“Ah. I see.”
“Yes, and because of who is implicated, and when they plan to do this, I am hurrying. Now.” He made an adjustment to a switch then swiveled his seat and rose, went over to a container and pulled out some items. One was a black, leather-like mask. “I have to prepare you for our arrival. To everyone on the ships you are an escaped slave and a traitor who released a JI-mech. I have to bring you down that ramp bound, blinded, and restrained. Come here.”
Hell. She probably looked like Bambi waiting for the hunter’s bullet, but she unstrapped and went to him, turned when he indicated and waited.
Mako was still distant, barely smiling, and she felt him clip her wrist cuffs together then attach a short chain between her ankle cuffs. The mask went on next. Though it had holes for her eyes, he clipped circular patches across and sealed her in.
Blind.
Heart racing, she screwed up her toes. She wasn’t supposed to be claustrophobic, but fear took hold in an instant and her hands were clammy. Air came in through her exposed nose and the hole over her mouth. If she looked down past her nose, at least there was light coming in there.
Mako rested his forehead on the back of her head, on her hair. “Breathe slowly, calmly, Emery. You’ll be fine. They’ll take this off soon as you’re in a holding cage.”
Oh fuck. Tears started. “They?”
“I...” She heard the crack in his voice, though he then paused and the next words were smoothly said. “I can’t keep you. I meant to try, but I can’t. It’s not safe for you to be associated with me. You would’ve only been my service slave anyway. Both of us know that.”
“No! I –”
But he settled a bulbous gag between her lips that rested partway into her mouth and left her only able to make stupid, unintelligible noises.
“I’ll find you a good owner. I promise. I’m sorry. I wish...”
But his words fell away, never to be said. His big hands gripped her shoulders far too firmly until she thought her bones might crack, but she didn’t want him to release them. If...when, he let her go, she’d be forever lost.
When she shook her head crazily, he held the mask at the back and made soothing noises, no words, just noises. That was all it seemed she’d get from him now.
She gave in and hung her head.
Too late. She’d left her vow to him too late. The tears kept coming, drawing wet lines over her face, dripping onto the inside of the mask, but no one could see.
Maybe there’d be a chance later. She’d try to speak to him, hang onto that hope.
Hope, there was that.
She heard the Ramm land, the door open, and he led her outside with a leash clipped to the collar. The air changed on her skin, whipping the dress about her legs. If she’d not worn the black tights, she’d be cold. As if that mattered.
It might be that nothing would matter soon.
She was to be sold to another.
The holding cage was cold too, and they left her in only what she wore. Though the mask was removed, her two jailers relocked her hands at her front. They’d found the red cuffs and the collar amusing for some reason, and she gathered they thought it a joke that Mako had left them on her.
Blood concubine, that was what they said of her. Only, of course, she wasn’t one. There was the joke. If Mako failed, she might even end up exposed on the Spear.
So lonely. In a sitting position, she rested her head and her back on the cage bars and wondered how life could’ve gone so wrong when only hours ago she’d been sublimely happy. Ironically, she didn’t feel as if Mako had betrayed her but rather that he had done the best he could with what she’d handed him. He’d given her a forked path, two possibilities, and she’d left her decision until the last moment.
Too late.
Procrastination had shattered her.
Chapter 44
He’d entered prepared to the teeth with arguments. Once in message range to the ship, he’d sent copies ahead to Thyra, knowing she was the most influential and fair Governance member who wasn’t implicated in the plot. He’d even sent copies to the king, despite knowing the likelihood of that getting past his advisors, in a time less than an epoch, was slim.
When he’d signed the blood contracts, he’d intended to play one off against the other, to maybe pull in some influence, to rock the boat and get them to give a war hero a reward commensurate for his effort in obliterating the JI-mech. He’d thought his chances good for saving Emery and owning her.
This, though?
He walked into the room and found it already hostile and in an uproar. Files had been leaked to some of the members. An advisor of the king, he figured. One of those had dirty hands and had stirred mud into the water. Next there’d be blood. The underwater predators were cruising and looking to pull him under.
“A vote, gentlemen!” Thyra stood and pounded the table, silencing most of the grumbling members. “We have a possible plot against the king. We have a man who has returned victorious, having negated the biggest threat to the Swathe for a very long time. The JI-mech is dead. We have a man requesting that the slave who escaped with said JI-mech be allowed to live since she helped to nullify said JI-mech and has returned willingly...also because he has a blood contract with us and wishes her to be the reward he requested on that very contract!
“If the plot he has uncovered via mechling feeds is true, we need to doubly reward him. What say we? Vote. We need a vote.”
To the left side of the table, Judge Ormrad rose. Mako stood firm at the foot, his legs a shoulder apart, wishing he had a weapon in hand. This man was not listed as a conspirator, but that didn’t mean he was clean.
“I say we need time to consider this information. It may be false.” Ormrad looked around, staring down several members. “This is so very suspicious, that a man should return from a distant mission with mechling feed data from mechlings that were on the JI-mech. We should secure Mako Laste so that he cannot influence the proceedings. We can then examine the data. If true, we proceed justly from there. The members here who have been mentioned are to be considered innocent until we know what we have. They are...long-standing and honest members who, I suggest, have more repute than a man banished from the army due to disobeying orders.”
He glanced at Mako. “My apologies, Mister Laste, but these are the facts as they stand currently. I vote in the affirmative for securing Mister Laste while we check to see if his information is true.”
“Yes. Affirmative!”
“Affirmative!”
The yeses came from over half the members, meaning he was out of the game and to be locked up.
He shrugged and nodded to Thyra as the Governance guards entered then handcuffed him to take him away.
She only stared, giving nothing. He knew her well enough to be sure she’d fight this. Unless, of course, she believed the slurs Ormrad had cast at him.
JI had been sure his tracks were well covered by whatever changes he’d made in the mechlings’ memories. If he was wrong, if they proved he’d let JI depart inside the aux-mech, he’d be the one on the Spear. As for the king, this might scare off the schemers, for a while, but it would be nice to be alive to appreciate that.
The jail cell they took him to was deep under the Governance Hall, stories down. Rarely used, he was sure. It was clean, if nothing more than a white room with a bunk. He’d go crazy in here after a month, but he’d never be left here that long. Ormrad planned to have him executed, and the likelihood that he was in on the assassination plot seemed stronger the more Mako considered it.
A day went past. He was fed but left alone.
He was sitting on the bunk staring at nothing in particular and wondering if he could get a book brought to him, and when they’d start interrogating him, when a guard arrived.
The door was unlocked and a table wheeled in. On top of it a small screen had been set up.
“This is for you to watch some court proceedings, Mister Laste. Judge Ormrad said you’d be int
erested.”
The screen was switched on then the guard left and locked the white door behind him.
People were filing into the royal court.
Why? What was he supposed to see? What could possibly be decided a day after this investigation had been initiated, and without him present?
The person led into court next made him grip the edge of the bunk with both hands and squeeze until the padding flattened.
They had Emery, still in the dress and tights, and still wearing his cuffs and red collar. Such a sweet girl at a distance. Such a perfect slut for him when he brought her to his bed. And his chest ached with a clenching pain when he considered why Ormrad had done this.
They weren’t planning to interrogate him; they were asking her the hard questions.
There was nothing he could do. He was powerless. If Ormrad hurt her...
And that, of course, was exactly why this screen was here. Ormrad loved torturing people, mentally and physically. The blood concubine cuffs had told that man how much he, Mako, valued her, as had his request that she be kept alive. He should’ve pulled them off her before he landed, just couldn’t bear to.
His stupid emotions might get her killed.
“You putra fucking asshole.”
His jaw tensed. His teeth might crack with the strain.
“Guard! Guard! I need you to find someone for me. Guard!”
Chapter 45
They’d brought her from the cage to the courtroom where Fern had been killed and shoved down a hatch in the floor. Trembling was almost a necessity but Emery kept herself under control. Showing fear would please Judge Ormrad, and he sat above in the high tier of seats with his two smug friends.
She was from Earth. She was capable of slitting his throat, now she’d seen what was waiting for her if she played passive. Death was possible. He hadn’t brought her here to inquire kindly about her health.
About half the seats were occupied by people who seemed merely curious about whatever was happening.
What was happening? Was this their judgment over her because she’d escaped and freed JI? Or was it to do with the dangerous path Mako said he was on?
The guards stationed near her and at key places before the terraced seating made running away impossibly difficult, even if she wasn’t cuffed and leashed. The guard holding her leash looked big enough to uproot a tree.
She sighed and looked around again. Better to know her situation than to –
“Why do you think you’re here, Emery, Earth woman and previously Slave Twelve of House Oren?”
So Ormrad didn’t have a good label for her yet? She raised her eyes to his level. “Emery will do, Sir.” Add the sir and it might confuse them when she got uppity.
“I’ll call you what I want to, Slave Twelve. Answer.”
“Because...” She frowned. “I don’t know.”
“Hah. Too many possible reasons? You have been a bad slave. Your actions merit execution on the Spear, if not for your captor, Mako Laste begging for clemency. And, he will get that granted...”
She stared. Oh my.
“If he is not found guilty of traitorous behavior himself.”
That is...not good.
“He has presented to the Governance evidence of a conspiracy against the king.”
He had? Oh yes, the assassination plot, and the king wasn’t here today, she noticed.
“But our experts have examined his data and found small flaws. We, the court, have therefore brought you here to answer questions regarding...” He turned over some sheets of paper before him, as if to remind himself.
She’d bet her ass he knew what he meant to say next.
“The destruction of the JI-mech that escaped with you, and also the method Mako Laste may have used to extract data feeds from the mechlings. Normally we can only read mechlings that belong to us, and he has information from other houses. Many other houses.” He sat back and waited.
Answering any of that truthfully would get Mako in trouble and her too. “I don’t know, Sir.”
“I see. I anticipated this. He seems to have some affection for you, Slave Twelve, considering he has placed the cuffs and collar of a blood concubine on you...prematurely. Therefore I obtained permission for this court to offer you a great and unusual incentive to give us your truthful testimony as to what happened the day the JI-mech was destroyed. May the court lawgiver please demonstrate. See the screen above me, Slave Twelve.”
The screen above him was fully as long and high as a man. It took a while for her to see the image shown was from inside a dark room, scattered with objects. A vertical circular hole appeared mid-air and grew. Light spilled from it. The hole enlarged and a woman stepped up to it, seemed to study it. Gio. Was this a portal to Earth?
Through the hole, she would swear she saw the street of some large western city. Signs were in English: Target. Just Jeans.
She glimpsed golden arches at the far end of the street.
Earth!
“This is how the humans are brought here,” Ormrad said. “The technique has been somewhat improved, and the door you see has been stabilized. It lasts longer and we believe may be capable of taking a living being back to the Earth world.” Now he addressed her directly. “That is your reward. Testify against Mako Laste, and we will return you to your world.”
Couldn’t be. Couldn’t be. Liar. She licked her lips, sure her heart was going to stop if it kept galloping as it was. Gio had lost fingertips trying to go back.
“You’re lying!” Oh damn. Bad words. Very bad. “Sir. I apologize, but I’ve seen what happens. Try to go through, and the door eats you. Gio, another Earth woman, had her fingers severed trying.”
“This is true.” He nodded, smirking. “But I will bring her here if you need us to. The door is safe now, or so they tell me.”
“Safe?” He made it sound possible. “Has anyone done this?”
“Not yet. You’ll be the first.”
“So...you might be wrong. I might die?” And saying that made it sound as if she would betray Mako.
Well, why not? She’d be gone from here. He wouldn’t exist anymore. She could warn the Earth about what was happening.
No one would believe her. If the door could be tracked, they might, but she doubted that. So maybe the judges were willing to let her go through?
If she died, she wouldn’t even know.
If she told the truth about Mako, he would die. Could she live with that? Even if she escaped back to her own world, the moral disgustingness of that would eat her soul.
The guilt she’d suffer...
Mako would suffer.
She closed her eyes to shut out the screen, the faces of the judges, the crowd.
This was a reward she’d never be offered again.
Say no, and she’d be here forever. A slave.
Say yes and... Mako.
She’d thought herself unable to be his the way he wanted her to be. He’d thought so too. Maybe they’d both been wrong.
Her eyelashes wet, she raised her head.
“I’m sorry. I won’t testify against him.” Can’t, won’t, will never ever ever.
Freedom was what she’d always wanted; yet she’d just thrown everything away.
Everything except for her morality, her own true self.
She detested betrayal, and it looked like betraying her lover was on her hate list too, but was it love? Was it possible to love a man who’d hurt her so much?
“Are you sure?” Ormrad looked baffled but amused. “I’m offering you your freedom. I’ll even offer you a blood contract with someone to prove what we say will be delivered. Not me, I don’t contract with slaves, but...someone.”
And fuck you sideways, mister judge.
She stayed mute.
“Very well,” he drawled. “I have one other offer. Testify and we will free you. You can live here, or outside the Swathe. We will provide you with whatever supplies you ask for, within reason.”
What? Her mouth
fell open.
Ormrad smiled. “That seems to have struck a chord. I suggest you live here. Outsiders may not keep our promise. You’d likely be enslaved there anyway.”
This seemed genuine.
“A blood contract could be offered, again. Saying yes, this time?”
She couldn’t do this. Could she? Free, but knowing she’d betrayed Mako?
God. How could he ask this of her? Emery stared at the floor, glimpsing her feet and the cuffs, the chain between them, the curve of the leash.
Free.
He could ask this because he was an asshole.
Her eyes and temples ached, the pain twisting in.
The more she thought of the consequences, of how things would be if she testified against Mako, the more terrible it seemed. She would then be alive when he had been executed because of her words. She couldn’t do that to him and that was when she finally understood how it was that a person could give up their life for another.
Sometimes self-sacrifice was the only solution because anything else was inconceivable.
She frowned. Ormrad was not a nice man and she was afraid.
“I can’t,” she whispered to herself, hearing the quaver in her voice.
“Speak louder, please.”
She stood taller, bracing herself as if for a blow. Say it.
The next step would be irrevocable.
She didn’t have this much courage inside her.
Only words. Think of them as just...words.
“The answer is...” She heaved in a breath. “There is nothing to tell. Are we done?”
“Oh no. We aren’t.” He laughed and turned to his judges then the crowd. “Does anyone here think a slave should determine when this court is done with her?”
The laughter spread. Her blush was no doubt obvious.
“What happens now, Slave Twelve, is that we must use other methods to get you to confess.”
Which sounded like torture.
The Spear. She swallowed and wondered what trap she’d sprung.
Acquired Possession (The Machinery of Desire Book 1) Page 24
