“You have my word.” Head calm, thoughts clear. The chip dead again for now. Kelskar murmured a quick entreaty to the two high gods of light that it would stay that way.
A soft click and his door jumped open to the width of a man’s hand. Janie stumbled through, opening it fully with her weight. Kelskar caught and held her, drowning in a million sensations.
Safe. At last he had her. Soft, with skin so smooth to touch, but much too cold for a human. Unbound hair like ropes of lustrous sarrow thread wrapped in his clutching fists. He was shaking. They both were.
“You came back to me.” Janie exhaled hard against his breast plate, winding around him as if she couldn’t get close enough.
“Yes,” he said and over her head, bared his teeth at the fallen Regian in case he hadn’t fully got the message.
“You want we move him to another block, sir?” Brol angled the stunner at the Regian.
“No, leave him.” The chief hunter rubbed his hands together. “Let him watch and go crazy. We’ll release him first, so he’ll be there on the moon, waiting. Three solar days and we’ll be in the zone, ready to display the merchandise. I’m doubling our stake. The Corporation won’t pay, they can kiss my greasy ass.”
“I’ll kill him for you.” Kelskar stroked Janie’s back, murmuring the reassurance into her hair. “I’ll kill them all for you.”
The hunters left, stepping one by one through the blast door. It shuddered to a close, locking them in with the howling, threatening Regian. But he had her. All this time of touching through bars, of making promises with their eyes and he had her.
Now all he had to do was to stay sane and keep her.
If this was a dream, she no longer wanted to wake up. To wake up was to lose him. Janie sighed and sank further into Kelskar’s embrace, seeking the warmth he gave so freely. His arms tightened around her, though he slept on.
Did he sleep? She had no idea what made this man tick. What really went on inside his head. In his cage, the Regian kept up his tirades of threats and promises. Some days she wanted to rip the translation module right out of her head to avoid hearing the crude descriptions of what awaited her after he killed Kelskar.
“I’ll have you while his body is still warm,” the creature said, hanging upside down from the bars like some hideous five-legged spider. “Make you bathe in his blood.” It finished on a whooping yell.
Janie jammed a hand over her ear. Please, shut up. Please. Oh for some decent sleep, some peace. A shower, warm clothes and a whole tray of cupcakes instead of the slop fed to them once a day by their captors.
Kelskar moved without opening his eyes, covering her hand with his. “Ignore him,” he muttered and relaxed into sleep.
Easy for him to say. The creature was only going to kill him. The things he’d threatened to do to her? She shuddered and for once in her life was glad of a strong man to hide behind. A scandalous thought for the capable business woman with a master’s degree in fine art and a head full of dreams. None of which had involved trembling behind a mountain of testosterone because she had no clue how to get herself out of this bizarre mess.
“He won’t have you.” The words, softly spoken into her nape, the tickle of Kelskar’s growing beard, sent a traitorous shiver over her shoulders and back, sparking flames of desire that licked at her belly and breasts. She couldn’t hide it from him. Did she really want to? The low rumble in his throat told her he felt the flush crawling over her skin, the small restless movements as she tried to will away the ever increasing lust.
“Mine,” he said simply and left it at that. And right now, she had no reason to argue with him. The Regian offered an alternative she didn’t want to contemplate.
Janie twisted in Kelskar’s hold, turning onto her side away from the hard breastplate she knew had started to pain him, though he’d never admit it. Nor would he allow any discussion of the reddening anchor points at his skull where the plating dipped into puffy folds of skin.
“You need antibiotics.” She shaped the bulging curve of his biceps. He caught and held her, stopping any further exploration.
“My body is rejecting the plating, nothing more. It will hurt then it will heal.”
“And in the meantime, you might die on me.” She hated the neediness in her voice. The terrible thought of being alone in this ordeal. The suffering he would go through before death took him.
“Like all women, you worry too much.” Kelskar softened the words with the hint of a smile that made crinkles at the corner of his clear eyes. None of the strange reflective light signalling a lapse into forgetting this intimacy they’d forged between them. She had little concept of the passing of time in this blank space with no sunrise or sunset to mark the days, but he’d been lucid since they brought in the creature they called a Regian. She prayed he stayed that way.
“That short hunter guy said he would be negotiating with the Corporation. What did he mean? Are they holding us to ransom? If they are, they’ll be mighty disappointed. I’ve no one to pay for me.”
“Ransom?” Kelskar pondered the notion. “You might call it that. A ransom is after all a sale.”
“Tell me the truth.” She sometimes wanted to slap him in frustration. Why this determination to stick to this stupid story they were en route to another planet? Tempting but with his body slowly festering with untended wounds she didn’t want to hurt him more.
“Free of this chip in my head, I’m capable of spinning lies, yes.” He kissed her forehead, lingering too long over her quivering flesh. Damnation, how did he do that to her?
“I’m not lying, Janie. I withheld the truth from you. But now our journey comes to an end, you need to know. To prepare for what is to come.”
“You’re a regular prophet of doom, do you know that? Janie dipped away when he tried to kiss her again, rapidly losing the battle with a rational mind that screamed, horseshit, he’s lying and a smaller voice that said look into his eyes. He’s deadly serious.
“The situation is bad, I’ll admit to that. I know what awaits us. Know that I will be challenged when they drop us. That you will be the prize.”
“That doesn’t make me feel any better.” Some sort of underground fight club, she decided when they brought the Regian in. The third arm? A prosthetic. If Kelskar could have implanted armour, why couldn’t the Regian have an extra arm?
“Oh bloody hell.” She closed her eyes, afraid that if she started laughing, she’d fall into hysteria and never stop. A man with metal welded to his body, another with three arms. Men who sweated and dripped grease in dirty pools on the floor. Where did she fit into this Victorian freak show?
“Janie, listen.” Kelskar pushed up onto one elbow, looking down on her trembling body. She opened her eyes to his frowning face, the wild pirate beard, the scabby blood drying around the cheek plates. No way should she fancy this man, this human cyborg, whatever he was, but she did.
Stockholm syndrome, she told her addled brain. Days, weeks even, she couldn’t tell, of his face, his quiet reassurance, his madness, his touch and she’d grown into him. Come to see him in ways she never would have in her old life.
“I’m listening.” The wave of hysteria ebbed away, the giddy feeling sobered by the firm set of his mouth.
“They’ll likely make the trade soon. We must remain sharp and keep our wits. You must obey my every word without argument. Do I have your assurance?”
“You mean they’re passing us on?” She’d heard of gangs selling kidnap victims on, taking a cut of the profit without having to involve themselves in ransom negotiations. “I’ve told them a million times I’m not Lakmi Sadiri. Why would they think I am?”
How many times had she asked that question only to hear the same vague allusion to her looking and scanning as the woman? Kelskar dipped to kiss her again and this time she couldn’t hold him off. A light press of his lips to hers, the scrape of his bearded chin and she was a puddle of goo in his arms, difficult questions forgotten.
Janie Rob
erts, get a grip.
“Shh,” he said. “They’re coming.”
“You heard them?” She sent a panicked glance at the closed blast doors. When his hearing sharpened it meant only one thing. “Are you okay? Am I losing you again?”
“No, still with you.” Kelskar rolled and flipped upright with effortless grace, the remains of the metal head-piece chinking softly on the roof bars. Alert and watchful. A few seconds later the blast door rattled and the Regian dropped from his perch to fling himself at his cage door in a cacophony of yodelling shrieks.
The shorter kidnapper had changed out of his belted tunic and baggy pants into a smarter braided jacket fastened under his chin. Fitted pants and knee boots hugged his portly legs.
The hunter called Brol wore a scruffier version of the same uniform, patched with oily grease stains and toted a bigger, more serious looking weapon than the stun gun he usually carried. Janie scooted upright, combing fingers through her tangled hair. No third kidnapper carrying the usual bowls and spoons. The can of slop that passed for breakfast.
“So my friends, are we ready to play?” The chief hunter unclipped the tablet hanging from his waist, red eyes glittering in the brightening glow of the overhead lights. Metal grated on metal somewhere in the depths of their prison. Janie shaded her eyes from the glare, watching the lip-less mouth shape and form words. She’d long given up thinking the gang wore masks. The too-wide mouths were a part of them, likely making them all related and carrying the same genetic mutation. Whatever they injected into her to help understand them, the clarity of their speech had increased over time.
“Ready. I’m ready. Let me at him.” The Regian shrieked out the challenge. Kelskar stood his ground, making no move to shield her. Janie flanked him, staring down their captors. The hell she was playing the helpless female for them.
“Meet your new owners.” The chief hunter waved a flourishing arm at the open door. “Executives, enter now. It is safe.”
“What’s going on?” Janie braced her legs to stop them wobbling.
“Courage.” A whispered word. Kelskar’s bare arm brushed hers. Two females stepped into the corridor. Those were definitely boobs straining at the shiny black body-suits poured on like a second skin. With their bald, domed heads, they looked like a hairless version of cat woman from a Batman movie.
Janie gave herself a mental shake, breathing in the courage urged on her by Kelskar standing like a rock beside her. She half expected a chimp on a unicycle to follow the two women in. The thought had her frantically swallowing down another hysterical urge to laugh. Bizarre was the new normal, hadn’t she got the memo?
The hysterical laughter spilled over. Enough of this.
“Okay, now you can tell me what the fuck is going on here.” Propelled by a spike of white hot anger, Janie marched the four steps to the cage door, ignoring the warning whine of Brol’s charging weapon. Answers. She wanted answers. Kelskar made no move to stop her. Good. Whatever happened, she was going down fighting.
The two women exchanged glances and then turned as one to peer down at her with undisguised interest.
Tall. Six feet plus to her five two. Damn them. One with sun bed orange skin sagging in pleated wrinkles. The other smoother and paler.
“So this is Lakmi Sadiri? Murderer of kings?” The older looking executive raised perfectly arched brows. The chief hunter slapped his thigh, a smug smile splitting his face.
“The very same.” He let out a bark of laughter, obviously in on the joke.
“I’m not her. How many times do I have to say it?” Janie slapped the cold bars with a flat palm. She could say it a million times and still they smiled and nodded and ignored her pleas. “This is a case of mistaken identity. I couldn’t murder a fly let alone a king.” How could they not believe her?
“And this is Gladiator Kelskar?” The younger executive lifted a hand, touched it to her middle of her forehead and let it drop. “We’ve heard a lot about you.”
Kelskar stood solid to the background din of the Regian howling for attention. Janie boiled inside, feeling herself wither under the executives’ restrained scrutiny. What a pathetic sight she must make in her grubby nightshirt and Kelskar’s over large tunic hanging to her knees.
“I want quara quou tekshi for the two.” The chief hunter tapped his tablet, pausing to add up the sum in his head.
“Twice the agreed bounty?” The younger executive arched a painted on brow. “Justify.”
“The quai tekshi was for her alone. I see two catches in that cage. A bonded pair, no less.” He let his pronouncement sink in. The two women touched fingers.
“See the way he protects her. Supply them with a full arsenal and survival gear. I’ll sell the Regian at half his bounty. Prime him to attack mode. Think of the specials you could run with this bonded pair.”
“Ratings are our only concern.”
“They’ll soar.”
Janie focussed on the exchange above the din from the Regian cage. Everything they said confirmed her growing horror that there would be no magical waking up to her old bedroom above the tea room. They were all going to die in some seedy little internet video while perverts sat on stained sofas getting their rocks off.
Shit, they were all going to die.
“Courage.” Kelskar spoke again, eerily in tune with her moods. The long line of him flush with her, the warmth from his body and the word spoken with such conviction buoyed her up. But it was a losing battle. Every waking day in this cell took her farther from the life she knew. Every word told her something she didn’t want to hear.
Exhausted from the cold, the worry, she wanted to fold into him and weep until her heart broke in two. It wasn’t supposed to end like this.
It couldn’t end like this.
Chapter Five
They were allowing them an arsenal? Kelskar studied the weapons transported to the hunter ship by the Corporation representatives. No powered weapons. Too swift a death provided little sport. They could be adapted and used for purposes that did not suit the Corporation agenda by those of a technical mind.
Kelskar still had no idea if he possessed such a mind. Beyond the wife and child, the tragedy of losing everything, the malfunctioning chip had given only glimpses of his past life. No clue yet what sin resulted in their deaths, his gelding with the chip and subsequent sale to a master.
“They’re going to make you fight?” Janie studied the lances, maces and pole axes, the swords and shorter, hand held blades. “They’re going to make you fight that thing in there, for me?”
They were locked in the ship’s hold, he guessed. Two angled cameras secured to the ceiling reported every move to the watching executives taking notes and planning their latest show.
A rack of garments hung on the far side of the space. Jackets with braided lapels, coats that might double as shelter. Close-wear in the way of pants, shirts, and tunics. Intimates and small clothes for an extra layer of warmth. Nothing in which to transport their booty. They took only what they could carry. Kelskar made inventory, deciding how best to suit up for the trial ahead.
What he did now determined their fate. He must choose wisely.
“Dress yourself, Janie. Everything you can comfortably fit. The climate varies, I have no idea if we’ll be dropped into a temperate or cold zone.”
“Clothes?” Janie’s eyes widened at the rail groaning with garments. She sounded so pathetically grateful for them his heart clenched.
“Dress warm so we can discard as needed. And be sure to pick up a water carrier. That’s of equal value as any weapon.” Kelskar turned his attention to the arsenal, testing the weight of a studded mace, a weapon he knew well. Prison Moon One held so many species of varying degrees of dexterity and agility, he must prepare for all comers.
A flash of white flesh caught his attention. A fleeting glimpse of coral-tipped breasts, a triangle of hair at the juncture of her legs. Janie dressed quickly, garbing herself in so many clothes she appeared twice her norma
l size. As if donning armour, he thought with an unfamiliar pang. How vulnerable did she feel in the cell wearing nothing but a long shirt and his tunic?
He tried to will away the stiffening of his cock. His lower half refused to listen. To ensure her survival he must mark her as his in the age old way. And do it quickly.
He wanted to mark her as his.
“How do I look?” Janie held out her arms, visibly hampered by the oversized hooded jacket, the pants secured at the waist with a sturdy belt and turned up twice at the hem. The mid-calf boots appeared to fit, thank the ten gods. They would be doing a lot of running in this new life.
“Put a coat over the jacket,” he said and bent to select a slim, short blade. “And put this in your belt. Have you ever used a gladius?”
“Do I look as if I’ve been to gladiator training school?” Janie took the sheathed weapon without question, pushing it through her belt as instructed. He squeezed her shoulder to show approval, wanting so badly at that moment to kiss her luscious mouth. Unwilling to share that intimacy with their watching captors.
By Jopra, but she distracted him when he needed focus. Too many long solar cycles watching her through the cell bars, learning her every move, every breath in a way some bonded couples never achieved in a lifetime. She had laughed sadly and more than once called it Stockholm syndrome. In his world they called it the Fall Seh. He’d seen it in the Ludus Maxim barracks where camaraderie turned into brotherhood, rivals bonding through sheer proximity.
She bent to heft a long sword, almost as tall as she. He stood behind her, reaching around to grasp her hands and lift the unwieldy weapon. Did it matter why he wanted her? Whether through guilt at bringing her to this or a genuine growing together, he knew a coupling had become inevitable.
And that she would not resist.
“Like this,” he said and hoisted it aloft in the posture of salute that preceded the more civilised arena contests. “Then shift your weight.” He nudged Janie’s left leg forward with his knee. “It’s all in the balance. Let the weapon do the work.
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