Acquired Possession (The Machinery of Desire Book 1)

by Cari Silverwood

  This whole day was an abomination. Ormrad had said he was treating Fern’s attack as that of a free person, but if that was what free people could do to each other, how far could they go with slaves? To infinity and fucking beyond.

  She’d survive this day, at least. One day at a time. One step at a time.

  “Come.” Mako smacked her butt then strode past.

  She almost...almost punched him back. Bad idea. Emery unclenched her fist. Then, for all of a second, she considered staying where she was, but she sighed and followed.

  Chapter 2

  Mako led her across the park toward the bazaar. Heaven knew why she thought bazaar except that the scents and sights had a Middle Eastern flavor – exotic appearance, erotic silks and clothing, bright colors, slaves both robotic as well as the people of this world. Scavs? Grounders? Those names had been said in her presence.

  Slaves... She’d never thought of robots as slaves, yet if they could be intelligent, was that not what they were? From what interactions she’d had so far, the mechlings were close to sentient.

  What was sun-mad? Could humans get that affliction?

  When Mako stopped at the opposite edge of the park, by a bed of purple, daisy-like flowers and a streetlight pole, she nearly ran into his back. A rather broad and sweaty back it was too – beneath the rough fabric they used for everyday clothes. Dark brown shirt, black pants with the colors smudged into shades in a sort of camouflage.

  Wherever did he go that required that? Beneath the mountains in Lord of the Rings land where dwarves lurked, banging pickaxes on dragon’s gold? Her reading preferences had birthed some weird ideas for a café waitress and Goth band guitar player.

  Some music would cheer this place up.

  When Mako turned, she found herself peering up, with her nose almost to his skin...or rather, his shirt. He smelled both masculine and pungent, like a man that’s been outside gardening for far too long and needed...

  Her nose wrinkled. “You need a bath, man.”

  His eyebrows climbed though his eyes remained glacial.

  She stepped back, confused. Why had she thought gardening? Mako probably shot people for breakfast then ate them.

  “Your mouth needs to learn discipline, as do you. I told you I would correct you for disrespecting me. It’s best to learn early, unless you want to face what your friend will.”

  How easily he frightened her.

  Reminding her of Fern brought sourness to her mouth and she glanced away. Herself, Ashleigh, Sawyer, Fern...all of them staying at the hotel for Fern’s wedding and now they were here.

  Their disappearance would’ve made the news. Fern’s fiancée hadn’t been taken. It was sickening that any of them had been.

  While she was lost, trying to process the insane cruelty of everything since that day, he trapped her hands in his. She wrenched to pull free, but he kept his hold. When he began to haul her closer, she tried to run backward. Her feet slipped on the grass, her forearm muscles burning, her heart accelerating.

  Casually, he moved his fingers across and clicked the cuffs together. “Be still.”

  “I –” She stilled, though.

  “Think. Where will you go? Nowhere.”

  Chest heaving, caught by his steady gaze as much as his hands, she ran through options. Resisting had accomplished nothing. He’d been unmoved by her struggles, was too quick, too strong. Even if she could slip away, the thought of being pursued and then some worse punishment scared her more than she could stomach.

  She needed to stay below the radar...and not call him names again. Wait for opportunities. She let her muscles slacken, hating this but having no sensible choice.

  “Good. Now. Learn.”

  The place where her cuffs joined fascinated her. Undoing that snap link looked simple. Even as she thought that, he towed her hands upward.

  At the end of his move, she almost hit her limit, with her body stretched taut so she had to balance on tiptoes. Gasping, finding her chest muscles laboring due to the stretch, she heard metal jangle. Above, he’d attached the cuffs to a chain that hung from a thick black pole. What she’d assumed to be a light pole was not one. There was nothing at the top except a hook and the chain.

  “It’s an anchoring point. For slaves to be hung by when their masters wish to punish them in public.”

  He let her go and she teetered, the pull on her arms uncomfortable but bearable. Most of all, this was embarrassing. People stopped and stared. People gathered, slowly, in a circle about her...them.

  Mako seemed oblivious to the audience, apart from a boy – he beckoned then spoke to him, gave the boy something. Coins? The boy ran off.

  Hands on hips, he observed her small circle as she walked her toes on the ground. “If you say ‘fuck you’ or ‘asshole’ again, or disrespect me in your language or mine, it will be unwise. Understand?”

  She pressed her lips together. Answer him and be cowed? Or don’t answer and be rebellious and something would happen that she already feared. Saying fuck you featured dearly.

  “I think I neglected something. You are far too clothed for a slave.” He put his hand to the neckline of her mid-thigh length dress. He dragged on the cloth and his fingers grazed her cleavage, then he drew a knife, held it up before her eyes.

  “I...yes, I understand.” Her fingers wrapped around the metal chain and she managed to shrink all of an inch from the approaching blade, denting her back into the cold metal pole.

  “Too late. My first lesson in obedience. If you move, I will cut you.” Then he twisted his hand in the cloth, brought the knife’s edge to the neckline, and began to cut.

  She couldn’t have stayed stiller without ceasing to breathe. Moving her breasts when he had the blade ripping downward? No. The knife was far too near to her skin, so close she imagined the cold, fine slice of the edge every inch of the way down her chest. He reached her waist then went back up and grabbed a handful of the white bandeau top they’d given her for a bra. The blade was fast; the cloth fell away. Her nipples scrunched tighter in the cool air, under the greedy gazes of the crowd...the gaze of Mako. He’d paused in his cutting of her dress.

  Anger seethed, boiling high... She mustn’t. Should be quiet.

  Fuck should. “Like what you see, you fucktard?”

  Maybe fucktard had been lost in translation? If not, fuck him sideways. She could go down like a mouse or go down fighting.

  “Unwise again,” he murmured. His hand gripped the front of her throat and squeezed until she coughed. “I do like. We are all wondering if your shiny hair also shines over your cunt. The more you curse, the more I do to you.”

  She wavered. What did it mean to be scared when everything was just wrong? She wanted to wet herself in fear, she wanted to hit him and scream in his face, wanted to scream at the crowd that she was a person and not their morning amusement. She wanted to be anywhere but here.

  Her legs might tremble but she’d said what she had to. Maybe because she knew this would get harder to do the longer she was here. Soon, if he had his way, and she was afraid he would, she would lose her courage. She would cherish this time – a memory of when she still had balls.

  “Go fuck your putra wife, man. You work for a master too. You’re a slave too.”

  Putra was the only insult she could recall in Mekkian. It was bad, but how bad? Her legs were aching, as were her toes, her arms. Saying that had been worth it.

  The draw of his hand warned her. She still wasn’t ready when his slap snapped her head sideways, then he slapped her again, on the other side. Unexpected and forceful enough to make her face feel violated. To make her doubt herself.

  She opened her mouth, worked her jaw. Pain sprang up in prickles then became a throb. He hadn’t been joking. She blinked away the wetness in her eyes, sniffed. The need to swallow was almost overwhelming but she held it back. To signal her weakness horrified her.

  “Now you see?” He stepped away and studied her, leaving her alone and hanging, the cut
dress revealing her to the waist. A breeze cooled her and made the cloth gently tap at her skin – the gentleness a mockery after his violence.

  “She called my wife a putra,” he told the crowd. “After I told her not to insult me.” They laughed and he waited for the noise to die. “I have no wife, slave.”

  “Emery.” She’d forced herself to speak. Being silent would make her feel even more shame.

  “You earn a name. So far you have earned nothing, slave, except harder punishment.”

  His stare was intense, and she couldn’t cover herself. It was just flesh, skin. Meant zero.

  He stepped in with the knife and positioned the point above her belly button. It dug in. Pain flared.

  “Hey,” she whispered, trying not to squirm. “I’m valuable.”

  “Are you? Look at that. Blood.” He seemed to incrementally increase the pressure.

  He’d stop soon; he had to.

  Must.

  Surely he must.

  When he drew away the knife, she’d been holding her breath for so long it left her gasping.

  “I can do many things and not alarm your owner. You don’t know what it is about you we value. Getting cut? That’s nothing.”

  Chill washed her skin. Nothing?

  Mako sheathed the knife.

  Instead he took hold of each side of her dress then tore the material the rest of the way, until the dress was in two halves and the fabric brushed her thighs. He cut off her panties and threw them to the crowd. The man who caught them grinned and licked her underwear while she watched. Her mouth twisted in disgust.

  “Your people have serious problems.” But she’d said that quietly to take her mind off thinking about being naked.

  He walked back and forth, examining her.

  “You have a strange shape to the hair above your cunt.”

  Her slapped face burned more intensely. She’d had her pubic hair lasered into a thin triangle that pointed down, never considering she might end up on a strange world amusing this stupid man and a crowd of assholes.

  “That will have to be removed, though it is the same red. Nice. Now we all know.”

  “F...”

  Fuck you wavered on her lips.

  “Uh-uh.” Mako crowded her, reached up and wrapped his hands over her wrists. Together, they swayed a little. “Bad idea.”

  Eyes wide, she cursed herself silently. He was a man with some power over her. A lot of power. At some point she had to rein in her impulses.

  She lowered her eyes, working out what to do, mouth tense, and finally she said nothing.

  “You learn.” He dwelled on his triumph, leaning over her. Then he kissed her forehead. The gentle gesture puzzled her. “Good. Very good. You know, I have a purpose here. Two things are to be done.”

  He straightened then, without preamble, he crushed her nipples between his fingers and thumbs, drawing them outward while maintaining that agonizing grip.

  Emery winced and arched her back, following the pull.

  “To punish and show you that disrespect in any way is not tolerated. To hear you say this same thing. I’m not letting you down until you say what I need to hear.”

  The pressure increased until she had to squirm, and increased again until his finger grip was fire and she feared he’d injure her permanently, tear her skin.

  “I...understand. I said that already!”

  “You did?” He inclined his head. “More.”

  “I don’t know what you want!” Idiot. Wrapping her fingers into the chain helped her to focus, to resist. But not forever. She whined at the pain then babbled out more words. Her toes screwed into the grass. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry! I won’t do it again – disrespect you. I understand it now.”

  “Am I your master?”

  Oh, now that was impossible to get past her throat. Almost impossible. Temporary, temporary, she thought as she said what he wanted. “Yes...you are my master.”

  Vomit and spit.

  Mako released her, stepped back, and held out his hand to the side. The boy he’d spoken to earlier put something into that hand, something metallic, something with claws. “Now, we have the punishment. Now you find out what it is we value in humans.”

  That hadn’t been the punishment?

  When he used finger and thumb in the scissor-grip handles, the claws of the palm-sized device gaped open.

  “Almost every fluid in your body contains a substance that helps us to stay healthy. More than our other slaves, the Grounders or Scavs. They have a fraction of what your human bodies carry. A quarter, a fifth maybe? That is why you are precious.”

  He stepped in until face to face with Emery and murmured his words in that lethal undertone, like a street dog that’s cornered prey in an alley.

  “Your blood.” His gaze dipped to her neck, her breasts, then raised and met hers again. “Your spit.” His fingers curled down her lower lip then pushed at her teeth, forcefully, worming in, until she had to open. Two thick fingers slid to the back of her tongue.

  They both knew she wouldn’t dare bite him.

  While he watched, she choked until tears welled and she tried to toss her head from side to side. He removed his fingers and wiped the residue on her cheeks. “Your tears too, though the substance is very dilute in them. And also... Down here.”

  His hand brushed over her belly, her mound, then his fingers found her slit and pushed along, back and forth, playing there, parting her lips, making her wet.

  Mako smiled at the alarm in her eyes. “It’s good to know the researchers were right. Humans respond well to touch. Your cunt is less potent than blood but it’s still good. You’re wet in such little time.”

  He turned and raised his arms, displayed his wet fingers as if amazed. “This slave did not know her blood, her mouth, and cunt are life-givers! Would you like to taste her?”

  They cheered loudly, and more men drifted over from the bazaar, attracted by the noise and his words.

  She shut her eyes, wanting to shrink into the pole at her back.

  “Would you like me to do this?” The device hung in Mako’s hand by his side, and he opened and closed the claws, making clicking noises. “Or would you like all of them? What is your choice? Me.” He tapped his chest. “Them.” He pointed at the leering crowd.

  Fuck him to infinity. The choice was obvious. Her nostrils flared; most likely her eyes did too, as she struggled with what she had to say. “You.”

  “And who am I?”

  “My master.”

  This was going to be more humiliating than anything he’d yet done, but she would get past this, move on.

  “I am happy to know this!” He turned, addressed the crowd, with his arms held wide. “I will apply the retractor. However! And this is obvious. I never obey slaves. So you all get to taste her! Fingers and tongues only! No damage to her!”

  Her mouth fell open. What?

  The gathered crowd roared.

  Happy, celebrating, fucking crowd.

  Futilely, she tried to worm her wrists from the cuffs. Nowhere to run. Nowhere on this world to go.

  “Once only! You touch her once only!”

  He was named aptly. “Bastard. You bastard.” The words were whispered so low he wouldn’t hear, but it was small compensation. Though she detested showing vulnerability, she whimpered as they closed in.

  She’d find a way to free herself, one day soon.

  “Give her some more slack on that chain.” Some random man lowered the chain above until she stood easily on flat feet. Her legs, her whole body shook.

  Mako went to one knee before her. “Open your legs unless you want me to tie them apart and allow more men in the queue.”

  Such a hard, dispassionate voice. The man was a rock, not a person.

  Jaw clenched and pretending she wasn’t naked and about to be violated – trying not to see the men surrounding her, though at the last she gave in and closed her eyes – she let out a long sigh and shuffled her legs apart.

&nbs
p; The crunch as his boot settled and shifted on the grass, then his fingers on her, the discomfort as the rounded claws sank into her labia, the click as the thing ratcheted open, the tight pain of the stretch that seemed almost about to tear her... With cord, he tied the scissor-grip to her waist. Maybe, if she held her breath for long enough, she’d pass out.

  The first man to sink a finger inside her left it there for ages while he licked at her... Once to him was mutable. The next was faster; the third had such big fingers she squeaked.

  This wasn’t erotic, wasn’t vaguely close to a turn-on...until she opened her eyes and found Mako standing beside her and not simply watching what anyone did to her below – he was studying her face. Intrigue and fascination surfaced in his expression and switched, for those few, fleeting seconds.

  He put his palm over her mouth so she had to breathe through her nose.

  Gray eyes. Ultra-short, peppered-black hair on jaw and scalp. Stubble that’d rasp on her hand. She’d never truly seen him before.

  She tensed, resisting the rising feeling, though her pelvis tilted forward a fraction. Getting wet was automatic, unavoidable, a female reaction, and yet...she felt herself clench and her thigh muscles tighten. Tension sneaked in, drifted higher. That he stared, that men played with her below, the sense of both violation and an inexplicable arousal, rose and crept through her body. It sneaked in, unannounced, unwanted. Fingers in her. Men doing what they wanted. She’d never, ever, allow this. His eyes, watching while they defiled her. She gasped once, fell silent, shutting her eyes.

  Shut him out.

  Violation had its own agenda. God, she fucking liked this. So wrong.

  Her legs ached, trembling in small fits, relaxing again as she struggled to forget him watching. Shaking, uncontrollable shaking, wrecked her control. Her legs twitched. Them. Him. Desire rose and fluctuated wildly.

  Stop. Stop. She inhaled a hot breath, held it.

  What seemed a miniscule hint of an orgasm sucked her into its betraying embrace, rolled her around, spat her out.

  She slumped but recovered, dragging in air as quietly as she could.

  Forget the thud of her heart.