LUST PLAGUE
The Steamwork Chronicles 2
Cari Silverwood
www.loose-id.com
The Steamwork Chronicles 2: Lust Plague Copyright © March 2012 by Cari Silverwood All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the original purchaser of this e-book ONLY. No part of this e-book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without prior written permission from Loose Id LLC. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
eISBN 978-1-61118-802-8
Editor: Crystal Esau Cover Artist: Valerie Tibbs Printed in the United States of America
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This e-book is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Dedication
To my wonderful beta readers Riane Holt, Leia Shaw, and Cherise Sinclair (who tortured me and made me redo the entire ending).
Author’s Note
This book sits firmly in the fantasy genre and therefore liberties have been taken with what is considered safe, sane, and consensual BDSM protocol. Be aware that this book skirts the edge of sanity many times.
Chapter One
Kaysana strode along the riveted steel and timber passageway, adjusting the fit of her cap as she went so the hair stick in her bun wasn’t in the way. She did up the button on the mandarin collar of her jacket. Beneath the navy uniform was her one allowance for femininity—a fiery red bustier with matching panties. Female commanders were as rare as dragon’s teeth in the GAM Air Fleet. Most citizens of the Greater Asian Monarchy thought a woman was best kept in the home to cook rice and raise children.
The radiophony transmission had been cut off. Damn atmospheric fluctuations. She ran through the message in her head.
Attention Captain Kaysana Onomi of the airship Art of War. Stand by for authorization of mission launch to destroy suspected PME device at Perihelion.
A month of devastation and the deaths and madness of thousands and now she had to wait while someone dithered? Still, orders were orders. She’d check on the mercenaries and then see if the radiophony operator had more information.
The young ship’s librarian, Emily Winterborne, started as Kaysana passed her. Something twittered from inside her cupped palms. She smiled at Emily. Pets were against regulations, but everyone had their foibles. The bird fluttered loose. One wing blue, the other red, the body yellow, like a patchwork quilt. A frankenstruct bird of cloned, reassembled parts. Likely a rejected experiment. Typical Emily—a sucker for anything tragic.
She rolled her eyes. “I didn’t see it, Emily. Just make sure that in future I really don’t see it.”
Mouth an O, her eyes fixed wide, Emily nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”
The petty terror in Emily’s face made her feel like she’d just stepped on a child’s toy. Ugh. Being the nasty wolf was the worst part of command.
First Lieutenant Ling met her as she turned into the gymnasium, and marched with her toward the knot of men gathered around the exercise equipment. Despite the raised heels of her shoes, Ling towered over her by a foot.
“Good afternoon, ma’am.”
She nodded curtly. Pleasantries could wait.
These mercs were as welcome as an army of rats on board the Art of War. Kaysana put hands on hips and had to hold herself back from spitting. Instead she pressed her lips tight and flat. Since frankenstructs were supposedly likely to be resistant to this Zombie F plague, this squad had been put together. Any one of them looked tough enough to pull a landship.
One man leaning against the rope-web wall caught her eye due to his extreme height. The skinning knife being used to clean his nails gleamed. He grinned at her, revealing a tooth with a gem set into it. She recalled his name from the list—Honder.
Only one missing, he of the rugged good looks: Sten, the smart-mouthed one. Frankenstructs, with all their weird way of coming into the world, mightn’t be her favorite people, but they were legal citizens nowadays. She’d handle this, just like she did anything unsavory.
Something shifted on their faces, and for an ugly second, they gazed at her, looking her up and down, like she was a whore…pure filth-laden lust. Alarm bells rang in her head.
“Ling.” Kaysana took one step back before swiveling on her heel and drawing Ling with her as she retreated halfway to the door.
A slight tardiness and a faltering in his step bothered her. But no. She let out her breath. Intelligence gleamed in his eyes, not the blankness mixed with desire she'd seen in the others.
The gym door swung open as she spoke in a low, urgent voice.
“I want the sergeant at arms in here ASAP with a squad. As quietly as possible, get these men, all of them, to the brig. I think I see early signs of Zombie F. And I want this ship ten miles back into the exclusion zone as fast as you can whistle.”
Ling slid his tongue across his lip, held up his shaking hand, and stared at it.
“Calm, Lieutenant.”
The room rippled, hazed. Something sucked all the air from her chest. She staggered. Queer sensations hummed up and down her body. Sound squeezed down to a squeak. Lieutenant Ling spoke, but no words reached her. His face altered. Muscles tightened. His eyes widened—the pupils sparked from brown to flickering orange.
Oh gods, a raised man. Zombie F had hit the ship for sure. And she was in the midst. But I’m still thinking. It hasn’t got me. Oh thankGodthankGod. Got to get out of here.
She went to run, but Ling grabbed her left forearm with fingers that bit down so hard her muscles seared with agony. The room steadied. He grinned.
“Ahh. Now I have you.” The voice was not his—gut-wrenching in depth and malevolent.
No! She jerked, tried to yank her arm free. Someone staggered past—Emily, one hand at her forehead. Was she affected too? They said it was near instantaneous when you hit a pocket. But surely outside the door, some of her crew must be sane. She just had to reach that door.
“Release me, Lieutenant.” Command came easy. Her crew would rather face a monster than defy her, yet he didn’t let go.
His smile widened. “Never.”
While she struggled with Ling, the mercs advanced, uncoordinated, bumping into each other, as if their minds had gone on holidays. At least they weren’t raised. Eight of them. None had weapons drawn except for Honder, but the way they stared with implacable eyes, the lust, sent cold shudders down her spine. “Emily!”
The dazed young woman, who stood a few steps nearer the advancing men, looked up and saw them. She froze, then raised her hand to her mouth.
The woman could think. Please, Emi
ly, run. You’re alive, uninfected. Run, girl! Does the woman have any sense? “Get out of here! Run!”
Ling wouldn’t let her go? Fine. The tragedy of what she had to do squirmed in her mind like a maggot. Damn this. Damn everything. This was a good man. She jammed her palm onto the pistol’s butt, jerked it free of the holster, and hesitated. The pistol’s blue-steel barrel wavered under her trembling hand.
Shooting him was… Frick. Don’t think; do.
She yanked the trigger, blasted a gauss round into Ling’s abdomen. The blue charge spiraled out with energetic fizz. The magnetized bullet burrowed and sizzled into him, then spun out the other side in a mist of burgundy gore. Ling crumpled.
Flesh and blood always lost out to a gauss pistol.
“Sorry,” she gasped.
With no time for real grief, she clamped down on the tsunami of feelings that threatened to swamp her. Dammit, the man’s twitching corpse wouldn’t let go of her arm. Too heavy to drag. She wasted seconds trying to pry off his digits before she gave up and turned.
Methodically she shot the merc who reached for Emily. One.
Emily screamed and sprinted for the door, flying past Kaysana, mouth gaping, her blonde pigtails flailing.
Two. The butt kicked into her palm. With a ’lectric-laden spit and fizz, another man dropped. Three rounds left. How did you shoot six madmen with three charges? And now they came for her, syrup slow—not normal, not by a long shot. Slow was good, though.
“Decisions decisions,” she murmured, and all the while, her heart pounded away as if someone inside her were dying to get out.
Three. Four. Five. Empty. How fast could she reload?
Mouth dry, fear kicking in, backing away as much as she could with Ling latched on like an anchor, she ripped a recharge pack for the pistol from her belt. Damn damn damn. Three men left. Hands reached for her. She kicked Honder in the testicles, smiled as he grunted and dropped back. Something clutched, wrenched at her ankle. The world whipped up and hit her, hard, in the back of the head with a thump. Her ears sang in painful harmony.
On the floor with hands, growling faces, hot breath. Skin stung as fingers clawed at her, clothes tore, but through it all the worst was Ling’s face heaving into view, inches away. You should be dead!
“This time”—Ling’s eyebrows tilted slightly as if she were a curiosity—“stay still.”
She screamed and tried to punch, but her limbs were pinned to the decking, bruised by overwhelming weight. Like ants on fresh meat, they climbed on her and began to unwrap their meal. Oh God. Zombie F made men do one of two things—rape or murder, and raised men were prone to torturing first.
Her outer clothes were stripped away. Ling directed the men to heave her upright and tie her spread-eagled to the rope wall. Then they retreated and Ling returned. As he approached with a bared knife, she pressed back into the rope grid, but he only cut the sides of her panties.
“Ling,” she croaked, then licked her lips, trying not to stare at the dripping hole in his stomach. “Stop. You’re inside there somewhere. Talk to me, man. This is madness.”
He paused, the panties bunched in his fist, then cocked his head. “He’s not in here. Never will be.” He smiled. “Not madness. This is fun.”
He can still talk. While his higher faculties still chugged along, she could maybe delay him…and pray for rescue.
“Yes.” With a nonchalant twist of his wrist, he swung her panties round and round his finger. “Fun.” He giggled.
She forced herself past the fear. “Who’s inside there? Mr. Ling?”
“No. Me. And you know, I can hear voices? They tell me things to do to you.”
“Voices?”
Whatever was at the center of this plague was high in the mountains, and the frankenstructs were supposed to deal with it? Foul terror and dismay leached deep into her flesh. This mission is doomed. The world is.
She forced a harsh laugh from her throat. “Poor you.”
His eyes shone bright. His teeth showed.
She quailed inside. Bad taunt, Kaysana.
With finger and thumb, he gripped her chin, jammed her cheeks onto her teeth, forced open her mouth. He stuffed in the panties, then wound a rope about her face and knotted it, tight. “Be silent while we play.”
Kaysana blinked moisture from her eyes and fought down rising panic. There’s always a way out. Always. Her thoughts faltered as she surveyed the three men waiting behind him. Except for now.
Held in an X position, with her weight dragging at wrists and ankles, she cringed as Ling tented up the fabric of her bustier, inserted the knife tip, and cut away circles of cloth from over her nipples. Here and there, pain spiked when the knife tip hit skin. She bit down on the rope between her lips, clamped her teeth tighter with each stinging nick. When she gasped, air hissed cool over the saliva-moist rope.
He laid the cold metal flat across one bared areola. “I have something for these.” Like some evil magic trick, he opened a hand to display a bundle of thin wiring with a clip at one end.
No. Fear wriggled inside her, cold and treacherous. Those clips had teeth.
Keeping his eyes centered on hers, Ling found her nipple and pulled it out from her body until her skin ached.
Through the rope gag, the word no came out in a high-pitched squeak.
The clip closed on her nipple. Pain scorched into flesh. She pulled back, and the pain seared higher, hotter. No escape. Struggling tore at her skin. Keep still. Still! Ride it out. Tears poured down her cheeks. She gasped in rapid grunts.
“Nice?” he whispered inches from her ear. She shook her head, or tried to, for he clutched her earlobe. “Look at those men, waiting.”
Fearing what she might see, she looked, though tears of agony blurred her vision. They watched her, displayed here like some sacrifice.
“See how ready they are for you?” He stroked her neck. “See?”
Still panting, she shook her head in denial. The bulges at the groins of the men swept a tide of ice through her. No. Never wanted this. Never.
A metallic taste coated her tongue. Frantic desire swirled in. What’s happening to me? I don’t…I don’t want this.
I have it too. Zombie F. Through the fuzziness invading her head, she recognized the symptoms.
Then he offered the end of the wire, and Honder stepped forward, took the wire in his fist, and pulled it to him, unrolling it as he stepped away, one yard, two. She arched her back to fight the pain, to stop her nipple from being pulled out like taffy. The wire shivered, tight as a mooring line, running from her breast to his hand. He smiled at her, the gem gleaming in his teeth.
God. No.
“They want to kill you after.” Ling dangled another wire and clip before her. She squeezed shut her eyes, then opened them again, unwilling to surrender awareness.
Inhibitions ripped away.
Lust stormed, molten and turbulent, through her veins. Whiplash quick, the room widened, shimmied. She felt the need of every man there. Wetness seeped between her legs.
No. No. No. I don’t want this!
Ling grasped her clit with finger and thumb and positioned the next clip over it, ready to bite down.
Chapter Two
The launch bay rippled around Sten. Strange, he’d not had a drop of beer or any of the awful stuff they drank on board. What did they call it? Rice wine? He shifted. The lotus position didn’t suit his double-muscled thighs. He ignored the discomfort like he did every morning. Focus. The anger, his fuck-awful anger, was there as always. Controlling himself was an art, a skill, a habit, and he never wanted to shatter it again. Control led to serenity. Loss of control led to chaos.
Enough dead haunted him. Sten grunted, shook his head in disgust.
He’d rather be in the mountains, alone, with the world far away, than doing the air fleet’s bidding. Frankenstruct had equaled soldier-slave in the PME. Fifteen years a fucking slave for the Pancontinental Mexican Empire until he escaped, and then two months late
r and this Freedom Act comes through. But he’d seen the plague go from some isolated lunatic event in a small mountainous area to a nation-gobbling disaster. This was world threatening. If they thought they needed him, so be it.
He flexed his arms, heard the crackle of joints, and got up from the cold timber floor, rattling the sword on his left hip. Time to find the squad. He was late for the meeting decreed by the hail almighty Captain Kaysana—the almightily good-looking captain with the pretty body under her uniform. He mightn’t like meetings, or being on time, but he sure did like eye candy. Maybe if he eyed her like she was some kind of lollipop, he’d get a snippy reply. He grinned at the prospect of a verbal tussle with her.
She’d thought he was dumb until he gave back as good as she threw at him.
He whistled. His wolf, Cadrach, trotted over from where he’d been sniffing at an oil can.
“Good boy.”
After a small jerk to overcome friction, the revolving shotgun slung at his back slipped out, then back into the leather holster with ease. He rolled his shoulders, feeling the scars on his back catch on the cotton fabric of his shirt.
Still—he scrubbed at the stubble on his chin before letting out a hearty burp—he was alive. Always a plus.
He set off toward the doors leading inside.
Sten looked back at the line of battle-ready gyrocopters. Silver, gold, and black with a touch of red on the double-tiered blades above their semi-open cockpits. Pretty, and he could fly most of them, pull ’em apart, put ’em back together. It was a good skill. One that had gained him nonviolent work on occasion.
Where was everybody? While he’d meditated, it seemed the entire ship’s crew staffing the launch area had vamoosed. He pushed through the doors and halted, frowned. Found four of them, anyway.
“Stay, Cadrach.” No point in getting him hurt. The whole ship was likely affected.
Lust Plague (Steamwork Chronicles) Page 1
