Acquired Possession (The Machinery of Desire Book 1)

by Cari Silverwood

  Mako had clapped along with the rest of the audience. The tiered auditorium was full, as it should be when the king attended. His sister would be outside, thanking him, he supposed. Since she’d promised to visit, he stayed where he was, arm over the back of the vacant chair beside him, legs up on the balcony edge. The balcony was pretty as the deck of a gunship, because the architect had designed it to resemble one. Metal doodads and fake dials, buttons – all shiny in gold and bright white neuminium. He had the seats special visitors were granted, and no one else had qualified today.

  He took out the form he was considering presenting to the army lawyers, was still checking details when Sirabie turned up.

  “Brother!” She made a grand gesture, arms out, then vaulted the back of the seat and slid into the spot beside him. As she often was, she was dressed in high fashion, but with quirks of her own. A silver-gray tailored suit – pants and jacket – that fit her exquisitely, with silver storm-cloud clasps. Short pewter-blond hair and the air to carry it off well.

  Any fashion would look sensational on Sira.

  “Sister.” He smiled and tucked the form into a pocket. “Good play. Everyone seemed to like it.”

  “Yeah. It happens. The king said hi.”

  He chuckled. Like a few hundred others, he and Sira were children of the king but it gave them little status. Genetically engineered spread of the high-echelon members of the Swathe made them relatively common. He was probably twentieth in line for the throne, at best? A small army of the politically astute were already jockeying to be the next kings-in-waiting.

  “Sure he did. Here. I brought you these.” From beneath the seat he drew out a small bouquet of long-petalled flowers. Bought from a stall and not artificial. From Outside. Or so he’d been told.

  “Oh! So pretty. I love them. You’re such a sweet brother.”

  “I should get that in writing. So, the king liked the play?”

  For a second Sira screwed up her face then blew at the hair wisping over her eyes. “He said it was a wonderful example of art.”

  Since the king was in his later years, getting a compliment that was sensible from him was novel.

  “Good.”

  “And you enjoyed it? How is life? I don’t see you much. House Master? I know how you are with the women. There are such a lot of rumors about you at House Oren. Not that I don’t have my own slave for purposes nothing to do with reproduction.” Sira smirked. “And he is such a good boy. But I’ve heard...ahem...that you have a human in the stable.”

  What a point to bring up. “She’s not mine, though. I’m not rich like my sister.”

  “Even I can’t afford a human. And, pffft. I’m richer only because you were an idiot and disobeyed the order of your superior. You could’ve been a rich, asshole, highly decorated war hero. Now you’re just a poor hero.”

  Mako shrugged. “I’m applying again. To the army. Thought I’d try to get around the ban. Life inside doesn’t suit me.”

  He was an oddity. Most Mekkers loved living inside and, when it was their turn for military duty, tried to get an army unit that rarely, or never, left the Swathe.

  “Yeah. I see that. You’re looking so pale and weak.” She mock punched his biceps. “Wish I could buy a human. I hear the sex is incredible. All that Factor H. Bet you get to mess around with Basteer’s new girl.” She frowned and sucked in her cheek. “I need a great idea for a play. Something to get me noticed. To get me a King’s Patronage awarded.”

  Finally, a change of subject. If she’d referred obliquely to Emery again, he’d have wanted to strangle his own sister.

  “You want to be famous?”

  “More money, silly. And famous.”

  “Something new?” He let his feet drop to the floor as he turned in the seat to look at her without twisting his neck.

  “Yes.”

  His brain handed him the entirely wrong notion. And he’d been determined to shift away from thinking about her...

  It couldn’t hurt to tell Sira.

  “I have one for you. Told to me by the human slave. Romeo and Juliet. A tragic love story. Unrequited love. I never see many love stories.”

  “No. You won’t. They don’t tend to be popular. However... Humans are very much so.” She tapped her even white teeth with her finger. “If they knew it was a human story that would really make me get some numbers in here. I could dye the actors’ hair bright, the nails... Quite an exciting story idea there, Mako. Can you write it down? Zip it to me over the system?”

  “Sure. If this works out, I might ask you for a favor, one day.”

  If Sira gained a patronage she might be able to add weight to his plea. They’d let him back in one day, but from past examples he was aware of, it’d be ten years of waiting.

  “Of course.” She stood. “Come have lunch with me.” As they descended the gold-plated spiral stairs, she added casually, “I heard the slave who stabbed Ormrad is finally having the sentence completed tomorrow, in court, before the king.”

  “Yes.” His stomach sank. “I found out yesterday. As House Master I have to attend, since all humans have been ordered to see the sentence carried out.”

  She paused on the stairs, rested her hand on his forearm. “You look tense. Is there a problem?”

  Even Sira could see that? “It’s an old and cruel sentence that Ormrad has invoked. The king should’ve intervened, converted it to execution or some harsh punishment. The humans are going to think us barbaric.”

  “And we aren’t?” Most Mekkers were proud of their warlike renown. “They’re slaves. If the girl was a Scav, would you be complaining?”

  “Maybe I would.” Though he was empathizing with the humans and with Emery.

  “You’re mellowing then.” She studied him. “I think that could be a good thing.”

  “Ormrad is also lower than scum scraped from the bottom of the water tank.”

  “Huh. Only the blind miss that.”

  Tomorrow was going to be a hard day to endure, for many reasons.

  Chapter 23

  Well, that was a surprise she should’ve figured out. All the humans were ordered to attend the sentencing and, as the House Master, Mako was here too. Behind her, again.

  Whatever. Nobody was fucking anyone here. Even if it had made her think about it, knowing he was there.

  Wearing wrist cuffs too. She eyed them sourly. Déjà vu.

  Until Fern was marched out. After that, nothing was on her mind except sadness at the sight of Fern positioned beside that hatch. What she’d imagined was coming true.

  Stark reality was worse than anything she might think up.

  She looked so small.

  Reality was Fern standing there shackled, the guards taking off the restraints, and Ormrad approaching her with that knife. The same knife used that day, months ago.

  The sentence was being carried out now, not in a day or a month, now. She clasped her hands in her lap to stop them shaking.

  The guards held Fern in place, with her wrists at her back. Her face looked pure white, from this distance of twenty yards.

  Ormrad spoke. “I take my one strike. May Arrak guide my aim.”

  He raised the knife, drew it back, high above his shoulder, his hand dwarfing the handle. Fern shut her eyes then opened them, mouth set in a line, her face screwing up only at the last second as the blade neared her stomach at speed.

  The force of the knife hitting her punched Fern backward a few inches. Her blurted scream cut off and she doubled over, the tip of the blade visible at her back.

  Emery was sure she would vomit.

  A guard had opened the hatch – the same one the mechlings had been tipped down all those months ago, the last time she was here in this dreadful room.

  Her ears were ringing, and she found she’d stood. They mustn’t just throw her out like garbage. If she got to her, maybe she could plead with the king for clemency? She lifted her leg to slip over the waist-high railing and a hand grabbed her shoulders, yan
ked her back.

  “Sit. If you go out there, they will consider you as interrupting a legal decision, and I will not see that happen. Sit!” Mako hissed the last word and forced her down into her seat. He left his hands on her shoulders, digging in like iron claws.

  “I will throw up,” she whispered, feeling the tears brimming her eyes.

  He said nothing though she heard harsh exhalations.

  Ormrad had pulled the blade free. “Release her.” When the guards let her go, Fern wobbled on her legs. With one kick to her hip, Ormrad shoved her into the hatch hole. Limp, she tumbled and slipped away, leaving only a splash of blood at the edge to show she’d once stood there.

  Fuck. There was nothing more terrible.

  Emery swallowed down nausea. She’d die without help. This vehicle’s wheels would likely roll over her and mash her into the ground. The animals out there would eat her, or what was left of her.

  “I hate you all,” she added softly.

  The hatch hole was still open, and people had turned away, doing fancy stuff, legal stuff, talking. If she ran, she might make it. Slide down, pray she didn’t break anything... They mined and disturbed the ground so it might be soft to land on.

  Go!

  She twisted and wrenched from under his hands, was almost to the rail again when he caught her. Mako tossed her into the seat face first, kneed her back and fastened her wrist cuffs behind her. When she started to screech and cry out protests, he shoved his hand fully into her mouth sideways and kept it there with force. She couldn’t close enough to bite, but she tried.

  “You want to get the same as her?”

  Her breaths were loud as a steam train in her ears.

  She shut up and went limp. It was useless anyway.

  She walked where he told her to.

  By the time he reached the court doors, the security there had pulled them open. Stony-faced, they watched as he pushed her through. Not a word was said and the doors clicked shut behind them.

  “If you bite me more...” He didn’t finish that, but showed his hand. Saliva and the neat crescents of her teeth marked the back of his hand.

  “Nice decorations,” she said, hanging her head, shutting her eyes.

  He hustled her onward, stopping near the row of hoppers she knew was here, and she glimpsed them, opening her eyes, a second before he blindfolded her.

  “Yell again and I’ll stuff worse in your pretty mouth.”

  She didn’t doubt it. Didn’t care.

  From the sounds a hopper had cruised up. He pushed her forward and she managed to enter and find the seat, heard and felt him take the seat beside her.

  So tired. Tired of the violence these people used as their coinage. “Do you ever do anything but kill?”

  Mako grunted. “Do you ever tire of trying to do things that will get you killed?”

  “You have a point, I suppose.”

  He wasn’t demanding she call him master today.

  “I had to do something. Couldn’t just watch.”

  “What? Dive through the hatch to join her, or try to kill Ormrad yourself?”

  “I figured if I ran, I might get to the hatch.” Stupid, but stupid things happened when you were...

  She squeezed her eyes shut beneath the blindfold.

  Watching a murder.

  Yes. No words, she had no words, no way of even comprehending what had happened, why it had happened. This world was just wrong.

  “Hmm. Brave idea. You don’t know how far it is to the ground.”

  True.

  She was actually having a conversation with this man and it was a little scary.

  Make that a lot scary.

  What had he said?

  “No. I guess I didn’t. It just seemed better than here.”

  “That, I sympathize with.”

  What the fuck? She raised her head, seeking him blindly. “Take this off, please?”

  “No. You will wait. And be quiet. I’m taking you somewhere to show you something.”

  Then, he put his arm around her.

  Shock. Pure shock.

  He did feel good against her. Heavy, which was an adjective for a man, with all the weight of his compact muscles. Reassuring too, and that was the most bizarre thing ever.

  She quelled a shiver. The contrasts were insane. His people had murdered Fern. That was his legacy. She could never trust any of them not to knife her if she did some minor thing wrong.

  She’d almost thought she recalled him being kind after the Hall of Lawgivers. The kiss was there, but everything else around that moment was a blur. It was so strange she’d dismissed the vague memory.

  However, if he was falling for her, she could use that.

  If.

  Was he?

  Shouldn’t though. Cruel.

  Cruel was exactly what he deserved. The blood running from the hole in Fern’s belly. Thick red blood. How would it have been to Fern to see that and know it was her life pouring out of her? Then to be disposed like garbage.

  He deserved everything she could do to him.

  It wasn’t as if he was going to set her free.

  And fuck this hurt her where her heart must be. Someone had planted a seed of acid inside her chest. Fern had just died. She’d died because of his people. It would be the most unjust, ridiculous, and tragic thing ever to be nice to this man.

  Where was he taking her?

  Even if something incriminating happened, there was no guarantee Basteer would see it? She needed that to get him fired.

  Gio could command mechlings. She should try, though commanding wasn’t the same as listening to them.

  She began searching for that feeling, the one she felt when she connected to one.

  Fleeting whispers in her head, the brush of moths. They were travelling fast, and she might never find one that could follow.

  Wait.

  There.

  It was in a hopper. A mechling on some errand.

  Follow. Follow me. Watch me.

  She clung to that command as they travelled. A mere pinch of a possibility, a mechling in a hopper? Whatever it was, it was coming.

  The wheels rattled beneath them, going onward in some long journey. Smells altered. The voices and noises outside changed. It became quieter. The wheels made the only sounds. Their surroundings had become deserted of people, and this ship was never that. It thronged with people.

  She hadn’t known the ship was this big. Well, she had, just hadn’t quite swallowed the concept.

  Their hopper cruised to a stop.

  “Where are we?”

  “The prow. Where the ship looks out on the land we travel to.”

  His fingers were at the back of her head, untying the blindfold.

  Chapter 24

  He led her through the rusty door. Didn’t undo the cuffs. He didn’t trust her that much. Didn’t trust her at all. Which wasn’t her doing. He was the enemy and always would be unless a miracle happened.

  This wasn’t what he’d intended for today. Which had been, go to the court sentencing, be circumspect, walk away afterward. Instead she’d behaved like an emotional idiot.

  Epiphany. He’d done the same when Shay had died, after seeing her upside-down alongside the four others – all of them disemboweled and possibly tortured. He’d done something stupid. The main difference was that he’d had a chance of surviving. That had been luck. If the Scavs had been equipped with the right weapons to down his Sniker when he had come in low, they’d have shot him down, strung him up with the others, maybe in pieces.

  He’d been just as driven by grief and just as illogical as Emery today.

  Couldn’t blame her, and he couldn’t stop himself from using her name in his head, if not out loud.

  Slowly he shut the rusty door, locked it. Now they were in private. Whatever he did in here it would be his word against hers if she dared to report to Basteer. Everyone at the courtroom would expect him to punish her severely.

  “What am I going to do wit
h you?”

  Her scowl made him want to kiss her.

  “Stop frowning at me, pretty thing.”

  “Slave Twelve.”

  “You’d rather that? Not that I will listen.” He needed to keep this under his rules, not hers, and not Basteer’s either.

  “What are you going to do? Tie me up and spank me? You must be running out of options.”

  Spanking her over his knee was far milder than anything he’d yet done to her, but it had its attractions...mainly that he’d have her ass to play with at the same time.

  “Don’t tempt me. Come.” He took her by the arm and pulled her with him to the viewing area where the wind blasted through. Once again, someone had forgotten to close the glass. He should send a note to the Governance.

  She shuddered as the cold air hit them. Her clothes were inadequate, indoor clothes – dress and nothing else.

  “Cold?”

  “Oh, absolutely not. Hell would be colder.”

  “Hell? The word doesn’t translate.”

  “A mythical hot place where they send men like you.” She looked him straight in the eye. “For bad people, to punish them for their sins.”

  That almost had him laughing. For all the precariousness of her situation, she still provoked him. Mocking her masters wasn’t a good thing in a slave.

  He had to teach her, had to get through to her because one day he might not be around.

  “You’re lucky there’s no feed from here. This is where I come to when I want to be alone. With your mouth, you’re going to feel every punishment there is within a year, or be dead. I haven’t taught you well, have I? If the Hall of Lawgivers wasn’t sufficient, if seeing your friend die wasn’t enough, look out there.”

  He took the back of her neck in the V of his hand and pushed her before him as far as that first metal step. “See the spears to the left and right, and this one right here?”

  She nodded, her neck moving under his hand and shivering, but she was looking. The wind mustn’t have liked them being out here because it was whipping at her dress so severely it was up near her waist half the time, flapping about. Or maybe the wind was a voyeur like him.