siren erupted, loud enough to make her shut her eyes and want to vomit. She couldn’t open them again. Her forehead met the cold floor with a thud. Was she drooling? She shouldn’t drool. Her eyes...where were they?

There were footsteps around her, hands on her back.

“What’s happening? She’s sick and that bird... You never said. Is it a food taster?” someone asked in a high voice.

“Yes! Ella, Ella, hold on. Doc, get a real doctor. Fast. I’m plugging in her cybernetics. From what the bird’s doing, it’s a double attack. Cyber and organic.”

“This is bad.” Was the last she heard.

Chapter 22

Incoming. Henchman 1

Done, sir.

I added an automatic aversion response to the neurocyber component of the black app. There were collateral casualties. I’ve left the planet as a precaution, temporarily.

Excellent.

*****

The message came in when Zeus entered the Riptide system, scrolling across his private holo-display like a snake out for a stroll.

Ella was poisoned. Please contact us as soon as possible. She’s alive but unwell.

Plito.

“Unwell?” He swore off a streak of words while raking his hand through his hair. He should never have trusted them. Should’ve brought her with him.

Their own casualties whipped him back to reality. The fight on Jorburr 5 had been an eye-opener. With a little less skill and luck, none of them would’ve returned.

“Ella’s been poisoned. Get us down to Riptide as fast as you can,” he declared to the bridge room in general.

“Affirmative.” Wez, the new navigator, nodded.

Dresdek glanced up, grief on his face. “I’m sorry, sir. I’ll get the landing expedited as much as I can.”

“Thank you.”

Though he monitored their approach and descent into the atmosphere, there was little more for him to do. The cyborg had his own sadness to deal with and now this. Dresdek might rarely show affection for women but Nephelle and Ella had seemed to crack through his outer shell.

What did unwell mean?

He sent a reply but the only answer was:

Ella is alive but lacking in some cognitive responses. Lost speech. Lost some memories. We’re not sure what else. From your ETA, she should be at the shop when you come back.

She was at their shop? If they had anything to do with whatever had happened to her he’d string them up by their entrails and feed them to the stray pelk scavengers that infested the streets of Pelagia. He almost sent that in a message to them but stopped himself, barely.

Here he was with a locked-in contract to return to Jorburr 5 and his woman had gone missing.

He left Dresdek and the others to finalize the landing procedures and hopped on a cab that arrowed straight to the Hack and Slash.

When he bellowed through the door at them, the lock unclicked and he shoulder charged his way in, flinging the door into an arc that banged it into the wall.

Doc, Gears, and Plito were at their usual posts, and Ella was facing away from him, sitting at a stool before a table. Black tights, long ivory corset wrapped about her beautiful figure. A pang of dread struck his heart.

But...the strap around the back of her head said she was using vir-specs. She couldn’t be too ill. He said a fast prayer to every god he could remember existed in the ’verse.

“You’re okay!” Relief flooded him. He strode forward to wrap his arms around her. In the fragment of time it took for his arm to brush at the underside of hers, before he could truly register he again held his love, she shrieked, then she flung herself off the stool sideways, spinning from him.

Eyes wide, she backed away, her hand palm out, her head shaking in the universal body language that said no.

A mini holoscreen popped into view between them. One word appeared. Fire.

By then the boys had gathered, grouping in the space between him and Ella.

“Ella?”

*No.* She was one-handed typing on a virtual board. *No. It burns. I don’t know you!*

There were tears on her cheeks. Fresh ones dribbled from her eyes.

He’d hurt her? “Ella?”

*No. Stay away.*

Confusion wracked him.

“I’m sorry, sir,” began Plito, his bare spine-legs clicking on the floor as if he too was torn. “We couldn’t get her to remember you, and now...” He glanced at where Doc and Gears were comforting her with whispered words. “I’d say there’s a physical component.”

“I hurt her?” He couldn’t fathom this. “How?”

“Some neurogenic application that’s altered her sensory input? Maybe? This is new. She’s not done this with anyone else. Sir, we barely got to this in time. Others suffered brain damage. Five people who ate the same fruit. One other person survived with minor problems.”

The glistening he saw in Plito’s eyes made him uncurl his fists. “Thank you.” Ella was crying still, sobbing. He wrenched his attention away from her. “Tell me it all. Please. How do I fix this?”

Plito wore a new frown line, dead center in his forehead. “I wish I knew. I wish.” He gulped. “We’ve done all we know how to.”

He’d seen worse in combat and she was alive. That was the best. With life came hope. With finger and thumb, he swiped at his own watering eyes. He needed facts.

Torgeir went to a chair and sat, gestured to Plito to take another seat. “Start at the beginning. Please.”

“There was a fruit seller.”

Plito paused, shut his eyes as if sorting out his emotions, then he went on. “Gears thinks the man had targeted Ella for days, only we didn’t figure it out until after. It happened the day she repaired the little blue bird up there.” He pointed upward and Torgeir spotted three robotic birds flying about. “We wanted to celebrate her doing it. They’re really hard to fix and she went off to get food. She did a deal with this guy and he gave her some free fruit as well as another ten pieces. He made her taste it first. That’s how we knew. By the time she got here it was working on her but that bird.” He inclined his head and smiled lopsidedly. “It’s a food taster and it set off its alarm. We got a doctor as well as did some fast cyber-analysis. The poison aimed at both her organic and her cyber systems. I hacked in, took down some of it, the doc got in some antidote too.”

“Thank you.” He’d choked that out. And he’d been blaming these kids. Was his own fracking fault.

Plito shook his head. “I’m just sorry.” He sniffed then blinked madly. “She can’t speak and she’s forgotten everything about you, as far as we can tell. We found that out after we got her using the holoscreen and board to talk. I know you two were in love. It’s sad, really sad.”

“Yes.”

While Plito had spoken, he hadn’t been able to stop looking over at her, now and then. She’d calmed and sat down too. What gave him hope most of all, was that whenever their eyes met, neither of them could bear to look away from the other for several seconds. As if they were glued by something, their inner thoughts, their needs, their past she could not recall.

His heart beat fiercely. A connection existed between them still and he would find a way to break through to her again. Whatever it took. Anything.

“My next question. How do I reverse this?”

He hung his head. “If I knew that, I would’ve done it already. I’m sorry, Torgeir. I’m so sorry. We messed up.”

“No you didn’t.” He stood and hauled the boy into a hug. “I’m going to fix this, you’ll see. Then I’m going to find whoever did this and roast them over a fire.”

The afternoon wore on. He stayed there, organizing via comm, making sure the rooms in Horuk were free of everyone. There was enough crew that they could billet the ones who had nowhere else to go. All he had to do was get her home with him.

She would barely talk to him, let alone touch him.

None of the boys had ideas from what he asked of them. The damage might be permanent, or it might not. He watched Ella work, repairing things, doing stuff that the boys thought was amazing. A few customers came in and thanked her for work she’d done for them. It was inexplicable. Somewhere in there her brain was functioning fine. He was proud of her and so sad a spear through his chest would’ve felt better.

She’d been living in Horuk still, but friends had guarded the place for her, or so he was told. At first people had been angry that she’d caused the poisonings but there were many who she’d helped too and they’d rallied and vowed to protect her.

The people here loved her? Ironic when that was him too. To think of what they’d promised each other in the giddiness of love, and now this.

Silence. Fear.

She was scared to come home with him.

Though he didn’t touch her, apart from one, accidental brush of hand and arm that made her flinch and yelp, and he only sat and talked, she began to see him as less a stranger. The boys talked to her also and he could see it was their advice that she heeded when she at last agreed to leave with him. Except Doc was coming too.

“I’ll leave you when we get there,” he whispered as they locked up. “Don’t you worry. I’ll get her to see it’s right. And I have an idea.” He patted his pants pocket.

The long journey up to the room was even longer when Ella was silent and peeking at him furtively. He couldn’t even hold her hand.

Doc was true to his words. While he went out onto the balcony to give her space, Doc spoke to her before coming out to him.

“She’s okay with this now. She understands you’re a good man. That you were in love. It’s just the stranger part she can’t quite get over, the lack of you in her memories. I get the feeling she is still attracted to you, Lord Rakkel.” Doc scratched his beard. “And that has to be good.”

“Torgeir only, thanks. I owe you three for helping her. And yes.” He nodded out at the darkening sky. “That’s good. I’m going to do this, get through to her. I will not fail. I can’t afford to.” He frowned away the reawakening ache behind his eyes. “I can’t. She’s my bondmate, my only true love.”

“I understand that, sir, Torgeir. I feel I should say to be careful. If this painful reaction to your touch happens too often it will be exceptionally difficult for her to get past that. It will become a conditioned response.”

Torgeir looked at the smaller man and that serious expression and he nodded.

“Also.” Doc sucked in a huge breath then rummaged in his pocket. “This.”

In his palm was a thin steel vial.

“What’s that?”

“Nanogeers. Plito would kill me if he knew I suggested this but here’s my logic. These little frackers obey her like she’s their goddess. They’re hers. I can’t see them hurting her. I’ve seen her specifications. She’s cyber like no one else I’ve ever seen, so interconnected. Not by percentage but it’s like they took out bits here, there, everywhere, and replaced them with cyber then wired her together.”

Torgeir shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

“Get her to ingest these, or maybe inject them. I think even in her mouth will work. Know this though, we do not normally do this. At. All. Nanogeers hate the organic and because of that there are dead ends for them in cyborgs. They stop and can’t migrate farther. With Ella, I think there’s a chance if they get into her they will...”

“What?”

“Repair her. All over.” He looked sheepish, his forehead and around his eyes wrinkling as if in disbelief at his own idea.

But he didn’t know for sure.

“They won’t hurt her?” He picked up the vial. “I thought you had to guide them?”

“Look, normally, yes, absolutely. But with Ella, I think it’s worth it. You see I’m also afraid she may be deteriorating. There are things I think she’s lost in the last few days. Memories are disappearing.”

That sent cold etching into him, like cracks of ice fracturing underfoot.

“Okay.” He curled his fist over the vial. “Whatever I do it will be my decision only. My blame if anything goes wrong.” He squeezed Doc’s shoulder.

“Thank you, though... That won’t work. I know I told you about it.”

He grunted, shook his head. Stubborn.

“Good luck, sir.”

He watched as Doc left. Ella had lucked out when she found these three young men.

She stood in the living room looking out at him – a strong, proud woman who had been his, as he had been hers. Where was he to begin?

This was a labyrinth built over a chasm. If he took one wrong step in this dance, if he faltered and pushed when he should pull, or coaxed where he should command, she would fall and be eaten by the monsters waiting beneath. And it would all be on him. It would be his fault for destroying her.

Of all the battles he’d ever fought, this was the most terrible. There had never been anything that he needed to win so dearly.

And if she fell then so would he.

Chapter 23

Patience. He needed that like never before.

He went inside and suggested they eat. After that he asked Ella to sit in the living room. She was like a frightened mouse and that alone was so unlike her. Whatever had happened had affected her deeply. Ella was no warrior queen, not like Nephelle had been, but she was strong. Only the bondmating cravings had let him seduce her before. Her wariness had been as potent as a wall guarded by moats and AI-directed cannons and cyberdogs.

Did she still fear him? He sat on the floor at her feet, on a cushion, only to be pleased when she joined him there after a minute of fidgeting. More than pleased, really.

“You don’t want to sit up there?” He indicated the sofa behind her with his eyes.

*No.* She was adept at one-handed typing while looking at him.

“I know the boys told you about us, or as much as they know.”

She nodded.

“I hope you believe them but...I’m unsure how to defeat this pain response you get when I touch you. I think an enemy of yours has done this. Someone tried to have you captured, twice before. I think it’s the same person.”

Her throat moved as if she swallowed and he couldn’t help seeing the beauty of her neck. Such a simple part of the anatomy, but he loved her neck, loved kissing her there, biting. Now he couldn’t so much as trail a finger down her skin. He wrenched away his gaze.

Should he say this next part? Yes.

“We were lovers. Did you know that, Ella?”

Her mouth quirked up. She shook her head and looked thoughtful.

Not fear. Good.

She stared at her fingers then she typed. *Tell me more.*

Could simply talking do anything? Not inside her perhaps, not physically, but it could make her realize how much they’d meant to each other. Logically realize. Emotions were a different problem. If she was still attracted to him, even if it wasn’t the deep love of bondmating, could he use that somehow?

He began to talk. He told her how they’d met and everything that had happened since, as well as mentioning the lovemaking – she blushed cutely at that. He smiled and her blush deepened.

How he wanted to kiss her again, to hold her, to spank her even, for being so careless as to endanger her life. He hurt too, with a ferocity that made him whipsaw between wanting to drag her to him and telling himself no.

He told her of the bad things he’d done. Even the slave code. She frowned and drew her legs into a cross-legged position, pulling a thoughtful face for a while, before she nodded and typed, *Thank you for being truthful.*

“Do you believe me?”

She blinked for a moment then nodded. *Yes.*

“Are you still attracted to me?” Watching her eyes widen, he felt himself teeter on the edge of agony. If she said no he might die on the spot.

*I don’t know.*

The ache inside him intensified then lessened. This was almost the old Ella. He was sure she was denying her emotions. Why? Fear again? Maybe it was time to push.

“I won’t touch you but I want you to stay still while I do what I’m going to. It’s not going to hurt you. Okay?”

Heart pounding he waited for her cautious nod then he leaned in. He went up on his knees, moving closer, even closer. Ella leaned away a smidgeon until her head bumped the sofa behind her.

“Stay,” he said softly. “Stay.” He shifted closer until he was within licking distance of her mouth. Their warm breaths mingled; hers halted, then deepened and sped up. So near. He could see the smallest movement of her eyes and eyelids, see the push of her tongue at the inside her cheek.

The very air seemed to fight against what he wanted. He couldn’t touch her.

“I could kiss you, Ella, but I won’t. Try to remember. We’ve kissed many times. I’ve had my tongue inside your mouth.”

Her nostrils flared. Her breaths became soft and jerky. He stared at her lips.

“You’re feeling this too. You’re aroused, Ella.”

She said nothing though her mouth parted as if she might. A small frustrated sound came from her mouth. Her eyes searched his – the green so light colored that it fluctuated in darkness as her irises constricted down then widened.

“I don’t think you’re scared of me. Are you listening, hoping I will say more of what we did?” Still nothing. He whispered the next words, wanting her to have to concentrate to hear. “I’ve had you under me, crying out and moaning while I made you come. You’d get wet just from me being close to you, kissing you, or saying things, the right things, the dirty things I wanted to do.”

He waited then stated the obvious, wondering if it would make anything click for her. Could he change her by talking? “You’re not running away, Ella. We loved each other in so many ways. We were lovers as well as in love.”

Then he slowly sat back onto his heels. There was such wildness in her. He could sense it, see it in the tightness of her muscles. All he needed was the right trigger. But were words enough?

He wanted to ask her if she was wet for him but was afraid. She had the look of someone cornered – someone cornered, turned on, and confused.

He shut his eyes for a few seconds. “Let me tell you about myself. I’ve never done this for you before. Told you this. This is my past.”

That calmed her and she relaxed, putting her legs to one side. *Please,* she typed.

So he began and he said everything that might seem important to her. Partly to relax her, partly so she could know who he was, partly to get her to remain where she was, within reaching distance.

When he wound down, with nothing more to say, with the sky outside dark and the scent of fires and engines smogging up the room, he leaned in and offered his hand. “I want to try this. To see.”

She watched his hand approach, licking her lips, then she reached up also, stretching, and she touched his fingers.

Her scream, how she curled up over her hurt hand, it tore him apart.

“I’m sorry.”

Words didn’t help. Words were useless. He couldn’t hug her. He couldn’t do anything for her. Frustration made him stalk out to the balcony.

He heard her rise and go away from him, into the bedroom. Their bedroom. Once she was gone, he buried his face in his clawed hands and screamed silently for several seconds, his neck muscles and throat straining. He wiped the wetness from his face and he stayed there for another hour, staring into the night and registering little of what went on before his eyes.

When he was finished thinking, he’d come to the conclusion that Doc’s solution was all he had left. It seemed dangerous. No one had ever done this and here he was planning to do it just to, what, get her memories of him back? That would be selfish.

He stood outside the bedroom door, thinking some more, being sure, with his hand around the vial. The hard steel dug at his skin.

Should he endanger her simply to regain something only he consciously wanted?

He opened the door and entered.

She sat on the bed, half-leaning over an unwrapped package. A slip of paper was in her hand, and her head was bowed as if she were reading. When he stepped farther into the room, she looked up.

Perhaps he could leave aside selfish? This should be her decision as much as his, more hers, really.

“I have something that may help you. Doc gave it to me.”

She typed fast. The holoscreen popped up in the air between them. What is it?

He opened his hand. “This. A vial of your nanogeers. He thinks they might repair you but he also said no one has ever used them like this.” His forehead scrunched. “He thought it could be dangerous too but also said these are your nanogeers in a way he’s never seen before.”

*How do I use them?*

“I don’t think he was sure but he suggested injection, or taking them into your mouth and swallowing.”

She put her hand to her throat then bowed her head over the paper crunched under her fingers. *I’ve been reading. This is a note from me to you.*

It was something he’d missed. But he’d barely been in the bedroom today.

It came to him: she would believe this. Whatever it said on that paper. Please let it be something good.

*It says that I loved you and that she...me.* Ella cleared her throat. *It says that she wanted you to do something.*

The way she distanced herself from the note wasn’t promising. “Ella –”

*Wait. Wait.* She massaged her forehead and he waited, impatiently, but he waited. She met his gaze. Desperation seemed to bring her words into bright relief in the air. *The note. Please? Read?* She held it up to him in a shaking hand and he took it, reading quickly.

Torgeir, my love. I bought this for you to use on me. There is no monster in you. I trust you absolutely, to the ends of the universe. Tie me up, make me yours in the way that you do that I can never resist.

Ella.

Seeing these words that had been written when she was herself shocked him. She had written this. The red rope he’d glimpsed beneath the wrapping finally made sense.

Oh gods.

He let his head rock back on his shoulders and rested the side of his fist on the bridge of his nose, stilling a panic that he’d never felt before. Or not since he had been young and reckless.

That was his Ella. Before she had changed.

When he looked down again, she was kneeling on the bed and she was typing.

*I want you to give me the nanogeers with a kiss.*

A kiss? His heart clenched. If only. He reread the airborne words, twice, then shook his head. “That could waste them. They might go anywhere. You won’t be able to sit still long enough for me to transfer them that way. I wish I could. I do.”

Why did she tease him so?

Those rose-red lips should be his. The way they curved and kinked up. The sounds she made with them when she came. His to bite, to torture, to claim.

Words he hadn’t meant to say aloud slipped out, the syllables breaking with tension. “I...need you.”

She slid her hand into the package and pulled it out, clutching an end of the rope. She opened her hand. The rope crossed her palm like a sacrificial token then trailed over her wrist. The stroke of blatant red spoke eloquently to his desires.

He put his hands behind his back, intermeshing his fingers to control himself.

Must. Not. Touch.

Chapter 24

*Tie me up and kiss me.*

The words she’d just typed drifted in the air. They’d be orientated the right way round for whoever saw them, no matter where they stood. He’d be reading them at this very moment, taking in the meaning, thinking about what he might do. She couldn’t look at his eyes.

To ask this...no, to say this, to someone she didn’t know was enough to make her heartbeats sound like the drums of doom. Loud, insistent, and fast.

“Ella? Ella, look at me.”

The command thrilled her, sent a distinct shiver through her. She didn’t understand but she couldn’t resist. She raised her head.

He was right, of course, his tale before had aroused her. Him, this man Torgeir, when he’d come close enough to bite but just waited there, watching her, he’d turned her on. When she’d gone into the bedroom, she’d checked herself, though certain of what she’d find. The crotch of her panties had been wet through. So much so that she’d been compelled to change them when she dressed in the little shorts and soft top she wore to bed.

She’d hoped and not hoped, both at once, that he’d take the other bedroom. After all, they couldn’t touch.

Yet she’d just asked him to kiss her.

“Ella. Why? Why a kiss? I can spoon them into your mouth, Princess.”

Princess? The pet name messed with her mind.

*Because.*

Injecting the nanogeers was not going to happen. Eating them? That image had made a kiss leap to her mind and knowing what was in the note, everything had clicked.

She was angry, at herself, at the unknown person who’d harmed her, but mostly at the person in the note who’d fallen in love then let it slip away. She wanted that back and was willing to hurt, if in the end she could be herself again.

“Why. Answer me. I need a reason.”

Her fingers flew, typing so fast her thoughts seemed to stream to them. *Fate has been kicking my ass. A kiss is the perfect delivery method. It fills the niches, dots the T’s, it will complete me. I need to trick fate into making everything right again.*

She could see he didn’t understand and already he was shaking his head.

*I’m an Earth girl. Trust me. It will work. Tie me up. Kiss me.*

She didn’t know that it would work, not really. Maybe it was just the kiss she wanted? Maybe.

Torgeir was kind, he was kinky, and she could see he wouldn’t hurt her without permission.

Now he had it.

He straightened. His hands had been behind his back but he brought them forward and held them at his sides, relaxed but potentially capable of anything. The tautness in his face made her wonder if he was angry.

She counted his breaths and reached eleven before he answered her.

“I need a please.”

*What?*

“Please. I need that from you.”

*Please?*

“Thank you. If I am to do this, I need you to be honest. Are you still attracted to me, because if you’re not, I won’t do this.”

*But this might make me feel about you as I used to.*

“Yes. But I wouldn’t kiss you, I’d use a spoon.”

She almost laughed. *You want to know how I feel? I’m nervous, but I’m also attracted to you.* After a second she added, *A spoon sounds perverted.*

That brought out a smile, a small one but it was there, and she figured he’d only been thinking before and that he was nervous too. Which made sense if he loved her. Strange to think this man felt that way. Strange, yet exhilarating.

This had to work. Even if she never spoke again, she wanted to love. There must have been a reason for her to love him as deeply as it seemed she had.

*Please. Do this.*

“Very well. I have conditions. Arousal can change how the body feels pain.”

She nodded, even more nervous now. Where was this going?

“Before I kiss you, I will use the rope on you.” He picked up the rope from the bed and stray loops slid from his hand. “I’ll tie you so you can’t move away, as you suggested. Put one hand out, Ella.”

So smoothly said but she knew the significance. She’d asked him and now he was doing this. It would remove her ability to run. She had suggested it but...

“Is this what you want?”

It was, she decided. Even if it scared her. She held out her hand, watching as he formed a loop then slid it over her wrist without touching her.

“I’m going to bind you...” And he kept working with the rope as he spoke, tying her wrists together. “Not just to keep you still for the kiss. I’m going to arouse you.”

At that he paused, watching for her response, but all she did was clench her jaw and swallow. This was getting far too interesting.

“I’m going to do that because it may lessen the pain. Lie down on your back.”

She lay back, feeling vulnerable, and she tested out the virtual keyboard, to see if it would work like this. *So much science.*

“Yes.” Then he walked around the bed, rope in hand and tied the rope to something below the level of the mattress. It stretched her arms taut and above her head, though she could wriggle and make it loose, or she could until he tossed the rope under the bed, drew it out on the side where her legs dangled, and started to tie her ankles down, first one...

*What are you doing?*

He tied down the other ankle so her legs were in a V.

Arousal had arrived long ago, from the moment he walked in the room, but this made it worse.

Her anxiety cranked up another level. Spread out like this, so he could look at her when and how he wanted to? It turned her on fiercely. Where the seam of her shorts pressed between her legs, her clit throbbed, though might was also be because her clit had swelled and been pressing back.

He couldn’t touch her. This might be the ultimate in frustration.

“When you told me to tie you up, you gave me control. That note.” He sat on the bed, making it dip and he pointed. “When you wrote that, you knew this was a fetish of mine. Something I wanted to do to you.” He climbed up the bed then leaned forward, over her, but careful. “I’m not going to ask if you want this. I’m just going to do it.”

But he searched her face keenly and she’d had a chance to object.

“I need to see if clothes will stop your reaction. I think they will.”

Was that wishful thinking? His hand hovered above her clit, of all places.

She tugged on the ropes, all of them and they barely gave. As he lowered his hand she tried to sink into the bed.

*Start somewhere less essential?*

He didn’t seem to see the words and she switched to audio.

“No.” Though his fingers were an inch above the apex of her mons she would swear she could feel some hot electric energy reaching down to her. His fingers went lower, then lower again, and she whimpered.

“Shhh.”

The first touch made her jump. Her eyes sprang open and she watched as he drew little circles on her, directly over what felt like a bump in her shorts where her clit had popped up.

It hadn’t hurt, it hadn’t, and pleasure was radiating from that mildest of touches.

“This, is promising.” There was triumph in his tone.

She should remind him of his aim. Though it embarrassed her, she typed it. *I’m aroused. Now you can –*

“Quiet. You think I won’t keep going when I have you tied down? Besides. I like these shorts. They’re soft enough for me to feel all of you.”

She sucked in her lip. The man was so arrogant.

His fingers circled some more, around the periphery of her clit, then they smoothed down between her legs where her shorts had gathered. When he’d drawn her ankles down with the rope, the shorts had been shoved into her slit, the seam splitting her folds. There’d been nothing she could do.

“I thought not touching you was terrible but it seems there are possibilities. I’m going to make you come, once, then I’ll kiss you.”

She gasped then whimpered again as he somehow managed to delve deep enough with his fingers to part her lower lips. *Careful!*

“I am. I recall promising to insert things into you, long ago. I never did.” She lifted her head and glared. “After the kiss, I will do it. I think you’ll need distraction then anyway.”

From what the nanogeers might do?

“You’re wet so don’t bother complaining. No more typing. Feel.”

His fingers resumed their devilish work, probing at her, daring to force her panties into her slit until she ached for something to truly enter her. Something big. Like his cock. She bit back a groan. He pressed and circled her clit, until the imagined bump was definitely there and hard. Appalled, she realized she’d humped at his hand and she stopped, squeezing and flexing her thigh muscles and her toes, breathing through the pleasure.

How casual he was, taking his time, as if this, giving her orgasms, was his main aim.

*The kiss?*

“Shh.” He bit her hip through the shorts and she yelped and let her fingers fall silent. “Better.”

He looked up at her, contemplative, though his fingers were stroking her pussy and doing such dirty and delicious things. After another, deeper probe into her wet panties, she gave in. She huffed out a breath, flopped her head back, and arched. Her moans grew louder and she strained at the ropes in all directions.

Understanding stole in. If he’d let her go, if she didn’t feel such a victim of his devious designs, this wouldn’t be as exciting. There was something unique about being tied down so a man could do with her whatever he wanted to.

With his hand still playing with her, with her eyes half shut as she attempted to process what he did, he moved up her, biting her belly then the undersides of her breasts through the cloth. He reached her nipple. The heat and dampness, as his mouth closed on her over the shirt, then sucked firmly, shocked her.

She arched higher, mouth opening wide.

Nothing mattered. Nothing. Within seconds she was coming.

“Oh!” Her pussy clenched in and she tensed spasmodically, trying to bring her arms and legs in but caught in the rope.

Heart hammering, she relaxed her butt onto the bed, trying to regain her composure despite the slippery pressure of his fingers over her slit. Her panties would need changing again.

Torgeir sat up and took the vial from his pocket.

“I’m going to kiss you now. This has to be the craziest, most over-planned, and dangerous kiss in history. Before I forget. There’s a spot on your ankle you should get examined.”

She blinked, her chest still heaving. That. She remembered worrying about her ankle but not why.

He leaned over her, propped on his hands and pushing down the sheet. One hand was anchored above her head so that she sank into a small hollow.

It was odd having him free, looking down at her, while she was stretched out by ropes like some sexual exhibition.

Torgeir seemed fascinated. His gaze roamed over her face then followed the line of her arms up to her wrists.

“The red looks good wrapped around you.” His words drawled out, slow as sunlight heating skin. “I’ve wanted to do this since I first saw you. I just wish the reason for this was different. You’re like a little animal I’ve caught in my trap. Don’t move, Ella, apart from your pretty mouth.” His smile was enigmatic, his tone ironic.

When he extracted the vial’s contents using a micro syringe, then leaned his head back with the syringe tip above his closed lips, she realized there might be danger here for him too. These were her nanogeers, not his. He pressed on the plunger and she found she was holding her breath. He poised over her again and lowered his head. A thick silvery liquid had spread over the seam of his mouth.

“This is going to work, my princess, but I won’t be, can’t be, gentle. Open. Open wider.”

Warily, she opened and he took advantage of her willingness. He lunged, engulfing her mouth with his and sinking his tongue between her lips while his hand wedged her mouth open at the corner. She’d have bitten off his tongue otherwise.

His touch was fire, ripping at nerves, scorching her, storming her skin with heat.

The pain: instantaneous. But he held her in place, a man of stone.

Her screams were muffled. Her desperate efforts to tear loose thwarted.

Whose idea had this been? She thrashed and found her limbs still pinned, even more so when he shifted to straddle her chest and sit on her. Her wrists and ankles burned from the rope.

But he didn’t stop.

He’d forced his lips between hers so they met her teeth. He kissed her until she tasted blood, until her lips were numb from pain overload, and her chin abraded by his stubble. He lifted away, releasing her. Her head spun. She’d forgotten to breathe for far too long.

Panting wildly, she stared at him, dazed, in fading agony, and aroused beyond her comprehension. Her nipples had shrunk down hard.

This was life and death, almost, and all her body wanted was for him to fuck her. Her mind knew better. If he fucked her, she’d be screaming, and not in a good way.

Had that been a kiss or a battle?

“Just being thorough.” He wiped his mouth with the edge of a tissue and put it aside. “I had to make sure they had the best chance to transfer to you.”

She didn’t quite believe him. If he was her prince, had she found the beast?

She paused in the middle of her internal debate.

Something odd was happening inside, stirring. The nanogeers, was it them?

Things were trickling through her, pouring, burrowing, making her fingers cold and hot, sending electricity into places that didn’t seem to be a part of her. She twitched and found her eyes had closed. Her heartbeats wound down, becoming softer, slower.

“Ella. Ella?”

The man shook her but it was too late, she was floating away like bubbles, into the sleep of a cybernetic sheep. She smiled at that.

On pause. Being updated. There should really be a sign saying Under Construction she thought, before everything...

Stopped.

Chapter 25

He checked her regularly throughout the night: the pulse at her neck, her breathing and color. Ella didn’t respond, not even to his touch. This was a coma, or something similar. His message to the boys, who seemed the most likely to understand or know who to contact, had gained him a reply of wait, at first. They must have asked the doctor who’d treated her after she’d been poisoned, as the second reply had told him what to watch for.

At dawn, he sat up on his elbow, a little weary, and somewhat worried. If this did anything terrible to her, he’d be lost.

Like some scene from a story, thin rays of sunlight were cast across the bed, from the fretwork of holes in the wall that served as a window. She stirred. Her eyelids raised, revealing her eyes. They focused on him and he swore his heart broke into song.

“What?”

He drew in air. “You can talk?” He reached for her cheek only to stop himself.

“Yes,” she said, croakily, which prompted her to clear her throat, but she smiled too. “I can. I can talk again. The nanogeers worked.”

She remembered what he’d done. Now for the hard question. “Do you know me?”

“I know you, more... You’re there but fuzzy, like it was long ago. Torgeir.” Her smile spread, hesitantly. “Like an uncle I met when a child but haven’t seen for ages.”

“An uncle?”

His expression must have been sad.

“An uncle who kisses way too hard. I tasted blood. I expected a more fairytale kiss with bluebirds and crap.” She winked.

“Hmmm.” She might have been teasing him, but he thought not. “An uncle?”

“I was meaning how my memory is hazy. It’s just an analogy. You’re not really. You’re a hot uncle. Is that better?” She turned over onto her side, her black hair spilling over the pillow, and discovered the rope around her wrist. “Why is this still here?”

“I thought it best to have a way to grab you fast if something happened. Like a seizure.”

Her mouth formed an O.

“And I confess, I didn’t want to take it all off you.” So pretty. So decadent. A simple double twist around her wrist, with a non-slip knot, and yet it said so much.

“The rope?”

“Yes.”

Her small swallow reawakened his craving for her.

“I’d like to try touching you again. Skin on skin.” He moved closer, making her shift, until he was looking down at her with his hand and forearm on her pillow. Her hair tangled with his fingers. “I never did get to see if the markings on your nipples have become less red. Your lips are definitely redder than when we first met. Do you know what that means?” He barely waited. “It means you’re still mine.”

She gave no protests, said nothing to challenge his statement. Telling. Her pupils were large and dark. Without warning her, he sneaked his finger closer until his nail rested on the side of her neck. Nothing happened, except a hitch in her breath. Satisfaction built until he consciously relaxed and let it roar in. Mine again, soon.

“My finger is on your neck, Ella.”

“Oh.” She squirmed as if the intensity of his gaze affected her.

“And you didn’t deny my ownership.”

Matter-of-factly, he took the neckline edge of her shirt and pulled it down low until her nipple showed. He grunted, pleased at the color, and at her lack of screaming. Then he bared the other one – also red. His cock decided this was good news too and strained at his pants.

“I see I can touch you again.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Though I didn’t say you could.”

Yet she stayed where she was, as if waiting for him. Of course, he had her wrist roped, but trying to leave was an option, even if he wouldn’t have let her. The bondmating insistence that she was his was rising in him, bubbling up. Tearing off her clothes would’ve happened by now if he wasn’t holding himself back.

He didn’t bother replying and, instead, drew up a loop of the rope and laid it loosely across her neck. The red of the rope against her vulnerable neck fractured thought.

“What are you doing?” she asked roughly.

“Do you know how sexy it is when you say it like that?”

“Like what?”

“Husky. Coarse. Low and grumbly. Like you want to have sex. Like you’re reminding me of what we have and what we are.” Her bruised lips parted. Her breasts rose and fell insistently.

If she seemed hurt or weak he could stop himself. He’d be careful. Careful enough.

“I need to claim you again, my princess.”

No words from her, but then sometimes words were obstructions that made the world impossibly logical when all you needed was your primitive urges. He could see her need in every movement of her body, in her eyes, her breathing, and the visible bounce of her pulse.

He drew his finger across her neck above the rope, feeling her softness and the hardness of the rope, then the dip beside the long muscle where her artery beat. The beat quickened as he stroked her.

He leaned in and put his lips on hers, kissing her languidly before capturing her bottom lip in his teeth, pulling it outward and releasing it. “That was your fairytale kiss. But what I want to do to you next isn’t fairytale.”

She leaned up and kissed him too. Eyes closing, sighing, she sank back to the pillow. “Fairytales can only take you so far.”

“Agreed. Right now I want to fuck you senseless.”

He drew her bound wrist above her head and held it there. That she only writhed under him as he kissed her again, pushing herself onto his thigh where he’d shoved it between her legs, it made him think, extrapolate.

“Pretty girl, I can see you’re into this, even if you say you can’t completely remember me.” He brushed hair from her eyes. “I’m going to tie you to the bed awhile. Do you need to use the bathroom?”

She nodded.

“Go then.” He undid the rope and watched her saunter to the door in that indescribably female manner.

When she reappeared, he beckoned and she came to the bed, and when he asked her, she offered him her hand. No hesitation.

“Thank you.”

With her watching his every move, he climbed from the bed, retied her wrist, and fastened the end of the rope to the bed leg. Still kneeling, he looked along the line of her arm, from wrist rope to her expectant eyes. She could have little clue as to what he intended but she was trusting him.

He uncurled her fingers and pressed his lips to her palm. “I’m going to go buy something from the shop this rope came from. I want you to stay here until I get back. You can get loose if you have to but unless it’s an emergency, don’t. I’ll bring breakfast too.”

Ella nodded.

Her lack of words when she could speak was interesting. He smiled devilishly and bit one of her fingers, then stood and rested a knee on the bed. It’d be up to an hour before he returned. Leaving her uncomfortably aroused would be entertaining. He had no devices, but still...

He found her comm in her backpack, then found his knife and cut off a good length of the rope. Without removing her shorts, he tied the rope around her waist, drew one end between her legs, and made a knot at about the right spot to rub on her clit.

“What are you doing?” she whispered.

“You’ll see. Don’t take this off unless you don’t want to sit down for a week.”

From the twitch of her eyebrows, the minor threat had aroused her curiosity.

“You don’t mean that.”

“Try me.”

Her wry smile then head shake and sideways look made his heart kick up a notch.

“You liked me threatening you with spanking?”

“Uhhh. I’m not sure.”

Torgeir chuckled.

He knotted the piece that ran between her legs onto the front of the waist rope, adjusting the tension until the rope squashed the crotch of her panties and rode up into her slit. To see if she could feel pleasure, to let her know this was what he wanted her to feel, he ran his finger along and over the rope, from her nether hole area to her mons, pressing and toggling the rope to and fro. Then he tip-tapped his fingers on the reverse path, walking the rope, while watching her face.

“Oh. That’s...” When he found sensitive places, she gave little grunts and twisted on the bed.

“I’ll leave your comm here with the alarm on. When it goes off, I want you to wriggle against this.” He hooked his finger under the rope and pulled, making her squeak, then he slipped aside the edge of her panties and found her entrance. Already her moisture was leaking out onto her panties and shorts. “I want this rope wet by the time I get back.”

She frowned. “That seems so dirty.”

“Exactly. Dirty is good. Keep thinking like that.”

He gave her one last, hard kiss while finger-fucking her only to the depth of his first knuckle.

Before he let the front door close, he heard an exasperated sigh come from the bedroom. At least she couldn’t see his grin.

The shop assistant processed his order quickly, apart from trying to sell him the rest of the shop. It was the trek up and down the stairs and shafts that took the most time. He slipped in the door carrying his goods, and left the bags on the table in the living room. The huge stone beam that ran across the ceiling had the pierced metal work he recalled, and Mimi was perched above the door. Spread flat like a pancake, but it was her.

How long had she been up there? Never mind. He shook his head then went into the bedroom to fetch Ella.

“Did you do as I said?” He asked her this as he walked to the bed. She looked aroused to him – flushed, her lips and breasts seemed fuller, but what he wanted had to be checked by hand...or fingers.

“Yes.”

“And?” He sat down. Where the rope rode up into her cleft, it was soaked. He released her wrist rope from the bed leg then stripped the rope harness from her crotch and waist, placing small kisses as he worked, on her exposed belly where the shirt had gathered and bared her.

“What do you think?” Then she added, as if she were embarrassed to admit it, a soft, “Yes.” She sat up against the pillow and bowed her head, watching him through her hair. “I’m not sure why, but this feels much dirtier than just tying me up.”

“You don’t like being my wanton, dirty princess?” Just to make sure she got the answer right, he put his hand between her legs.

“A dirty princess?” She sighed. “I could...should swear at you but yes, mister stranger, I guess do. Like it, that is.”

“I’m still a stranger?” It was disturbing on one level, but they desired each other and she did remember him. He could deal with that.

“I don’t know how to describe it. My memories have been messed with twice now, that I know of.”

“Oh? I don’t think you told me that before.”

“I didn’t?” Ella had that little wrinkle on her forehead but she let out a long breath and leaned in to kiss his chin and hold his wrist momentarily, as if to check he really did have his hand on her pussy. “Maybe I didn’t but for now, I really, really, want to see what you were about to do.”

Her words were enough to make him refocus on sex...and rope, and all that he was thinking of seconds ago.

“Later then, Ella, you will tell me more later.”

She nodded and he answered her with a grim smile. “What did I plan? To tie you to the ceiling outside so I could do whatever I wanted to your sweet luscious body.” He looked under his brows at her. “That suit you?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never done anything like that before.”

“Come then.”

He led her out to the living room, hand in hand, though her one wrist was still bound and he held the coiled rope. He had a fierce need to both care for her and see what he could do to her. To make her orgasm and scream. It was disconcerting and also intensely appealing.

By inviting him to tie her up, even if it was in that old note, it seemed she’d undone a lock on needs he’d kept suppressed. Now they were out, he didn’t know how to lock them in again.

“Ella. Tell me if what I do is too much for you. Okay?”

Her nod was so innocent it hurt him. He needed to be careful for them both.

The first package was lunch, the second held restraint devices – cuffs and bars, things he hadn’t even gone down there to buy. He undid the rope on her wrist, unpicking the knot while he thought how to go about this.

The entire hank of coiled rope weighed heavy in his hands.

“Take off your clothes.”

Even watching her obey that simple command had his cock at hard attention.

“Give me your hands.”

Her, naked and holding out her hands to be restrained, it was almost an epiphany. Twenty years of his life he’d devoted to denying his upbringing. On Sicar, rape was the way territories were managed when battle left a place unclaimed and only the woman remained. He’d gone to war against the Bak-lal off planet and learned other ways.

It seemed he’d not lost all his inclinations for bondage. Rope on Ella drove him crazy. Especially this red rope she’d chosen. The craving bothered him, unless she wanted it too.

He took her hands where she held them out to him and turned them over so they were palm upward, smoothed his thumbs across while watching her. He was no expert at this, with knots and so forth, though he planned to learn more if it agreed with them both. It was why he’d gone down and bought cuffs.

“How are you going?” And just saying that messed it up a little, muddied the atmosphere, but he had to ask.

“Okay.” Again with that wide-eyed look. Innocent. Trusting. It killed him.

“When you say that, it makes me want to do bad things to you.”

“I’m...okay with that.”

“You trust me?”

“Yes.”

Okay. He had what he needed. Her words freed him.

He cuffed her, firmly. He wrapped the leather about both wrists and slid the tongue through, then locked it down, keeping his hands on her, making her feel his control. He threaded rope through the middle where her wrists were linked then climbed on a chair to feed the end through the metal-faced hole in the beam. Then he drew it taut until she had her arms stretched and fastened above. Anchored to the leg of their enormous dining table, it would hold her, even if she tugged, or if she shrieked in the throes of passion.

Cutting off the rest of the rope seemed criminal but he needed it for Ella.

Of course, he took the opportunity to molest her in the process. Finger-fucking was the easiest but he also kneeled to suck on her thighs and to bite her there, or on her ass cheeks, or to lick her clit while he held her still with his fingers clawed into her ass. Her little whimpers and foot stomps, how she eventually thrust herself at him, it spurred him on.

This wasn’t just restraint; it was a decoration of Ella as well as desecration. He entwined the rope, knotting it, feeling her body as he went, her muscles, her soft curves. His fingers strayed everywhere – her neck, her belly button, the hollow of her back, her butt...her slit.

“I can do anything to you,” he said from beside her ear. Her legs caved then, for he’d forced his fingers deep inside her pussy.

Rope ran down her back like a spine. He’d looped it to her front, then to her back, then her front, crisscrossing, bringing her breasts into highlight.

“Don’t go away.” He took the strands of rope down between her legs, either side of her pussy lips, and connected them at the back.

Slowly, he stepped away to admire his ornamental girl. One step, two, like an artist after the last daub of paint or strike of chisel. Bound in red. Best of all, perhaps, was seeing how she seemed to enjoy his attention.

All of her was his, wrapped tight and waiting.

He stripped off his shirt then his pants and he walked to her, making a small detour to the table to pick up the spreader bar. His soles padded across the cool stone. The bar clanked when he laid it on the floor.

Ella’s eyes were bright. Her hands opened and flexed then she grabbed the rope that ran from above to the cuffs. Her hips swayed as if in invitation. Though he’d only moments before ran the two strands of rope between her legs, the sight of her mons and clit squeezed up by the pressure gave him palpitations.

“Not sure my heart can take much more.” He dallied, not touching her, just doing a perimeter check, circling and studying his creation. “All of you looks edible.”

“You like me, like this?”

“Again with that husky voice. Do I like you tied up? I want to keep you like this all day. Available.” The rope divided her breasts at the cleavage, surrounded them, and made them jut out so prettily. He wrapped a hand around each breast and pulled until she had to tiptoe forward. “Now I’ve got you.”

He taunted her with tiny kisses while his thumbs scraped around and around her nipples. “Give me some sounds, those dirty ones you can’t help making.”

She bit her lip and shook her head. So he teased her some more, nibbling down the side of her neck, while holding her by the throat and breast, diverting his nibbling to her mouth for another cursory kiss then biting the nipple of her captured breast. By then she was panting. He squeezed harder on her breast and kissed her properly, until he had her moaning into his mouth.

When she twisted her hips, he pressed his thigh between hers, increasing the force in time with his words. “That’s my girl. Keep going.”

Her reply was incoherent, another sweet moan.

Releasing her breast and throat, he bit his way down her body in the spaces between the rope, holding her here and there, at hips and ass, leaving teeth marks and evoking breathy squeals.

Down on one knee, he could see that already her pussy dripped with wetness. He fumbled for and found the spreader bar, too fascinated by how he’d aroused her to look away for long.

With her ankles caught in the cuffs at the end of the bar, Ella was thoroughly immobilized. The moisture welling from her pussy enticed him and he caught it with his tongue, swiping along the seam of her swollen cleft and ending his tongue journey with a final swirl around her clit.

She squealed again, trying to dodge, but the rope about her hands and the bar holding her legs apart made it easy to keep her still.

“Too sensitive?”

“Mmm.” She nodded, looking sorry and pouting.

“Too bad.”

Chapter 26

Torgeir licked at her clitoris.

She whined and uttered a plaintive, “Nooo.”

But he only grinned up at her while his tongue lay warm and soft over her delicate button of flesh. The ache heightened, waxing and waning to the beat of her pulse. He resumed licking and she twitched.

The over stimulation made Ella try to dance away. Try. Not easy to do when her legs were strapped a few feet apart. He shut that down by holding her lower body rock steady. Eventually, what his mouth was doing to her overcame her nerves and pleasure returned, trickling in.

He sucked and wet heat flooded her clit.

Mouth open, she swallowed against her dry throat. He was down there at knee level, licking her, and she was tied and quivering – hands inextricably above, her legs spread, presented for him to do with as he pleased. There was much to be said for this. Mainly...

Fuck.

Every move, everything he did, reinforced the fact that he believed she was his.

She’d known this was a little crazy. She was trusting him because of a mess of reasons – her former self, the note, her body’s reactions. But above and beyond all of that, the tie between them was strengthening.

She loved whatever he wanted to do to her because it was him.

The center of her universe was down there, paying homage to her, torturing her, and no matter that she’d lost some clarity as to her past, he was clearly a big part of it. Especially his teeth and tongue.

Another lick or three had her knees shaking.

Another. Then more sucking.

Too much. She shuddered into an impromptu orgasm. Her gasps were distant punctuations, her body tremors so automatic she fell into them and barely knew how it happened. Torn free of the world, mind battered, she couldn’t stand and swung by her hands until he rescued her, standing behind her and cradling her.

“That’s not the end of it.” He gnawed at her shoulder. “You’re so bad, coming before I said to.”

She laughed, overcome by the ridiculousness in the fog of such pleasure. “You made me.”

“Ahh. Right answer.”

His next bite, high on her shoulder muscle, kept going, deep, and it made her freeze. She couldn’t get away. Where his teeth mauled her began as scorching pain but changed. Inescapably intimate, it filled her, it shook her loose from everything that mattered. Then her breath unstuck from her throat. She choked and gasped, sagging.

“I’m sorry. I needed that. To mark your skin.” He nuzzled her ear. “If my full bond mark doesn’t grow on you soon I’m going to have to cover you in bites instead.”

“Oh god,” she breathed. “No.” He licked where he’d bitten her and she smiled, her eyes closing in the aftermath of that little attack. She left her neck exposed, throbbing, while he kissed it. “I understand.”

“Good. I’m glad you do. If anyone else tried to claim you, I’d kill them without hesitation. There’s no choice for me in this either. I’m going to fuck you now, in the same way as I bit you, because I have to.”

She tensed. This sounded ominous.

He inserted his cock between her wide-apart legs, sliding it along her seam. While he kept one arm about her body hugging her to him, he probed at her folds with his hand, shifting the rope into the creases between ass and inner thighs. He shoved into her, splitting her so brutally she cried out. Her back curved in that coarse and primal way, to let him enter her easily, to fuck her easily. Female surrender.

No finesse. These were violent, deep thrusts that drove her forward into his arm and made her wrists feel the strain of the rope above. The slap of his body against her ass, the wet sounds of impact and withdrawal, the quiet moan of rope wrung back and forth on metal, mingled with her cries and his. After he picked her up to hold her suspended off the floor, her g-spot was hammered into submission. She screamed as the last few pumps of his cock shattered her and sent her into oblivion.

Feeling him come inside her was the key.

In her heart was the knowledge, written in bright relief.

I am his.

And he is mine.

Recovering from climax while tied up was a test of her thigh muscles. This time he had to hold her for even longer before he dared to ask if she could stand so he could free her.

After her nod, he undid, untied, and unclipped at the speed of light. Soon she was on the bed and wrapped in his arms, sleepy, satisfied, and with enough bites on her to make her grin. Even the curl of the rope twists on her belly fascinated her.

“You look like a used lollipop,” he whispered. “All sucked and bitten and marked.”

“Mmm. I like it. Feels...” She sighed. “Nice. As long as I’m your lollipop.”

“You’re sure of that now?”

“Oh yes. I’m back. I’m yours, Torgeir. I wouldn’t ever have it any other way.”

“Good. Of course, if you’d said no I’d just have tied you up again.”

She giggled quietly. “I think I do like this new thing you have with rope.”

That he only breathed into her hair and held her tighter was perfect. Breakfast was out there but it could wait. Right now, being with her man was the most important thing in the world.

*****

After cleaning up, they decided to eat breakfast in bed. The packet Torgeir opened contained pastries, cheeses, and fruit. At first they sat opposite each other on the bed, both of them nude, with her against the pillows and Torgeir cross-legged and sitting at the bottom. A platter of food lay on the quilt between them. Crumbs were a problem, but neither of them cared. While she was busy eyeing his finely sculpted muscles, that looked perfectly adequate for holding her down while he fucked her, he openly watched her.

She waggled her eyebrows. “Nice bod.”

“That’s it. Why am I over here?” He climbed off and demanded she make room so he could slide in behind her so she was nestled between his legs.

He fed her a piece of some sort of dried fig she didn’t want despite her dodging, insisting it was delicious.

“Mmm.” She spoke around the mouthful. “Yum!”

“Told you. Now.” He patted her thigh. “How are you feeling?”

The time and place to think this through hadn’t arrived until then. It took her a few seconds to assess herself. She wriggled her ass, smiling as his cock stirred.

“Sore but wonderful, really.”

She laid her head against his chest, sighing as his arm came around her beneath her breasts. Solid man behind her and that arm was hard with muscle too. Being held by Torgeir washed away everything horrible that had happened. He was her shield, her warrior, her man who would kill to keep her. That was barbaric yet comforting. Euphoric was the perfect word for her feelings.

“I’d like to make you sore again soon.” He squeezed her, making her breasts shift. “Mmm. You feel nice.”

“You do too.”

Only yesterday she’d been adrift, missing her sense of true self, and that would’ve surely unhinged her if it’d kept up.

“How are you memories, Princess? Do you think they’ve all come back?”

She considered the question for a while. “That’s hard to say. If anything’s missing, I don’t know if I’d realize it was gone.”

“You said you’d had your memories altered before...which is disturbing. Was that to do with your secret?”

And how she wished she’d not told him of that. “When they let me leave Earth, those who fixed me did that. They said it was for the best. I was hurt in the Bak-lal war. I don’t know what they changed.” This was the closest to the truth she’d ever said to him and she trembled.

He nuzzled her hair. “Hey. I’m here. I can see something bad happened. Ella, I know how much of you is cyber. It doesn’t worry me. You need to know that. Whatever happened to you, it’s done.”

Tears wet her eyelids and she nodded and held his forearm for comfort. She still couldn’t tell him. Soon, she would. If Plito hadn’t found out more about her past, she’d just tell him. She had to.

“When I find a doc for you, to check out your ankle, you make sure he gives you a proper check over. Okay?”

Her ankle! She’d almost forgotten. Just thinking about it made her wonder. She’d not seen whatever Torgeir had found. She twisted her leg so she could see the outside. The spot seemed to be in the same place, though perhaps larger and darker in color. “Okay. But I think I’ll go to Dr. Miro. He helped me when I was poisoned.”

“Sure. I was worried about you last night when you were sleeping so soundly. I couldn’t wake you. I think the boys got in contact with him.”

Inside she felt a niggle of panic. Her body had changed, not just her memory. The spot may have grown. Going to a doctor could mean finding out what it was. If it had been somewhere else, she wouldn’t have worried. But it was the spot they’d warned her of and associated with how the Bak-lal had altered her. Maybe she was imagining it? There might be a simple cause.

She searched for something else to talk about. “I’ve not asked about what you’ve been doing.” So true. She was being selfish. “Did you say something about Nephelle? Did it go well?”

His whole body tightened.

An idea leapt into her head. He’d been in battle. Something terrible had happened.

“I’m sorry.” She turned and rested her cheek on him. “Bad?”

“Yes. We lost Nephelle. Dresdek is...devastated. They were getting close but we were ambushed on landing and she was knocked out and dragged away. We only sorted that out after, on the battle surveillance vids.”

“Dead?”

“We think so. Yes. Most of the planet is clean of those...” He’d said some swear word she couldn’t translate. “But we’re going back to mop up the rest.”

“Ah. I see.” He had to go back. The raw anger in his voice frightened her more than anything done or said today. His hatred of Bak-lal ran deep. “You be careful.”

“You know I will. We’re restocking, getting a few more warriors, then going back. But before we do.” He made her lift her chin and look up at him. “I’m getting you a bodyguard or two.”

She frowned. “I don’t want you wasting money you need for the ship. Or men you need with you, fighting with you.”

“Shhh. We’re being well paid by Concer command. I can do this. I will do this. Let me find some men to protect you.” His stare said it was futile to argue.

A resentment, a burning anger was rising in her now that she’d had some time to adjust. How dare whoever it was attack her and hurt so many people. She was the target but she had no real idea why, except that some perverted person wanted her so much they’d tried three times. Wanted her brain dead even. Disgust crawled in with a twist of nausea. How dare they? With the tragedy of Nephelle as well, she was simmering and ready to do something to someone in revenge. Not justice, revenge. Whoever it was needed to be dead. There had to be some way to find them?

“Okay. Under protest, though.”

“This is for your safety. I won’t compromise that again. One mistake is enough. I’m locked into a contract with my ship and men to return to Jorburr 5. I won’t take you into a battle zone and there is no way in this ’verse that I’ll leave you unprotected again. None. Be good or else.”

“Huh.” She pulled loose from the hand on her jaw and cuddled in. Having some hulking men following her about all day would get tiresome fast. He was right, though.

“I think I need to tie you up and remind you who is in charge.”

She grinned and couldn’t resist. “Me?”

“No more of that.” The following silence seemed ominous.

She huffed but said nothing more. She listened to his heart beating under her ear and wondered what he was thinking. After fifteen or so heartbeats, he gathered a handful of her hair before holding her in place to kiss her. It was a fine way to end an argument, she decided, wriggling against him.

“There’s something I want to do for Plito.”

“What is it?”

“You saw the leg I’ve been working on? On the table?”

“Yes. Can you fix it?”

“I have. It came together so fast. Gears repaired some. Mimi did some. The rest just...happened. I’m getting good at this. ”

“I like that you’re doing something for him. Those boys are...”

“Astounding? Awesome?”

“Great friends and yes, they’re awesome.”

“Torgeir, I want to go and look for a second leg for him, today.”

“Then I’m coming with you. Where do we go?”

“You’ll see.” Describing the dump might make him say no and she had to do this. Now that she was more confident in what she was doing, the possible matches expanded. There were ways to adapt she could just see when she looked at parts.

Chapter 27

Torgeir had looked at the dump as they pulled up in the hovercab and cocked a derisive eyebrow, but they were still here. He hadn’t dragged her away.

The pile of parts hadn’t shrunk despite the constant scrape and crash in the background as great shovel-loads were removed at the periphery. The meager sunlight made it seem like some dreary wasteland lost in time, apart from the odd red or blue blip as a tiny light went on and off in one of the lower mounds.

“I’m sure it’s there somewhere.”

“A leg?”

“Yes.” She marched in, past the lazy gate bot, giving it a wave without looking.

“Can I help?” Torgeir asked as they scaled the sides of a mound.

“Yes. Find legs. Lots and lots of legs.”

They dug for over an hour and a half and managed to line up ten different legs, none of which were a match. She walked along the line, muttering, thinking of Plito’s specs. She kneeled and put her hand on one, turning it over. It was all shining metal, of course. Artificial skin was for the super-rich, or the lucky, like her. That part would go there and was the right size but the cry-conduits were lined up wrong, but the one next to it had the wrong wiring and right cry-conduits.

In her mind things toppled into place, if you removed that, this and this could be transferred to that position, solving the problem.

“That’s it,” she whispered. “I can merge the two legs. Gears can do the larger fitting and I can do the rest.”

“You’re sure?” Torgeir squatted beside her.

“Yes. Oh, yes.” The excitement filled her words, her mind. She could give Plito his two legs. She stood up and dragged Torgeir to his feet too, jumping as she yelled, “I can do it!”

“Yay!” He jumped with her, once. “Not sure what you’re doing but if you’re happy so am I.”

“Can I call you a dork?” She went up on her toes and kissed his nose.

“Only if it’s a compliment.”

Grinning, she placed her hand over her heart. “I swear, it’s a compliment.”

“Hmmm.” He eyed her suspiciously. “Let’s get these legs out of here and bought before I feel compelled to spank you with a dead cyborg arm.”

It was still morning when they arrived back at Horuk bearing the two legs under their arms. An enormous crowd was outside in the square before the entrance they used to enter the pyramid, only it wasn’t the normal crowd. People were milling with purpose, flourishing weapons from guns and knives to metal bars, yelling at three law officers they’d encircled. An overturned police hovercar with shattered windows said the violence was escalating fast. The police activated some sort of low siren.

“Let’s go around this.” Torgeir took her hand.

“Wait. Listen.”

Screamed words echoed. When are you catching the fruit murderer? Yer callin’ it cyborg on cyborg? No way. Give us justice!

“It’s to do with me. They’re angry because of the poisoning.”

“Still not yours to fix.” He tugged harder.

“No. It is.” She could feel their anger and yet it was misdirected. She doubted these few officers had anything to do with the investigation or that her nemesis could be easily found.

An awning to her left had boxes piled nearby.

“Wait. I’m just looking.” She handed him the leg she carried then indicated the awning and climbed the boxes. At the top, she crawled out onto the metal awning to see over the crowd.

The lawmen were calling for back-up from the looks of it and in the distance she could see airborne vehicles arrowing in. More guns were being drawn and gestured with by both sides. The incoming vehicles would be the law from the lights flashing on their sides. They might not stop to count who was good or bad. She’d heard rumors of massacres.

Ella stood, held her hands up above her head, and waved. “Stop!”

Nothing happened. A red, eye-scalding laser-line went zumm overhead as someone resorted to firing.

This wasn’t working. People were going to die any second and it was because of her.

Her head, her hands, seemed to buzz with a strange potential. She waved again and put everything into it. “STOP”

Silence. Her ears held a tinny continuous sound that dispelled slowly.

Heads turned and people looked at her. Her. She’d begun this.

“Everyone. This is wrong!” She looked around, counting, knowing, assessing. Some were here for kicks, some genuinely angry over the poisonings, some were caught up like her and Torgeir.

The knowledge settled in her mind though she couldn’t figure out how she knew this. She could tell, mostly, who thought what, though the law officers were blanks. Even they stared at her.

“You don’t need to punish these officers. This was the fault of someone targeting me and I apologize deeply for bringing any harm to anyone.”

Doc was below, in the crowd. He’d walked to the front, looking up at her. Others came forward. People she knew were clients of the Hack and Slash. A flight of robot birds swooped past and landed on the edge of the awning. Blue birds she’d repaired?

This was getting too much. She put her hands on her hips, ready to chastise whoever had engineered this.

Then she saw that the lawmen had managed to dodge out through the thinner crowd at the rear. Two of the small police shuttles landed humming and the men clambered on board. There were weapons on those vehicles and the muzzles tracked across the crowd as the gunners turned them – no doubt waiting for orders to fire if this got uglier.

She began again and decided to simply explain. “I’m going to find out who did this. I promise you this. I will have them punished, one way or the other. Put down your weapons, please. Go home. No one will be helped by doing violence, this day.”

A giant of a man in dented and mismatched red space armor, minus the helmet, stepped up to just below the awning. He reinforced her plea. “She’s right. Go home! This is the woman who has treated so many of us, fixed us. You know her. Please go. Before someone dies.”

Did she know this man?

How many had she helped in the fumbled, foggy days before Torgeir returned, before her memory rebooted?

To her astonishment, the crowd turned away and began doing exactly as she’d asked them to – to disperse. She waited on the awning until the police vehicles rotated and swept into the sky.

“I don’t know how you did that, but it was well done.” Torgeir was atop the boxes beside the awning. “Come.” He held out his hand. “Let’s go home too.”

*****

The turnaround time for Torgeir was short once again. He spent those days arranging for her guards as well as coordinating his ship’s and crew’s needs. The night prior to the departure day arrived too soon. They’d made love many times, talked for hours, but it would never be enough for either of them. She had five guards who would be dogging her heels. Her freedom would be limited to where they thought it safe for her to go. Maybe she could get them to form a knitting circle and then she could duck out the back while they were busy?

As he often did, Torgeir brought her out to the balcony under the dusk sky and sat her in his lap. Whorls of rising smoke drew a multi-colored veil over the stars as they twinkled to life. Faraway skyscrapers added their own tiers and beads of light. A huge spacecraft made a thwuum sound as it maneuvered toward the spaceport and flocks of smaller craft darted about, over, and below it, as if ushering a bigger member of their pack. Strangely beautiful.

She wriggled on Torgeir’s lap, her cheek against his chest. His heart bumped reassuringly beneath her ear.

“I wish your bondmating mark had risen.”

“Me too. It wasn’t fair that you refused to make love yesterday.”

He laughed softly. “You know I want to be here when it happens. Your body is a bit confused but it’s getting there. I’m happy your nipples and pussy are fully red.”

“I noticed. You spend half our naked times examining those.”

“Exactly as it should be.” He drew a finger down her arm. “Make sure you keep yourself safe while I’m gone. Keep close to your guards. Don’t go anywhere that isn’t essential.”

“I’ve got to go to work and there’s a doctor’s appointment too.” She sat up and turned to him.

“That’s fine. I meant that dump, for one. Message me about the doctor, when you see him. I’ll still be in the system late tomorrow night.”

“I will. Brrr.” She shivered, hugging herself, and happy to have the lap of this man of hers to sit on.

“Cold?” He smoothed his palm up to her nape, then his fingers through her hair, sending a frisson of delight through her.

“Yes. A little. There are so many stars out tonight.” Surely she’d never seen so many on Riptide?

“That’s the fleet of ships coming in. Those are artificial lights. There’s supposed to be a megastructure world with them too.”

“What’s that?”

“There are different types but this one’s a vast strip of created land that meets up in a circle, like a big ring in space. In the center of the circle is an artificial sun. I’m not certain of the size but you can get ten or twenty thousand people on those. Add in the fleet of ships that tag along and I’ve heard you’d have a half a million people.”

“The lights are so beautiful.”

“Yes, they are. The man who owns the megastructure ring, a man called Verok, has built a replica of an Earth building. A castle. He’s taking the fleet all the way to Earth. They’ve dubbed it the Meek Crusade.”

“Why?” Whatever would her planet do with a huge fleet of aliens? Ella shivered again.

Torgeir shrugged. “We’d best go in. It’s too cold for you. As for why? Your planet has a saying, I’m told. The meek shall inherit the Earth. He’s taken it as his personal slogan.”

“Inherit?” She couldn’t resist one last look at the sky despite Torgeir’s tug on her hand. “Doesn’t that mean to take over ownership?”

“I’m sure it’s just a phrase. Invading a planet isn’t done on a whim.”

That invading a planet was done at all worried her.

“I hope not.”

He stopped and turned in the doorway, put his hand to the edge of the new plas-g folding shutter, and began hauling it in to shut off their balcony.

“That’s another reason for caution. Verok has some extreme ideas about cyborgs, their rights, and them needing to join his crusade. It’s causing riots on Pelagia. Maybe that one we were caught up in the other day was due to this.”

“No, that was just me. The poisoner.”

“Can’t be sure. Make sure you shut this every night.” He locked together the two sets of shutter doors, in the middle. “If you’re not sure you’ll remember, I can get one of your guards to come in to do it?”

“No!” she said quickly. “I’ll remember.” Damn, he’d have them hiding in her underwear drawer if she let him.

“Good. I want you so safe your own mother couldn’t get in to say hello.” He pulled her into his arms and almost smothered her with the intensity of his hug.

In a twisted way, that made her sad. She couldn’t remember the faces of her mother or her father, and maybe she never would.

Chapter 28

Incoming Henchman 1.

I can’t get near her anymore but we have a full coverage of her messages, calls, data incoming and outgoing. She has a doctor’s appointment that’s registered as a concern over an ankle lesion. The Plito individual is still attempting to recover her past from Concer records. She’s working at their shop also, from location data.

He’d known much of this. The difficulty of capturing her had escalated. But there were ways. Perhaps he needed bait to lure her to him?

Good. I have data for you to feed to the Plito hacker. I want her to know who she once was. It should unsettle her. Off balance, she may prove vulnerable. The data will be with you now. No further damage is to be done to her. Assure me of this.

Henchman.

No damage. Received, sir.

The crowd surveillance footage had astounded him. Ella had controlled the crowd with her voice. Others might not see it but he had the advantage of knowing what some Earth women could do. The silence had fallen on the people in a ripple, moving outward. Not all, but most. Farther examination of the footage revealed that only cyborgs, or those with higher cyber percentages, had been severely affected.

She had a power, a most curious one. It was wonderful. He’d soon have a princess with powers and it was one he could exploit. Had it only come about after the black app affected her? He might never know for sure.

*****

Torgeir was gone again. The sky had another contrail from his ship’s engines that would last all of half an hour before being blown away. She let out the breath she’d been holding in and turned on her heel. Five hulking men in full body armor were waiting behind her, glowering at passersby, their weapons holstered but in full view. Strangely the spaceport tourists were keeping away from them.

She shook her head. This was overkill. “Come on boys, let’s go home.”

The doctor’s appointment was soon but first she wanted to see Plito and he wanted to see her, from the message he’d sent.

Her five bodyguards agreed to wait outside the Hack and Slash, once they’d looked inside and made sure the boys weren’t about to assault her. She rolled her eyes and waited, hands on hips, until the door creaked shut. The hinges needed Mimi again.

She swiveled and stalked to Plito, sliding into a chair next to him. Then she leaned her chin on the back of her hand and grinned. “I know you’ve got something to tell me, but I have something big to tell you too, and I can’t wait!”

His yellow hair was stuck up in two peaks that made an X at the top of his head. He chuckled and made his own chair squeak, or perhaps that was his leg spines, as she’d come to call them. Soon he wouldn’t need those.

“Go ahead, Ella. Mine is a good surprise too but I can wait.”

“Excellent. Would’ve overridden you anyway.” She winked. “Like your new hairstyle.”

His sigh was long and obvious. “Tell. Spit. What is this wondrous surprise?”

“I have...drum roll, please...with the help of Doc and Gears and Torgeir, found, repaired, reconstructed, re-everythinged, two beautiful legs for you.” Then she gestured and brought up the holoscreen with the pic of them on the dining table. “Just got a few minor adjustments to do and I will bring them down here. Tomorrow that should be. Thought I should warn you, since we need to get the leg spines off you first.”

His mouth was open and she’d swear his eyes were gleaming with tears.

“I just...” Ella gave a few small nods while smiling quietly. “Thought I should show how much I’ve appreciated you.” She looked around at Doc and Gears. Gears was openly crying while beaming. Doc looked serious but winked at her. “All of you. Really.”

“Oh, Ella.” Plito collapsed onto his elbows, head in hands. “I will never be able to thank you enough.”

An Aussie saying was in order. “Bullshit.” Then she leaned over to hug him and kiss his cheek. The boy was shaking. “Thank you, again. Now, what was your news?”

It took him a moment or two to wipe his eyes and clear his throat but then he rotated his holoscreen toward her. “I’ve done it. Hacked into your records at Concer. I didn’t read it, Ella, but it’s there. I’ll transfer it to you?”

Shock left her silent for several stilted seconds. “Fuck. Really?”

“Really.” He grinned and gestured. “There. Done. It’s on your AI.”

The day had been unsettled as it was, with Torgeir leaving. She’d known this present of hers would make her happier. Gifting things always did, but after those few words from Plito, she was terrified.

How unexpected to find out that discovering who she was, or had been, was in front of her. Faced with the truth, she didn’t want it anymore. She didn’t care. She had Torgeir.

Yet she owed him the truth because she’d promised it. Ella sucked in a tremulous breath. “I have it. This is personal, Plito, so I’ll read it at my place.”

“I understand completely. I never meant to pry.”

“You didn’t.” Wow. If she’d been standing she might have been swaying. As it was the room was looking shaky. “I...have to go.”

“Of course.” He held out his hand and after she figured out what he wanted, they shook.

The trek up to the apartment was a blur of people and sound. The bodyguards followed her but stopped at the entry. She closed the door then turned and put her back to it.

“Get a grip, girl.” And talking to herself was totally normal. Where to go to read this? The bed? Yes.

When she slid across the quilt and rested her back on the pillow, the smell of him was there, in the air, on the sheets perhaps, or on the shirt he’d left crumpled at the bottom.

“I can do this,” she whispered, but she reached down and dragged the shirt to her, buried her nose, and took a deep breath. The scent calmed her – as if he was here.

At first tap, the data sprang to the holoscreen and she enlarged the text. Her eyes were already tearing up. Shit. This was not going well. She hadn’t expected any results anymore. It’d been so long since she’d asked Plito to do this.

She opened the file marked Ella. And there it was. Multiple vids. Oceans of data, but the vids said it all within a few seconds of starting one of them.

She watched a girl creature crawl across a room. Huge tentacles and spidery legs clasped at things, pulled her forward, wrenched things down from the ceiling. A destructive, crazed, glazed-eyed spider girl. The face was hers. The rest of her? Was she even human? The fuck she knew.

Shock made her stall a few more seconds, breath stuck in her throat, before she shut the vid down. Her while body was shaking when she put her hand to her forehead. She would never read the rest. Ella gulped, dazed. The bed under her seemed to tilt and spin. She let her hand flop onto the quilt, steadying herself. That was what they had done to her. She hadn’t simply been altered by the Bak-lal, she’d been one of their morphed soldiers. An inhuman thing.

She vomited into the sink and wiped her eyes, then dry retched and slipped down to the floor to sit on her butt, her stomach heaving, her mind aching and whirling.

“What the fuck am I going to do?”

With her hand over her mouth, she sobbed, staring at nothing on the opposite wall. Her nose was watering too. If she did this long enough, she might dissolve away and only leave tears and snot.

A ding reminded her of the doctor’s appointment and her ankle. With her knees bent so she could reach, she swiped her thumb over the spot. It was bigger, by a smidge, softer, and it seemed to move inside. How had she not noticed that? With her luck today, it would be something new and devastating.

“God. Dammit.” She wiped her eyes with her palms then hauled herself upright, pulled her little aqua dress and white tights into place, washed her face and dried it. She could handle this. She’d never ever been a coward and wouldn’t start now.

Everything seemed ready to crack about her. She walked stiffly, nodded like a robot, answered people as if she was ten miles away. The doctor had fun sticking a needle in her cleaned and sterilized ankle. A proper hospital would know the answer in seconds but she shook her head and refused that option. So he imaged the contents, showed her on a screen, and she could only blink at the shadow she saw, something curled and nascent, something tentacle-like but small...in her ankle.

The spider girl ripping things off walls and crawling through corridors had never left her mind the entire visit.

He’d needled her and taken a sample but what did that matter? She knew. The darkness of this engulfed her. Where could she go? Who could she tell?

Nobody. Maybe the boys would understand but even for them this might be too much.

She was Bak-lal still, growing her tentacles and crazy shit again. Give it a year and she might be spider girl.

What was she to do?

Her bodyguards must’ve suspected something was wrong. One of them came to her shoulder and asked if she was okay, in a kindly fashion, as she led them back to the apartment, through shafts and up stairs, down halls, trudging through a black despair.

She left them outside.

There was no one at all for her anymore. Torgeir hated Bak-lal with a vengeance. He’d said he’d pay to kill them.

She was sitting at the dining table shaking, her fingers entwined, when the message came.

The information slid into her mind and she blinked. It was terrible news but now...she had purpose.

Whatever happened to her in the future, she was fixing this.

The man who wanted her had Plito.

Come to me if you wish him to live.

If you inform anyone of this, including your five guards, he dies.

Whoever this was they had resources and they were watching her. They’d waited until Torgeir left.

All the sorrow, all the confusion, all the despair, all her questions about why this was happening to her, they converted in an instant into anger.

With her hands over her eyes, she thought this through and came to one conclusion. If she went to this unknown person, it might not save Plito but it was the best chance.

She stood and went to the chair that was placed before Plito’s second leg where it lay on the table, pulled the chair out, sat, and began to finish the fine details in the pathways. Her nanogeers marched to her commands, zipping about as they’d done ever since she learned how to work faster. Once the leg was finished, she turned her attention to herself. She hadn’t told anyone, not even Torgeir, that after her memory returned, her own little army of nanogeers had remained. They lived in her cyber spaces, helping her when she needed small things corrected, and sometimes she had them transfer to the item she repaired at Hack and Slash. They came back to her afterwards, as if they knew she was their home.

Now she could use them for a greater cause. She shut her eyes, settled her plan into place in her mind, and commanded them.

The man who wanted her had Plito. He was going to get her, plus a little more than he expected. She was making him a surprise.

Chapter 29

She wrote a note for Torgeir on paper, or whatever this stuff was they used on Pelagia, leaving splotches of tears everywhere. Couldn’t be helped. It would be terrible of her to go without saying anything. She couldn’t bear to say the truth but at least she’d give him enough to help him see she was determined and would not be coming back.

I have to leave you, my love. I am so sorry. I don’t have the words to tell you the depth of my sadness.

Plito has been kidnapped by the person who wants me. I’ve found out my past and now I know we cannot be together. I’m going to get Plito free. You would not want me if you knew who I am.

I will never stop loving you,

Ella.

She left information about where she was going, but thought it unlikely her nemesis would be easily tracked. The guards would break in eventually. Tomorrow perhaps.

Mimi was pancaked above the door. “Coming?” she asked her.

Small ears popped out but Mimi failed to stir.

A pity. She might’ve been useful.

Descending Horuk to the arranged rendezvous at the spaceport would’ve been difficult if not for her chancing that money would get her neighbor below to open their door. She sneaked over the balcony and dropped in on an old woman cleaning her apartment.

Waving her comm with an open window to her funds had made the lady get over her shock in seconds. Deal done, with the repaired legs tucked awkwardly into slings at her side, she went out the door and found herself in a foreign corridor. Simply being one floor down meant the way out was an extremely different route. The place was a labyrinth, but she’d always known that.

A hovercab took her to the spaceport and she walked in, following a map guide sent to her when she arrived at the port.

She might have communicated the location of the ship, if not for two men who fell in beside her.

“Plito. Your comm,” was all one of them said. Then he held out his hand.

After a glance, she handed it over. There was no point in resisting.

A small, slickly orange spaceship with a plump set of rear engines turned out to be her destination. White symbols were etched on the hull. A man in black pants and shirt emerged and stood in the airlock at the top of a set of perfectly shiny metal steps. Her stomach crawled sickeningly.

Her left side escort took her elbow and her heart thumped erratically.

If she’d made a mistake, it was too late.

She hitched the strap of the carriers for the legs into a better place on her shoulders and climbed the steps. Each rung rang with expectant doom. Wherever this ship took her, she didn’t expect to come out intact, maybe not even alive. If she got Plito out, that was enough for her.

Even with the note, Torgeir was never going to forgive her or understand. That made her saddest of all. Her death or disappearance would leave him grieving but he would recover, he’d find another to love. An ugly gift, but it was the only thing worth giving – her absence.

At the top, she paused, stricken by how much this was going to cost her...everything that counted for anything in her life.

She sniffed and wiped her eyes, then hitched at the backpack again. What did it matter? She’d lost him anyway. Least she could do something right for once. Abandoning Plito? Not ever going to happen.

Her escort tugged at her arm.

Do this. There’s no one else who can help him. It has to be me.

The outer airlock door slid open. Retreat was impossible.

She heard the airlock’s second door hiss shut behind her and the three men led her down a short passageway to a room – white walls, some table-high equipment and storage cabinets. The ship wasn’t much bigger than a small house. There couldn’t be much more than a control room and engines.

“Put those down.” After she slid the straps off her shoulders and lowered the legs to the floor, he switched his gaze to her pair of guards. “Scan them for anything amiss. Then we do her.”

There’d always been the chance they’d simply throw the legs away and not let them aboard.

“Don’t lose those. Your master will want to see them.”

His expression barely changed. “Perhaps.”

The legs were carried to a portable scanning table similar to those the boys used to check parts for design and flaws. The machine moaned into high gear in a second. A holoscreen showed the leg’s designs, in a thigh to toes direction, in a slowly advancing cross-section.

She guessed they were looking for weaponry.

“Strip.” That word from him had her throat squeezing in. There was something about being unclothed before strange men that generated instant panic. “Everything off. How are the legs? He threw the words in an aside to the man working the scanner.

“Normal. Nothing dangerous.”

“Good. Now you. Don’t make us wait or we’ll strip you ourselves.”

The ship hadn’t left port but even if she could disable these three, she wouldn’t know how to find Plito. He wouldn’t be on this little ship. A curious creak and small thump somewhere else on the ship had her wondering at the cause. Were there others?

“Where are we going?”

He smiled. “Up. Your clothes have to come off. I’m not to damage you but I can be rough. Choose. You strip, or we do it.”

His face suddenly clicked. This was the fruit man, minus some changes.

Her face must have given her away.

“Remember me?”

She refused to talk. Enemies all around her, just this one seemed more personal. Letting him handle her was repugnant. She undressed, refusing to look at them or acknowledge their presence. When she pulled off her panties, the last piece to go, she stood there with every item in her hand, and waited, pretending this was normal, and hating them all.

“Thank you,” the fruit man added. “Now lie on the table. And give me those.”

Nonchalantly, she handed her clothes to him and climbed up to lie flat on her back on the table. The machine began to scan her. When she looked down her body, seeing herself naked, her breasts, her helplessness made panic churn through her. Her plan, she should go over it. But there was so much that might happen. Everything that was coming next would be an unknown except her and Plito.

If they found anything with the scan, she had other things they wouldn’t find. She was certain, almost. Someone hissed and she flinched. They’d found the obvious.

As she turned her head, the man in black stepped up and touched her neck with metal.

A liquid, brain-slamming, gut-twisting shock rippled to her bones and her head swam somewhere far away.

Chapter 30

As they headed for the final approach to the wormhole, the message chimed into the comm window on his control-room holoscreen.

Ella, slave to Torgeir Rakkel, registered departing Riptide via Pelagia spaceport.

He stared, barely able to comprehend. His slave code had triggered an alert? The only explanation – someone had her.

“Terminate approach,” he snapped. “We’re turning back.”

A quick analysis of departures had her ship as one of two possibilities. The government ship was very unlikely. The other one...

He sat back. That explained a lot. The attempted abductions, the sophisticated poisoning. Ella was an Earth girl. It fitted the rumors about the man. How brazen.

No matter how rich and powerful he was, the man had picked the wrong adversary.

He would get her back even he had to wrestle a Bak-lal factory queen.

“Prepare for battle. We’re going to be armoring up when we get where we’re going.”

Dresdek hadn’t questioned his decision at all, but now he asked, “Where is that, sir?”

“You want an address? The Verok megastructure, center of the Meek Crusade. The castle is our target.”

He was losing a lot of money doing this but money was worthless if he didn’t have Ella.

*****

Reboot.

Time ticked by. Slowly.

Someone laughed.

She opened her eyes to the sight of a ceiling with chandeliers then frowned for ages while attempting to sort out where that had come from.

The pumpkin orange ship? Clearly she wasn’t on it anymore. She lay on soft padding and above her was a curved, transparent lid. A coffin? At least it was mostly open. She tried to sit up and discovered the restraining straps fastened across her body, then turned her head and saw him: a white-haired man, with perfectly close-cropped hair, a square jaw, and a white-and-gold suit that looked appropriate for a ballroom. He sat on a golden throne. His cologne hit her like an axe, from five yards distance, and his face seemed familiar.

She checked her other side. The rest of this space...enormous. The chandeliered ceiling was two stories high. The throne sat at the end of a long, stone-floored vista. And there were guards, posted along the sides, at even spacing, like dominoes or chess pieces. Far more than she’d imagined having to deal with. Never mind.

Well, okay. Crap. She had no idea what to do. The man had ten men in here. At least that many.

“Hello.” He hopped off the throne and strolled to her, his boots clicking on the hard floor. “Welcome to my castle. I am Verok, Miss Ella.”

This was Verok? The gazillionaire zealot up in space with the crusade? She gulped. This was who wanted her? She rolled up her eyes and did a fast check on her systems, searching for all the new engineering, the little weapons. They were gone, neutralized.

His scanners were good.

“Where is Plito?”

“You’ll see him after your surgery.”

“My what?” The word surgery raised her hackles at the same time as she tasted the metallic acidity of bile. How sick was this alien megalomaniac?

“I hope you don’t mind that we removed all the dangerous perks you added to your cybernetics. Ingenious some of it.”

She enunciated the next words well. “You. Are a bastard.”

“Shhh.” He arrived at her raised coffin bed. “Soon we’ll have you as our princess.”

Verok reached in, his hand moving slowly, as if afraid she’d be frightened. He had no clue as to what she was about to do. Plan B. She sent her nanogeers scurrying, unblocking, shifting paths. Time, she only needed time. Sweat trickled down her brow.

He stroked her forehead and she let him, despite wanting to spit. Whatever they’d given her before was making her feel tired.

His princess? How dare he.

“We know all about your foot and we are going to do a little surgery. Soon you will be perfect, ready to be bondmated to us.

Us? We? Of course. He was using the royal we. The man was scary, crazy bonkers. Cutting off her foot if done by a surgeon was bad enough. She couldn’t look away.

Growling would’ve been a great reply but, fumbling, she found speech. “You cannot. I am bondmated already.”

“Not quite. I have a chemical to reverse that. We’ll give you a few days, keep you well-controlled until then. After that...” He smiled that sickly smile, his perfect, white teeth gleaming as brightly as his gold brocade collar. “You’ll find you do not wish to disobey me.”

“I will never be your princess. Just saying that makes me feel ill.”

He took one step back. “Go to sleep. We’re removing that diseased foot.”

The straps were breakable. Though her eyelids were lowering, she let panic seep in. But not enough. Not enough panic at all.

The bed on which she lay seemed to close in on her; the lid above quaked as if about to shut. She struggled weakly, tugging at the straps on her chest and arms, her waist and legs. Nothing gave.

“The autodoc I have is quite wonderful. You won’t feel anything, at all, Ella. Shhh. Sleep.”

The lid was lowering. She watched it swing down, unable to do more than swallow. Her skin prickled with dull fear. The lid sealed to the base with a clunk.

All by herself, inside this thing... She should be screaming.

His muffled words came to her: “Goodnight, my sweet princess.”

Should be screaming...

The princess tag was getting old.

Scream...

She wrenched her eyes open only to have them flutter down again.

Would it be gas? That taser thing aga –

Blackness.

*****

When she awoke her anger fired up instantly, like she’d kept it burning while asleep. Her eyes were shut but her leg, her foot, she could feel the difference. She was cyber down there now, from just above the ankle and downward. He’d cut off her fucking foot.

The loss was appalling, sending cracks of panic through her heart that actually hurt. Tears leaked from under her lids, spilling down the sides of her face and trickling to her hairline.

The panic spread silently, screwing into her mind, closing her throat, spiraling her pulse beat upward into the stratosphere. She let it come. There were men out there watching her. Verok too. They had guns. No way out. Enemies. Outnumbered. Plito needed her.

Body surveillance kicked in. Her nanogeers were ready.

She was a hairsbreadth from dissolving into a chaotic mess.

She forced open her eyes. No lid anymore. Thank god.

Verok stood a foot, at most, from the coffin-like bed and she was still naked. Kneeling beyond, on the floor, was Plito, his hands cuffed at his front. He had legs. Legs! They’d attached the legs. God. She blinked. The bravery shining in his eyes, and his vulnerable youth, escalated her panic to the last possible level before...

Meltdown.

Deadness and darkness overcame her.

Deadtime.

“You see. We’ve fixed your friend. If you behave, he can keep them. You look well,” said Verok, leaning in as if for a kiss. “Such a pretty –”

A throm sound like something big travelling overhead, made him look up. It dwindled as if passing the building

She took the opportunity to survey the room. Same chandelier. Same room. Same straps holding her down.

The uniformed men along the periphery also looked upward. A distant overhead crash kept them craning their heads back. Perfect.

No one in here was as cyber as her. If they had been she could’ve controlled them. That she could have done that seemed as obvious and natural as blinking. It simply was. Except for Plito. They’d forgotten him, thinking he was just a boy. Logic said they’d never let him leave here, not after he’d seen Verok.

She erupted upward, tearing through the arm straps. Her left arm wasn’t as reinforced by metal and it snapped below the shoulder. She ignored the pain. Her right arm ripped loose the strap at the base, somewhere below, and only her artificial skin suffered. She lunged for Verok, her fingers in a cone shape, and crushed most of the ribs on his left chest. Her metal fingers penetrated all the way to his heart, where she blithely ripped loose an artery or two.

Her hand emerged bloodied. Verok crumpled soundlessly, his face taut with shock. Dead in seconds, gushing blood by the bucketload, she calculated, unless someone stuck him in the autodoc she currently occupied.

Ten men. She began at the right with Plito’s guard and shot them one by one, center of the forehead. Her arm held eighteen rounds of her improvised cry-steel flechettes. Working within her cybernetics, her nanogeers had closed the final pathway to create the weapon as she’d slept.

Good little nanogeers.

The last four men scattered and she only got one of them.

Deadtime petered out.

The pain from her left arm roared in. The guards were screaming and drawing weapons. Weeping now, partly in shock, she plucked at the other straps with her intact right hand. Got one undone. She needed a gun. Though cuffed, Plito ducked and grabbed a pistol from his dead guard. Too late. Too late.

Verok sucked in a last gurgled breath and fell silent. The guards, thinking her the worst threat, trained their guns on her. One round blasted into her soon-to-be coffin, rocking it.

With a great crash, Mimi fell through the ceiling, bringing with her a rain of building fragments. She bounced high, landed, flattened one guard to mush then proceeded to play “catch me” with the others.

Panting, still choking from the agony, with her heart thundering in her ears as well as the screams of the guards, Ella looked away.

The wet thuds stopped after two more and she heard scampering. Ella dared to look with one eye. Mimi trotted up. Behind her were small bloody footprints. She stopped and leaped onto the coffin, landing on the edge and balancing.

“Hi,” Ella grated out. The pain was making her feel light-headed but she managed to undo the last strap. The patter of footsteps heralded the arrival of Plito. He’d removed the cuffs somehow. The guard must’ve had the keys.

“We need to get out of here, Ella.”

Helped by Plito, she half-climbed, half-fell from the autodoc bed and had to remain kneeling on the floor for a few seconds.

“Your arm!” Plito gasped. “It’s broken?”

“Yes. Yes. Come on.” She raised herself to her feet and stood there, swaying. The room was a bloody mess. Corpses lay everywhere.

Someone would be in to see what had happened soon, though from the sounds of shooting, someone else was doing nasty things to Verok’s people.

“There’s an attack?” Plito turned toward the noise.

“Seems like it. Luckily for us.”

“Clothes. Frack. You need some.” His ear tips and cheeks blushing red, he looked about.

Her nakedness was the least of their problems.

“Soon. First we leave. Do you know if we can get to his spaceship? I arrived in an orange one.”

“On the rooftop. There’s a landing area up there. If it’s there still?”

“Let’s hope so.”

He pointed. “Hovershaft is behind that gray door.”

They passed a pretty, carved table with a tall bottle of fluid atop it and something big floating inside. She recognized the contents in one startled glance.

Her foot, he’d kept it to show her? Ugh. Horrid man.

They were twenty yards from the door when a clatter and some shouts warned her Verok’s help had arrived. Getting shot in the back was not how she was going out.

“Give me the gun. You run.”

“Hey?”

Wincing at the jerk on her bad arm, she slipped away from him, plucking the gun from his fingers as she turned to face their pursuers.

“Ella?” one of them shouted.

Oh no.

Torgeir advanced in a line of his men. Guns out, they surveyed the room. It was Dresdek and three others.

“Ella! You’re alive!” Torgeir broke into a run.

She wasn’t going back with him. Couldn’t face him. This disease of hers wasn’t going away. She clearly had Bak-lal genetic alterations still bubbling in her flesh.

“Stop. I don’t want to see you. Please,” she sobbed. “Stop.”

“Ella?” He slowed. “What’s wrong?”

There was a way out. She knew how to control their cybernetics. The power in her gathered and abruptly it was there, awaiting her command. “Dresdek! And you and you. Disarm and restrain the others. Stop them following.”

Without knowing what she could do, the others were quickly overwhelmed.

She spun on her heel, though tears streamed down her face, and she staggered toward the hovershaft. She didn’t know how long her command would last.

The little pumpkin-orange ship was still parked on the roof. The hole in the roof, that went all the way down to the ballroom, told her Mimi had somehow hitched a ride on the ship. She’d probably been stuck to the outside. Piloting while naked was luckily unnecessary. She found a pair of sleeveless overalls in a locker.

This baby ship was pure gazillionaire territory. She could navigate a wormhole, with ease.

They had little time for messing about but Ella wiped away tears and leaned across the console to hug Plito with one arm.

She whispered in his ear, too choked up to speak louder. “You’ve got your legs.” Her smile was wobbly. “Good?”

“Yes.” He nodded and squeezed her uninjured arm. “Yes. Very, very good. The one good thing about today. But...you want to leave? Without anyone following? We need to go now. The acceleration will hurt you. You know that?”

“Of course. Do it.”

With her minimal training and that of Plito’s, since he’d hacked into the pilot program, they set a course for a wormhole and blasted off.

She faded in and out of consciousness. Fainting was to be expected with the G forces pressing on her arm.

The little medical alcove had strong painkillers with sedative side effects. It’d wear off before they hit the wormhole. She numbed herself with a dose. Being woozy-headed had benefits.

“Wake me up when everything is all better,” she mumbled.

“Sure I will, Ella. I’ll look up what we can do for your arm. I can’t contact Torgeir?”

“No. Never, ever, ever. I will never see that man again.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Ever.” She shut her eyes and pretended she was asleep, and then she was...

When she woke, she found they were on the verge of accelerating into the wormhole entrance. Stray blue swirls from the warp engines flickered across the holoscreen, obscuring the stars with their pretty brilliance.

“Wait, Plito. Wait.”

“Sure.” He tapped a button. “Say when.”

She should go back. She knew why this was impossible. She didn’t believe in herself.

The hurt inside pulled her from one possibility to the other. By refusing to face Torgeir, she could preserve the perfection of his love for her.

Truth though. She breathed out and wondered if her ribs would crack from the pain of leaving. Truth... What she was, was an abomination.

If she went back and begged for forgiveness and he refused her, she’d be devastated.

She feared to fail.

Her reaction was insane, in some ways, and she knew that, but it was all she could face at this time when she was on the very wobbly edge of a precipice. Maybe later, another time, she’d do this – when she built her courage.

She gulped and put her finger in her mouth, bit down hard, until it hurt almost as much as her heart.

“Go,” she croaked. “Do it.”

Plito slapped the button. “Done.”

Chapter 31

After Ella had flung the command, the fight had been short and inglorious. Even with their minds muddled, Dresdek and the others she’d suborned had been sensible. They’d distanced themselves before they’d drawn their weapons. They’d kept Torgeir and the rest of his men, who piled up behind him, in a standoff situation for long enough. No one wanted to shoot their fellow warriors and he’d commanded them not to, in spite of how frantic he was to catch Ella.

When he reached the rooftop, she was long gone.

Sensors on Zeus tracked her until she left the system. The little ship she’d stolen was twice as fast as he could attain with Zeus’s engines without blowing something up.

Torgeir slumped in the captain’s seat, staring blindly at the faint traces of her ship’s jump on the holoscreen. Warp jumps weren’t trackable unless you had military equipment. The traces would fade beyond military capability in a few hours.

“Why is she doing this, sir?” Dresdek sounded flustered for once. No wonder.

“I don’t know, yet. I’m going back to Riptide to clear up any legal problems to do with our raid on Verok’s ring. Maybe the boys will know more.” He sat forward. Dresdek had his hand over his mouth and was studying the screen. The man looked lost. “I need you to understand there was nothing you did that I blame you for. Wipe that idea from your mind. I’m getting her back. You’re helping me.”

“Okay.” Slowly Dresdek nodded. “Thank you. You need to excuse me from duties if we get close to her though. She can make me her puppet again. She did it once, easily.”

That was true, though the pain on Dresdek’s face made him wish it wasn’t so. “Agreed.”

That he had to consider she might again betray him, underlined how far his trust of Ella had fallen. He didn’t understand her actions and if he did, he doubted they’d be excusable by his standards of conduct. Maybe the two of them weren’t as in synch in their views of right and wrong as he’d thought? That was a sobering notion – that Ella might have a different idea of morality.

*****

After days of trying, Torgeir realized finding her was impossible with his resources. He appealed to some friends in Concer administration for help. In the meantime, to keep the ship running and his crew, he took up work again. At the end of that small combat, he found a Concer fleet vessel, the Traskendor, awaiting the Zeus, when she ascended to planetary orbit.

The command to attend a meeting on board the Traskendor was not one he could ignore. The purple security and red combat tags attached to the message made any of the Bak-lal related mopping-up messages look under-decorated.

The walk along the corridors of the Traskendor, Lealith-class arbitrator vessel was sobering. It could obliterate Zeus without straining its weaponry at all.

When he entered the interview room, the man awaiting him was the highest-ranking Concer officer he’d yet seen in the flesh. He had speckled gray, crew-cut hair and his face was lined by the atmospheres of a thousand battles on a thousand different planets. His uniform was weighed down by medals for valor. This was a hard, experienced soldier.

Torgeir nodded. “Sir?”

“Sit down, Lord Torgeir. This is an incognito meeting. You haven’t seen me and you don’t know my name.” His smile was brief enough to quash any hint of true happiness. “If you still want your almost-bondmate Ella to not be terminated as soon as we find her, you need to listen to me and you need to say yes at the end.”

A man didn’t panic at hearing a few words, but Torgeir came close after those. “What has she done?”

“Bad things. Concer has come to the conclusion that Ella is the most dangerous person in this universe and if you can’t help us catch her and tame her, we need to kill her. Sit.”

He found the back of the chair without looking and fumbled his way into sitting. What terrible things she had done? Would he want to save her? The love he felt for her was still in his heart but circumstances were burying it under grief and a strange dislocation between who she seemed to have been in the past and what she had become.

He’d thought he loved her but had he been loving an imaginary person?

“Go ahead, sir.”

*****

If Torgeir followed her, he never caught up.

Ella found it was easy getting through any planetary spaceport. Easy making money. Cyborgs, or those close to cyborg, were everywhere and she could coerce them into doing almost anything. She arranged for Plito’s return flight to Pelagia and journeyed onward, searching for a place to stop. Somewhere she could feel she at least belonged.

Every day, for months, she watched herself for signs of Bak-lal alterations but the removal of her foot seemed to have rendered her clean. When she figured that out, she lay back in her rented bed and laughed until her stomach hurt, then she cried into her rented pillow. It was so ironic, so tragic, and so typical of her stupid life.

The time to go back had never arrived. It had become ever more elusive, until imagining herself speaking to Torgeir again made her gut cramp. Going back simply wasn’t possible anymore. It had become a dream. She was cyborg. She had been a Bak-lal monstrosity of the worst kind. For all she knew, she’d killed hundreds of people. Why would anyone do anything except despise her, even Torgeir?

She went from planet to planet and found nothing to hold her, nothing but emptiness for her soul and heart. She’d be searching forever.

Late in life to discover something so fundamental, but now she knew – belonging meant having someone who would love her and who she could love in return.

She needed his hand in hers, his lips kissing hers, his arms around her while he told her she was his again. She’d thrown that away in one insane moment when she’d forgotten the love they’d had for each other. All her fault, not his, hers.

Maybe...he would have taken her back?

Instead of fleeing from him, she should have stood her ground and asked him if he could still love her, cyborg, Bak-lal, whatever she had become.

Then, if he’d killed her? At least she’d be done with this.

Whoever invented time should’ve made a rewind button for dumb-ass idiots like her.

Happiness was impossible without him. It had sifted through her fingers and blown away before she truly understood her loss.

Chapter 32

Two and a half months since he’d seen her. Torgeir knew the exact number of days, same as he knew how it would feel when he found her. There would be great joy, as well as the release of an anger accumulated ever since the day she’d made his own men attack him, since the day she left him.

Her disembodied floating foot...he would never forget that. That reminder of her trauma made him rein back his distaste for what she’d done. She had her reasons.

She’d left him because she thought he wouldn’t love her anymore. He’d deduced that from her note and from what Plito had told him. She hadn’t trusted him enough to even stop to ask if that was true. That was the worst of it.

He was going to find her. The only woman he’d ever loved was not escaping him. He’d find her. What he’d do to her then? He wasn’t sure.

Most days, he regurgitated these same thoughts.

“Message.” Dresdek swiveled in his seat. “From Concer. They have leads. Tracked her to a planet. We need to get there before they kill her.”

*****

There was something clean and pure about being up in the clouds, surveying the land below. With the slightly lower-than-Earth gravity on Heksepp, Ella had found reaching the peak of this Opp Mountain fairly easy. Opp was the highest tooth in a long, jaw-like and monstrous mountain range. She could breathe up here. Well, she could with the help of her mask and oxygen.

She smiled sadly at her own joke and clasped her knees. The snow under her butt was leeching in cold despite her trekking clothes, but she wanted time to just look. The guide was letting her have this moment alone. Down below, in the sparse cities, there were too many people for her, too many cyborgs. Knowing she could control people made her feel dirty sometimes.

Silence and places where there were few people were her way to...not contentment. Peace though, yes.

After months of looping, over and over, through her wish to redo the past, sorrow and disbelief had given way to a morbid acceptance of this lonely existence. Acceptance but hate too. Self-hate. She wobbled from one to the other, some days. She frowned, dreading the claws of nausea that often accompanied such thoughts.

Maybe coming up here wasn’t such a good idea.

Ella put her gloved hand to her stomach, grimacing. Hate was a horrible thing but how could she feel anything else? Her fault, all of this.

She swallowed and a few tears dribbled down her cheeks. She prayed it was only her who suffered like this. Please, let him have forgotten her.

A mild roar said a ship must be coming over, though the path to the spaceport was a little more northern. She looked up, expecting to see a vast shadow pass overhead.

A faint scuffle in the snow behind warned the guide was returning. When the ship didn’t fly over, she gave up and stood. The edge was a few yards in front. A rock, dislodged by her movements, tumbled a few feet before stopping. She backed up. Falling off due to a collapsed shelf of snow would be stupid. She’d had so many other opportunities to die.

Sadness hit her again – unexpected and rough enough to make her eyes sting. When, or if, it came to that, she’d choose a prettier way to go. Flying into a sun? Too hot, though nicely dramatic.

Shit. Stop being maudlin.

Torgeir would’ve hugged her if he found her sad. That brought on another wave of potential weepiness. She cleared her throat. When was she going to stop remembering him?

“Are we heading back?” As she turned, she glimpsed a white figure bearing some long weapon, then several other figures in white, floating in and landing, bending at the knees. A whomm noise preceded something whacking into her neck and she crumpled at the knees, with barely time to wonder what was happening. Then, she was gone.

Thoughts ceased.

*****

Awakening, after what seemed millennia, she had a distinct sense of déjà vu. Would there be a pumpkin-orange spaceship or a chandelier nearby? Someone had knocked her out, again.

Even with her eyes shut, she could tell if any cybernetics were nearby.

Here was eerily quiet and empty of anyone or anything like that. She stretched her senses. Nothing cybernetic for miles.

Beneath her body was hard, smooth floor. Tiles. She listened and only caught distant whoops and bird calls, perhaps also the sigh of the wind. Light flickered across her eyelids and warmed her face. Sunlight.

She was dressed, from the feel of it, in panties and bra.

A heavy metal collar was around her neck. It seemed solid as hell and probably not cybernetic. Her throat moved in a furtive swallow. Shifting her arm as cautiously as she could, she reached up to touch it. Her nanogeers confirmed her suspicion – it was all metal.

“You won’t find anything you can manipulate. They’ve cleared away everything cybernetic for miles.”

The voice shocked her and her heart squeezed in. Torgeir. She’d not thought she’d ever hear him speak again. What did he mean they?

Ella opened her eyes then rolled over and pushed herself up from the floor.

Every apologetic word in the ’verse struggled to leave her tongue and she said none of them.

He sat, side on to her, outlined by brightness, in the right-hand corner of a long space where a wall should be. His features were blasted away by the daylight and she was pining to see him, every part of him, to kiss him from his toes to his lips, and she mustn’t, she had no right anymore.

She’d forced herself past grieving for him, after months of doing so daily, and now he was here. Could she hope? In spite of how she’d been brought here?

Being rendered unconscious and collared were not a good omens.

Hoping was premature.

“Why am I here?”

This room seemed suspended far above the landscape of whatever planet this was. There were green forests or fields down there, miles away and blurred by distance. This was not Heksepp, she was sure.

“That collar,” he said dryly. “Is packed with some new tracker they’ve devised just for you. Don’t ask me how it works but Concer’s scientist are happy with it. Try to remove it and they’ll likely kill you.”

Why would Concer be concerned about her? Ella fingered the collar again. Her actions might have been somewhat criminal...okay, she’d controlled people but who knew that? Not them, surely. No one ever noticed. She’d been crafty as an invisible fox.

“Do you realize how many people you have angered, how many you have scared? Even Mimi seems sad. You ran away after making my men turn against me. They don’t understand and Dresdek, at the least, feels betrayed. The entire Concer administration wants you dead.”

Stunned, she put her hand to her throat and encountered that collar again. “Why?”

There was more to this than she’d imagined.

His monotone delivery had scared her more than anything. Which told her so much that she already knew. Torgeir meant more to her than anything or anyone else.

“Because you’re dangerous.” He twisted and looked toward her, though she couldn’t see his eyes. “You can do things that everyone is terrified of. They’ve calculated that forty-three percent of the population has enough cybernetics to be controllable by this power you have. They signed your execution warrant within a day of working that out.”

“Oh.” She put her palms to the floor. Her brain whirled with deductions. She hadn’t considered the implications. She’d put him into a bad situation by her actions. “I wouldn’t though, do anything terrible... Why am I alive? Why are you here? Whoever did this.” She waved her hand about. “Put me here. They’ve not threatened you?”

“Why do you think you’re alive?”

She sucked in her lip. A headache was looming. He was here but he hadn’t come to her. That said he wanted to help but he didn’t want to touch her. Horrible but understandable.

That he was here and Concer knew it, had let him come...

“You.” It meant he had some say in her outcome. That was good, for him. He wasn’t just a prisoner. At last her sorrow let her say what she wanted to, needed desperately to say. “I’m sorry.”

His inhalation and sigh was painful to hear. “Are you, Ella?”

He’d said her name and she hoped that was a sign.

“Yes.” She raised up on her knees, about to go to him.

“Stay there. I’m not done talking. Not at all.”

Ominous, and in that grinding, hard voice. She sank onto her heels, the ache in her chest enough to take her breath away. This was an interrogation not a lover coming back to her, but what did she expect? She’d wronged him.

She gulped and said, “I’m sorry” again in a small voice. He ignored her.

“Why did you run from me? We were almost fully bondmated.”

Why had she? Ahhh, all those reasons. They’d made sense at the time. She leaned down, so distraught she slowly collapsed and ended up with her forehead resting on her fists where she’d planted them on the floor. She rocked her head on her fists. She spoke into the dull space made by her fists and her body.

“I knew you’d hate me. I was Bak-lal. You said you’d pay to kill Bak-lal.”

“I may have said that, but you never gave me the opportunity to answer you.”

“I know.” A sob broke from her throat.

“Did you not trust me? The truth.”

The truth? Fuck. “No. I guess I didn’t, but –”

“Stop.”

Silence fell awhile and all she could hear was her breathing. Crying was pitiful. She sat up and waited for him to speak.

“I get it. I do. I understand in a way but it’s still inexcusable that you didn’t trust me. You used me as much as you did Dresdek. I would have understood. I’m not an ogre or a fool. The doctor’s report said you had one lesion that was removable. Your genetic structure otherwise was fine.”

“Oh.” She sniffed.

“Not saying sorry again?”

“I think I need to let you decide what you think.”

“What do you want, Ella? You ran and made no attempt to come back to me. I need you still, but I don’t know if I want you.”

His words pierced her like a spear. She only had the truth and she left her fumbling hands in her lap while she tried to say the right words.

“I need you still, Torgeir, and I want you. Is there a difference between the two? I’m too confused to tell.” A sob leaked out. “I never stopped loving you but I was...I am afraid.”

“Of?”

“You...” Damn, this sounded stupid. “Of you rejecting me. I was terrified you’d want to kill me or hate me for once being Bak-lal. Maybe for being Bak-lal now too.” She ran on, spilling all her fears. She’d rather have them out and ugly than stewing in the dark, eating away at her. “You haven’t seen what I was when they had me.” She gulped, nauseous and shivering, with tears flooding from her eyes. “I was this spider-like thing. Not human. Not anything like a human. I couldn’t conceive of anyone liking me.”

The brightness around his silhouette didn’t let her see his expression.

“I hurt you though. I knew it would hurt you, but I figured you were best without me.”

“Ella.” He was shaking his head, she thought. “They’ve given me the power of life and death over you. As if I could ever kill you. Can I ever trust you to trust me again?”

“Please, can I touch you?” The plea in her voice was obvious but she didn’t care.

He patted his lap. “Come here.”

She crawled to him and laid her head on his lap, not daring to ask for more. After a long drawn-out silence, he put his hand on her head.

“I trust you,” she whispered.

“Hmmm.” His fingers stirred her hair a little.

I do, I do, I do. She said those in her head and her heart because she was sure they wouldn’t help if said out loud. Maybe nothing would.

“You know how they tracked you? Through the slave code. You removed the code on your cybernetic parts but neglected the genetic component.”

They would be Concer, the big daddy administration of the known ’verse.

She’d known that was a flaw. Seemed it was lucky she’d not been able to erase all the code. Just being able to be with him awhile was enough to soothe her...to demolish her and to soothe her, to send a desperate longing through her such that she’d fall apart completely if, after this, he left her alone again. But it was worth it. So worth it.

She knew now, she needed to at least try.

Chapter 33

“If you want to come back to me, if you want them to let you live, I have to prove that you trust me absolutely, that I can control you, and I have to bondmate you.” He smoothed down her lustrous dark hair, feeling the thickness under his fingers, remembering how things had been between them, and wanting to weep as Ella had done. “So I ask you again, do you trust me?”

“Yes.” She didn’t turn her head to look at him. “I would do anything, Torgeir, to be with you again, though I don’t deserve it. I trust you and I know, I know that...” Her voice hitched. “That I should have given you a chance to tell me what you felt. I gave you up and ran because I was scared. I’m stupid. Just stupid.”

“Shhh.” Her sadness was melting the armor he’d built around his heart. He hadn’t been sure he could, in all honesty with himself, take her back, even if his body was screaming at him to do it.

There were some blows that went deeper into the psyche than could ever be repaired.

He whispered-growled at her, “You made me so angry.”

Ella only stirred her head, burrowing into him.

She wasn’t just repentant, she was scared and vulnerable, and her reasons were indeed ones he understood. It was just...still, a betrayal. He would’ve been there for her, in an instant, without thinking about it at all, and she had run. More than that, she’d hurt everyone who mattered. Concer wanted certainty? He’d give them that. He’d convince them. All this needed was her faith, in him.

He was going to be hard on her, so hard, but maybe that was what he needed too. Proof. Something that proved beyond all doubt she trusted him. Well, this would do that, or they’d both die.

He was going to kill that residual anger he had stored up inside him.

Kill it like the motherfracking beast it was. After that, never again.

“Stay there. Don’t move.” He slipped out from under her and went to the pile of stacked cases against the opposite wall. In one was a coil of red rope – the same rope he’d used before. It seemed good and right to be symbolic about this.

He walked to her with the rope in hand and was pleased she’d stayed exactly as he’d left her, curled on her side. Plain white panties and bra, her hair out and loose, and she was so near the edge, some of her hair had flowed over to be flicked in the breeze.

He went to one knee and placed his palm on her back where the bra strap wrapped across, then undid the clasp. The straps sprang apart. She twisted her neck, venturing to peek at him.

If you fell out of this opened-up wall, the ground was a mile below.

The planet was Jorburr 5. He’d spent so much time helping eliminate the Bak-lal here that he’d barely noticed its beauty. This towering building was in the center of an animal park. It was deserted of people, as was the entire planet – only wildlife remained. The Concer military unit in charge of dealing with Ella had chosen an apartment with a wall-sized window. They’d removed the window, removed everything cybernetic, and also removed any way to exit this building except with a rope of immense length, or some way of flying or floating down. The three stories below this had been wiped out – walls, contents, until only the outer structure remained.

And they were watching. If he didn’t convince them...

He shook his head. This would work.

Maybe she still didn’t comprehend how dangerous she could be, but he knew. They’d told him in detail. Her behavior after escaping had left a foreboding trail. With no visible sign from her at all, she’d coerced droves of the cybernetically enhanced to do her bidding. Only analysis of surveillance footage had uncovered what she’d done. She could, theoretically, command vast armies. Concer weren’t certain but the possibility alone had caused a meltdown of astronomical proportions. If it weren’t for his influence with some of the higher-ups, they’d have taken her out with a remote strike. No question about it.

He created a loop in the rope and found the middle.

“Sit up on your knees.”

When she did so, with those eyes so big and trusting, ahhh, he paused a second, transfixed in the moment. He must keep going. This had to work. He slipped off her bra then placed the rope loop around her body, just above her breasts. He slowly built up the harness, crossing the strands, turning her when he needed to and linking and tying her wrists at her back, binding her firmly.

This act of obedience and submission absorbed him and awed him. Already, he wanted to tell her he loved her but instead he moved on.

If he did that, they’d hear. They’d see it as him molding her responses. Love equaled trust equaled him not harming her. He had to do this in a vacuum, free of obligations, free of him giving her anything, as much as possible. It was going to hurt him to do that.

First prove trust, then bondmate. They’d said that would convince them. Since they’d gone to so much trouble setting this up, he prayed that was the truth.

So easily, she slipped back into his soul. Want and need collided, merged.

Her wrists were at her back, with her forearms parallel to each other, incorporating the loops and knots into the figure-of-eight harness around her breasts that he loved seeing. She couldn’t move her arms, couldn’t escape, though she could still wriggle and try to run. If she chose to.

Fuck any observers, he was doing what he wanted to her.

When he was finished, he hauled her to her feet, keeping his hand entwined in the rope above her breasts. Her nipples were soft and unaroused but he hadn’t tried to arouse her. He’d shown little interest in her sexuality. Again, deliberate.

She’d be scared too. Couldn’t avoid that. It was best if she was scared as it would likely make her think and not just bounce into the wrong emotional response.

“You said you’d trust me, Ella?”

She nodded, a worry line creasing her forehead, her eyes anxious.

“Whatever I do, do not struggle. Prove this trust. Do not struggle. There’s a one-mile drop behind you.”

If she did struggle, they’d both likely fall, because he wouldn’t let her go, no matter how she reacted. Telling her the height would’ve hinted at what he intended.

“I understand.” Her swallow was small but he saw it. He was watching her so closely. Smart woman.

Any blink, any flinch, the shift of her toes in the grit left over from the window removal – he saw it all.

The unblinking green of her eyes convinced him, somehow. Maybe he had a green fetish, or maybe it was simply how cleanly she returned his gaze, even though he again had given her nothing but his stark and terrifying words.

“Good. Do not bend your knees. Keep your legs straight, your feet still.”

The grouped fingers of his hand still locked in the rope, he pulled and pushed at her a few times, moving her back and forth by fractions. The last of rope had been brought to the front, after tying her, and knotted there. Now he grasped that trailing end and began to pay it out while keeping pressure on her chest. Off balance, she had to lean back. With her legs straight, her whole body balance pivoted on her feet.

A concavity where a tile was missing was all he had for an anchor point for his feet.

As he paid out the rope, inch by inch, her lips parted and her breath hitched.

Be still, he willed her, locking his gaze on hers. If she shifted or jumped, he’d lose his balance too. They’d both fall.

More rope was paid out, then more. Ella was bound and her only point of safety was the rope he clutched, rope that was putting more and more distance between them. Her body straight, her arms tied at her back so she couldn’t even lunge at the building, she began to gasp. Her abdominal muscles stood out in relief.

The effort to keep still would be wearying her. If she wasn’t strong enough... That was the one factor he couldn’t be sure of.

Her head was at his waist level, with all of her sloping out over the drop, before he stopped paying out rope. Her breasts and skin were caught up in the tension and bulged. Skin turned red and pink and even white where the rope bit into her hard.

He had to lean back to stop himself being towed forward. His foot skidded an inch but he regained control.

“Trust me?” he said through clenched teeth.

Though it came out wobbly, her yes was perfect.

“Good.” He waited a moment, making the episode crystal clear, though the rope was twisting with the pressure. She swayed sideways a foot then back, making his biceps bulge and him grunt from the effort of not losing her. Finally he said the words he’d wanted to for many seconds. “I’m pulling you in. Be calm.”

The time needed to bring her inside seemed to be a hundred times longer than it had been going outward. Perhaps that was because now he had the evidence he needed and knew he could keep her safe. If she fell now it would be a far worse tragedy

Finally, she was in and he walked her further into the room. He clasped her trembling body to his and kissed her hair. “Good. You were so good. It’s done. I’m sorry I had to scare you.”

His hands were red and rope burned. His shaking must be from that.

She bowed her head. “It’s okay. I deserved it.”

“Wasn’t my idea, I promise you.” He held her face in his hands and made sure she saw his eyes. “Forget what I said before. Ella, I love you. I can’t live without you. I spent all these last painful months trying to find you. Never stopped, even when I hated you.”

“Huh.” She wriggled loose from his hold and spoke with her voice muffled by the cloth of his shirt. The warmth filtered through to his skin. “Hate. Love. I know what you mean. They’re kind of tangled up for me too.”

He froze. “You hated me?”

“You? No. Not you. Me. I hated me.”

He hugged her, and she turned the side of her face to his chest.

He wasn’t a man to cry often but her words had rendered him speechless and almost teary, so he kept hugging her until the hurt ebbed.

“Don’t say that again, ever. No hating. What happened...what they did to you, it wasn’t your fault and it’s not you anyway.”

“I know, just...” But she held back. “I won’t say it.”

“Good. Remember you’re important. Be yourself not what others see you as. I don’t care what you were or that you have enough cyber in you to fit out a ship, I love you, Ella.”

She let out a long sigh. “Thank you.”

Snuggly, gorgeous woman. His awareness of her sexuality reawakened. He let his hand stray to her breast. Feeling how soft and plump it was, cupping it, made his cock harden. From her breathing she was aware of the shift in his attention.

“I’m going to fuck you now, my way. Those last samples taken before you ran? I’m told you’re so close that one last fuck will take you over the edge.”

“What?” she squeaked. “No one should be able to test for that. It’s too intimate.”

“You think so? I like knowing that this will make you mine. I like fucking you whether you want me to or not. I’ve been angry at you for so long, I think I deserve to do this as nastily as I want to. So I’m keeping you tied up, maybe adding more rope even.” He tugged on the rope at her back.

She looked up at him. The red splotches on her face, the moisture wetting her eyelashes and around her eyes, showed how much his previous actions had affected her. “What if I want you to do that?”

“You don’t know my perverted plans.”

“I trust you.”

Exactly the right words. He tightened his hold at her back and stepped away to watch how the shifting of the rope moved her breasts and squeezed them outward.

“Come, little toy.”

He towed her with a hand in her harness to the cases of gear and had her kneel on a big, square, purple cushion. This had, once upon a time, been an exquisitely furnished apartment. Cushions were not in short supply. Beyond the dust in this open to the environment and partly demolished area was a set of sofas and other furniture.

He paused, caught by an idea. Perhaps he could make use of those.

He’d brought things he’d not been sure he would use on her and yet maybe even then he’d known. They were too inextricably linked for him to ever say no to her.

Which was good.

He flipped open the case and smiled diabolically.

Good, because now he could have fun teasing her.

Chapter 34

She felt him check her hands where they were tied behind her and heard his hum of approval. A blindfold was wrapped about her eyes and she blinked in the dark, wondering. His large hand pushed her so that she had to bow at the waist and put her forehead to the cushion.

She let him, absorbed in being under his control, in being accepted despite the crazy fallout from her hasty decisions.

“I want to see you, Ella. All of you.”

He cut away her panties at the sides, with a knife she never knew he had. Naked. With her butt in the air. Something clipped to her collar and she was stuck there, attached to the floor.

“Torgeir?” she whispered.

“Hmm?”

“Is this... What are you doing?”

“You’re not to ask. Shhh.”

She’d agreed to this. She fell silent, until something wet and small began sucking on her nipple. Whatever it was simulated a tongue very well. Then her other nipple was treated the same. Then her clitoris, which felt as if whatever it was had the aim of extracting it from her body, slowly, with extreme dedication. Her gasps turned into whines, then she fell into gasping again and possibly moaning.

“What is –” She shuddered into almost an orgasm. Never. Not possible so quickly.

The little tongue-like slurping and pulling had her pussy clenching in.

He slipped something into her pussy, sliding it in so easily.

“Shhh. I like watching you come. This is a device designed for that. The guarantee said it could make a female come enough times to render her speechless, make her moan uncontrollably, and unable to walk. You don’t seem any of those. I’ll turn up the speed.”

The suction on her clit and nipples seemed to tow her to the floor. Her ass clenched in too. The thing inside her pulsed, madly, and she came, unexpectedly, puddling onto the floor even closer than the restraint on her neck took her.

“That was nice,” he said to her ear. “I think I prefer my fingers though.” The thing was removed from her and moments later she felt two or three of his fingers enter her instead. The sucking recommenced as he forced those fingers deeper.

She groaned and tried to recall how to breathe, to swallow, to shut her eyes. So difficult when waves of pleasure pounded at her, nonstop. Climax after climax tiptoed in, stormed in, ravaged her like there was no today, tomorrow, or yesterday.

Oh god. Stop already.

Suck, suck, thrust of fingers, widening her as they went deep.

Oh yes. Fingers were better.

Fuck, fuck, suck. Wet noises. Squelching. Was that her? Mouth open, kissing his hand as he put it there while his other hand penetrated to the deepest parts of her pussy, past where she’d thought they could fucking go, she rampaged into another orgasm. Small screams told her she was becoming unhinged. Stop, she told herself, and couldn’t.

Stop. Omigod.

She shuddered, always. Drooled some more onto his hand.

The fucking continued until she rocked, collapsed, and fell onto her side. Moaning. Oh yes, she was moaning. Uncontrollably.

“Now I know it works.” He kissed her ear and withdrew those dirty, invading...awesome fingers. “Let’s go somewhere else.”

He removed things from her then undid something near her nose, making clinking sounds. He scooped her up in his arms and carried her somewhere that was soft. She guessed it might be the arm of a sofa that she lay over. Which was fine. It let her rest, despite her face being lower than her ass and hearing him take off his clothes. Which surely meant he was finally going to fuck her. She needed that so much after what had happened. She squirmed, letting her clit rub on the arm of the sofa. She hoped and prayed he was about to insert cock A into her slot B, so she could explode with him inside her and not some weird alien orgasmatron device.

All was good...

Until he clipped something to her clit. It was firm yet soft in places, and had blunt teeth that gripped either side. The tension pulled on her. The teeth bit, a little, then more, and when she tried to pull away it grabbed her like a tiny alligator.

He’d fastened her clit to something. Randomly the teeth pulsed, tightened, and relaxed.

She flinched, twitched her wrists, wishing she could break free and grab the device, and found slowly, that she was liking this. So wrong and perverted.

“What is that?” she slurred, finding her speech wasn’t quite back to normal after those five zillion orgasms.

“Don’t move.” His voice was close, and as intimate and shocking as a beast growling at its pinned down prey. “Unless you want to hurt.”

“You wouldn’t.” She licked her lips, rolling her face to the side on the sofa.

“Hmmm. You’re mine to handle as I please today.” He bit her ass and she gasped, jerking, only to be forced still by the hold of the metal teeth. “And always.”

Scary. Torgeir was plumbing the unknown here but...trust. She knew he wouldn’t hurt her. This revelation seized her by the throat and shook her. Being his was her only need.

Vague shadows played on her blindfold as he stood. Sounds advertised the movements of his feet, a harbinger of lust to come.

Nothing centered her mind more than a man about to fuck her while she was bound and blindfolded, with her clit being molested by metal that was attached to some unknown object.

His hand wrapped into the rope above her arms and he hauled her back and up in spite of her screech as the alligator teeth bit. When he spoke, his mouth was close enough to warm her cheek.

“What do the people of your planet say when they mate forever?”

The jump in theme befuddled her. “Umm.” He was doing all this and he wanted marriage vows? “With this ring I thee wed?”

“Thank you.” He separated her legs with his hand and his cock edged into her, then he waited, with his thick cock there, twitching at her, nudging within the circle of her entrance, ready to violate her.

The very idea was potent. The second twitch his cock gave made her clench in reply and she whispered, “Oh.” Lust was incarnate in his flesh. His touch electric.

“Fuck me, please.” She sucked on her lip, wriggled a little, begging with more than words.

One of his hands clawed into her ass, stilling her.

“With my cock, Ella. With this cock...” He grappled the rope tighter, thrust into her a little. “I thee wed.” Then he slid into her to the very depths, pulsing into her, shoving through her flesh and making her his, connecting them as one. “I wed all of you, all your imperfections and all of your perfections. All of you, my Ella.”

Blinded, in blackness, she translated and knew beyond any doubt, his world was only her. As her world was him.

“Let me be your light, girl, forevermore.”

The fucking commenced in an incessant rhythm, an unchallengeable force that would only stop when he came.

She strained back at him, curving, was pummeled and rocked, and had her clit abused as she plummeted into orgasm. When he freed her clit from the teeth and kept fucking her, she lay spent on the sofa, panting, his soft vessel, his woman, while he mounted her and rutted.

There was making love and there was fucking with finesse. This was the latter.

His shaft slid home one last time and she felt the swell of his cock, in that moment before he came, then the more exquisite swell of his cum spurting into her pussy.

The force of that tingled jaggedly through her, unfurling like tendrils into every atom of her being. Intricate joy. Irrevocable.

She came again, writhing, her teeth locked in the sofa material as she strived to weather this strange new ecstasy.

Bondmated.

Torgeir lay over her, wrapped around her and still inside for a long while before he moved.

“Done.” His kiss stirred her hair then he placed more kisses on her sweaty back.

“My hands?” she murmured.

“Mmm. What a pity I have to untie you. You’re like a beautiful jeweled fucktoy with red rope on you.” But he sighed and began to untie her.

She grinned at his sentiment. “I liked the wedding vow.”

“It said what I needed to say.”

The last of the rope came off. The blindfold was slipped off her eyes and he climbed onto the sofa with her to spoon. “Just so you know, my Ella. If you ever run away from me again, I’m chaining you to me.”

“Hmmm.” She squirmed against him, appreciating his muscles and body at her back. “I think I’d like that.”

His hand smacked onto her ass. “Try me. I speak truth.”

Her smile spread through her, quietly, like the blossoming of a field of flowers in the warmth of spring sunshine. Finally, she’d found serenity with a man she adored.

They lay in comfortable silence, though to her it was also an exhausted silence. Her eyelids were drooping when he spoke again.

“I have a present for you. I brought it with me thinking, maybe, we had a chance.”

His arm rested over her and she found his hand and held it, fascinated by his fingers, by the weight of them, the warmth, by how they were his and she had the right to again hold them.

“I’m sorry for what I did. I don’t think I can ever say that enough.”

“Shhh. My gift. I brought you a new cybernetic foot to replace the one you have. I want to get rid of that one given you. I want you to wear mine.”

“I understand.” She still had the one Verok had given her. If she hadn’t been in the midst of hating herself so much, she would have replaced it herself. “Thank you.”

“It’s also time to tell you that Concer has had us under surveillance. They watched us. It was unavoidable as I had to convince them you were mine in every possible way.”

Fuck. No other word would do. “Now even?” She frowned out at the open wall and the rectangle of bright daylight.

“Yes.”

Some pervert was watching her now? Though really, she guessed she’d just been a pervert too. This was a Day of Perverts, it seemed. “Can we turn over?”

He chuckled. “No. I’m comfortable.”

She harrumphed and shut her eyes. “If this turns up on the universe’s equivalent of YouTube I will be most unhappy.”

“Poor thing.” He loosed his hand from hers and trailed his fingers down her side, tickling her. “You also have to do something for Concer. I’ll tell you what it is later. It’s important and will get them off your back, until they need your services again, I would think.”

That intrigued her. Whatever could it be?

Chapter 35

The ballroom below was packed with dancers, though most were no longer dancing and were looking up at Ella. The orchestra played the last notes. The platform the throne sat upon was hardly high enough to look regal so the engineers had constructed this island balcony. It was temporary, but good enough for speeches.

The castle was surprisingly neat and elegant with no signs that a gory battle had taken place here several months ago. The hole in the ceiling was gone, the chandeliers polished. The marble-like flooring was exquisitely shiny.

She could almost forget she had been here before having her foot surgically removed and bullets shot at her. Or that she’d ripped out bits of someone’s heart.

That had been...

The room paled as her blood seemed to flood from her head to her feet. She shivered. Torgeir stepped closer, his hand smoothing up and down the bare back of her white gown.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes.” Ella sucked in air. “Yes. I can do this.” Her foot was no longer the Verok version. She had a man by her side, they loved each other fiercely, and she was stronger than any wan, flower-plucking and singing girl with a butterfly fixation.

As she turned to survey the audience, the delicate layers trimming the bottom of her gown swished against her thighs. The internal comm whispered go in her ear and she straightened.

This ballroom was for show. Out there, listening, were the rest of the people of the Meek Crusade, in their thousands of ships, almost a million cyborgs or cybernetically enhanced people. If they kept going, in their slow but inexorable advance, the crusade would end up at Earth and, by the time they reached it, it would resemble the descent of a cloud of locusts on a tender crop of corn. Nothing would be left. Every system they went through suffered riots and shortages as supplies were strained. Every system added more ships, more people.

“People of the crusade. I am here as simply Ella, a cyborg like you, a woman wronged by the man who began this quest to reach Earth and perhaps inherit it. I was kidnapped, forced to accept surgery, and threatened with forced bondmating in order to further that one man’s dream of what his life should contain. He wanted a princess from Earth and thought I should be his.

“He was so very wrong, as I’m sure you will agree.

“I can tell you also that his idea of journeying to Earth is a false desire. Earth is no magic planet that will fix all your wrongs. Those among you who have listened to the news will understand what this crusade does to the systems it passes through. You will do the same to Earth. You will not be a blessing. You will not be welcomed. You will destroy what you go to worship.”

There were grumbles from below. The hard truth was not being welcomed. She knew her powers well by now and subtly began to exert them, not just on these people closest to her, but on whoever listened to her speech at this moment in time. The slowing of the signal was unavoidable by the laws of physics, but it would be effective enough.

“Earth is not the answer, but I can tell you what can be, if...if you are prepared to work for it. But we all know that hard work and persistence, love and respect for others, is what is truly the answer to most questions.

“There are now thousands of planets devoid of humanity because the Bak-lal killed or transformed those they captured. Those planets are ready for new life, new owners, ready for people willing to do what is needed to make them their home. Concer will give tracts of land to any who step forward, and if you wish to fight to clear one of the still-infested planets, you will gain even more. The choice is yours. Take this chance. Be someone you can be proud of and make a place, a home, for yourselves, your children, and your descendants for thousands of years to come.”

She put everything into her final words through her empathic and persuasive communication powers.

“I and my bondmate, Torgeir Rakkel, will be joining you.” She raised her hand and the crowd below raised theirs also. “I hope to see some of the brave among you on Jorburr 5.

“Good evening, and thank you for listening!”

The cheering was deafening and followed her and Torgeir as they left via the small footbridge.

“Well done!” He squeezed her hand. “Well done, my love. Though it’s premature, I think you’ve saved the lives of millions.”

“I hope so.” She beamed the biggest smile ever but after a few steps her idea brought her to somberness again.

“Have you seen Mimi lately?” she asked, going off on a tangent while she found her bravery.

“Yes. She’s stuck on the bulkhead in the galley ceiling in Zeus. The cook is worried.”

“I see. Tell him not to catch her then.”

“Already done.”

“Good. Ummm, I have something else to ask of you.”

“Yes?”

He stopped in the hallway and turned to her, taking both her hands and kissing the knuckles of one. “Tell me, beautiful girl.”

This might not go down well.

“I wish to try to fight the Bak-lal if you still go out there to clean up more planets.” She knew he wanted to do that, though it made her fearful.

His mouth tightened. “Why. What can you do? Ohhh...” The light had dawned perhaps. “Your powers?” He looked at her from beneath his brows.

“Yes. Those. I know it may not work but if it does, I could greatly weaken factory queens. I want to do this.” She added quietly, with conviction, “I need to. Please.”

His frown slowly died to be replaced by consternation and sympathy. Torgeir gathered her into his arms. “Okay. We can see if Concer can test you for this. The factory queens may have nothing of compatibility with your powers though. If so, I will make you stay home and safe.”

She nodded, pleased with this. “I agree. Thank you.”

“Yes. I’d rather you stay home and make me babies, but...” He sighed dramatically.

“If I bite you, it will be totally deserved.”

“True.” She felt his laughter though he was silent.

“There’s something I should say to you, my sir, that I should have said long ago.” She glanced downward, past his arm, at the metal contours below her ankle. Her new foot tucked neatly into her black, high-heeled shoe. “When I lost my foot, I resented this so much, having to be a true cyborg. I wanted to be human, as I had been. It made me despair, all those months we were apart, and losing you too –”

“Heyyy.” He tilted up her chin and kissed her. “You know you will always be my one and only, yes? You’re my Ella. I love you as you are.”

“I do now. I do.” She blinked back tears. “But...what I wanted to say is that this foot you’ve given me, I don’t care what it looks like. If I never get artificial skin, I will still wear it proudly because it’s what you gave me. That will always be enough for me – that it’s your gift.”

Then she rose on her toes and kissed him, slowly and intricately, until she was breathing fast.

“Good. I want to make you happy. I don’t care about that at all. Even if you get a metal butt, I won’t care...well, maybe that would bother me. You have such a great butt.” He squeezed her to him and, with his chin resting on her head, he said softly, “Be happy or else.”

She giggled. “Shhh.”

“Come, my princess, we have much to do. Planets to make safe. And later on I have to molest you again. So much molesting and all so I can admire my bondmark upon your pretty breasts.”

She smiled, holding his hand as they walked along the carpet. Her nanogeers scampered along her digits to the skin of his palm only to return at her urging. Her awareness expanded to encompass all those who might fall under her aegis, if she so chose. She had skills and powers but, with Torgeir to help her, she would steer a righteous path through the universe.

The warmth of his hand in hers would forever remind her of his beautiful heart.

She raised his hand and pressed her lips to the back of his fingers. She wanted to tell him how much he meant to her. She wanted the best words. There were long, devout words she might use, words dedicated to love. She rejected those. She let him embrace her hand again and sneaked her little finger between two of his, because that made her feel she belonged to him.

When she leaned her head on his shoulder, she knew what to say.

“You mean everything to me.” Then she added in a whisper, “My love.”

His answer was in his glance and the brief glistening of his eyes, and in the way he interwove their fingers so firmly she’d need the strength of a giant to undo them.

Sometimes the simplest words were the best.

About Cari Silverwood

Cari Silverwood is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling writer of kinky darkness or sometimes of dark kinkiness, depending on her moods and the amount of time she's spent staring into the night. She has a lethal curiosity that makes her want to upend plots and see what falls out when you shake them.

When others are writing bad men doing bad things, you may find her writing good men who accidentally on purpose fall into the abyss and come out with their morals twisted in knots.

If you’d like to learn more go to www.carisilverwood.net

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Also by Cari Silverwood

Preyfinders Series

Precious Sacrifice (Originally published in the anthology, Kept)

Intimidator

Defiler

Preyfinders – The Trilogy.

Squirm Files Series

Squirm – virgin captive of the billionaire biker tentacle monster

Strum – virgin captive of the billionaire demon rock star monster

The Well-hung Gun – virgin captive of the billionaire were-squid gunslinger monster

Pierced Hearts Series

(Dark erotic fiction)

Take me, Break me

Klaus

Bind and Keep me

Make me Yours Evermore

Seize me From Darkness

Yield

Pierced Hearts Volume 1 – contains books #1, #2 and #3

Pierced Hearts Volume 2 – contains books #2 and #3

Pierced Hearts Volume 3 – contains books #4 and #5

The Badass Brats Series

The Dom with a Safeword

The Dom on the Naughty List

The Dom with the Perfect Brats

The Dom with the Clever Tongue

Cataclysm Blues Series

Cataclysm Blues

(A free erotic scifi novella)

The Steamwork Chronicles Series

Iron Dominance

Lust Plague

Steel Dominance

Others

31 Flavors of Kink

Three Days of Dominance

Rough Surrender

(Released by Momentum, an eBook branch of Pan Macmillan)

Blood Glyphs

Table of Contents

- Acknowledgements

- Chapter 1
- Chapter 2
- Chapter 3
- Chapter 4
- Chapter 5
- Chapter 6
- Chapter 7
- Chapter 8
- Chapter 9
- Chapter 10
- Chapter 11
- Chapter 12
- Chapter 13
- Chapter 14
- Chapter 15
- Chapter 16
- Chapter 17
- Chapter 18
- Chapter 19
- Chapter 20
- Chapter 21
- Chapter 22
- Chapter 23
- Chapter 24
- Chapter 25
- Chapter 26
- Chapter 27
- Chapter 28
- Chapter 29
- Chapter 30
- Chapter 31
- Chapter 32
- Chapter 33
- Chapter 34
- Chapter 35
- About Cari Silverwood