He disposed of the sheath.
She was still whimpering and finally he remembered and turned off the Mark 6 Accuator, as the label called it. He should get one of these.
JI undid all the buckles, massaged her where they’d bit then carried his limp and panting pet-girl to the bed and crashed, rolling himself into her back.
He soothed her with whispers, kissed her skin. All she did, after her breathing calmed and her shivering died, was to lick his hand and pull it into her chest.
After a while he knew she’d slipped into sleep.
He didn’t dare check her for damage. If she cried about anything, he would.
For now, a peek at her butt ensured him there was no obvious blood.
He’d done well, he thought, smelling her.
Hadn’t damaged her, had reined himself in.
Mostly.
Chapter 27
The mechling woke her, tapping a tiny paw on her nose. Blinking away sleep, Fern stared a moment before this registered.
It’d come in past the barriers. Though really for a mechling that’d be easy. Many of them could go up walls.
This one had been a child’s toy and on Earth would be mistaken for a long-furred skunk crossed with a dog – if a skunk were green and white. Its tail swished on the chaos of the bedding. Also it was one of the three that’d gained a power cell from JI.
Had she even washed after the sex? Ugh. No.
JI was snoring – yet another bad human attribute he’d adopted, like fucking her into orgasmic unconsciousness, tying her up…she shivered as the delicious memory awakened aches and pains below. Those were his nice attributes.
Finally, she summoned her sensible brain cells and whispered, “Yes?” to the mechling.
*I have a message, from Aunt M. Recorded by him. He came to me outside, said you and JI must have this immediately.*
*Go ahead.* She rubbed her eyes, blinked some more.
*I will replay it for you.*
*Wow. I hadn’t known you could record like this.*
*Most of us can. Before I was removed from the landship, there was a legal problem where a recording from within a House was used.*
*Okay.* She had no clue as to what that meant. *Go on.*
The recording began:
I have found where Judge Ormrad is hiding. It is underground and difficult to access. My research found no evidence of a functioning JI mech, though he is trying to restore one. To succeed in capturing him, I will need assistance from you. Some scavs also, I hope. Twenty or fifteen men should be enough. I worry he may move on soon. Meet me at the co-ordinates that follow, and we can finally destroy this danger.
Fern memorized the co-ordinates, then slipped from the bed and hobbled to where JI had piled clothes and gear. For her vagina to not hurt would be asking too much? A pen would be another thing to wish for.
She scratched the numbers into timber using the tip of a knife.
*Thank you. You can go. Do you have a name?*
*No. I have been thinking. Suggestions are welcome.*
*Skunk?*
No one here knew it was a smelly creature.
*I shall be Skunk from now on.*
With a rustle of tail, it leapt through a hole in a wall and vanished. She could hear it skittering upward.
She perched on the bedding and shook JI’s shoulder, only to find his eye was already open.
“Hello.” That’d come out in her shy voice. As if last night was something new.
Maybe it was.
He reached and took her hand, covered it with his. “We had a visitor?”
“A mechling. It gave me a message. I gather Aunt M found it outside the city, delivered the message, told Skunk to give it to you and me, then he left again. Odd?”
“A little.” He sat up, the bedding shifting off his chest and revealing everything of note in a man. JI had inherited a gloriously male body. She’d drool over his sculpted chest and abs, the bulge of muscle in his arms, no matter what else he did. “Tell me everything.”
She rattled off the whole message from memory.
“I think that’s it. I also wrote the numbers down over there. Scratched them into the chair seat.”
“Okay. I suppose he was in a hurry? That seems logical if he was worried the judge may move. Getting past the guards at the barrier might’ve triggered some shooting also, if they spotted him. Ten or twenty men though, when Ryke thinks he has a hundred?”
“You thought Aunt M could handle the judge by himself.”
“Yes. I did say that. In an open field, he could.” He clambered from the bed. “I’m not going to fail him twice.”
“Wait.” Fern held up her hand. “Stop. I never knew that number before either. There’s no point if you’re just going to get killed.” She pressed on her chest, as if that’d dull the ache that’d sprung up.
“I will take this slowly, discuss it with him first. Meet, discuss. Before we attempt anything. You know this. You know me.”
She did. Even so… “I’m coming though. Try to stop me and I will commandeer a…something, your jaggs, because you’re going to have to leave them, aren’t you? I will follow.” She folded her arms.
“You defy me?” His lips quivered. “You are as bad as the jaggs, as a pet.”
“You called me a pet girl.” Served him right. She cocked her head. Being meek wouldn’t help her here, and she was not staying behind. Bad things were as likely here as with JI. He was her good luck charm, her lover, and more.
“You admit this? Then I will chain you to the door step and wash you naked in the street. Like any pet. Submit to this and you can come.”
Her mouth dropped open.
Still, why not? It would attract people, words would be shouted, dirty ones, but JI would be there.
And be fucking arousing to have him running his hands over her out in the street. From the heat in his eyes he knew this.
“Very well,” she said quietly. “I will submit to this if I can come.”
“Come?” he smirked. “What a good idea. I will arrange for some buckets of sea water.”
Oh fuck. What idea had he just thought up?
Which was how she ended up wet and naked in the street, with a crowd watching and cheering while JI held the accuator between her legs and made her orgasm.
Choking on the aftermath, shivering, hair dripping with water, she was kept leashed there until he returned from arranging the journey. No one dared touch her, but she knew all their degenerate thoughts, because they told her them.
“How are you, pet girl?” JI went to a knee and fisted her hair to make her look at him. “Still want to come?”
She licked her lips. “Yes. I do. I follow you wherever you go.”
“Good.” Then he leaned down and kissed her fully on the lips, devouring her resistance, passion in every move of tongue and lips, every tightening of his fingers in her hair. Without fuss, he slipped a finger into her and she melted at the burst of sensation. “I’m glad.” He nipped her ear. “My cock is so hard I fear it would burst without you to put it inside.”
She shuddered into a breath then kissed him, softly, once, twice. “Good.”
JI chuckled. “Get dressed in the new pants and shirt you find inside. Eat the food. I have four vehicles promised to me. We leave in an hour with weapons, nine scavs, three grounders, and three mekkers.” He removed his fingers and she almost wished he hadn’t. Then he draped a towel over her, drying her hair as he spoke. “You may wear underclothes this time.”
“Thank you.” The amusement they exchanged when their eyes met was utterly new. As if they’d discovered a unique and wondrous wavelength to communicate on.
“Until I tear them off you.”
“Oh.” She swallowed. This was going to be an interesting trip.
It was only once she was dressed and armed and sat down to eat the bread, preserved meat, and fruit left for her that Fern remembered what she had volunteered for – to seek out the judge. That sobered he
r instantly.
However…
Life was nothing without risk, and she was beginning to feel it would be nothing without JI.
Chapter 28
Three mechlings also came with them. Like everyone else, they’d volunteered. She couldn’t, and wouldn’t, make them come. Fern had been unsure whether she should ask them, but JI had thought it wise. Being small, stealthy, and able to talk to her at a distance, they would make good scouts. JI had reluctantly decided to let the jaggs bond to another person, if they would. Since he’d gained them because they thought Sawyer and Ari were dead, a blood bond was not as difficult to achieve as it might’ve been.
The scavs revered the jaggs, and the new owner would take great care with them, providing they didn’t try to eat him – JI had informed her solemnly. He’d made her laugh with that comment, and she did wonder if that had been his first deliberate joke.
Still learning how to human…
Some days he seemed a cross between her perfect Dom and a teenager.
Whether the jaggs would come back to him on his return, it was difficult to say.
Pilf had tried to volunteer, but JI had refused him. Those scavs and grounders he’d accepted were mostly unknown to her, but they were also, she came to realize, the most selfless ones, those who could see past the previous acrimony toward a new co-operative future.
They didn’t stop driving for two days – sleeping in the back of the scav vehicles, among the rattling equipment, taking turns at scouting or driving. She found herself snoozing with her head on JI’s shoulder some days, or he slept with his head on her lap. On the last night, before they’d likely hit the co-ords given by Aunt M, they stopped to rest, pulling over into a copse of small trees. The fires were shielded and low, in the middle of a space marked out by the parked vehicles.
It still shocked her to see mekkers, scavs, and grounders in proximity to each other and not trying to do something bad. Two of the scavs were women – Klister, with her white long gun with a scythelike attachment, and a woman with a half-shaved head who called herself Dart. Even though they were free, and she was seen as not, they’d happily nodded to her, chatted about some of their exploits, and even showed her their scars from battle.
She hadn’t yet figured out if they were flirting or just friendly.
When they’d finished eating, JI pulled her to him, and walked to a spot as far from the others as one could get.
“I have saved this.” He pulled the bottle of rotgut wine from the satchel he carried. “Let’s drink and talk. I find…I want to talk to you.”
After he’d poured some wine into two metal cups and given her one, JI sat with his back to one of the wheels, looking across the dying campfire.
“Come.” He invited her into his arms, holding them out to her, and she smiled and settled there, snuggling in. Big warm man. Wine, or whatever the hell this stuff was. Beautiful night in the wilderness with two moons drifting through the foliage above.
If tomorrow wasn’t so iffy, she might think herself in paradise.
It took a while and some swallowing of the wildly potent alcohol before he shifted and said, “Shall I begin?”
“What would you like to talk about, JI?”
“You don’t mind talking?”
“No.” She shook her head. “It’s how humans get across their thoughts to others. We are islands without this, talking.”
“That sounds almost something Shakespeare might say.”
She chuckled. “JI, I want to hear everything about you. Everything. I realized back in Owler that you might need some help figuring out the craziness of being what you are now. I will listen and pass no judgment.”
“Okay. Well. Every day that passes, I find some new doubt, some new fear even.”
“Go on. Such as? We all fear. I told you that.”
“Yes. So many things. I forced you into a blood contract. I almost regret that. It was wrong was it not?”
What a question. Now he had he wondering. “Morally, yeessss. Wrong on my world, for sure. Here on Aerthe?” Strange but she could see how it might be acceptable, correct for his situation. “Maybe it wasn’t?”
“Are you sure you can help?”
She snorted at that, then dug an elbow into his ribs and he caught it.
“Do that again and I will spank you.”
“You know that’s not a punishment for me, right?” Luckily her smirk was not visible to him.
“I can make it so. However, Fern, this is yet another aspect that concerns me. I like hurting you.” Agony twisted his voice. “I have such awful visons of things to do to you when we have sex, or not. When you touch me, or walk past. I wish to bind you until helpless, fuck you hard…whip you and making your rear end red. You know I’ve even thought of choking you. This must be wrong?”
“Oh.” She cleared her throat. Getting turned on was the wrong answer, for once. “Not if you’re doing this…not if you care and are determined not to hurt me more than I want. And somehow you always stop, just when it gets too much.”
“I see. Caring is the key?”
“For me, yes. A lot of men have such desires. Women also. It’s normal. Really. It’s bad when you don’t care if you truly damage your partner.” Like the judge. She twisted her mouth, made herself go back on course.
“As you know, I do worry it is remnants of Osta causing this.”
“Has he spoken to you, in your head? No. If it is this, yet it makes you happy, gives you and I pleasure, then to hell with that idea. It ceases to matter. You, me” – she took up his hand – “are what matter. Only us.”
Ye gods, this was getting so lover bird, so happy couple talk that abruptly it scared her.
Not Earth. She was not on Earth.
Then JI kissed her. That touch of lips to lips calmed her so thoroughly she sighed when he was done.
“So, there, you have done away with my worst problem. Fixed.”
“Good.” She drank some wine. “Is that everything you wanted to say? I will always be here if you want an opinion.”
“I think so, maybe?”
“Here’s a few pretty clear guidelines. War is bad, no matter the reason. People need heroes. Like you, going off to help M.” She was rambling, but somewhere in there was some sense. “Always try to learn from your mistakes.” He did that anyway. “While there’s life, there’s hope. Perfection is rare if not impossible. How’s that?”
“Good. I will remember your words.” He poured the last of the wine into their cups.
Now she was damn Gandhi or something. “Can I ask you a question about what happened on the beach that last day?”
Though he stiffened a little, he said, “Of course.”
She thought through how it had affected her, and it was such a vague and fluffy memory that she floundered. “When you spoke, commanded them to be nice to each other, and said we’d be going to New Hope, there was this twisting feeling. I remembered being fine and happy and clear-headed, then wham. Well, not a wham, more like a sweet, warm wave. It seems stupid to ask, but did you do anything odd?”
She gave him time, and finally he moved to the side and searched in his pants. He presented his hand to her, palm-up. A white crystal lay there.
“What is that?”
“It’s a type of waik crystal, I think. I found it on the beach, and it was black then. I had a habit of fondling my old power cells – don’t laugh – and this gave me the same nice sensation. Familiar, comforting…you probably have no idea what I mean?”
She shook her head, impatient to hear his story. “No. I don’t.”
“That day I reached for this, and when I spoke, I felt something, maybe what you did. After that, I found it’d turned white.”
Cautiously, she poked the crystal with her finger, and registered nothing special, just the warmth of JI’s body heat. “I feel nothing.”
“You looked as if you were half-asleep that day.” He tucked the crystal into his pocket again. “Don’t say anything about
this. It may not have happened as we thought. Besides, if the scavs suspect I influenced them –”
“I get it. I won’t.”
Something to wonder about though. If he did change their minds, and hers, using some sort of waik power, was it safe? Would it last even? And if she ever saw another black one, would she give it to JI? Worse, what if it was something others could do?
The power in that could be devastating and produce a Hitler on Aerthe, an orator from Hell. And maybe it was all imaginary.
“Will it last, though? If it was artificial?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know enough to tell.”
The last embers were dying in the fires. They should get to sleep. Tomorrow was the judge. Fern shivered.
“Promise you will be extra careful tomorrow, JI.”
“I will. I always am. Let’s go find our beds.”
“I need to go pee.”
“Then I will watch to make sure nothing eats you.”
“Mmm.” She found herself smiling, then laughing silently. Practical as ever. What would she ever do without him?
“I do still have secrets, Fern.”
She climbed from his lap, turned to face him. “It’s okay. You’ll tell me when you can. I trust you.”
Trust was a big word for her. As big as her heart, soul, all of her.
“And I trust you.” He patted her knee. “I’ll keep you safe, tomorrow. Just do what I say to.”
“Of course.”
Chapter 29
On the third day of traveling they had almost reached the co-ordinates Aunt M had left and they stopped, disembarked from the vehicles.
Forest here too. They’d barely left the tree cover.
Fern scanned the top of the forest, then the broad spaces between the trunks. Beyond those she could discern a clear plateau before the land dropped away into a valley. Past that, a long way past, the land rose again into a fuzzy green hillside.
“If the judge is underground, we think he’s in that valley somewhere.” JI’s long gun was grasped in one hand and he bore a keen-eyed, determined expression. She had no doubt he’d planned this well, had seen him conferring with the others.
Exquisite Possession: A Dark Scifi Romance (The Machinery of Desire Book 4) Page 16
